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Twenty minutes later, I spot the bronze golden retriever jumping straight up, water spouting out of his mouth and running down the green patina of his body. Gray’s sitting on a bench, staring at Cooper as if it holds all the answers to life’s questions. When he notices me, it’s in a vague sort of way, like I’m just another part of the fountain. I sit down on the bench next to him, leaving a hand’s width between us as we wait side by side until it’s hard to see Cooper’s silhouette in the dark.
I always knew what to say about Colson. I know the story of not being good enough for someone by heart, from beginning to end. But this time I’m not protecting Gray from someone else. He has fallen down, failed himself in a way I can’t understand, and I don’t have any idea how to fix it.
His eyes stray over me, stopping at the logo on my shirt. “How did your first day go?” He asks it like he’s reading from a book calledHow to Make Small Talk With Your Boyfriend.
“My boss asked me to come back tomorrow. He said I have good instincts.”
“I’m glad.” He’s locked away in that place again, the one I can’t get to. The one where he banishes himself for the sins of trusting too easily and hoping too much.
I lean over and rub my forehead against his shoulder. “Please let me in. I don’t care if it’s bad in there.”
“It’s fine,” he says, robotic and careful. “A lot of cases end in settlement.”
“I know that’s not what you wanted.”
He doesn’t answer. After a minute, I stand up and hold out my hand. “Let’s go home.”
His work is his soul, Colson said. Now I can see the cracks spiderwebbing across it, how close it is to breaking, how hard he has tried to hold it together. He takes my hand pliantly and follows me to the street to hail a cab.
Once we’re inside the car that smells like mustard and plays faint Bollywood music over the speakers, Gray closes his eyes and rests his head on my shoulder. I realize, partway home, that he’s asleep. The man who can never sleep. Like he’s lost a reason to stay awake.
“You’re not alone.” I whisper into his hair, finding the courage now that he can’t hear me. “No one thinks I’m worth anything, but I’m going to prove that I can take care of you like you take care of me. We’re in this together.” I drop my voice, closing my eyes. “I love you, Gray. I don’t think you’re ready to hear it. Maybe you don’t love me back, but that’s okay. I’ve never let anything beat me, and I’m not going to lose now.”
He doesn’t stir. When we pull up to his building, I shake him awake and he blinks at me, bewildered.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask when we get upstairs. “Do you want dinner? We can watch a movie, or listen to my book, or—”
His face goes rigid when his phone rings. Turning his back toward me, he paces across the living room. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day, Oliver. I talked to Colson.” He listens for a minute. “I understand, I do. It’s going to be alright. We’ll meet tomorrow and go over all the terms, try to get you the best settlement we possibly can.” Stopping, he stares out the window, his back stiff. “Please stop apologizing to me, Oliver. I should be the one apologizing to you.”
He drops his phone on the coffee table and sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, Jonah. I think I just want to go to bed.” When his eyes open, they linger on me. “I hate that I ruined your first day at work.” And no matter what I say, no matter how many times I tell him everything’s fine, I don’t think he’s really listening. Every line of his body, the tense, sluggish way he moves, tells me he wishes I wasn’t here so he could just hurt in peace.
He lets me hang up his suit piece by piece as he undresses and crawls into bed. Without saying anything, he rolls onto his front and lies still, breathing slowly, his bare shoulders a broken ridge in the dark.
I eat some cold pizza from the fridge—this fancy barbecue onion shit Gray ordered—then join him. I’ve never had a side of the bed before, both of us curled up together in the middle, but tonight I keep to my half of the mattress and listen to him breathe, like we’re an old couple that has been together long enough that the weight of the world has grown too heavy for the ways we used to comfort each other.
