God,I shouldn’t be crying.
I wiped my tears withthe back of my hand and took another gulp from the bottle. My book was stillselling. It was even beginning to pick up a little more steam, after a popularblogger had snapped it up and written a rave review. “The best book I’ve read inyears,” she’d said, and my Amazon rank shot up a few thousand spots in one day.I had gotten lucky with a debut novel, and I knew better than to take that forgranted.
But dammit, it was sohard to be happy when there was nobody there to be happywith.
Harriett skulked intothe room from the hallway, eyeing me warily. I raised the bottle to her. “Atleast I have you,” I muttered sardonically before taking another drink, andthen, a damned miracle happened.
She jumped onto my lap.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed,my voice hushed as I lowered the bottle to the floor beside the chair.“Harriett … are we finallyfriends?”
With an uncertain hand,I stroked over her arched back, and the low, rumbling purr that came from herthroat was enough to bring more tears to my eyes. She circled once more over mythighs before flopping down sideways, showing me her belly.
“Oh, God, now’s whenyou’re going to scratch the hell out of me, right?” But I took my chances andgave her tummy a good rub, and she continued to purr. “Holyshit,look at this. Harriett, you finally like me.”
I stroked her belly,along her back, and between her ears for a solid fifteen minutes, finallyseeing what I’d been missing out on all that time she loved my grandmother. Iwas actually grinning, so hard my cheeks ached, as her motor rumbled beneath myhand, and I sighed withnear-satisfaction.
“You know what wouldmake this night even better?” I asked her. She blinked up at me and I took thatas a response. “A little Richard Dawson,obviously.Maybe I can find some clips on YouTube …”
I pulled my phone fromthe pocket of my sweatshirt and as I tapped my way to YouTube, a knock came atthe front door.
It was two in themorning. My gut told me there could only be one person in the world knocking onmy door at this hour, but my heart warned me against getting my hopes up.Because what would I do if it wasn’t him? And if it wasn’t him, thepossibilities of who it could be kicked my worried mind into overdrive, and Ibegan to wish I had kept Grandma’s cane around. Just in case of emergencies.
Another knock struckthe door, and then a voice emerged through the rain. “Tess? God, please tell meyou’re in there. My phone is dead, and I was the idiot who packed the chargeraway, and I—” I hurried from the recliner in all of my half-drunken grace,scaring Harriett from my lap, and threw the door open to reveal a very tired,very soaked Jon. “Oh, thank Christ,” he breathed, voice dripping with relief.“Can I come in?”
This was it. Theromantic gesture. The ending my book was missing. It was the only thing myreaders had complained about—they wanted to know how things had worked outbetween me and “him.” The man who was never named. But how was I supposed toconclude the story when I didn’t know how my own would end?
Now, standing in frontof him, I couldn’t move. My mouth hung open, caught in a limbo between shockand curiosity. The rain poured endlessly, soaking his hair and winter coat, andI just stood there in torn pajama pants and a Smash Mouth sweatshirt.
“Tess?”
“Huh?” I managed,fiddling with the frayed ends of my hoodie’s drawstrings.
“I’m gettingreallywet out here. And cold.Socold.” His teeth chattered for goodmeasure.
“O-oh!” I steppedaside, allowing him entry, and he smiled, almost awkwardly, as he came in.
“Wow. I like whatyou’ve done with the place,” he joked, turning in a circle to take in thenearly-empty room. He removed his coat, looking to the lone recliner, andasked, “Do you call this the sitting room now?”
“Ha-ha,” I muttered,closing the door to the rain. “Hold on, I’ll get you something to dry offwith.” I hurried to the bathroom and brought back a dry towel. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” He ran itover his hair while he toed off his shoes. One of his sneakers hit the wine bottlebeside the recliner, and he bent to pick it up. After eyeing what littleremained of its contents, he asked, “Did you drink all of this tonight?”
“Notallof it.” I spoke slowly, choosing mywords carefully. I wasn’t drunk. Tipsy? Yes. But drunk?Definitelynot. I felt too much to be drunk. “It was left over from Christmas.”
“Hm,” he nodded,tipping the bottle back to take a drink. His nose wrinkledimmediatelyand he sputtered, coughing and choking. “Christmas of what year?Nineteen-eighty-two?”
“It’s notthatbad,” I insisted, snatching thebottle away from him.
“It’s pretty bad,” helaughed, wiping the back of his hand against his mouth.
I crossed my arms andfinally found it in me to ask, “Why are you here, Jon?”
“Because I have to tellyou something,” he replied simply, and I laughed.
“Aren’t you supposed tobe at your parents’ place?”
“Yeah, but I got alittle caught up reading,” he said, as he pulled a book from his back pocket.As he handed it over, I noticed the book was mine, and that was the precisemoment when all that horrible, possibly expired wine threatened to come backup.
