It made her feel like the loss of that small, safe life that she had wasn’t quite as devastating as she had originally thought.
Because there were so many lives that she could live. So many places to go. So many layers to who she could be. If she had stayed on that street, in that house, with Will for the rest of her life…she would have been a kind of happy. But she was beginning to think that the changes, the thoughts, the moments that she had since the separation were transforming her into a person who might not be able to find her way back to that sort of happiness. It was a cliché. A goldfish in a bowl that had been dumped into the ocean. Now knew how big it all was.
But it was the dominant thing that she kept thinking.
She wasn’t sure she would be able to fit back into that life.
Hell. She had a tattoo.
Regina Pizza was on a corner packed full of people, and Logan went and put their name on the list. It was a decently long wait, but she didn’t mind meandering around, looking at the buildings, the brick and the metal detail that had aged into a green patina with time. It was more frenetic here than at Beacon Hill, not like the stately, well-appointed town houses on utterly silent streets, but rather apartments above these bustling buildings, bags of trash brought out to the curb, waiting to be collected the next day, and people everywhere.
Even this life made her smile to imagine living it. What kind of person would you be? Living in the middle of all this activity, all this history. The energy would be inspiring.
When they got called for their table, they were ushered into a noisy, crowded restaurant with no pretense or conceit. It somehow felt nostalgic, even though she’d never been there. Maybe because it was in many ways the image of what a pizza place should be. It must’ve been in a movie, or maybe she had just absorbed it somehow into her consciousness. The booths, the pictures on the wall, celebrities that had been there, local police officers. It was somehow brand-new and familiar all at once, and she was delighted by it, and of course by the food.
But it wasn’t just this place.
It was Logan. That stark separation that had happened inside of her today. That realization. That her endgame might not be Will. Then suddenly, the driving need to know… To know what it would be like to kiss Logan. If it would change something else.
Zip-lining had. The tattoo had. Just wandering around the city by herself in her absolute freedom had.
She hadn’t kissed him all those years ago. Because of fear, yes. Also because she had said vows to Will, and whatever she had felt at the time, whatever he had failed to do for her in her grief, she had never taken those vows lightly, and she never would.
But the rules weren’t the same now.
She wanted different things now. She wanted some kind of clarity on exactly what that meant.
Logan was beautiful.
And she had crossed that line, that barrier, from admitting that he was attractive to the fact that she was attracted to him. Now she felt not simply preoccupied with it but compelled by it. By the lines on his face, and blue of his eyes. The sharp awareness of his jaw, and his mouth.
Everything about his mouth.
She could remember feeling compelled by it then. When he had looked at her with all that care and tenderness and intensity at the same time.
She could remember feeling overwhelmed.
But there had also been a barrier. A barrier that simply didn’t exist now.
The pizzeria was amazing, but it was hardly romantic. Her judgment wasn’t being clouded by candlelight.
It was just the natural conclusion to everything.
All of it had brought her here. To this moment. To the opportunity to have what she hadn’t been able to then.
She was suddenly distracted by it, barely able to finish the last piece of pizza, and having difficulty carrying on a conversation. Her limbs were infused with anxiety that took root in her stomach and spread out from there. Her hands tingled. Her fingertips felt numb.
She was suddenly in a hurry, when she had been enjoying herself and happy to sit here endlessly.
“I think they want to turn the table over,” she said.
That was true. She could tell that the line outside had only gotten longer, and there was a definite need to clear space. But she had ulterior motives. She hadn’t felt this kind of excitement in…a very long time. The sense that she was about to do something potentially wrong, but that was exciting enough she didn’t care.
It was in her head now, and she couldn’t get it out.
You want to kiss him, and then what?
You two are staying in the same hotel, and you have another night here.
