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Like what? Can it be telling Alden and the studio to go fuck themselves? Oh wait, they aren’t live. That’s so disappointing. They’d just edit it out. Can you still do it anyway?
Jos typed a maybe, then asked again if she could come over and talk. She waited. The screen stayed silent, no dots. But then they finally appeared, and this time, there was a number and a street. Eden wasn’t cruel enough to send Jos somewhere else.
When she pulled up in front of a white stucco apartment building, which wasn’t nice and wasn’t not nice either, she knew Eden would be there. She wedged her car into a spot that was barely big enough half a block from the building. The sidewalk was crumbling in front, the windows looked tiny, and the glass door to the lobby had bars on it. The buzzer was smashed, and half the buttons were missing.
Jos didn’t need to text Eden that she was there. Eden suddenly appeared behind the foggy glass. Maybe she’d been there the whole time watching. It made Jos’ heart do something funny. She reached up to rub the spot, then lowered her hand. Her heart had been doing funny things for days. Weeks. Ever since she’d met this woman. She wasn’t going to be able to rub that sting away. Not now. Horribly enough, she realized she might never be able to ease it away.
The sight of Eden did something to her. Not because she was beautiful, even though she was. She took Jos’ breath away. It was her eyes, which were so dark, glowing with those tiny pinpricks of light, like those little lanterns people floated up to the skies and down rivers. Little lanterns of hope.
They weren’t going to talk in the entryway to the building. Eden didn’t say anything when Jos didn’t say anything. Eden opened the door and Jos followed. They went up a set of stairs and down a hall to a battered wooden door. Eden pushed it open. Her apartment was mostly whites and browns, but that was all Jos could see past the sheen of tears she’d been holding back for the better part of four decades.
She dragged in what air she could, but it was shaky at best. It smelled like cinnamon. No, gingerbread. Like a candle was burning somewhere. Jos’ hands were shaking, so she curled them in at her side.
“Do you want tea?” Eden’s voice was calm. A lighthouse in the storm that hadn’t let up since the day they’d first met.
“No.”
“Coffee?”
“Only if it’s as bad as that place we first went to.”
Eden laughed. “No, it’s not.”
“I don’t need anything.” Jos blinked hard. Furiously. She was afraid to let the tears fall. Afraid that if she did, that old adage about never stopping would come true. She didn’t like to be a cliché.
“You can cry if you want.” Eden, as always, saw past everything Jos was trying to hide. She reached out, her fingers skating along the back of one of Jos’ curled fists. She eased her hand open, eased it into hers, then led Jos, who was still blinded by the tears she was trying to hold back, into a plain living room.
The carpet was old, and the walls were white, but the couch was an expensive leather sectional. Probably Italian. Jos liked furniture. She knew good furniture. Eden had apparently not been able to leave all the trappings of her old life behind, but that was probably her parents’ insisting. She imagined Eden rolling her eyes. Smiling, laughing, tossing her hair in a sassy way, then relenting because it made her mom and dad feel better and she didn’t want them to worry, because while she wanted to live her own life, she loved them fiercely.
That was the only kind of way that people like Eden loved.
I want that. I want to be worthy of that.
Jos hit the couch hard. It was equally as hard as her momentum. It wasn’t at all comfortable. Eden sunk down with grace beside her. She didn’t release her hand. Jos stared at the wall, at a TV stand and a huge TV that was paused on a romantic comedy. A cheesy one. One of the worst.
“You like this?”
Eden snorted. “Believe it or not, it’s my favorite.”
Of course it was. Because Eden was a normal person with normal emotions. She knew how to care. She knew how to live. She wasn’t damaged from childhood on. She had passions that she chased. She had enough sass to fill up the entire world, but she could be soft and gentle and nurturing. She deserved so much better than what Jos knew she could ever offer.
“Stop,” Eden commanded firmly. She tapped Jos’ chin, turning her to face her. “Stop thinking so much. You’re obviously upset, because your emotions are showing all over your face. I can read every single one of them. You came to talk. You came to tell me something. So, say it. I want to hear it. I want to know why you’re here.”
Her words might have been harsh and demanding and unyielding, but it was what Jos needed. Someone to tell her the truth. Always, always the truth.
“It might sound incredibly stupid,” Jos said. Because I was the one to chase you away and tell you no and keep you at bay. “But I missed you.”
She took a shaky breath. The tears were doing more than threatening. They were quickly becoming a reality she had no hope of controlling. Through the shine, she could see Eden’s face. Swimming, but still beautiful. She watched the pulse thrum at the side of her throat. She watched her lips part and her eyes kept on shining with so much tenderness.
“That’s not stupid. Not at all. I missed you as well.”
“But we work together. We see each other all the time.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not.” Jos lowered her eyes. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I should have just told you abou
t the contract extension. You know now that my job is the one thing I’ve clung to all these years, and I knew you wouldn’t take the offer if I told you that I was going to benefit from it.”
