You Deserve Each Other
: Chapter 16

“Don’t you agree?” she continues when I don’t retract my hand. “You know …” Her eyes dip to my waistline. “For the wedding. It’s tradition for brides to curb their appetites until the big day, so there aren’t any rude surprises when it comes to the dress fitting. Normally I wouldn’t say a word, you know I wouldn’t, but you just ate an exceptionally large meal.

Overstuffing yourself wouldn’t be wise.”

My mind spins, blinks, and shuts down. In the black vacuum, there exists a single word floating adrift. What.

“Mom,” Nicholas says icily.

She places her other hand over mine, as well, patting fondly. My stomach revolts from all the polite, syrupy sentiments I’ve been feeding her entitlement complex over the past forty-five minutes. It doesn’t matter how nice I am. It’ll never matter. She’ll always be horrible.

“When I was engaged,” she tells me, ignoring her son, “gluttony tempted me, too. My sister loves to bake and the house smelled like cookies and cakes every day. You can’t imagine!” Her smile is chilling because she means every word that’s coming out of her mouth. “But you must control yourself. Back in those days, girls had a way of taking care of the problem.”

“The problem being … hunger?”

She nods, not hearing the incredulity in my voice. “Exactly. Can’t be eating like a pig if you want to look trim in your wedding photos. Drink hot water with lemon and basil, and you’ll get so full you’d swear you’d been eating all day long! I can go have the woman fix you a cup if you’re still hungry.”

“She’s not drinking that crap,” Nicholas interjects. “Let her have a piece of cake.”

“I can’t let her eat cake!” she exclaims. Even the torso of the Marie Antoinette she so admires rolls in her grave, like, Girl, I wouldn’t. “I’m saying this out of love, Nicky. You have to believe that.”

He’s not backing down. “You’re not her doctor, and what she eats is none of your business. If you’re going to bring out dessert, you don’t get to decide who gets it and who doesn’t.”

“I agree!” Harold pipes up.

Her cheekbones flush with high color. “Shut up, Harold.”

“Don’t you ‘Shut up, Harold’ me. I pay the salary of the woman who made this cake. I get to eat it.” He reaches out. She slaps his hand, but he snatches the whole serving tray with startling agility and whisks it away to his lap. “Here you go, Natalie.” He offers me an enormous chunk right out of the middle.

“No!” Deborah cries, rushing to intercept. “Don’t eat that! You’ll look like a sausage in your dress. After your last fitting, I had the seamstress take the gown in to a size zero!”

I drop the cake. It splatters magnificently onto the table. “You what?”

Deborah panics. She wrings her hands. “I was a size zero when I got married. It’s not impossible—you just really have to start buckling down.

No more desserts or—”

“I’m not a size zero.” I’m mortified. I hate that I have to talk about this in front of Nicholas’s parents. “I’m not even close. You’d have to remove my organs! I don’t understand—why would you—why’s it so—” I’m close to breaking down because I’ve been trying so hard to be courteous, and I should’ve expected this. I have whiplash. There is no part of me that desires to be a different size than the one I am, and I absolutely hate Deborah for trying to make me feel bad about myself for not meeting some bullshit standard she set over thirty years ago.

“How could you do something like that?” Nicholas thunders. “Whatever you told the seamstress, fix it.” He rises to his feet, so severe and stone-faced that I’m rather intimidated. “Apologize to Naomi right now.”

Deborah can’t close her mouth. Her face is the same color as her raspberry blouse, a seamless match. The validation that he’s siding with me zings through my system like a lightning bolt, and without thinking about it I stand up, too, and reach for his hand. His fingers slide smoothly through mine, locking. We’ve combined armies and we’re a solid force field facing off against his mother’s hail of word bullets.

“I mean well,” she says soothingly. “How am I in the wrong here? I’m looking out for my future daughter-in-law. I know how nasty people can be. Imagine how it’ll look when the dress doesn’t fit right.”

