“Mine too. The babies are going crazy in there.” She brings up the keypad on her phone. She takes a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” She keys in Noah’s number.
He answers on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Noah? Hi, it’s Josie Farrell calling. We met one night in Key West around six month ago.”
Silence. “Oh. Yeah. Hi.” He doesn’t sound mad or spooked or caught off guard. He sounds sort of … neutral. Sort of nice.
“I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this,” Josie says, “but I wanted to get in touch. I searched for you, I hope you don’t mind. Because, well, there’s no easy way to say this but I wanted to let you know—and I’ll start by telling you that I’m not asking for anything, not at all. I don’t need anything. But after we spent that night together, which was really a beautiful night, by the way, just saying … ” Josie falters a little so I squeeze her hand and she keeps going. “I found out a few weeks later that … well, I’m pregnant. With twins.”
A shocked silence. “What?”
“Yeah. And … I mean, I haven’t been with anyone else in around a year so … I’m sorry, I know this is very unexpected. It was for me too. And as I said, I’m not asking for anything. I just wanted to let you know because it felt like the right thing to do. And … well, you have my number in your phone now so if you ever want to call me or find out about anything or—”
“When are you due?”
Josie seems a little shocked, that he would ask this, or that he hasn’t hung up yet. “Oh. In February. They’re boys. Twin boys.”
Another long silence. “Wow,” he says.
“Yeah,” Josie agrees.
“Are you okay?” Noah asks and—holy hell, here I go again. Tears are streaming down my face. He cares. He absolutely cares.
Josie doesn’t answer right away. She’s not crying. She seems suddenly … stronger. “I’m okay. Once I got over the shock, it’s been easier. The doctor says I’m healthy and the babies are growing well. I’m leaving for Iowa tomorrow. It’s where my family is.”
“Iowa, huh. My uncle lives in Iowa City.”
“Oh. We’ll that’s not too far from where I’ll be.”
There’s another long silence before he says, “Josie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you called me.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I’ve thought about you a lot.”
“You have?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve thought about you a lot too.” She laughs a little. I pick up the phone and take it off speaker. I hold it to her ear and she holds it. I squeeze her hand and leave them to it. As I’m closing the door of my bedroom I hear Josie laugh, sort of carefully. She’s not getting too hopeful, which is good, but there is hope there. A lot of hope. And it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, I realize: hope.
I think about my own hopes.
I can’t seem to summon many, at all.
The hope section of my brain feels clouded and dark, overshadowed by something else.
Regret.
Not even about what happened so much anymore, but about being so messed up by it. So unable to just let it go. And most of all, right now, I regret crying—and coming—and confessing all that to a perfect stranger who no doubt sent me flowers out of sheer pity, for making a long-ago mistake and for not being strong enough to let it go.
It’s weird what happens at that exact moment, though: I do let it go.
Suddenly, it happens, just like that.
I forgive myself.
Maybe I did need to get it out of my system, as he said.
Once it’s loose you can begin to heal.
Maybe Gage was right.
I pick up my phone and search for the Greyhound bus schedule to New Orleans on Monday morning.
It’s not really that I don’t want to face him.
It’s more that I don’t want to see him again at all.
Because once I got a glimpse under his cocky arrogance, to the part of him that cared enough to break me wide open, while at the same time smoothing my hair, wiping my tears, putting his warm jacket around me, carrying me and feeding me … not to mention giving me the most outrageously stellar orgasm, my first, which was not just beautiful but life-changing … this is dangerous territory.
I could fall in love with Gage McCabe.
Maybe I already have.
You have. You totally have.
Damn it.
I can forgive myself once, but not twice.
What if I promised you I’d never hurt you?
You’d end up breaking your promise.
The 7 a.m. bus to New Orleans on Monday is fully booked. There’s another one departing at 9:30. I pay for the ticket and book myself a cheap hotel. I’ll find a job and a room somewhere. I’ll lay low for a month and see how I feel at the end of it. Maybe he’ll want to buy me out too, for whatever I own in equity.
I’ll leave him a note. I’ll give him full reign, which he already has anyway, he made sure of that. So, let him deal with it. The staff rosters are already in place, the place runs like clockwork most days. No doubt he’s got his own grand plans for the renovations. He can obviously handle it.
I sleep for a while. Deeply. With no dreams.
Josie and Noah talk for hours. After, she sits on my bed and tells me everything. He wants to see her again. He’ll come to Iowa and they’ll take it from there. He talked about maybe bringing her and the babies out to Big Sur, where he owns a house he designed, with a view of the ocean. She’s not going to get her hopes up, but a weight has been lifted. She doesn’t feel quite so alone anymore.
“Luna,” she says. “Please tell Gage thank you. So much. I’m so grateful he searched for Noah.”
“Of course I will.” I don’t tell her that I’m leaving for New Orleans before I see him, but I’ll make sure to include it in the note.
The next day the limo picks us up, right on time, and I go with Josie to the airport. We hug a lot and promise to Facetime non-stop and she boards her flight and that’s it.
A new chapter.
Me, against the world.
The limo drops me at the bar and I get into my yoga outfit but I never quite make it to my class.
I pack my bag. I’ll get an early Uber, I decide. I book one. It’s unlikely he’ll show up before nine, if at all. Maybe he’ll just send a contractor or a project manager at some point during the week. We didn’t really talk about that. Whatever. If he’s owned forty businesses, he can figure it out.
God, I’m so tired.
I crawl into bed. From here, I can see the water.
I’ll miss it here.
But it’s best this way.
I stare out at the view, where the moon reflects its light into a shimmery line that stretches all the way to the horizon.
I notice then two stars, close together. Maybe those same ones. And I remember something Gage said, about the way his father described his mother.