Page 99 of Any Port in a Storm

“Ladies, be nice to your brother,” Mrs. O’Connor says with a small smile. “We want Laurel to come back next time we have family night.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” I promise. The glow in my heart nearly bursts, supernova-style, when I notice the way Nick’s eyes are overflowing with warmth at my words.

After we sign off, Nick brushes the hair off my neck, then lowers his mouth to my collarbone; draws me against him in the darkness. I melt into him as his hands skim under my shirt, paying homage to my skin.

It’s languid and soft and tender, the way he’s touching me. Like I’m the most precious thing in his orbit; like he’ll never get enough. He undresses me slowly, walks me to the couch.

Nick runs his lips over every inch of my body. “You’re perfect,” he breathes, kissing my breasts, my thighs, the curve of my hip.

“I don’t know about that,” I say, inhaling sharply as he sinks his fingers into the moisture pooling at my core.

“Ah,” he says, stopping to kiss my forehead. “But I do.”

Then he’s moving over me, everything hot and slow and wet. Where the other night had been frenzied and passionate, this is deeper, somehow—the natural culmination of years of want and longing and subtext. Even without words, we’re saying so much: apologies and explanations and promises. It feels like we’re laying our souls completely bare to each other, and I think that’s the most vulnerable part of all.

When we’re finished, we stay tangled together, a mess of limbs and hearts set free.

“For what it’s worth,” Nick whispers in the dark, “I think Aisling was right.”

“Yeah,” I say, burrowing closer. “I think so, too.”

After my lecture the next day, I decide to get back to my job search. Nick went out for a run, and I need to divert my thoughts from the shower he’ll probably take when he gets back.

A shower I’m very much hoping to share with him.

Popping open Indeed, I scroll down the page, skimming past a number of writing gigs, a paralegal position, and a teaching role at a private school in Springfield. At least I could be near Grace, I’m thinking, when something catches my eye. Literary Museum Educational Director. That’s not a job title I’ve ever seen before.

I read on.

The Massachusetts Literary Museum seeks an educational director to manage interpretation and instruction for its holdings of over 100,000 artifacts. Ideal candidates will have a background in English education and a reverence for both books and sharing them with the public.

My heart flutters. This job sounds…well, perfect. More than perfect. The idea of handling artifacts—books, no less—and helping interpret them for visitors is like combining my favorite things: books and museums and getting other people excited about them. It’s like teaching, but it removes the parts I hate most—the grading. The students who don’t care to be there. The institutional drama.

Especially the institutional drama.

I’m about to click “Apply” when it hits me. The Massachusetts Literary Museum hosts the symposium I’d gone to with Dr. Spillinger. I peer closer at the listing. “All inquiries, contact Margo Rodecker.”

And just like that, my hope sinks. Because I met Margo. Twice, in fact. She’s a close personal friend of Spillinger’s, and she and I spent much of the most recent symposium I attended chatting at the hors d’oeuvres table.

I can’t pursue an opportunity so closely linked to the past I’m trying to escape.

Shaking my head, I shut my laptop. The urge to cry is overpowering, and I don’t want to be upset when Nick comes home.

Home. A rush of warmth floods my body at the idea of my apartment being Nick’s home. I know it isn’t, and someday, whenever this lockdown ends, we’ll be forced to reckon with reality. To make choices about our future together.

But for today, it’s just him and me alone here, in this little corner of the world that’s feeling more and more right with every passing day. And the glow of that feeling takes my mind off the museum job completely.

TWENTY-EIGHT

last february

“Do you think I’ll ever find someone?” Grace slams her shot glass against the bar.

“Aw, honey. Of course you will.” I reach for her hand and squeeze. “Leo was just a jerk.”

“I wasted two years of my life with him,” she moans. “And I told him about my autoimmune stuff on the first date. He knew what he was getting into.”

I want to drive straight to Leo’s apartment and punch him directly in his eerily perfect smile. I’d love to see how his orthodontist father fixes that.