“The dress is made to fit Naomi,” he snaps. “She isn’t made to fit the dress. She’s my fiancée, she’s beautiful and perfect, and I won’t have her spoken to like this by anyone, much less a member of my own damn family.”

“Nicky!” she admonishes in a loud whisper, as if afraid the neighbors might hear.

“Apologize.”

“But …”

She wants to lick her fingers and smooth his hair. Tuck him into bed.

Push me from a tower. She’ll steal our infant from his cradle and disappear to Mexico so she can be sure he’s raised with an unhealthy attachment to her. He’ll be christened at St. Mary’s in a white gown monogrammed with roses.

Deborah sputters, eyes pleading, but when they move in my direction they’re sharp as an eagle’s. She never saw this coming. She never thought for a moment that he’d ever side with me over her, because to her I am unimportant. A necessary annoyance that allows her to throw a fancy wedding and get the grandchildren she wants so much, but other than that, I fade into her background. In this house, I have always felt unimportant.

“Pathetic,” Nicholas snarls. “You can’t treat my fiancée that way and expect to still be invited to the wedding.”

I’m not sure whose gasp is loudest—mine, hers, or Harold’s.

Actually, Harold’s isn’t a gasp. He’s choking on his cake. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Deborah snaps, thumping him between the shoulder blades. “Chew! Don’t you know how to chew?”

Harold is beet red, cheeks and eyes bulging. He coughs up flecks of cake that get all over the tablecloth and makes a hacking sound that comes out like Shut up.

“I’m invited to the wedding,” Deborah declares while her husband is still struggling to suck air into his lungs. “Of course I am. Don’t even say that.”

“I’m not saying it, I’m threatening it.”

“No!” Harold cries, interrupting his son. Deborah’s trying to yank the cake away from him. “You don’t let me have anything that makes me happy! I might as well be dead. I’ve sacrificed so much. I let you have Beatrice, now you can let me have a piece of cake or so help me god I will jump off the roof of this house!”

She lets him have the cake.

“Who’s Beatrice?” I ask. This is the most bizarre dinner I’ve ever been to.

“A dog she had when I was growing up,” Nicholas murmurs in my ear.

“How can you bring up Beatrice?” Deborah wails, eyes welling with tears. “You know what it does to me, especially at this time of year.”

“Should have punted her into a lake.” Harold picks up the cake in both hands and eats it like a barbarian. This is nuts. There’s no way these people can try to angle themselves as being better than me ever again. “Fifteen years! Fifteen years, I wasn’t allowed to sleep in my own bed because of that dog.”

“She was my child!” Deborah yells.

“And I was your husband, unfortunately! Had to sleep in the guest bedroom! In my own house!” He leans toward me. “My ex-wife didn’t like dogs. Magnolia.” His eyes acquire a dreamy cast. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

“I’m not staying for this,” Nicholas says. “I’m so sorry, Naomi.” To our collective astonishment, he turns his back on the table and takes me with him.

“Nicky!” Deborah cries. “Don’t leave just because of your father. You didn’t finish your dessert.”

“We’re going. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Are you coming over on Wednesday, then? With the invitations?” Her voice is like a slap in the face, it’s so unreal.

Nicholas is furious. I can hardly keep up with his power-walk, but I’m loving this. It’s the sort of scenario I’ve dreamed about—him essentially telling his mother to fuck off and whisking me away. I’m still offended over Deborah trying to cram me into Slender Man’s measurements, but it’s rapidly being overshadowed by how wonderful it feels to have Nicholas stand up for me.

We duck outside without responding to her, and the head rush is giving me tunnel vision. Nicholas and I fly across the dark lawn, hand in hand.

For the second time today, we’re fleeing the scene of the crime and it’s never been like this before with Nicholas and me remaining on the same side of it.

When we get to the Jeep, he braces a hand on the passenger door before I can open it and brackets me against the cold metal with his body. His eyes are intense as they peer down at me, so close I can taste his breath.

He takes my face between his palms and says, “Don’t listen to my mother.

You are perfect.”

