“Sebastian is about to collapse, I think,” Laila said as she entered the room after taking out her contacts, washing her face, brushing her teeth, and doing all the other bare-minimum nighttime requirements. “He just gave up and carried Brynn to bed . . .” The last four words dissipated into the air as realization dawned. “Ah. He’s not wanting to sleep.”
Cole chuckled as he searched through his suitcase for his toothbrush and toothpaste. “No. I don’t believe he is.”
Laila picked up her backpack and sat down with it beside her on the bed at the opening of the tent. “Well, I feel dumb.”
“Don’t. You were passed out and gloriously unaware of them being unable to keep their hands to themselves on Air Newlywed today. Speaking of . . .” He reached his hand out, palm up.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, good grief, Cole. I’m a grown woman who is perfectly capable of—”
“Do you remember when you got your wisdom teeth out and called the Sarah McLachlan number on TV and paid for the immunizations of about three hundred cats?”
She scoffed. “It wasn’t three hundred . . .”
“And do you remember going on Ticketmaster after your tonsillectomy and hatching your mercifully short-lived plan for us to spend our summer following Edwin McCain on tour?”
“I really liked that ‘I’ll Be’ song back in the day,” she muttered and then dug into her backpack, grabbed the bottle of pills, and handed it over.
“Don’t take it personally. It’s not your fault that so much as three ibuprofen instead of two turns you into Courtney Love at Chateau Marmont.” Cole bit his lip to avoid laughing at her. “How is your back now? Do you need one before bed?”
“I’m starting to feel pretty sore, I guess.”
He pressed down on the lid and tipped one out into his hand before setting the bottle on the Art-Deco-meets-Ikea desk where Blake Lively’s kids probably used to do their homework. He handed the pill to her. “What do you think we’re supposed to do about water? Do you think they keep the Perrier on tap, or is that just for the domestic and local craft brews?”
She snorted and pulled her nearly empty CamelBak bottle out of the side pocket of her backpack. She managed to swig out enough water to swallow the pill. “Isn’t it crazy? I mean, I’m so happy for them, but I just can’t get over it. They’re not pretentious is the thing.”
“Eh . . . Brynn’s a little pretentious. But in a lovable way.”
“Yes. That’s very true.” She twirled the bottle around and watched the few drops of water at the bottom swirl around. “I’m just really happy they have each other. And I think the part that’s craziest to me is that they make as much sense together here as they do back home. Even though their lives are so different here.”
When her eyes stayed focused on the bottle and didn’t rise to meet his, and didn’t move on to other things, he took a deep breath. Then he picked up her backpack and set it on the floor before squeezing in next to her in the opening of the tent.
“Hey, Lai?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you agree to come? I mean, really.”
She shrugged but still didn’t look at him. “It’s okay that I did, right? I mean, you wanted me to?”
“Of course I did.” That was true. Now he couldn’t even remember why he’d ever been thinking of coming without her. “But I want you to do lots of things that you don’t do.”
She finally raised her eyes to look at him. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cole looked behind him to make sure the space was clear and then pushed himself back with his hands until his feet dangled off the side of the bed. He kicked his shoes off onto the floor and scooted himself the rest of the way in and rested his back against the wall. “Learn how to cook, for one.”
The right corner of her lips rose, and her eyes began to twinkle. “That’s different.”
“How?”
She leaned over and untied her pink Converse high-tops and slipped them off and then scooted back to join him in the tent. “If I thought it really mattered to you, I would.” She tilted her chin to look him straight in the eyes as she said it, brimming with sincerity.
But Cole wasn’t buying it.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
The left corner of her lips matched the right. “Okay, probably not. Though maybe I’d subscribe to one of those food-delivery things where they give you all the ingredients and you just have to throw them together. That I could handle, I think.”
“Lai, that’s still cooking. They just do the shopping for you.”
“Yeah, but don’t they give you the step-by-step instructions? I think that would help.”
“You mean a recipe? Again . . . that’s cooking.”
Her eyebrows fell. “Oh. Then, no . . . probably not that either.” She leaned her head over and rested her temple against his shoulder as it bounced up a little from his chuckle. “But I can’t think of much else I wouldn’t do for you, Cole Kimball.”
Her hair, up in her signature strategically messy bun, which had become increasingly flighty after a long day of travel and the addition of humidity to the mix, tickled his jawline. He laid his head down on hers, and they rested there in a posture so practiced and familiar. “Same, Laila Olivet. Same.”
