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“Nah, Matty, stop. You kissed me. I was surprised, but it wasn’t a thing. I for real didn’t know you took it so hard or I’da said something. It was just awkward, that’s it. All good. I promise.”
Relief washed over me, and I felt like I let out a breath I’d been holding for years.
* * *
—
I couldn’t sleep. Rhys was snoozing peacefully beside me, his strong shoulders and the cut of his jaw glowing in the moonlight. I pressed a kiss to his shoulder and slid out of bed, pulled on Rhys’s T-shirt and settled in the window seat, hugging my knees. The moon was just waning and it was a clear night. I could see our front step, and beyond that the road; beyond the road were the paths we took to the cemetery.
I knew this place now, as well as I had known any of the neighborhoods where I’d lived in the city.
This was home now in a way none of them had been.
“Hey, you aren’t planning to split and leave me at the altar, are ya?” Rhys said sleepily.
I shook my head. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What’s up, babe?”
“Just me. Can’t sleep.” I shrugged.
Rhys reached out a hand to me, and I took it and slid back into bed. He stripped his T-shirt off me like it offended him not to feel my skin against his, and I sighed as he wrapped me in his arms.
“You just nervous?”
It was hard to shrug while wrapped in someone’s arms, but I managed it.
“Tell me, love. Whatever it is. You know you’ll feel better.”
He’d proven that to me over and over during the last few months.
“What if I wanted to take your last name,” I said in a rush, and watched Rhys’s eyes widen.
He sat up and I followed.
“Matt, I . . . wow. Since we didn’t talk about names the first time around I guess I didn’t really think it was on the table.”
“So you haven’t thought about it?”
“Uh. I didn’t say that. I won’t lie, the idea of you taking my name is . . .” He shook his head but I saw that glint in his eyes. The look that said mine, and said it with teeth.
“I thought you might like it,” I said, suddenly shy.
“Baby, I want everything with you. Sharing a last name so people know we’re a family? I’d love it. But what brought this on? You’ve never mentioned it before.”
Truth, truth, truth, truth.
I traced the hem of the sheet slowly, eyes fixed on shadow and fabric.
I’d waited for my mother on that stoop in Washington Heights. I’d waited for her at every single foster home I’d ever been at, sending my new addresses to my aunt by mail for years, though she never responded. I’d waited for her at St. Jerome’s, in the vague, scornful way you wait for something while saying it will never happen, deflating the balloon of hope but still holding tightly to the string.
In a way, I’d always been waiting for her. First I’d waited for her to come back. Then I’d waited for her to fade from my memory.
Argento was the string tied to the balloon of her. And I was ready to cut it.
I knew now that the pain of her would never fully leave me. But that didn’t mean I needed to sit still and wait for anything. I was tired of waiting. I wanted to live.
“I don’t need it anymore,” I said. “She’s never coming to find me. And that’s okay now, cuz I found you instead.”
My voice was just breath, but Rhys heard me, I knew he did.
His voice was thick with emotion when he said, “We found each other.”
We sat in silence for a minute, and I felt like I was floating above the bed, watching us hold hands in the darkness.
Finally, Rhys said, “What if it’s not about her anymore? Listen. Matt Argento is the man I fell in love with. Matt Argento is the man who helps people make their lives better. Matt Argento is the man who adopted Max from the shelter and gave him a home. Matt Argento is the man who has raised money for a program that will allow people to achieve their artistic and musical dreams. Matt Argento is the man I married. Matt Argento is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. None of that has to do with your mom, babe. That’s all you.”
I shook my head. I never knew what to say when Rhys talked like that.
“I love the person you are. Your past is part of that. Your name is part of that. So, what if—” He tipped my chin up so I had to look at him. “What if we join our names together. We each keep our pasts; we both share our future. What do you think?”
