Page 420
I’m standing beneath her apartment in Michigan, and she is four hundred miles away knocking on the door six apartments from mine.
I select her name and call.
She answers before the first ring finishes.
“Ryan?”
Her voice is breathless and strained, carrying hours of worry I understand because I spent the entire drive inside the same feeling.
“You’re fucking nuts.”
“You’re in Michigan,” she fires back. “You’re fucking nuts too.”
I close my eyes and press the phone harder against my ear. “What are you doing in Milwaukee?”
“I came home.”
The words empty the cold from the air around me.
I turn toward the brick wall and brace one hand against it while everything inside my chest gives way at once. “I’m standing outside your loft because I came to tell you I’m done waiting for you to.”
Her breath breaks through the phone.
“You came for me?”
“I came to tell you I want you in Milwaukee. I want your clothes in my closet, your books mixed with mine, and every irritating gold object you can force into my apartment. I want the work we still have to do, but I’m finished pretending I need distance to do it.”
“Ryan.”
“I drove to Michigan to bring you home.”
“I didn’t need you to bring me.”
The answer should cut, but the emotion inside her voice catches it before it can.
“I needed to know I could come without asking you to carry me,” she continues. “I needed to make the decision before hearing your voice made it impossible to know whether it belonged to me. That is why I’m already here.”
“I know, mamacita. I just needed you to know I was coming too.”
The silence between us fills with everything four hundred miles forced us to prove.
“Why didn’t you answer my email?” I ask.
“Because I wasn’t going to ask you to call me after telling you I wanted to come home. I read your response, packed a bag, and decided to show you what I meant.”
“You could’ve told me you were coming.”
“You could’ve told me.”
“I didn’t know I was coming until four this morning.”
“I decided at three thirty.”
“We missed each other by thirty fucking minutes.”
“I know. Briggs explained it several times while laughing at me.”
Despite everything, my mouth pulls into a smile. “Did he let you inside?”
