Bundled Up

Two days later, Lance came in around six, while I was covering for

“Hey, beautiful. What can I get for you?” I readied a cup for his usual.

“Nothing.” He glanced down at the cup in my hands, shrugged. “Uh. Something decaf, I guess.”

“Did you eat?” I asked as I got him a cup of decaf, leaving plenty of room for him to doctor it up.

“No. Not hungry.” He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“You okay?” I reached across the counter to touch his wrist.

“Yeah. I just . . . when does Brady get back?” His gaze flitted from the counter to the customers sitting at the window table to the tin ceiling. As he rubbed at his neck and winced, the pained expression emphasizing tiny, tired wrinkles around his dark eyes, I got the impression that his skin had shrunk in the wash and he was about to claw it off.

“Probably fifteen minutes. Why? You need to talk?”

“Yes. No. Sort of?” He gave me a crooked smile. “Not anything bad. I just . . . need you. But I can wait.”

Ha. He held himself so tight he might shatter if the edge of a table hit him wrong.

“Tell me now,” I said, keeping my voice low. Dread gathered in my stomach. “Not many customers right now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No. Not like this.” He gestured to the counter between us. “I’ll go study.” He grabbed his coffee, and before I could force whatever it was out of him, he went to a table by the window. He took out his psych textbook but didn’t flip the pages. He kept looking down at his battered red backpack, his eyes wide, wary, like the red nylon was holding a bomb or something equally horrible that might explode in his face. My back muscles stiffened.

I straightened the display of tea and made the world’s fastest lattes for a pair of students. The students claimed a couch. A trio of knitters showed up—regulars who always ordered drinks as complicated as the scarves they produced. I messed up the triple shot Muddy Leprechaun twice because I was distracted by Lance. His table shook from the motion of his knees—he kept crossing and uncrossing his legs and jiggling his feet. He was a ball of nervous tics and I wasn’t much better.

Finally, Brady came back, readjusting his ponytail and taking his damn time walking over. At least he wasn’t limping anymore, but I was too impatient to manage even a greeting for him.

“On break,” I barked before he had his apron tied. I kept my own apron on and hurried over to Lance’s table.

“What is it?” I plopped down opposite Lance.

“We should go upstairs.” He shoved his unread psych textbook back into his bag.

“Tell me right now.” I couldn’t manage the walk back to the stairs. The way he was holding himself and the wariness in his eyes terrified me.

“Okay.” He bent back to his bag. “I got mail today. An e-mail actually.”

“Yeah?” I knew the wait for acceptance letters had been driving him nuts. “Bad news?”

“No.” His hand shook as he put a hand out on the table. “I got into USC and University of Miami and San Francisco State.”

“Your top three schools?” I smiled so wide it hurt. Pride, this lovely, lush emotion, anesthetized my nerve endings. “You got into USC? The number-one physical therapy program? You did it!”

“Yeah.”

“What did your folks say?” I grabbed his hand and squeezed.

“I haven’t told them yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

“Really?” It made me ridiculously happy to be the first to hear his good news—but something was off. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t acting like he’d just won the graduate school lottery. Instead, he looked like a condemned prisoner who’d run out his last appeal.

“Why aren’t you happy?” I didn’t look around the shop before I stroked his arm. Only thing on my mind was how to make him feel better. “Isn’t this what you wanted? You’ve talked about USC since we met.”

“That’s just it. I’m going to turn them down. I got into Pacific University here a week ago. Before the USC letter arrived, I’d already decided to accept the offer.”

My brain felt fuzzy, pride and happiness wearing off, leaving cold panic. My center of balance lurched, the same way it did as soon as I stepped onto a boat.

“No,” I said firmly. “You’re not. You wanted a few years of sunshine. You wanted to go to the best graduate program in the country. What’s changed?”

“You know what’s changed. Stop playing dumb.”

“Nothing’s changed. You are not going to turn down USC for me.” I gripped the table edge, trying to stop the seasickness washing over me.

“When the letter hadn’t come yet and I’d decided to be okay with staying here, I was so . . . happy. I realized that maybe I don’t want USC as much as I want to be with you.”

“Lance.” He’d been right—we really did need to be upstairs for this. But I didn’t trust my legs to stand. Wasn’t sure I could even trust my voice. My dearest, most secret desire was a reprieve on the August end date. He was dangling it in front of me with his earnest words and hopeful smile. And it was the one thing I couldn’t let him give.

“This was never supposed to be anything more than a fling,” I said in a desperate whisper, my voice wobbling. “You can’t give up your future for a fling.”

“It’s not a fling.” He shook his head. “We keep pretending, but we both know it’s not.” He paused, looking right at me. I felt like I was a fish, trapped behind glass in a too-small tank, no place to hide from his knowing gaze.

I couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t even nod or shake my head.

“We have something . . . special. And you said you wouldn’t consider doing the distance thing. I’m not giving up my dream. I’m just . . . adjusting it.”

My stomach heaved, the coffee I’d been sipping all afternoon rising in my throat. In his words, I heard an echo of my younger self when I’d “adjusted” my vision of the future to meet Randy’s. I saw myself at twenty-four, in love with living on the coast, in love with my handsome older chef, and questioning what I wanted to do with my life. Time sped up, ten years passing in the blink of an eye. I saw myself struggling to manage the constant stream of customers, up late testing recipes, trying to teach myself enough to stay afloat. Saw Randy morphing and changing. Saw Randy’s approval becoming a stingy, rationed thing. Saw us fighting about stupid stuff, saw me getting more bitter and withdrawn with each year.

I couldn’t let that happen to Lance. Lance was sunshine and dancing to Katy Perry and sips of cherry soda. I couldn’t be the reason he woke up ten years from now and didn’t recognize himself or his life. My legs tensed, the muscles finally remembering what they were for. I could not fucking stay sitting a second longer.

