“You’d relocate for a man?” he questions with a look of surprise.
“Yes. I think so. As long as I was happy to. Not to sound trite, but home is where the heart is. Home is where you’re happy. That doesn’t have to be a place. It can be a person.”
He nods. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I never really thought of itthat way. I guess I’m busy designing homes for people, so I think of homes as…homes. I like how you think.”
I smile.
“I want to know so much more about you, Hannah.”
“Such as?” I settle onto the sofa and sip the wine I’ve brought to our date night.
He drinks his glass of wine and then looks awkward.
I wait.
“I want to know what you look like under those pajamas you’re always wearing.” He’s so serious, almost seductive, but suddenly he laughs because he can see my eyes open wide, startled like a rabbit.
“Wow, OK,” I say.
“You don’t want to know what I look like under…?” He gestures toward his clothes, which today involve dark-blue jeans and a tight button-down shirt.
Instantly I feel flustered, because…how the hell do I answer this? I simply nod the truth.
And then he’s serious again and it’s as if all the cold January air, tempered by my radiator, has been sucked entirely from the room, leaving me in a vacuum of my own self-consciousness.
“It’s not enough,” he says. “This.”
I nod again, knowing what he means but unable to voice it.
“Just seeing each other on these calls,” he says. “It’s not enough. It’s why long-distance relationships don’t work, in my opinion. Because everyone I’ve ever known that’s tried a long-distance relationship…they’ve all broken up. Is it enough for you?”
“No,” I say, watching him and his quiet energy, his openness.
“We’ve been doing this for a month. It’s exciting and fun. But if I weren’t coming there to live in a few days, I’d have been on a plane to you already by now.”
My mouth falls open and I ask, “Really?”
“Sure. The only thing stopping me is counting down the days until I get there.”
“Oh,” I say, while inwardly my heart gallops along and I know my smile has widened. We sit in quiet contemplation, our eyes on each other until our smiles grow so wide we’re in danger of looking unstable.
“Hannah?”
“Yes?”
“You wanna watch this movie?”
I nod, but I can’t think about the film now. I can only think about what it will be like to see him, to meet this man I am 99 percent certain I am falling for. How can this be? How can this have happened over such a short period of time? It’s hard to believe. But it’s incredible and it’s happening.
We start our films at the same time. He says he’s had to really dig around the outer corners of every streaming service under the sun to find it, and I am full of dread. What if he really hates what has always been my favorite film? This is a bit like letting someone inside your soul.
He positions the phone on the table in front of him, so I can face him, so I can see his reactions to every part ofA Room with a View.We’d agreed to get popcorn and we sit and eat. Separately but together. It’s almost, but not quite, a real date. But this—this is the kind of thing people do when they’re dating, letting the other person in. He says nothing for such a long time until he announces, “I gotta pause.”
I hit pause on my TV and watch him on my phone for a reaction. But Davey looks thoughtful and I prompt, nervously, “Are you enjoying it?”
“Yeah,” he says with certainty, picking me up and taking me with him to the fridge to top up his wineglass. “Different. And now I really want to go to Tuscany.” I don’t expect him to continue, but he does as he moves back to the sofa, positioning meback on the table so that I can see him. “I like the hero. Sensitive. Maybe a bit too sensitive, y’know, but the girl”—he points to his screen—“Lucy, is clearly falling for him. That deep, caring side.”
I nod.
