I’m in love with you, Nathan Van Huysen.
It’s been true for longer than I’ve wanted to recognize. Weeks, maybe. Maybe more, subconsciously. In the space of writing Only Once, something has shifted. I’d hidden it even from myself, especially from Nathan, until this one wild moment, when I could hide it no longer.
Now, Nathan resolving things at home still gives me no pleasure, but I know it’s what’s fair for everyone. Not that he’s ever told me out loud his feelings have changed. If they have, though, we can’t continue this way. Can’t continue pretending we have two lives—with different homes, different relationships, different futures—when really, we’ve begun living one.
Nathan stands. This time, I let him. My skin still feels hot from where my hand rested on his thigh.
I don’t know when it will stop.
47
Katrina
• PRESENT DAY •
Nathan didn’t go for his run. It’s past midnight, and we’re still writing. My vision stings from the searing white of my computer screen and the halogen glow of the overhead lights. Pink has started to spread on the skin of my pained knuckles.
Nathan, sitting on the couch, has made no move to head for bed. I have the sense he would stay here writing with me through the night if I wanted, which part of me does. I’m dreading returning to the bed I woke up with Chris in just this morning, slipping under sheets with his scent still on them. I know I’ll have to, of course. I just don’t want to. Here with Nathan, words spilling out from my fingers and into the story we’re building together, is the only place I feel like I belong.
I’m writing scenes from Evelyn and Michael’s divorce. I do so with the joyful recklessness I’ve felt coursing through me since I called off my engagement. For years, I was trying so hard to want only the things I thought were safe enough to have. But it wasn’t wanting, I’ve realized. It was hiding. Hiding from myself, from what my heart craved so desperately it terrified me.
I’m not terrified now.
Seeing my computer’s battery is displaying four percent, the flat metal underside hot on the skin of my knees, I close the screen instead of getting my charger. Straightening up in my armchair, I say, “Nathan.”
He looks up. For someone who’s obviously exhausted, he really is unfairly good-looking. I let myself enjoy the sight for a moment—why shouldn’t I? Nighttime stubble shades the hard line of his jaw. His blue eyes gleam with lingering inspiration.
He notices my closed computer. “Done for the night?” he asks.
“You haven’t said anything about what I admitted in the interview. I apologize if it was . . . a shock. I kind of figured you knew,” I say. “Nevertheless, it wasn’t the right way to tell you.”
He slides his computer onto the cushion next to him and focuses on me. “I haven’t said anything not because I didn’t want to. But . . .” His eyes dart from mine for a second and return. “Shit, Kat, you’ve had a huge day. I didn’t want to make it about me.”
“I wouldn’t mind if it were about you,” I reply.
In the silence while Nathan studies me, I’m left with the whisper of the ocean. “Okay,” he says.
He takes a breath. I know he’s composing his thoughts, writing them out in his head, imagining them solid on crisp white pages.
“I’m not very good at speaking my feelings,” he finally says. “I’ve known since I was young how much better I am on the page. In life I’m . . . less. I’m not the man I want to be.”
“You’re wrong,” I say.
It cuts him off, halting the pages flipping in his mind.
“You’re everything in person you are on the page,” I continue, gathering conviction. Memories charge my words. Cafés and late nights and laughter. Sand and storms. “I’ve seen you. You’re charming and graceful and . . . incredible.” He flushes, pleased, color rising up his neck. “I just wish we spoke to each other somewhere other than . . . here.” I pick up my computer, placing it on the coffee table.
He rubs the stubble I was just noticing. “It’s just easy to say things you don’t mean, and it’s impossible to write anything but the truth.”
“We write fiction, Nathan,” I say gently. “It’s not real.”
“It is. How can you say what we write isn’t real?” The intensity in his voice feels like an answer for the years of resentment he harbored for me. I can see now how we were standing on opposite sides of the truth, each of us alone. “Kat, really.” He sighs, softening. “Is now the best time for this?”
“I’m done living my life waiting for the best time.” It’s a new decision, one I’m proud of.
Nathan doesn’t flinch from what I’m saying. He looks me right in the eye. “Fine,” he says. “Here’s the whole truth. I thought I was over you. When you tossed me out of your life, I told myself you destroyed us. I believed it every day until I came back here. Writing about how pieces of love survive even the cleanest break, how you can never escape someone you gave your whole self to . . . Katrina, I don’t know. I don’t know if I wrote myself into this book or if the book uncovered something within me.”
He drops his head into his hands.
Sliding out of the armchair, I don’t fight the pull I feel toward him. My legs don’t shake as I approach him. He doesn’t look at me. Or maybe he won’t. I need him to see me, though. I need us both to face this.
I sink to my knees in front of him.
I tentatively touch his arm. Finding me close, he startles. He doesn’t pull away from me, doesn’t move, doesn’t dare breathe. “Maybe it’s time we find out what exactly is real here,” I say, my voice hushed.
His eyes dip to my lips, betraying him before he speaks. “Katrina. Kat . . .”
From sitting back on my heels, I rise onto my knees, my face close to his, my hands resting on the cool fabric of his pants. He spreads his thighs just wide enough for me to press myself between his legs. “I need to know,” I murmur. Remembering our night in Miami, I don’t close the distance.
I don’t have to. I feel his resolve snap. His hands cupping my face, he crushes his lips to mine, every single word we’ve ever written prologue to this touch.
I wind a hand into his hair, knowing it’s a favorite detail of his, one he’s sent me in scenes like this one. I feel him exhale into me in pleasure, his lips sliding over mine. In return, he settles into long, deep kisses, his tongue brushing mine in only the suggestion of more. I smile, recognizing my own descriptions plagiarized on my mouth. We know exactly how the other likes to be touched. We’ve read each kiss, studied every caress. The result is the feeling of a first kiss with someone you’ve kissed a hundred times.