Page 88 of The Apparent Trap

He shakes his head. “Because this isn’t a chase. It’s not about getting you—all I think about, all the time, is how to make your day better. Even when I couldn’t talk to you, couldn’t tell you how I felt, that was all I wanted.” I think of the BLTs at my door. The BLT he’s holding. “Do you remember how you told me when we were in Sweden about your penny drives for adopting acres of rainforest when you were a kid?”

“Yeah?”

“You said to me that you were sure it hadn’t stood the test of time. And I couldn’t get that out of my head. It seemed so sad to me. So I researched organizations with similar names and missions. I found the guy who started it—his name is Bruce, and I emailed him to ask if he would have any record of it. He absolutely did. Apparently it was thirty-five bucks an acre, and you bought five acres.”

“That’s it?” I smile, remembering, thinking about penny drives and bake sales and everything else I did as a naive, enthusiastic kid. “God, it felt like so much money at the time.”

“Yeah, well, now it’s part of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in Costa Rica. In total, kids raised money for fifty-six thousand acres.” My heart flutters. He took an offhanded comment about a childhood dream seriously, even if I’d written it off. And he found the answer for me. “Anyway, I bought a book the founder made about it. I have it, if you want it. Apparently you can do a lot now through the voluntary carbon market.”

“You read the book?”

“Well . . . yeah? I wanted to be able to tell you about it.”

The train stops again, and the automated announcements chime, and the doors do their thing of opening, waiting, and then closing. But Lee’s eyes stay right on me the whole time, watching, waiting for me to decide.

I realize I’m out of questions. The only thing left holding me back is one simple truth.

“I’m scared,” I whisper. “I’ve lost so much. What if I’m not capable of letting myself let go enough?”

“I think the answer is the same for you as it is for me: The past doesn’t dictate the present. And past loss doesn’t define future love. We’re both capable of so much more than we were giving ourselves credit for. I have to believe that.”

“Why? Why do you believe that all of a sudden.”

He sighs, heavy, longing. “Because after I kissed you and then walked away, I realized it was just another hard thing in a series of hard things I’d done and survived. But I missed you. I wanted to do more than just survive.”

The train is silent. Everyone’s watching us. Everyone’s rooting for us.

“I watched the Dateline episode,” I admit.

The wattage of his smile could power a city. “The Leonardo Morgan murderer one?”

“Yes,” I answer him, trying to keep my grin from exploding.

“Why?”

“Because I missed you too.”

“I swear, every love story begins with true crime nowadays,” I hear someone whisper to their friend. But Lee ignores them and instead holds up the BLT.

“Will you go on a date with me, then?”

“Yes.” No more questions, only an answer. If I thought his smile couldn’t get bigger, apparently I hadn’t seen it at its most potent. “I don’t know whether you’d rather me kiss you or eat the BLT in this moment,” I say with a laugh.

He immediately tosses the sandwich to the woman behind him, who catches it happily. “I can make you another BLT.”

Then he grabs me, and within an instant his mouth is on mine.

There are cheers behind us from every direction, but I can barely hear them. I’m wrapped up in Lee, in his taste, his smell, the happiness and surety he’s radiating with his arms around me.

And when the train slows down and the calm, robotic announcement says, “This is Lexington Avenue / Sixty-Third Street,” I pull back. The doors open with a whoosh, and I grab Lee’s hand.

“Time to go home,” I say, pulling him off the train.

Chapter 29

I would’ve expected us to stumble into my apartment, keyed up and ready to continue where we left off the last time he was here, before a doorbell flung us apart.

But we walk into my apartment, and I shut the door, hesitant. I’m unsure how to approach him when my feelings for him in this moment seem so big they could break the room in two.