Page 122 of Yours Truly

She pulled her knee up under her chin. “Jacob, double down on your deep-freezer space.”

I poked at my food a little. “I’m sorry you have to be here while your mom’s in town.”

“I don’t mind being here.”

I raised my eyes to her. “You don’t?”

“No. I totally don’t. It’ll be so fun. And we can carpool to work.”

“We can finish watching Schitt’s Creek,” I said.

“And we can walk Lieutenant Dan together and do the sofa-shopping thing—this will be so good for Instagram. Also, I want you to know that I’m going to give you your space. If you need to disappear into the plant room or whatever, I totally understand.”

I doubted there would be much of that. I didn’t want to disappear when she was around. I wanted to be wherever she was.

I gave her a key, sheets, and a blanket and pillows for her bed. I set up the coffeepot like I always did for the next morning—only I made twice what I normally did, and even this small thing made me smile.

We’d be together all the time, in the same place. The idea of it made me feel elated.

I never thought I’d want that. I could never imagine wanting someone all the time. And even this wasn’t enough, because she was in the other room at night and not with me.

From this point on, and for the first time in my life, I slept with the door open.

For the next week we fell into a routine, and I was the happiest I’d ever been.

We bought a sofa. It wouldn’t be delivered for another week, but we drove the old armchairs up to the cabin anyway and spent the night. We went swimming off the dock and she made me practice the lift from Dirty Dancing with her, which meant I got to touch her, even though nobody was there to see it. Made my whole day. Then we dried off and walked to the restaurant and had dinner. She didn’t bring up the story I told her about me talking to her in the rain there. So she didn’t remember. It was just as well.

We came back after eating and sat in the armchairs in front of the fire talking until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

Amy always said the cabin was boring because there weren’t any bars within walking distance or enough rooms for friends to stay with us. When I told Briana that, she’d looked at me confused and said, “How could it be boring when you’re here?”

I loved every minute we spent together. Every single minute.

Briana and I were back at work today. We had dinner with her mom and brother at my parents’ house tonight after we got off.

I stood across the ER, by the door of a patient room, watching Briana at the nurses’ station. She was sitting with Jocelyn, charting. Zander came over and stood next to me. “What are you doing?”

“Watching Briana. I sent her flowers. I’m waiting for them to get here.”