Brynn and Sebastian had left us with Malik’s number, and though he’d said it was absolutely no problem to drive us around or send someone else if the network had him driving some big shot around instead, and even though he’d insisted he’d bring something much less ostentatious for just the two of us, like “the Benz” or something (oh, okay . . . thanks for keeping it grounded, Malik), I’d never been so relieved as I was when Cole said, “Wanna see how lost we can get in New York?”
Even my suspicion that what he had in mind might entail some recreations of scenes from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York—a movie he had inexplicably counted as his favorite Christmas movie since we were eight years old—couldn’t ruin my wholehearted approval of that plan.
“I feel so bad about how much I hated yesterday,” I told him as we stepped out onto North Moore Street. “I know I probably should have been counting my lucky stars that we got to drive right up to entrances and avoid crowds and visit these amazing places, but—”
“Oh, I’m with you.” He made sure he had all the keys and then checked that the outside door to the building was locked. Then he held his arm out for me to go ahead of him down the black corrugated metal stairs. “It felt like we were at New York-New York in Vegas or something. Like an almost lifelike version of the New York I’d imagined.”
“Exactly!” We got onto the sidewalk and walked to the intersection of Ghostbusters and John-John. We looked to our left and then to our right, and then I pulled my phone out to look at a map.
“Don’t you dare!” He grabbed my phone from my hand and held it over my head, out of reach. “See, that’s the problem with you kids these days. This is why Home Alone would never work in the modern age. The McCallisters would have just called each other—or texted, probably. Problem solved. Or worse, someone would have gotten some notification that Kevin was no longer with them, and all they would have had to do was retrace their steps for a minute—no, sorry, ask Siri to lead them to his location—and boom. It’s over.”
“Yeah, that would have been just awful if the world’s worst parents had found a way to keep track of their kid.”
He lowered his arms but held on to my phone and yanked it out of reach when I tried grabbing for it. “Please don’t degrade Peter and Kate McCallister like that in my presence. They weren’t awful. Their big, extended family was awful.” New Yorkers with their heads down and AirPods in their ears passed us on both sides, not paying any more attention to us than we were paying to them. “Their big problem was taking all those vacations together. Ludicrous.”
I crossed my arms as laughter bounced in my chest. “Yes, I remember reading about that in your tenth-grade sociology essay. What was it called? ‘I Can’t Believe This Happened Again: A Case Study’ or something like that?”
“I think you know very well that it was called ‘And Yet They Never Lost Their Luggage: A Survey of Late-Twentieth-Century Parenting Styles.’” He smiled and handed me my phone. “The point is, modern technology has reduced the possibility of getting lost. And sure, whatever, I suppose an argument could be made that when it comes to ten-year-olds getting on the wrong plane and ending up wandering the streets of New York alone, befriending homeless bird ladies and the like, maybe technology is our friend. But for you and me, today, let’s just wander. Okay?”
I was wearing high-waisted cargo pants I’d made myself. I’d sewn in extra pockets, beyond what the pattern called for, and I’d worn the pants today so that I didn’t have to carry a bag around. Rather than put my phone in the usual pocket, I slipped it into a pocket above my knee and buttoned it up.
“There. Happy?”
He nodded. “I am. Thanks.”
“So. Where to?”
“Here’s what I was able to figure out about New York yesterday while we drove around: World Trade Center is south; the Empire State Building and other stuff is north.”
“Wow. Impressive, Magellan.”
It had been a while since we’d taken a trip together. I had forgotten how navigationally hopeless he was without mountains as his guides, and how much fun I always had at his expense as a result.
I spun around three hundred and sixty degrees. “Which way?”
He smirked at me. “You know exactly where we are, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly, but I glanced at a Manhattan subway map yesterday at MoMA, and I’m pretty sure ‘other stuff’ is this way.” I pointed left. “More of the island available to get lost in, so . . .” I directed him with my head, and he laughed and repeated the gesture that I should go first and he would follow.
We began walking up Varick Street, and I was fascinated by everything I saw. I had to fight the compulsion to pull my phone out, not to get directions but to take pictures of every little thing. Signs directing toward the Williamsburg Bridge and the Holland Tunnel. NYPD cars. But I decided to follow his cues for now. We were wandering and disconnected. Together. And though we hadn’t talked about the things we needed to talk about yet, we were talking. Laughing. It felt normal. Maybe slightly better than normal. I was in no hurry to put an end to that.
“Ready to talk?”
Well, so much for that.
“Ready when you are.” I pointed straight ahead as a crosswalk light signaled for us to go across Canal Street, and he nodded. We looked both ways and jogged across as time ran out.