I look away, swallowing. “Thank you.” I offer him a small smile. “We made a good team back there.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he says. He watches me for a moment, seeming to debate something. Then he closes in before I can wonder what he’s thinking, and his mouth is on mine.

I turn to water, knocking back against the door. I barely have time to throw my arms around his neck before he lifts me off the ground, hands wrapped around my thighs. He kisses me fiercely, the sweetest candy, my body crushed between him and the car. Just as the words oh my float up into my consciousness, the front door opens and there stands Deborah, gawking at us.

I tip my head back and roar with laughter. Nicholas grins, eyes shining, and he laughs, too. I think he can’t believe himself.

I don’t know what’s gotten into us, but I like it. From Deborah’s view, Nicholas’s hands have disappeared up the hem of my skirt, and the notion of shocking her like this almost makes me feel sorry for her. Almost.

When Nicholas lets me go, I have to make an admission to myself: I have no idea what’s happening anymore. It’s terrifying.

I’m still hungry, and miracle of miracles: Jackie’s is open.

“On Thanksgiving?” I exclaim to Nicholas after he climbs back into the car with a greasy paper sack.

“They’re always open.”

I look sideways at him. We grabbed so many meals from Jackie’s the first year we dated, before we got engaged and moved in together and I lost my hardware store job all at once. “You still come here a lot, then?”

“Oh, you know …” He shrugs. But I don’t rip my gaze from his face, and he eventually spills the truth. “Sometimes when things aren’t going so great at home, I do. If I’m worried you’re about to say something … uh … that I don’t want to hear, I get in the car and leave. I’ll say I’m going to Mom and Dad’s, but most of the time I just drive around or I come here. Look.” He opens the glove box, where a huge stack of extra-large napkins from Jackie’s is crammed.

“You’re worried I’ll say something you don’t want to hear?” I repeat, accepting a carton of fries from him. “Like what?”

He shrugs again, then starts to drive home.

Since it seems he doesn’t want to answer this question, I come up with something else to say. “The plaque on your parents’ house is wrong. The

‘rose by any other name’ one.”

He laughs. “I know. I looked it up once. Don’t tell them, okay? I want to see how long it takes them to replace out.”

We share a smile. Nicholas isn’t so bad, maybe.

It’s this goodwill that makes me say, “When we get home, there’s something I want to show you.”

He looks over at me. I feel his stare in the darkness, dividing between my face and the road. He’s quiet but I hear his brain spinning the rest of the way home, wondering what I’m going to show him. I can’t get a read on what his guess might be.

By the time we’re walking through the front door, I’m already regretting this. Why am I so impulsive? I need to take back my offer. I strain to come up with a different secret to show him but draw a blank.

“So,” he says, hedging. “What do you want to show me?”

I’m not sure I still would, were it not for the hesitation in his eyes. He’s worried. He thinks that whatever it is, it involves him and me, and that it might be bad. I can’t let him suffer, so I suck it up and summon all my bravery and then some. Never in a million years did I think I’d voluntarily show him this.

He’s leaning against the kitchen counter when I hand him my phone.

“Here.” Then I retreat to the other wall, biting my nails.

He’s even more worried now. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Check my notes.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

He studies me for a handful of seconds like this might be a trap, then does as he’s told. I want to snatch my phone back. My face is red and my heart’s in my throat, and if he laughs at me I’m going to cry. His pity would be even worse. I am so certain that he’s going to think I’m a pathetic loser. All the evidence is there in his hand. No one wants me. Look at what you’ve thrown everything away over. A woman who can’t even get hired as a waitress at Olive Garden.

I watch him read the list that I’ve typed up in my notes, of every single establishment I’ve applied to. It’s detailed: I describe if I applied online or in person, if I can expect to hear back from them over the phone, by text, or email. Places I had high hopes for are marked with smiley faces. The nos are followed by X s. The places I haven’t heard back from yet have question marks beside them. There are no yesses.

It’s a long list, and it’s full of X s.

