Loving Caroline hasn’t thrown me off a cliff.
I’m still me. Not my father. Not my mother.
If I get called home, I’m going, because I have to. It’s not negotiable.
I don’t know what’s going to happen before then—not with Caroline and me or with anything, really. I could have to leave tomorrow. I could get bite it in a convenience store holdup. We could all die from fucking bird flu.
But tonight, it’s Valentine’s Day.
If the world ends in the morning, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it ends with Caroline in my bed, her hair on my pillow, my hands on her ass.
And I mean that in the most romantic possible way.
I’m at her door, a dozen cheap gas-station roses clutched in my hand. I smell like sweat and dishwasher steam, and she’s in her pajamas, her eyes slitted against the brightness of the hallway.
I woke her up.
I woke Bridget up.
If I stand here long enough, I’ll probably wake up half the hall, and I don’t give a fuck.
“What do you want to know?”
“What?” Her voice is thick with sleep.
“Tell me what you want to know. Ask me a question, I’ll answer it. I’m an open book.”
Her hair’s all snarled at the crown of her head. I want to smooth it down, kiss her, take her in my arms.
Too soon. Too soon, even if this works out. And if it doesn’t … I can’t think about that.
“You’re an open book,” she repeats. She must be waking up, because she injects some skepticism into the words.
“Anything you want to know.”
“Let’s start with why you’re here at—what time is it?”
“Eleven thirty-five.”
“At eleven thirty-five at night on Valentine’s Day”—and here she kind of eye-rolls at the bouquet in my hand—“when you haven’t called me or texted me or given the least sign you remember I’m alive in almost a month.”
“Twenty-two days.”
“You’re counting?”
“I can tell you how many hours if you want.”
“Because …”
“Because when it comes to you, I’m a fucking moron. More than you know. Probably in a bunch of ways you don’t have a clue about.”
That almost makes her smile. I can see her lips twitch. She decides not to allow it, but lip twitching is a good sign, so I barrel on. “Look, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I would’ve come sooner, but I was on at the restaurant, and there was this couple who came in right before ten and stayed for fucking ever, so this was the soonest I could get here. I guess I should have come tomorrow, but …”
… but I couldn’t stand it anymore.
… but I needed to see you.
… but once I made up my mind, I didn’t want to wait even four seconds longer than I had to.
“I brought you roses.” I hold them out, the only gift I’ve ever given her, blood red and, I hope, so cheesy she has to like them.
“I see that.”
I wait for her to say something more, give me a clue how I’m doing here. She scrubs her hands over her face—something I’ve seen her do a hundred times at the bakery to wake herself up.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, Mr. All-of-a-Sudden-I’m-an-Open-Book. Where are you from?”
“Oregon.”
“What town, idiot.”
“Silt.”
“You’re from a place called Silt?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it like there?”
“It’s close to Coos Bay, which is on the ocean. Coos is pretty—they get tourists. Silt is farther inland. It’s kind of …” A shithole. “There’s not much to it.”
“So do you have parents, or are you, like, the product of spontaneous generation?”
She’s teasing, but not really. My family’s a sore spot between us, and she’s pushing right into it. “Everyone has parents, Caro.”
Bridget says from somewhere in the darkness, “Don’t forget, you can slam the door on his foot.”
I think about pulling my foot back, but I’ll risk it. “I’ve got a mom. My dad’s … not around. Most of the time. Which is much better for everybody involved. He’s … bad news.”
She meets my eyes, a slight pucker between her eyebrows. Fully awake now—this is how she looks in class. Listening hard enough to hear everything I’m not saying in between the things I am. “What’s her name?”
“My mom? Michelle.”
“Is she married to your dad?”
“No.”
“So is she the Leavitt, or … ?”
“It’s my dad’s name.”
“Any more brothers and sisters?”
“Just Frankie. I told you about her.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Fair enough. “I will.”
She tilts her head, thinking. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Green.”
“Best place you’ve ever been on vacation.”
“We never went anywhere. California, I guess.”
“Best present you ever got.”
“That book you gave me.”
Her eyes widen a fraction. “It’s just a book. About bread.”
“I liked it.”
“What kind of presents do you usually get?”
“Clothes. Stuff I need. Shit my mom thought was funny but isn’t particularly. Bo gave me a fifth of whiskey at Christmas.”
“Who’s Bo?”
“My mom’s boyfriend. She and Frankie live with him.”
“Why did you dump me after break?”
I’m not expecting the question. My eyes flick to the darkness past her shoulder. “Do you think … if I promise to tell you anything you want, will you come back to my place?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she plucks the flowers out of my hand, peels back the clear plastic and tissue paper around the top, and studies them. “If this is just a cheap attempt to get laid on Valentine’s Day, it’s not going to work.”
“It’s not that.”
After a long moment, she looks up.
I’ve seen her face a hundred ways. Cautious and hopeful, brave and fierce, happy and crying. I’ve seen her soft and open, her mouth thoroughly kissed. I haven’t seen her look like this but once: that first night when I walked out to her car and invited her into the bakery.
Scared. She’s scared of what’s going to happen.
But she wants it anyway.
“What is this, then?” she asks.
I wish I could think of something perfect to say. I wish I had words that took in her and me, eighteen months of watching and waiting, nights I’ve lain awake, midnights we’ve passed together mixing dough and making each other laugh. Every dream I’ve had about her. Every time I heard her voice or got a text that made me smile or shake my head. Every night I held the phone to my ear and said whatever I could think of to make her squeak and moan and fall apart.
With all the ways I know her, I still don’t know how to make her understand how I can be standing here, completely unsure what it is I’m doing, where we’re headed, what this is—and how I can still be so positive this is where I belong.
She’s what I want. More than my plans, more than I want to be smart, more than I want to follow the rules—I want to be with her.
I need to. I have to. I want to.
I can’t waste any more time trying to figure out which of those it is. Not when I doubt we have all that much time left to waste.
“I want to be your boyfriend,” I blurt out.
Immediately I wish I’d thought of another way to put it. I want to be your boyfriend—worse than lame. Childish. The words drop into my gut, leaden.
I’ve never said them before.
Caroline is looking right at me, those big brown eyes full of interest and … sympathy, maybe.