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Jude
We droveto New York City on Thursday afternoon and went directly to Tali’s place. Her parents put up a mighty storm about us not spending the night at their house, but she’d insisted she wanted to show me where she lived.
This apartment was more her. It was clear she’d lived here longer and had spent more time here even after she got her place in Baltimore. With framed pictures of her friends and family scattered around surfaces, and more pictures of her travels on the walls, I sawher.
On the way to her building, she showed me her favorite coffee shop and the park where she liked to run. We ordered dinner from the Indian takeout place that knew her by the sound of her voice over the phone.
“I like seeing you here,” I said. “Feels more like you.”
She bit off a piece of Naan and smiled around her full mouth. “It’s small, but I’ve lived here since I was twenty-five, so yeah, it’s me. But it’s just a place. I’m not tied to it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So, are you saying if I asked you if we could maybe find a place together, you’d be open to it?”
She nodded and offered me a piece of butter chicken on the end of her fork, which I accepted.
“Yes, I’d like to do that,” she replied. “Does that taste weird?”
Confused by her question in the middle of talking about living together, my eyebrows pinched. “No, it’s delicious.”
She chewed slowly, scrunching up her nose. “I guess it’s me.” Her eyes flicked to mine. “I do want to keep a place in New York, but we can find one together—”
“I like this one.”
That made her smile. “Me too. But if you want to manly it up, that would be acceptable.”
I huffed a laugh. “Manly it up? What’s that? Smoking jackets and plaid wallpaper?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of your guitars hanging on the walls and maybe a new duvet, but you do you.”
“No plaid?”
“I wasn’t aware you were such a big fan of plaid. If you can’t live without it, we can do a pillow or two.”
I smiled. She smiled back. We’d been doing a lot of cheesy-ass smiling over the last week. Random moments where we looked at each other and both stopped and took in how happy we were. Not crazy happy. Nothing extraordinary had happened, unless you could count the very reality of us being together like this extraordinary. We were just...content. Being together, grocery shopping, cooking, waking up to each other.
“I’m gonna pass on the plaid, but I’ll take you up on the guitars on the wall. Can’t call this my place if I don’t bring my music.” I glanced around at all the pictures. “Maybe you could add a picture of you and me to your collection.”
Without a word, she popped up from her seat and disappeared down the hall to her bedroom. She returned a minute later carrying a small wooden frame.
She held it out to me. “Here.”
Inside the frame was the picture we took on the Staten Island Ferry when she came up to visit. We’d been windblown and in love, but I saw the fraying around my edges. I was already an addict at that point, but it would take me another year or two before I associated that label with myself.
“It’s hard for me to look at this.”
She sat next to me, curling into my side. “Because you were high? Or wanting to get high?”
“Because I was sad and not enjoying what I had.”
She took the picture back from me, studying it. “I don’t know. I like it. It’s been in my dresser drawer for a long time. It made me smile when I’d look at it.” She traced my face through the glass. “You may see your addiction, but I see the man who loved me in spite of it. I don’t want to forget those times. They ended and we changed, grew up, but those years with you shaped me. So maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to stay with anyone long-term. My shape only fits yours.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her deeper into my side. “You sure as hell shaped me, Tali.” I studied the picture again. Noticed her smile, the trueness of it. Took note of the way I was turned to her, looking at her instead of the camera. Remembered wanting to keep her forever. “Can we put this out somewhere?”
“Of course we can.” She set it aside and rubbed the scruff on my cheek. “Are you ready for the drama that is my family?”
I grinned, then bent and kissed her cheek. “I think I can take it. Gio’s not going to, like, challenge me to a duel or something, right?”
“Honestly? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