When several minutes pass and he still hasn’t spoken, just staring at my screen as he no doubt decodes it all, I feel like I’m being strangled. When I was the only one who knew about all these rejections, I was able to handle it. Now that he knows, it’s freshly humiliating. I know I’m not worthless, but god is it tough not to feel that way when you’re in the middle of a never-ending streak of This is hard to say, but we’re going with someone else. We’re very sorry we couldn’t give you better news and we wish you the best of luck.

I’ve got my face in my hands, so when a pair of arms wraps around me I’m not expecting it. His touch tugs all my threads loose, and I start crying into his shoulder. “It’s stupid to cry over this. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, nuzzling my temple. “It’s not stupid. You have nothing to be sorry for. These places are stupid.”

“They’re not,” I sob.

“They are if they turn you down. I want to get into my car and go throw eggs at all of them.” My sob turns into a laugh, and the cheek he has resting against my hairline tightens, telling me he’s smiling. But when he pulls back and examines me closely, his eyes are serious. “I had no idea you’ve applied to so many places.”

“Yeah, well …” I wipe away my tears with my sleeve, averting my gaze.

“It’s embarrassing. Especially since you have a stable job. I didn’t know if you’d understand.”

“I would,” he says softly. “And I’d want to be here for you. Support you and make you feel better. I want you to tell me when you get bad news so that you’re not going through it alone.”

“It’s like applying to universities all over again,” I confess. “I haven’t told you about that, but about two years after high school graduation I decided that I wanted to go to college, so I applied to a bunch of universities all over the country. I was so hopeful; I thought for sure at least one of them would pick me. Then I slowly watched all the rejection letters trickle in. My parents suggested I apply to community colleges instead, because they wouldn’t mind a lower grade point average, but by then I was … I don’t know. Jaded, I guess.”

He doesn’t respond the way I think he will. He doesn’t drill-sergeant me with a list of goals I need to set for myself and carry out, no matter what, no exceptions. He doesn’t tell me I should have tried harder in high school, and paid more attention, or that if I’d been more focused I could have a bachelor’s degree and a great-paying job by now. He doesn’t say I planned my life badly and spent my twenties achieving nothing.

Instead, he asks, “What did you want to study?”

“I don’t know, honestly. I thought I’d figure it out as I went along.

Never had a specific major in mind—all I wanted was a workplace I looked forward to driving to every day. A small setting with friendly people, like having another family. Somewhere I fit in.”

His eyes are so warm with understanding that I melt. “Like the Junk Yard.”

“Yeah. I didn’t even care that the pay was crappy. Having fun makes all the difference. Melissa sucked, but I got to hang out with Brandy every day. I liked the atmosphere and … I was comfortable. It was familiar. We got to listen to whatever music we wanted. I loved arranging displays and making the store fun for nonexistent customers. Moving around Toby the raccoon. I’m never going to replace a job like that again.”

He doesn’t say Yes, you will. He hugs me tight and lets me sniffle into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I never would’ve made all those cracks about work and college. Shouldn’t have made them, anyway. If there’s any way I can ever help, will you let me?”

“I don’t think there’s any way you can help.”

He heaves a deep breath. Wipes a tear away with his thumb. “I’m here, okay?” He grasps my shoulder and squeezes gently. “These aren’t platitudes. I’m right here. And I want to listen. Whenever you’re sad, I want to hear why. I want to know what you’re feeling, all the time, so I can share those feelings with you.”

I have to shy away from the emotions in his gaze, because my heart is a tight fist in my chest and Nicholas shattering my expectations by being kind and compassionate is constricting it so much that it’s like I’m wearing a corset. I can’t breathe under the heaviness of his gaze. I want to trust that he means this, but I can’t.

Right now he’s sweet and empathetic, but what about a week from now?

What if I’m having a bad day and when I tell him about it, I’m not met with this sweet, empathetic variation of Nicholas but the other one? The one who turned distant when issues arose that he didn’t want to face? That Nicholas is going to come back, sooner or later, and he’s going to make me sorry for being this vulnerable with him.

