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That was the answer.
His subterfuge, his lack of honesty, the way he’d changed his number—none of that was like him. It wasn’t as decent as he needed to be.
That was the problem. Yeah, everything seemed to be coming clear now. Making total sense. It wasn’t Lizzie compelling him; it was his own need to like himself. To be the man he thought himself to be. To live up to his own standards.
He’d never be fully free of her until he came clean. I was...hurt...when you left and I couldn’t get ahold of you...
He felt again the stab her words had brought. Though he’d never meant to, he’d hurt her.
But that was in the past, he told himself.
But the truth wasn’t. The truth was here and now. His to give.
He had to give her that.
Standing, feeling taller than he had in the past year, Nolan tossed his half-full cup into the trash and headed out the door.
* * *
She’d known he’d be back.
After all, she and Nolan had unfinished business. Like the baby he knew nothing about.
Leaving her unused scouring pad in the bathroom when she heard the bell, she went to the door, texting her roommate on the way.
He’s here. Don’t come back until I text the okay.
The rest, the part about her being unhappy with her friend’s manipulation, however well-meaning, would be handled in person.
As before, she met him on the stoop outside her front door. She had some idea that they could walk down the short hill to the parking lot below. Anywhere but inside her apartment.
Her phone buzzed a text and she took a quick look.
Okay and good luck. Love you.
She wasn’t telling him about Stella. Her mind was made up and Carmela’s pressure couldn’t change that. A decision like whether or not to tell the father of her baby that he had a child had to come from her.
“Look, I—I’m not planning to stalk you or anything,” Nolan said, looking so...Nolan as he stood there on the small cement landing that served as their excuse for a porch. For a second there she could feel him again. Feel the warmth. The sense that, with him, she was complete.
Which was ludicrous. She’d known it back then, and she knew it now. They hardly knew each other. It had been the holidays and her being alone that had played with her head. Made her vulnerable to fall hard for the man who’d offered her a romantic fling in place of spending Christmas alone.
Carmela had offered to take her home to her family with her, but Lizzie hadn’t wanted to go. Sometimes being a third wheel was worse than being alone.
Then she’d met Nolan. And had a two-week fairy tale. One she was remembering with too much intensity for her current well-being.
Her eyes lit on his mouth and her thoughts betrayed her as she felt an overwhelming desire to touch those lips with her own. But she was rational enough to know that kissing him would be the worst mistake she could make.
But to taste him one last time...
To be held in his arms...
No.
“I just... I needed to... Can we talk for a second?” he said when she got lost in her thoughts rather than responding. His hesitancy, so unlike the Nolan she’d known, had her curious.
“I kind of thought you’d be back,” she told him. Maybe she shouldn’t have. She didn’t know. The then and now crashing into each other like they were was confusing her. “Neither one of us really got closure. So let’s go ahead and get it and be done.”
If only she could be certain her inner self would agree as readily as she wanted Nolan to do.