His hands were in the pockets of his jeans, and his posture seemed to be drawing him inward. We came to another intersection—a much bigger one at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel—and suddenly there were swarms of people and vehicle congestion where it had been relatively quiet. The countdown began on the walking signal, and Cole grabbed my hand and hurried across with me. When we reached the corner on the other side, there was a little park with some sculpture that looked like three giant red hex nuts stacked together, but I guess in New York it was art.
He kept holding my hand and pulled me over to the side by the park’s fence. People we’d been hurrying across the street with passed us, and he watched them go. I just watched him.
“What is it?”
His eyes met mine then. “Is there anything you don’t think we should talk about? Or . . .” He shook his head. “I mean, is there anything we shouldn’t talk about? Anything off limits?”
“Of course not.”
“No, I’m serious, Laila. I don’t just mean because we say we can talk about anything, and because we always have. What I mean is . . . do you think we’ve ever avoided certain subjects? Maybe intentionally, maybe not. Do you think there’s anything that . . .” He glanced down and realized he was still holding my hand and released it, and then he took a step back and crossed his arms. “Do you think there’s anything we wouldn’t recover from?”
I had no idea what was happening. I had no idea what had him spooked. But I knew the answer to that question.
“Absolutely not.” I mirrored his posture and braced myself for whatever was coming.
He began walking again, and I stepped alongside. “Have you ever thought about us as an us?” His eyes darted to the side, but when he saw that I was looking up at him, he faced forward again.
I, meanwhile, was just going to have to trust that he wouldn’t let me run into a light pole or step into an open manhole. There wasn’t a single hope in the world that I was going to look anywhere but at him right then.
I’d meant what I’d said. I’d believed it. I still believed it, even now, knowing that this was the conversation he was wondering if we could survive. Yes. Of course. Of course we’d recover. I wasn’t even going to let it get to that point. The point of requiring recovery. I didn’t know what was causing him to ask the question, but it was just one more thing. One more thing we apparently now, for whatever reason, needed to talk about. One more thing in a lifetime of things.
I finally pulled my eyes away from him and looked ahead, not that I was really seeing anything. Buildings. People. Cars. It was the landmines of the conversation that terrified me. Why was he asking? Fear, probably. Fear of losing me. Fear of change. Maybe fear was causing him to think he was feeling things he wasn’t.
Or had I somehow given him the impression I was feeling those things? Maybe that was it. And that was freaking him out because he thought I would do something desperate to keep him from leaving me. If that was it, how pathetic had I appeared that morning, telling him I would do anything for him? Cooking for him to prove that I meant it.
Focus, Laila. Focus. He asked a question. Just answer the question.
No. Eat. That would be better. We needed to start there.
I was suddenly starving. I had been fairly certain I wouldn’t want to eat again for a while, after all the toast and eggs and bacon—yes, there had originally been bacon—I had nibbled on while watching YouTube videos of people cooking toast and eggs and bacon. By the time the last of the bacon was exhausted, I couldn’t bring myself to look up videos on ham. I sort of phoned it in with the ham.
I stopped in front of a Shake Shack and called out Cole’s name when he kept walking without me. Briefly confused, he turned around and spotted me and came jogging back.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Sorry. I’m not avoiding the question. I just—”
“No, I just mean after that breakfast I had?” The corner of his lips tilted up as I laughed. “Yes. I’m starving. No offense.” He looked all around us—a Chinese food place, a pizza place, a bistro—then looked back at me, eyebrows raised. “You don’t want Shake Shack, do you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s synonymous with New York. Besides, it was delicious that one time we had it—”
“At New York-New York, Laila. Again, we’re actually in Manhattan. Don’t you want to experience—”
“I want fries.”
He smirked at me. “There’s a McDonald’s right across the street. Why don’t we just go there?”
“Look, they wouldn’t have chosen Shake Shack as one of the restaurants to represent New York in Las Vegas, to lots of people who will never actually get to come to New York, unless it was authentic.”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “Vegas is all about authenticity. Which reminds me, let’s be sure to ride that roller coaster that circles over Grand Central Terminal, in front of the Empire State Building, and around the Statue of Liberty before we leave town. As cool as the one at New York-New York was, I bet the original is—”
“Hardy-har-har.” I looked around at all the other options and then grabbed his arm and pulled him into Shake Shack. “Be a good boy, and I’ll buy you a frozen custard.”
