Page 85 of Hold the Pickle
It takes a few seconds for everything she’s said to sink in. “You turned in your key? You’re giving up?”
“If you have trouble with rent on your own, I can probably help, especially when I start working. I know you said when we got this place that it was more than you wanted to pay.”
“No, I won’t let you do that.” My stomach feels like it’s lined with concrete. Vagus nerve stimulated. That mind-body connection is fierce. The unease gets worse as I ask, “Did you already take a job with your family?”
“No. Max has promised not to tell Uncle Sherman that I’ve left LA.”
“Your cousin knew before me?” My whole body buzzes.Calm down, I tell my brain.Enough with the cortisol.
“You were busy. I didn’t want to upset you at work.” She shifts closer to me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I couldn’t think of any other way.”
“What happens to us, then?”
“I don’t know anything yet, Dalton. I’m going to let the kittens get bigger, then maybe my brothers will take one or two, and maybe some will stay with my parents. If I can bear to split them up.”
“Then you’ll come back?” I wrap an arm around her waist.
“Maybe? I have some reckoning to do with my family.”
So she might not.
The word love hasn’t come up much since I said it the first time. I have occasionally whispered it to her again in the dark.
But I don’t think she feels it. That’s why this is easier for her.
It makes sense. It was fast. We dove into this like teenagers.
Or I did.
Mama Cat leaps off the sofa to move to the cat bed, drawing the kittens. They abandon us to see if she will let them have milk. She’s been trying to wean them. They’re old enough.
I pull Nadia to my lap. “I’m not going to let you go.”
She turns to straddle me, smoothing my hair off my forehead. “It’s not a breakup. I’ll do whatever I can to get back here.”
That’s something, at least. “I’m stuck in LA. I can’t transfer to a new hospital mid-internship.”
“I wouldn’t let you do that, anyway. This is so new for making life changes.”
She means us. I get that. It’s just that I feel like I’ve loved her all my life.
“Hey,” she says. “We’ll be all right. Would it help if we planned a little? When can you transfer?”
“After a year. So next summer.” It’s only fall.
“That’s not long.” She kisses my forehead.
“Without you? That’s an eternity.” I hold her more tightly.
“We’ll make it.” Her words are warm against my ear.
I take in everything about her like it’s the last time. The smell of floral shampoo in her hair. The fit of her head against my neck. I run my hands from her waist to her hips, committing the feel of her to memory.
She presses her mouth to my cheek, and I turn, settling my lips on hers. The kiss deepens quickly, and soon we’re undressing, shirts falling to the carpet in a whisper, skin to skin.
She’s warm and soft and I want to memorize everything about her, to make sure there’s nothing I missed. The crook of her elbow, the back of her knee, the wisps of hair over her ear.
I’ve never used the phrasemake lovebefore. It seems like something out of my grandparents’ era. But those words rise up as I pull her panties down. I want to infuse her with everything I’m feeling, make an impression on every part of her body.