“I can’t do this here.” I stood, making my chair drag along the tile floor.

The knitters all turned their heads. I felt the weight of their gaze like a slap. Like they knew how tempted I was to let this beautiful boy hijack his future. I was vaguely aware of Lance saying my name, but I couldn’t stop my feet. I headed through the kitchen door. I stumbled around the prep table and slumped against the sink, letting the coolness of the metal leech into my bones. My stomach heaved again, and for a horrible second I thought I might retch for real.

The kitchen door swung open and I knew it was Lance, but I couldn’t look up at him. I focused instead on his footsteps against the linoleum, counting the steps until he was next to me.

“Is here better?” His hand hovered above my back, barely skimming along my flannel shirt. Didn’t matter—I still felt his touch like a steel blade.

“No.” Actually, it was worse. The spectacle and audience of the front room was gone, but back here there was no escaping my churning emotions. And every corner of the room held memories—his first delivery, helping out with the sink disaster, all the times he’d hung out and talked to me while I worked. So much evidence of us being real and good and everything Lance wanted to believe in.

But I couldn’t let him continue to believe—couldn’t let him deceive himself into thinking that this was worth giving up his dream.

“There’s no point in your staying.” I didn’t have to try to make my voice harsh; each word felt like gravel.

“No point? I love you.”

The fish tank I’d felt trapped in exploded, glass nicking every nerve ending I had, icy water gushing over my heart. All the emotions I’d been trying to keep at bay came rushing in. He’d been dancing toward this the other night, but I had hoped, lamely, that he wouldn’t be able to find the words.

“You don’t. You’re young. This is all hormones and good sex.”

“You love me, too.” He said it like an accusation. “You can play the young card all you want, but I know love. I’m surrounded by love—my folks, my bosses at the bakery, my grandparents, my cousin Vic. I know what love looks like. And when you look at me—I see it. And I know that me leaving has been holding you back—”

Oh, hell. Had he really been spinning it that way in his head? “You leaving has been the only reason I’ve let myself indulge in this . . . fantasy.”

“Oh.” His face crumpled, like I’d socked him in the stomach.

“Look.” I rubbed his arm. “You might think you love me, but you love my ink and you think I’m hung. Attraction isn’t love. But someday, you’ll—”

“If you tell me one more time about the forever guy I’m supposedly going to meet at school, I swear I’ll deck you. I don’t love you because you’re hot. I love you because . . .” His face screwed up, and I couldn’t tell if he was thinking or trying not to cry. “Because you’re a fish who turned into a rock—”

I let out a shaky laugh.

“It’s like this—you’d like to be out swimming in the ocean, and you’re still not exactly sure how you ended up here. But you’re not pining for your ocean—you’ve forged a whole life for yourself. You’re the rock for everyone around you—your employees, the customers, the suppliers, even me. You’re the guy they can all count on—even if maybe you’d rather not be. But inside? You’re still the fish. And you prop me up with sandwiches and places to study and reminders to sleep, but you never judge me or try to change me. You give me this quiet, safe spot to recharge. And sometimes I get lucky, and in that quiet place we make together, I get a glimpse of your fish. That’s what I love about you—when you let your guard down and I see the fish behind the rock.”

I took long shuddery inhalations through my nose. Fish, no matter how mysterious or exciting, were a hell of a lot of work, and I refused to saddle him with all that responsibility right as he was ready to take flight. He was starlight, and I wasn’t going to be the heavy rock tethering him to the earth.

“I care about you, too. And that’s why I can’t let you do this. I care about you too much to let you fuck up your future.”

“Well, luckily for both of us, you don’t get control over my signature. I’m going to choose us—”

“No.” I dug my nails into my palm, hard. “Whether you choose USC or Miami or Oregon, we’re done in August. So you might as well go with your top pick.”

“Then we’re done now. No waiting for August. No ‘savoring the moment.’ Fuck memories, Chris. I want you. I’m not going to spend the next four or five months watching you play martyr to my future. Not when we could have one together.”

“Okay.” I had to force the word out around all the other words in my throat. The promises I wouldn’t let myself make. The begging for a little more time. The pleading for him to see how this was right. The declarations of love that wouldn’t change a damn thing.

We stood there staring at each other, each second dragging out like a decade that wouldn’t ever be.

“I’ve got books and crap upstairs. I’m going to get them,” he said.

Please stop me, his eyes said. Please say something.

“Did you drive or bus today?” I asked.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I tried to say with my eyes, knowing it was probably my last chance to do it.

“What the fuck? Why do you care whether I have to haul my shit by bus or not?”

“I care about you. That’s not going to stop. I . . . I’m going to miss you. Like crazy.”

“You have no idea how much it hurts me to hear that. You’re going to miss me? Then why the hell won’t you fight for me? Fight for us?”

“Because I love you.” My voice broke. “And I know what it means to sacrifice something for a relationship. And I’m not going to let you compromise on your future.”

“You don’t love me. If you loved me, you would want to be with me. Stubborn bastard.” With that, he fled up the stairs.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, white-knuckling the sink to keep from chasing after him. The worst was knowing he wanted me to. Hell, he was probably up there grabbing his stuff in super-slow motion, hoping I’d come up. That was what I loved about him—he was such an optimist and he wanted to believe in people. I knew he believed in me—believed in us. And that was why I had to do the right thing by him and let him go.

“You okay?” Brady poked his head in the kitchen door.

“No. Go away.” My words were way too curt, but it was that or unload on the poor kid.

I was never going to be okay again. My insides felt scoured out. Nothing anyone said or did could change the fact that I was going to spend the rest of my damn life missing Lance.