* * *
We were loose and casual again as we waited for our food. We talked about passing the Holland Tunnel and spent far too much time trying to remember the title of the horrible nineties Sylvester Stallone movie where the Holland Tunnel was going to explode or something. (If I’d pulled my phone out, I would have been able to instantly clear away the earworm by figuring out the movie was Daylight. Of course I also could have found out that Daylight was about the Lincoln Tunnel. Not the Holland Tunnel.) And then we tried to remember Buddy the Elf’s quote as he recounted his journey from the North Pole to NYC, but once we nailed that down we remembered that that had been about the Lincoln Tunnel too.
Ultimately, we weren’t sure why we were supposed to care about the Holland Tunnel.
Then, finally, we were enjoying our burgers and fries (and custard shakes, as promised), and I decided the time was right to take us back.
“How do you mean?”
He tilted his head. “I didn’t say anything.”
“No, I mean . . . your question. You asked if I’d ever thought about us as an us.” I knew we needed to talk about it. I knew it would be fine. But all of that knowledge didn’t stop my cheeks from getting warm as I repeated the words. “I’m just asking . . . How do you mean?”
“Oh.” He set his burger down and started avoiding my eyes again. “You know. I guess . . . romantically. Or whatever. More than just friends.”
“I wasn’t asking what you meant by us as an us. I got that.” I rolled my eyes. More at myself—I hadn’t asked the question very well, I realized. But really, we were just both as awkward as could be about the whole thing. “I’m just wondering what you meant when you asked if I’d thought about it.”
He studied me as he chewed on the ends of three fries. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t understand what you—”
“I mean, are you asking if the thought ever flitted through my brain? Like, incidental contact? Not incidental contact between you and me. I mean the thoughts being nothing more than incidental contact. In my brain, I mean.”
“No, I get it. Like . . . thoughts just zipping through and not landing.”
“Exactly. Or are you asking if I’ve ever considered whether it could work? Like, serious consideration. Pros and cons and weighing the repercussions and that sort of thing.”
“Um . . .” He shrugged and grabbed more fries. “Either, I guess?”
“Oh. Okay. Then yeah. I have.”
He groaned. “Which one?”
“We’ve been reading each other’s minds and completing each other’s sentences our entire lives, but we’re not doing so hot today.” I laughed. “This is awful, isn’t it?”
Panic overtook him. “We don’t have to talk about it. This is why I didn’t know if we should—”
“No, Cole, I’m not saying . . .” I closed my eyes and rubbed my index fingers against my temples. “Both. It’s zipped through. And, I guess, on occasion . . . it’s landed. Yeah. Pros and cons, et cetera.” I opened my eyes, and the panic was gone from his face. We were so out of sync right then that I wasn’t exactly sure what the soft eyes and half smile represented, but I knew the telltale signs of Cole Kimball panic. Those weren’t them. “What? Why? Is that bad?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know why it would be.” He picked up his burger again and took a bite.
Okay, so I’d thought about it. That was all he’d asked, and that was all I’d answered. I’d also thought about getting a tattoo and learning to ride a motorcycle and maybe someday getting something besides my ears pierced. (Admittedly that one had zipped right on by.) Now, of course, the moment was begging for a little reciprocation.
“And what about you?”
He stared at me with those same soft eyes and that same half smile and slowly chewed. Amusement? Was that what was happening? I just couldn’t make sense of it.
Once he had swallowed, he set his burger down again and said, “What about me?”
Okay, that was amusement. Nothing cruel. Nothing teasing. But that twinkle in his eyes . . . Something had shifted. He was relaxed again. What in the world about this moment could possibly be causing him to relax? Or was I the one doing it wrong? Was I overthinking and internally freaking out over nothing?
Hang on, I’m not freaking out. No, I wasn’t freaking out. But I needed his answer, and I needed it now.
“Don’t be cute, Cole. Come on. Play fair. Same question. Have you ever had zooming-past and/or serious-consideration romantic thoughts about the two of us? And if so . . . you know . . . which one?”
He chuckled. “Way to remove the loopholes, Olivet.”
“Thank you very much.” Now answer the freaking question before my head runs away with this any more than it’s already beginning to.
“Honestly?”
I threw a french fry at his face. Hit him right smack dab on the nose, causing him to do a stunned double take before he started laughing so loudly we got the evil eye from the people in the next booth. Didn’t matter. I didn’t take my eyes off of him.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Sorry. The truth is I never really had any zooming thoughts. I don’t think I ever allowed myself to go there when we were young because I had to be careful. You know? I remember always thinking how sad it would be if Addie and Wes broke up. I knew everything would have been ruined—not just between them, but between all of us. And then when Brynn and I sort of toyed with the idea of being together, it was just insane. So weird. So obviously not going to work, and that was fine. But I remember feeling like it could have been really bad if she and I had started to actually feel something for each other in that way, and then it didn’t work out, as it inevitably never would have.”
