“Then you’ve underestimated my feelings for you.”
“I just never thought you’d even consider that.”
Despite all of my grandmother’s advice, I needed to know. “Would you say yes if I asked you to take the risk and be with me?”
She blinked, looking tormented. “I honestly don’t know.”
Her hesitation spoke volumes. If there was apprehension now, once she got to England, the stress that greeted us would only solidify that she’d made the wrong decision. She’d have to be a hundred-percent sure going into it, and she was far from that.
“I spoke to my grandmother this morning about it. I trust her more than anyone and wanted her honest opinion. She helped me see that even though asking you to come home with me might be what I want, it wouldn’t be fair to you. To ask you to drop everything and become accustomed to a life so different from what you’re used to wouldn’t be in your best interest. Not to mention, the vultures would come out and try to make your life miserable—maybe not forever, but definitely at first. I don’t know that I could ever forgive myself if I disrupted you in the prime of your life in such a way.”
But fuck, if you told me yes, I’d risk it all.
Felicity nodded. “If you did ask me…just know that I would want to say yes. But I don’t think your grandmother is incorrect. I don’t have any clue what I’d be getting into. I wouldn’t want to put that kind of stress on you, either—to have to worry about how people treated me. And there’s this little thing called law school I’m supposed to be doing. Moving to England would derail that for a while. I just don’t know how we could make it work, even if we wanted to.”
I pulled her to me again and spoke into her ear. “So how do we handle the weeks we have left? Tell me what you want.”
Speaking against my shoulder, she said, “I still want to see you every day. We’ll just take it moment by moment…until there are no moments left.”
I sighed. There was no other way to handle this. “It’s getting hot out, eh?” I reached for her hand. “Let’s go inside.”
Felicity followed me into the house and stopped short when she saw my easel in the kitchen. “Oh my God. You did that?”
“Yeah. It’s what I do when I’m most stressed, apparently.” I reached over to a bowl sitting on the counter. “Taffy?”
She shook her head. “No.” She walked over to the easel to take a closer look. “The way you described your painting skills made it sound like you were horrible. This is really good, Leo.”
“Well, you get the hang of it after a while. I’m getting better at copying his exact movements. But it’s not true talent if you have to follow someone else’s lead the entire time.”
“I beg to differ. I could never do this.”
Her feedback actually made me feel quite good. I’d always suspected I wasn’t as bad an artist as Sigmund would have me believe. But it’s hard to judge your own work.
“This is probably my best one yet. So thank you for the compliment.”
“Can I have it when you’re done?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
“I’ll hang it in my room.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay with the reminder?”
Felicity placed her hand on my cheek. “There’s no way I’ll ever be able to erase you, Leo. I’ll always want to remember this time. I just don’t want to have to see you with anyone else.”
Feeling a pain in my chest, I took her hand and kissed it. “Will you spend the rest of the afternoon here?”
“I have to work tonight, but I have a couple of hours before I have to get ready. Can I watch you paint? You obviously have a ways to go.”
“If you’d like. Sure.”
Over the next hour, my redheaded beauty sat on the floor with her legs crossed, watching me paint as Bob Ross instructed me from the laptop.
It was peaceful. And for now, she was here with me. What more could I want? If I could’ve frozen time, this might have been the moment I chose to pause.
Later that night, after Felicity had gone and taken the painting with her, my cousin found me sitting in the living room with my head in my hands.
“You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?” he said.
“Done what?” I asked, feeling like my spirit had been plucked from my body.
“You’ve fallen in love with her.”
I turned to look at him. “What do you want me to say?”
He took a deep breath. “I actually feel sorry for you, cousin. It makes me wish we’d never stopped in this damn place.”
I knew I would never trade this time I’d had with her, would never trade getting to experience having authentic feelings for someone. Sigmund had never been in love, so I couldn’t expect him to understand. You simply don’t until it happens to you.
“Did you tell her?” he asked.
“Tell her what?”
“That you love her?”
“No. There’s no point. Telling her would only complicate things more. We’ve agreed to ride out the rest of my time here.”
“By ride, I assume you mean fucking each other’s brains out.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
Sigmund’s tone turned serious. “Okay, so what’s the plan after you leave?”
“That’s it. She doesn’t think we should keep in contact if we’re not together.”
“Really? Not at all?”
“That’s correct. She thinks it’ll be too painful.”
He scratched his chin. “That’s wise, actually. At least one of you understands that nothing good can come of it.” He sighed. “For the record, I get no joy from seeing you this down.”
“That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me all summer.”
“Yeah, well, I think I’ve been poisoned by the residual love vapors in the air.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”
* * *
Felicity
Track 16: “Never Forget You” by Zara Larsson
Late August
Leo had dropped me off at my house after a morning of putting the final touches on Mrs. Barbosa’s garage renovation. As I got out of the shower, I thought about how fast time was flying by. I had to leave for Pennsylvania in a week, and Leo had decided to book his flight for around the same time. One week left.
Over the past six weeks, we’d done an excellent job of taking things day by day, throwing ourselves mostly into finishing up the work at Mrs. Barbosa’s. The space was now fully functional, and it was so satisfying to watch Theo enjoying his new indoor swing and having his therapy sessions in a corner of the room. Leo and I had done some good this summer while taking our minds off the inevitable.
We’d spent as much of the rest of our time together as possible, enjoying the simple things like clamming, and relaxing afternoons with Ludicrous when I didn’t have to work at Jane’s by the Water.
A few weeks ago, though, I’d told Leo I thought we should stop being intimate. As much as it had pained him, he agreed that continuing our sexual relationship would only make things harder in the end. So we’d stopped cold turkey, made easier by the fact that I didn’t spend the night at his place anymore.