They sat there another minute, maybe two, listening to the sounds of the city outside. Those certainly weren’t the ambient night sounds they were used to. Aspen leaves quaking and coyotes howling had been replaced by car horns honking and occasional sirens in the distance. Even in the middle of the night in Tribeca. Not that he knew where Tribeca was, really. Close to One World Trade but a lot farther from the Empire State Building, it seemed. Home of the Ghostbusters. Beyond that, he looked forward to exploring and learning more. He really couldn’t remember the last time he’d been somewhere completely new. Vegas was a lot, but Vegas still offered him touchpoints of southwestern cognizance. New York already felt so unfamiliar and daunting.
He couldn’t remember the last time life had felt uncertain. But for the moment, he wasn’t worried about it. He knew he’d have to worry soon enough, but for the moment he was with his favorite person in a tent where Deadpool had probably told his kids bedtime stories. That was enough for now.
“I have to be honest with you about something.” His voice was soft and scratchy, but he didn’t bother trying to do better. “I’m still hoping to convince you to move with me. Here or wherever I end up going. I think, in a way, I’m sort of hoping you realize it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as we’re together. Even though I know your reasons for not coming with me do actually matter.” He reached his hand up and brushed some of her flyaway strands out of his face and then kept his arm around her shoulders. “Is that manipulative?”
“Yes. Just like it’s manipulative that I’m pretty sure I really only came on this trip to make sure you have such a horrible time that you never want to leave Adelaide Springs ever again.”
He laughed. “At least my manipulation was going to lead to a great vacation for us both. You’re over there making plans to throw me in front of a subway car or something.”
She gasped. “I would never!”
“Well, you know . . . not enough to kill me.”
Cole felt her head begin to lift under his cheek, so he rose up and met her eyes.
“I was really just thinking more along the lines of homesickness and maybe a little food poisoning from a bad slice of pizza or something. You didn’t have to go all dark with it.”
Her eyes were beginning to droop and Cole knew he only had a few good minutes with her before the pill kicked in completely. He’d go take a shower, and she’d be asleep before he got back. The next time they talked there would be light streaming in, and they’d encounter new views and everything might feel a little different after sleeping to different sounds. Brynn and Seb would be there, and then by tomorrow night his room would probably be cleared out of wedding gifts, and they might not have these final sleepy moments together that had always been some of his favorites. On camping trips and movie nights and evenings when they just lost track of time. It was possible they’d never have these final, sleepy, perfect moments together ever again.
“Hey, Lai?”
She laid her head back on his shoulder. “Hmm?”
“What if while we’re here, I don’t try to convince you to go, and you don’t try to convince me to stay? What if we don’t even think about all that stuff ?”
Was that even possible, for either one of them? Was it even possible, when he was only here to try to cement a decision for which he’d already begun leveling the land and installing the footings? He was sure willing to give it his all if she was. “What if we just spend time together and try to make it the most special week and a half we’ve ever had together? And then, well . . . whatever happens, we’ll always have this trip. You know?” Cole knew that “whatever happens” would involve him leaving Adelaide Springs. He just couldn’t see any way around it. But he was willing to not think about that for a little while if it also meant he didn’t have to think about how it was equally certain she wouldn’t be going with him. “Do we have a deal?”
“Do you know what I just realized?” she asked, her words beginning to slur.
Cole chuckled. He’d lost her. “What’s that?”
“This is Brynn and Seb’s first night here together. The wedding and then the honeymoon and then back to Adelaide Springs . . . We totally crashed their first night as husband and wife in their new home. That’s monkey punky monkey punky.”
He was pretty sure those last few words hadn’t been accurately transcribed by his brain, but they were his best guess.
“I bet they’ll forgive us.” He kissed the top of her hair. “Get some sleep.”
He carefully lowered her head to a pillow and straightened out her legs and helped her slip under the covers. Then he climbed out and shimmied her over to the edge of the bed and removed her Sophia glasses. He’d have to climb back over her to get into the tent after his shower, but he didn’t want her to wake up panicked and confused from her drug-induced sleep and not understand what she was doing in the darkness of a tent, with the sound of more massive jet engines flying overhead every hour than either one of them had ever seen in their entire lives. All the Edwin McCains and Sarah McLachlans in the world might not bring peace amid that freak-out.
He turned off the light and then felt around for everything he needed for his shower, though it only took his eyes a few seconds to adjust. The light shining in from outside was as bright as the moon on a clear night in their mountains, camping under the stars. And suddenly the tent made sense, though he couldn’t imagine why you would want to shield your eyes from the New York nightscape any more than you would in Colorado.
“Hey, Cole?” Laila whispered as he made his way to the door.
“Yeah?”
“We have a deal.”