I can’t forget what he’s said in the past. Naomi doesn’t need a job. Don’t punish me for being successful enough to buy a nice vehicle. His bitterness that I held him back from that job offer in Madison. He can apologize a thousand times, but I’ll always wonder if he meant what he said. If he believes in me.

“Whatever you want to do,” he tells me, “I’ll support you.”

My mind flashes to the diner in Tenmouth. The haunted house. I say nothing.

“I’m sorry about my mom.”

“Me, too.”

“And my dad.”

“I’m sorry for your dad and Beatrice.”

This gets a chuckle out of him. “Beatrice. Her favorite daughter, Mom used to call her. It’s a mystery why Heather never comes around.”

“Poor Heather.” Maybe she deserves the maid of honor role after all. I feed the errant thought into a wood chipper, because there won’t be a maid of honor. There won’t be a wedding. Nicholas and I can’t even walk down an aisle of wedding decorations, must less the aisle for our real wedding.

It’s all going to fall apart, and this truth doesn’t bring me any satisfaction at all. Right now, I don’t hate Nicholas. I can pinpoint all the qualities about him I’ll miss. But it can’t go on. It would be so much easier if he hadn’t started warming up to me again, if we hadn’t started being honest with each other, exposing what we really think and feel. I want to be able to walk away at the end of this with strong resolve and the knowledge that I’m doing what’s best for myself. For both of us.

I think Nicholas sees my confusion and inner turbulence but misconstrues it as disappointment over the craft store job, because the smile he gives me is not a smile he could put on his face if he knew I’m thinking about how I’ll have to leave him.

“There’s something I want to show you, too,” he tells me, and leads me by the hand into the drawing room. My eyes pass over the nutcracker on the mantel and my heart pangs.

He perches on the edge of his desk and motions for me to sit in his computer chair. “I want you to see what I spend most of my time on the computer doing. It’s not work-related.”

Oh god. If he’s about to click on Pornhub, I’d really rather just not.

There’s sharing and then there’s oversharing.

“Relax, it’s not bad.” What he shows me wipes away all my melancholy, because I’m so astonished there isn’t room for any.

“Are you serious?” I stare up at him.

He nods solemnly.

“This.”

“That.”

I blink at the screen. He’s level 91 in a computer game called Nightjar.

From what I can see of his home page, it’s a fantasy quest featuring all sorts of mythical creatures. His account name is … “It’s Al Lover?”

“Not Al lover. My name’s itsallover, smartass.” He pinches my arm. “As in it’s all over. Those are Cardale’s last words, and it launches the whole quest to replace the … don’t laugh!”

I’m fighting a smile. “Sorry.” This is prime material. “Who’s Cardale?”

He frowns at me.

“I’m not teasing you.” I close my hand over his. “I’m just surprised, is all. But I want to know everything about this game. Level ninety-one? You must really love Al.”

He rolls his eyes, but says, “Okay, Cardale is this ancient wizard who was in the middle of extracting a prophecy from the Dream Realm when he was attacked. That’s how your journey as a player starts. Everyone’s on the hunt for this prophecy, because his dying words were ‘It’s all over,’ so people think something terrible is going to happen but they don’t know for sure because the prophecy’s gone. If you were familiar with the game, you’d have recognized right away what my name means—”

“Okay, okay.” He’s so sensitive about this, and it’s kind of cute. “You’re level ninety-one. That’s pretty high. Are you close to replaceing the prophecy?”

“I’ve found the prophecy fourteen times. Every time I win, I restart the game and the prophecy automatically jumps to a different location with a different set of clues, so I get to replace it all over again.”

“When you replace it, what does it say?” I’m actually getting into this.

“It changes every time. But on the forums—there are forums where we talk about the game—we think they all connect. We get a simple sentence when we win, and it’s kind of vague and fortune-cookie-ish and doesn’t always make contextual sense, but when we compiled them in a database we found patterns. There are tons of theories, but personally I think there are hundreds of possible prophecies and if you arrange them in a specific order, it tells a story about who really killed Cardale.”