He picked up his napkin and wiped the salt and grease from his fingers—and from his nose—and then settled back into the booth. “And then Addie and Wes did break up, and it did ruin everything, just like I always knew it would. From that point on I didn’t even have to try not to have those thoughts about you, because there was no chance I was ever going to let that be us.”
I reached across the table and placed my hand under his. We instinctively intertwined our fingers. He studied them and then leaned forward as he turned his hand over so mine was on top, and then he began tracing the outline of my hand with the fingers of his other hand.
“I don’t like the expression ‘just friends,’” I whispered. “I don’t like the implication that there’s a hierarchy of relationships. And if there is a hierarchy, how dare anyone minimize friendship? Isn’t friendship everything?”
His Adam’s apple bounced up in his throat as he nodded. “Yeah,” he said in soft, gravelly agreement. He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles, and then he kept my fingers against his lips as they curved into a smile. “It’s everything.”
The warmth of his breath against my hand provided an unexpected spark in the core of my abdomen, and an involuntary intake of breath threatened to give it the oxygen required to burn the whole thing to the ground. My index finger twitched, errantly threatening to isolate itself from his grasp and brush against his still-upturned lips. But the rebellion was over almost before it had begun as I managed to recapture control of the finger and my breathing and the powder keg of emotions in the pit of my stomach and smile up at him with a status-quo smile that I was satisfied matched his to a T.
He closed his eyes briefly and kissed my hand one more time before releasing it and opening his eyes. “Well.” He cleared his throat and began wadding up our wrappers and gathering our cups. “Thanks for having that sort of awkward conversation with me. I just thought maybe we should.” He rubbed his eyes roughly and stretched his arms overhead as he said, “I think I can be normal again now. Sorry.” He shrugged and rolled his eyes and then looked at his watch. “Want to get back on the road to ‘other stuff’?”
I beamed at him. “You bet. I just need to make a quick bathroom stop first if that’s okay.”
He picked up our trays as we stood. “I think I’ll do the same after I toss the garbage. Meet you outside?”
“Sounds good.” I turned and began walking to the restrooms by the register, but then spun on my heel and hurried over to him, meeting him at the trash can just as he stacked the trays on top of it. “Hey, Cole, next time you want to say something . . . just go first, okay? That way I don’t have to try to interpret what’s happening and overthink everything in my crazy brain.” I stuck my tongue out, crossed my eyes, and twirled my fingers out beside my ears, causing him to laugh as he nodded.
“Good note. Got it.”
“Because this wasn’t so bad, was it?” I threw my arms around his neck and forced him against me. And then I held on for dear life. The muscles in his arms and shoulders relaxed as they wrapped around me and then tightened as he pulled me in closer and raised me up onto my tiptoes. “See? There’s nothing we can’t survive.” I released him from my grip, chuckling as he lowered me to my normal height. “This is nothing compared to when you forced me to admit I don’t like Die Hard.”
“Yeah . . . I’m still coming to terms with that one.” He winked and then gestured toward the bathroom with his chin. “Go. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Okay. Meet you outside.” I grinned and bounced away to the ladies’ room, waving at him as I turned around and closed the gap in the door.
And then I pushed in the lock.
And then the grin gave way to a deluge of tears and the inability to breathe. The inability to think. The inability to make sense of any of it.
We had a deal to always talk things out. To not create answers for each other without giving each other the benefit of being asked the question. That may not have been a spoken agreement, but it was most assuredly our deal. So I knew that if what we’d just talked about was bothering me, I needed to ask him why he’d been thinking about any of that. About an us. Why that was a topic he needed to discuss.
But how could I do that? How could I bring it up again and force that awkwardness? An awkwardness that was now resolved on his side, it seemed.
And ultimately, what good could come from it?
All my life I’d assumed he’d never thought about it. There was something beautiful about thinking he had never thought about it. Something pure and absolute. Something that made me feel so special. Maybe he would think of it someday, maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. Not really. Everyone else saw it, and of course I saw it. We were perfect together. Made for each other. Two halves of the same whole, yada yada—all that stuff that people talked about in lovey-dovey ways. It applied just as much to us. More, even. Best friends? Without question. Soulmates? Who knew what that really meant, but yeah. Absolutely. The only thing we didn’t have was romance. And that was okay. Cole had just never thought about it.
Except, apparently, he had. And he’d ruled it out. And I loved his reason for ruling it out. It was perfect. It was him. It was because of how much he loved me. How much he loved us.
But now I knew. For the very first time in my life, I knew.
“Maybe someday” no longer existed.