I should be thrilled, vengefully satisfied.
But all I can think about are his legs, tangled with mine below the table. The sight of him across from me, windblown and tan, seawater in his hair turning every rebellious wave into loose curls that kiss everywhere I’ve dreamed of kissing—his temples, his ears, the nape of his neck.
About the room with one bed, waiting for us down the hall.
CHAPTER 22THEN
November 13, two autumns ago
Fall shows up and saves the day. I haven’t figured out how not to want Alex. The only solution I came up with was to see less of him, which I knew would hurt him and crush me, and then Alex would notice I’d pulled away, none of which I wanted.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to figure out an alternative. Fall busyness did it for me.
The last weekend of September, I went to bed with a belly full of chargrilled corn and sun-warm tomatoes, windows open to the breeze, my dog at my feet, then woke up the next morning, shivering at the chilly damp blowing in, Argos curled up beside me for warmth, desperate for the comfort of a hot breakfast and a hotter cup of coffee.
When I got out from beneath the covers, tugging on two pairs of socks because I had no idea where my slippers were, I saw that, after a month of playing phone tag—the game: keep missing each other, leave no voicemails—Mom had finally texted me.
Please call me when you can. I’ll be sure my phone is on ring so I don’t miss you.
Knowing I’d been avoidant long enough, I made myself a cup of coffee, found my slippers, and called Mom, who answered on the first ring and told me what the past month’s missed calls had been about… Dad needed an angioplasty.
I drove to Columbus, spent the week of my birthday getting up to speed on what I’d missed, helping around the house, cleaning and running errands, then drove back to Pittsburgh. Since then, I’ve been drowning in work as we prepare for our busiest, most profitable time of year—the holiday season.
With school back in session and Jen teaching, Alex has shifted from being a fifty-fifty custody parent to the primary daytime weekday parent, dropping off Mia and picking her up from three-day-a-week pre-K. He also started work on his third cookbook.
We’ve been lucky to manage seeing each other every two weeks, and that includes Alex stopping in with Mia for StoryTime every other Saturday. Texting has become the backbone of our friendship—the occasional gripe about our exes or the overcast weather, but mostly, it’s talking, being close, with the perk that, because we’re not seeing each other in person, I don’t have to expend a massive amount of mental energy on not staring at Alex’s mouth and thinking about kissing him.
Alex
thumbs up, thumbs down: pumpkin
Thea
in a pie/muffin, thumbs up! Double thumbs up if there’s cream cheese frosting involved.
Alex
k… what if the pumpkin item *didn’t* include a shit ton of sugar?
like, for example, if was used to make tortellini
maybe there’s sage, garlic, brown butter, ricotta, pecorino cheese involved
hypothetically
Thea
hypothetically? that sounds like an ALL the thumbs up.
but, I can’t be *sure*. I think that’s probably something I need to eat 5 to 10 lbs of before I can tell you definitively.
Alex
Ted, that’s a lot of homemade pumpkin tortellini
Thea
you’re right, but someone has to be brave and make the necessary sacrifices for culinary greatness.