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While Nancy stared a hole straight through him, Becks said, “We’ve been waiting for you to come home.”
“You’ve been waiting…” He reeled back. “Wait, what’s happening here?”
“Don’t freak, Dad. But this is an adorable baby-assisted intervention.” She patted the floor again. “Sit.”
Gingerly, and not only because his knees objected to anything faster, Cole lowered himself to the carpet. Picking Ruby up when she crawled to him, he said, “I don’t need an intervention. I’m fine. I just need something to do.”
“You’re not fine,” Becks said. “You’re a mess. You went to Montana, fell in love, and came home empty-handed.”
“Not true,” he pointed out, thinking of the cupcake going stale in his fridge, because while he couldn’t eat it, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away either. “Look, it’s not that complicated. I told her I loved her, she gave me a goodbye cupcake, and that’s that. It’s a tale as old as time.”
Nancy and Becks shared a look, then Becks said, “Dad, I love you, but is it possible you might be minimizing a little bit? I think it might help if you told us what actually went down. Specifically.”
Relenting, partly because he knew they’d get it out of him eventually and partly because he needed to get it off his chest, he told them the whole story, every sad, painful, disastrous detail. When he was done, when he looked up, he found Becks and Nancy staring at him, their eyes wide, their mouths hanging open, like he’d just told them he’d love it if his teeth started falling out. “What?” he said, shrugging the shoulder Ruby wasn’t currently drooling on.
“Just so I’m clear,” Becks said at length. “You got off the airplane, left suddenly, didn’t talk to Mira for three days—three days she probably spent worried sick about you. Then you showed up out of nowhere looking like literal death warmed over, and instead of debriefing and giving yourself, and her, time to come down from the emotional shit show you’d just gone through, you told her you loved her for the first time ever, and, like, ultimatumed her into telling you to dump your entire life and move to a different state for her?”
Having it all laid out there like that with such brutal efficiency, the only thing Cole could say was “I mean…”
“Did I do this to you?” Nancy asked, still staring, unblinking. “Did I mess you up this badly?”
“Probably,” he replied in pure, baffled exasperation.
While Nancy winced, Becks continued. “I’m trying to imagine what that situation might have felt like for Mira. And all I can see is, here comes this man who has an amazing life he’d just spent an entire day showing off to her, offering—in what could easily have been perceived as a sleep-deprived fugue state—to leave it all behind to be with her, but only if she asked him to. And when she didn’t, because who in their right mind would? He just…left.”
It always surprised him, how hard certain words could hit, and Becks’s aim was devastating.
“If you want to be with her, then be with her,” Becks said, taking Ruby from his slack arms. “But you need to do it for you, becauseyouwant to take the risk. Because you see a life for yourself in her world. You can’t expect her to make that choice for you. It’s too much pressure. For anyone.”
“Even for me,” Nancy muttered.
Becks’s voice turned soft, her brows sliding together. “You told me Mira is the type of person who always puts everyone else first. I hate to say it, but I think you just walked out on her because of it. Becauseeveryone, in that moment, also included you.”
Burying his head in his hands, reality crashing over him like one of those waves that dragged him under and kept him there until he was disoriented and desperate for air, he said, “You’re right.” He’d thought he was being careful, trying to protect himself, making sure she was on the same page before packing up his U-Haul. He’d just never considered she might have been trying to protect him too. He never considered how unfair it was to expect her to tell him to stay, not only because of the shape he’d been in, but also because he’d only given her half the story. “No wonder she gave me that fucking cupcake.”
“I agree,” Becks said, covering Ruby’s ears. “But that really is enough swearing around the baby.”
When he raised his head to give her an apologetic look, Nancy asked him, “So what are you going to do now?”
In the few milliseconds it took for the answer to form in his mind—while his heart kicked at his ribs and blood pumped hot through his veins for the first time in days—the image of his life existing in hers hovered before him. It had been there for a while, exactly what he’d wanted to do and how he’d wanted to do it, only he’d skipped the step of actually telling her about it. But there it was, meaning, purpose, Mira. The whole story, beginning to end, good, bad, and everything in between. And he wanted it all.
Looking at Nancy, then at Becks, then at precious little Ruby, Cole smiled.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE
MIRA
She’d wantedto call Cole, or at least text him, after she’d gotten home from the wedding, but she hadn’t been ready. She’d needed time to get the words right, to make sure that when she was finished spilling her heart, he’d know exactly how she felt, exactly what she wanted. Because, apparently, this was not one of her skills.
But today, sitting in her window, the warm breeze carrying the scent of freshly cut grass, she unfolded a scrap of paper, and wrote slowly, carefully,He will know how much I love him. When she opened the wish jar and held the paper out in front of her, she paused before flicking her lighter. This one, this wish, she wouldn’t burn. Because this wish wasn’t a wish. It was a plan.
Closing the jar, folding the paper in half and tucking it into her bra, she picked up her phone, opened her contacts, then paused. It was faint, just barely audible, but the wind must have been blowing the right way today, because she heard the unmistakable lilt of music floating down the alley from Jimmy’s. Her skin pebbled, the hairs on her arms floating upward as the strings, the guitar, and then the voice sang to her about paradise..
It had to be a sign, a massive cosmic fist bump, that right as she was about to call Cole, someone played “Sailing” on the jukebox. Then, another sign, her phone lit up like a firework in her hand.
As Whitney began to belt, both of their heart songs playing at once, his face bloomed right in front of her eyes, and maybe the scrap of paper nestled over her heart was a wish after all.
“Hello?” she said, her voice raw, throat tight.
