When she opened the door, her giant hug tripped me backward, and I almost lost my grip on the vase. She showered me with kisses that had me blushing to the maximum degree by the time I stepped inside, breathing in the wonderful scent of balsam fir and cinnamon, just like I remembered. I said hello to her parents, and I’m sure they spotted the evidence of the blush.
“These are for you,” I said and presented her with the flowers and Swensons bag. “Ms. Master’s Degree.”
She smelled the flowers and then the Swensons bag before kissing my cheek, adding to the warmth on my face for her parents to see. “Oh my God. I’m not sure which smells better.”
“It’s probably the food.” I raised the bag. “We can eat these together. Binge on Home Kitchen Masters?”
“Finally!”
She grabbed my hand, and we scampered off to her bedroom where her suitcase sat next to her bed. She put the flowers on her white desk next to another vase of roses that I assumed were from her parents. She plopped on the foot of her bed, wasting no time shoving the warm, salty fries into her mouth. I joined her, ripped back the foil, and bit into the fried chicken sandwich with its perfectly warm, crisped breading with the right amount of seasoning in each bite, the pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and their secret sauce drizzled on top. God, it was like sex.
“Thank you so much for the flowers,” she said and rested her hand on my thigh. “They’re beautiful. You make me feel spoiled.”
“With flowers?”
“I never got flowers from other people I dated. Well, except now, Brielle thought it would be a good time to send me flowers,” she said, gesturing to the bouquet of rainbow roses next to mine. “She never did it before. They came before I even got here. My mom put them on my desk. I told her to toss them, but she said she wouldn’t throw out a nice gesture. I’m gonna toss them anyway.”
“You do whatever you need to do.”
“I need to make room for flowers from someone I actually care about.” She hooked her arm around mine and kissed my shoulder.
“I’m really proud of you, Ken.” She made a goofy face as she shoved a handful of fries in her mouth. “What? I’m serious. You got your master’s degree. That’s amazing.”
“It was just a year and a half program—”
“Stop selling yourself short. Let me be proud of you.”
“All right, you can be proud of me. But after I tell you more news.”
“Good news?”
She nodded, swallowed another bite of fries, and washed it down with a large sip of chocolate malt. “It’s amazing news.”
“What is it?”
“I got a paid internship working on this documentary. Guess what city?”
My heart raced at the anticipation. “San Francisco?”
“Ding ding ding! Can you believe that? In San Francisco. With you.” She poked my side. My mouth dropped.
“Seriously?” My voice cracked, but I swallowed the tears. I refused to cry in front of her, especially when this was amazing news for her, for us, some kind of clearing in my hazy future. I’d felt so down, and then Kennedy was in front of me, telling me this amazing news, and so much happiness filled me up all at once it was almost jarring.
“Seriously. I’m not unpacking that suitcase,” she said with a point. I was speechless. All I could do was stare as she waited for a response. She bumped me with her shoulder. “This is when you celebrate.”
“Kennedy, that’s…that’s amazing. I’m even more proud of you.”
“You just bought a condo. I just got a paid internship in the very city in which you bought said condo. I think we’re about to make big steps after Christmas.”
She intertwined her fingers with mine. Tackling adulthood was a little less scary with the promise of Kennedy being near me.
“So are you going to live with Jacob, or were you going to—um—live with me?” I asked.
She bumped my side again, a grin pulling on her lips. “I was hoping with you. You have a better face than Jacob. Plus, I really don’t want to hear about what weird technology he’s making at work. When you get him going, he doesn’t stop, and none of it makes sense. He also lives an hour away, and my internship will be in the city. But if that’s too much of a leap—for us to live together—then I don’t have to. I completely understand if you don’t want to.”
“No, I want you to,” I said almost too quickly, but I didn’t care. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be happy. I wanted something to look forward to, and being with Kennedy was a fast track to feeling normal. “There’s definitely enough space. Loft bedroom. Huge windows. Hardwood floors. Do I need to show pictures to convince you?”
She scratched her chin and looked up. “Yeah, I’m really going to need pictures. It’s the only way that it will officially sell me.”
We crawled back to her pillows, and when we lay down, she rested her head on my shoulder as I pulled up all the pictures I’d taken when I bought the condo. Handing her the phone, I pressed my forehead against her cheek, inhaling the smell of shampoo and her wonderful natural scent. I couldn’t imagine falling asleep and waking up to her every single day. It felt too good to be true.
“Quinn, this place is beautiful. Look at these windows.”
The windows crawled up the vaulted ceiling. Two rows of normal-sized ones on the left and on the right, two giant ones stacked on top of each other. Light hardwood floors spread throughout the open kitchen and living room. Stainless steel appliances. Granite kitchen countertops. A balcony, and from the seventh floor, I caught a glimpse of the Bay Bridge in the distance.
“Does this mean I sold you on being my roommate?”
She kissed my cheek. “I want to be your roommate.” With a moment to think, she pulled away and shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Quinn. Think about everything we’ve been through. You were my best friend when we were kids, we were each other’s first kiss, then the pact we made in high school…everything is coming full circle now. I can’t believe we’re going to be living together.”
“We’re going from playing house to actually living it.”
“We spent so many hours playing house,” she said with a laugh.
Way back when, we would play in each other’s basements. I was always the husband, and that was because we auctioned that role off with three rounds of rock, paper, scissors. Obviously, I lost. I had to make my role official by proposing to Kennedy with a watermelon Ring Pop, her favorite flavor, and, in return, she placed a blue raspberry ring, my favorite, on my left hand. Anytime we got our hands on the candies, we’d put them on our fingers and get into character. She was an English teacher. I was a professional swimmer. We had a golden retriever named Buddy. For being a stuffed animal, Buddy had quite the life. He had a whole backstory, courtesy of Kennedy’s wild imagination. It had to have been the writer living inside her.
Buddy was the runt of the litter and ran away from his siblings and mom because they were mean to him. An older couple who couldn’t care for a little pup like Buddy rescued him from the side of the road took him to the shelter, aka Kennedy’s room. More specifically, her bed, where she lined up a handful of stuffed animals to represent different crates. She’d always wanted a dog, and even though I really wanted the pet dolphin right next to Buddy, she’d told me I had to give the wife what she wanted.