ROMY SPENT THE first half of the night lying in bed, reliving Matt’s reaction to her grand declaration of love—which was to look at her as though she’d stabbed him straight through the heart he professed not to have.
The second half of the night she spent pacing through the flat, wondering what she could expect from Matt when he eventually returned.
When there was no sign of him by nine o’clock, she switched to wondering if he’d return.
By eleven o’clock, she was convinced he wouldn’t.
She’d gone to his room many times, hesitating outside, knowing one quick peek would tell her if he’d taken his duffel bag. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to open the door, instead hurrying to the kitchen to distract herself by making coffee—and for her to make coffee instead of tea was a true indicator that her state of mind was unsound.
By noon she’d drunk so much coffee she was totally wired—which she figured explained the sudden grip of terror that convinced her Matt was lying dead in an alley.
At one o’clock, she pulled up his number, ready to call him despite the fact that last night she’d told him he didn’t have to explain himself to her...and then made more coffee instead.
At two o’clock, she had the brilliant idea of calling Teague to find out what he knew, and when he answered on the third ring she almost collapsed with relief.
“T-Teague?” she stammered.
“Romes!” he said. “Let me guess—you’re calling to tell me all is well in the land of the lovers so I can stop worrying about you.”
“You’d know more about that than me.”
“Er...not following.”
“Is Matt—? Did Matt—? Oh!”
“Still not following.”
“Matt said he was spending the night with you, but...he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.”
“Oh. Er...”
“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t cover for him. There’s no need. It’s none of my business where he spends his nights. I’m not his girlfriend. And that...that’s not what’s worrying me. It’s just...you know how reckless he is, and I keep expecting to hear he’s BASE jumped off The Shard and broken his neck or something, so—”
“Hang on, hang on! He’s lying to you about where he’s going, you’re checking up on him and you’re telling me you’re not his girlfriend?”
“He doesn’t have those.”
“Well, you’re not just friends if that’s how you’re both carrying on.”
“We’re not friends at all anymore, it seems.”
“Oh, Romy, you two were never friends. Look, much as it pains me to do this, let me give you some advice—stop giving him so much rope, because he’ll keep hanging himself with it.”
“Rope?”
“Stop letting him come and go in your life as he pleases, see any woman he wants, do anything he likes. He doesn’t want that freedom—not from you. Deep down, he wants you to give him boundaries.”
“I don’t...understand.”
“Matt’s problem is nobody ever reins him in. Not his friends, because we like him exactly the way he is—fast and brilliant. Not the women he attracts just by breathing, because they’d give him anything he asks for—which sucks, by the way, for guys like me who don’t get a look-in when he’s around. As for his parents—well, they don’t want to rein themselves in let alone anyone else, and I don’t think they’ll be happy until they corrupt him absolutely.”
“I don’t—? His parents? I’ve never met them.”
“Now you see, that’s interesting. Ask him why. And while you’re at it, tell him what you want from him, how you feel, lay it on the line—”
“Oh, Teague, I already told him how I feel.” She closed her eyes as the heat of humiliation flooded her. “Last night I told him I loved him.”
“Aaand it all makes sense. You told him—he ran away.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Tell him again. Keep telling him. Keep showing him, too, but you’ve been showing him forever, so I have a feeling it’s the telling that’s going to get him.”
“He doesn’t like being told. I knew that, and I told him anyway.”
“He’ll hear it, from you he’ll hear it, but you’ll have to make him hear it, and hear it, and hear it, because he won’t believe it.”
“And if I lose him for good?”
“Then at least it’ll be an outcome, won’t it? For you, if not for him. You can’t keep limping around the edges of a relationship with him, Romy. If he really won’t step up to the plate, it’s time he let you go so you can find someone else. Someone who...who wants all of you, not just the parts Matt will spare.”
“He’ll say no—he won’t step up.”
“Then let him say no, and let him go. Look, just...think about it, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll think about it...I think.”
Teague laugh/sighed. “Okay, but while you’re thinking about thinking about it, consider that every time you’ve needed him he’s come running—and when I say running, I mean sprinting. You know, the night you and I broke up and I saw him at Flick’s and told him we were through, he was out the door faster than a speeding bullet—”
“He hates being compared to superheroes.”
“Then he should stop trying to save you. The point is, I was sure he was off to get the girl that night—but here you are, ten years later, still limping along the edges.”
“Don’t you think that means it’s not supposed to be that way for us?”
“No, I think it means he’s terrified. You’re different for him, Romy.”
“That’s just it—I’m not different. I’m like everyone else who wants him but can’t have him.”
“I’m not talking about sex, except insofar as it took him ten years to get around to it with you—which is, in fact, the difference. He’s scared to death of you, scared a wrong move will lose you, scared of his...his need for you to see him the way you see him. Because I’m telling you, he may not like you supersizing his heroism but he also kind of lives for it. He wants to be a hero for you, but deep down he won’t believe he can be. He’s scared—but don’t you be scared, too, or you’ll both still be limping around those edges when you’re ninety. Anyway, enough Truth or Dare.” He took a breath. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll text him, make sure he’s alive, and then I’ll text you so you can use your brain for more productive things than worrying about the idiot.”
* * *
Romy received the “all clear” text from Teague half an hour later, but by four o’clock there was still no sign of Matt.
The time had come to make sure he hadn’t moved out. Without hesitation this time, she opened the door to his room, walked boldly in...and her jaw dropped at the sight of a silver cradle in the shape of a half-moon.
She walked over to it, not quite believing it was real even though its slightly mangled cutout stars smacked of a DIY project so it was hardly a celestial gift beamed out of nowhere.
This was what Matt had been doing all week while she was at work? Not plotting a tech takeover of the world, but making his baby a cradle?
She blinked in disbelief as she ran her fingertips over the wood. As she gave it a little rock. And then she couldn’t seem to stop blinking—not in disbelief anymore, but because tears had formed in her eyes. Everything about the wonky cradle moved her unbearably. Because she knew in that blinding, wrenching, heart-shattering moment that she’d gotten something very wrong about Matt and his motivations. He’d suggested giving her his sperm not as a favor to her, not to be a godfather, but because he wanted a baby. He’d wanted, specifically, her baby. He’d flown to London to stop her from finding a different donor because he loved their baby. He’d loved it then, when it didn’t exist, and he loved it now when it still might not exist. He loved it even though he’d probably never be able to say the words.
And she loved him—so much in that moment she would have gladly cut out her heart and given it to him on a plate made of her own soul, painted not black but silver and white, to match the priceless, utterly wonderful gift he’d made for their child.
She put both her hands over her belly. “Please be there, my little one,” she whispered. “For your daddy, if not for me, because whether or not he knows it, he needs you.”