Page 34 of Love Felt Like This

“That would be perfect, actually.”

She searches my face again, like she’s looking for a lie. After a few moments, she crosses her arms over her chest. “Okay.”

There it is again. That okay.

Okay, I believe you.

Okay, I trust you.

“Well,” she says. “It’s also January, so it’ll be cold.”

I shrug. “Not a problem.”

She shakes her head again. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“If you are.”

“No, no, no,” she says with her hands up, laughing. “This is on you. Are you really gonna pack up your whole life to move home with me?”

We could. My life is me and Ava and nothing else.

And then it hits me: Beverly would have to know about Ava.

I don’t know why I didn’t consider that earlier, but for some reason, a part of me thinks…I can trust Beverly. I can trust this woman who is simply trying to revive a children’s show.

I trust her because she trusts me.

“Yes,” I answer. “I’d move with you.”

She sputters out, “Well, you can’t live with me.”

The sentence shoots out of her so fast that my chest constricts.

“I promise I had no plans to shack up with you,” I say.

Her face flushes pink. “No, I mean, I’m living with my parents. You literally can’t move in with me. I didn’t think that you’d…that we would…”

“Me neither.”

“We just met,” she says. “You don’t even know me.”

“But I’m serious about this.”

“Are you ever not serious?”

I huff out air through my nose. “Sometimes.”

She twists her lips to the side.

“Okay,” she finally says. “Okay.” She sighs and holds her hands up. “Okay. I mean, I can’t stop you.”

And even though her words are dismissive, she has that little smile back. Then the room just…quiets. There’s an unspoken shift, as if we got away with something, like skipping school or borrowing our parents’ car. I return her smile, admiring how her long, delicate fingers trace over Bernie Bird’s feathers.

“Bernie plays favorites, by the way,” she says.

“Does he?”

“He might be mean until he gets to know you.”