He talks in an eager rush as he explains this to me. I cannot believe I’ve been so in the dark about this side of his life. It always annoyed me that he disappeared so frequently to his computer, but never once did I contemplate what he was doing on it. He’s got a whole world of his own I didn’t even know about! In hindsight, I’m a little miffed at myself for not being more curious. The man’s a dentist. What did I think he was doing on the computer night after night? Staring at X-rays of people’s teeth for hours? God, Naomi. You are oblivious.

“Who’s this guy?” I move the mouse over an animated figure who’s revolving in place on a platform, shifting his pose every so often so that he’s flexing his biceps, then planting his meaty fists on his hips. He’s wearing a black hood over his face and the whole effect reminds me of Man Ray from SpongeBob. I do not vocalize this.

“That’s my character, Grayson.”

“Grayson? Does that name have special meaning?”

“I named him after a comic book superhero, Dick Grayson.” I snort and he pokes me. “Very mature. Back in the forties, they went around calling people Dick because they didn’t know someday you would laugh at it.

Anyway, I have other characters, too, but Grayson has the most experience points so I use him for the more dangerous quests.”

I goggle at him. “Who are you?”

He gives me a lopsided smile, which I return. “A giant nerd.” I think maybe I have a thing for giant nerds. “Show me how to play.”

His eyes light up. “Really?”

“If you wouldn’t mind sharing this with me. I understand if you don’t.”

I’m impressed by my own maturity when I add, “If you want to keep it for yourself, as an activity you do alone, I get that.”

“No, I’d love for you to play with me!”

I can tell he means it. It hasn’t been a secret that he uses his computer to escape, but here he is inviting me along on that escape with him. “In that case, I want an avatar with purple hair, three boobs, and a Viking helmet.”

“You got it.” He grins, then takes my seat and settles me across his knees. He starts tapping away at the keyboard, very much in his element while also being painfully aware of me and my reactions, my judgment.

This part of him is new to me, but somehow it’s so Nicholas.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

He rolls one shoulder. “Thought you might make fun of me.”

My heart sinks. “I wouldn’t have. If you’d showed me this is what you were doing, I would’ve joined you. I’d be a level ninety-one, too.”

“We’ll get you caught up in no time. Prepare yourself for an all-nighter, Naomi. This game is seriously addicting—you have no idea. I’m going to come home from work tomorrow and you’ll be at least a level twelve, I guarantee it. There’s a ton to do, aside from the quests. You can wander around the villages and get sidetracked doing a million other mini quests, racking up points. It’s an incredibly detailed, complex universe. They make it hard to get to the prophecy because there are so many distractions.”

He sets me loose with my new character and within the first five minutes, I fall through a portal and randomly replace a glowing trident that makes Nicholas gasp so loud I think I’ve done something wrong. He tells me the trident is rare, and when you stab a mythical creature with it you absorb all of its powers. He begs me to stab a dragon, but I gleefully bypass one in favor of stabbing wee mushroom people who give me the ability to bounce really high, like I’m walking on the moon. Ten minutes later, Nicholas is absolutely beside himself and is trying to bribe me with a trip to Sephora if he gets to be alone with the trident for half an hour. I hunch protectively over the keyboard to keep him at bay and moon-bounce into a hot spring.

I also ignore a demigod who can duplicate treasure in favor of chasing gnomes. Gnomes are delightful! Who cares about treasure when you can give yourself a small blue hat. I am amazing at this game and not at all surprised. Nicholas drags his fingernails down his face and groans.

He accidentally minimizes the page, which flashes to his desktop.

Before he can click on it again, I cry, “Wait!” and point at an icon of a Microsoft Word document titled Dear Deborah.

I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Oh. Um.” He flushes.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, you can see. It’s, ah, a bit juvenile. Or you may get a kick out of it, I don’t know.”

It’s a series of short letters sent to Deborah’s column at the Beaufort Gazette. He ends each of them with signatures like ANGRY IN WISCONSIN or FED-UP SON. One of them, I see, is mistakenly addressed to Deborah Weiner instead of Deborah Rose.

“That’s her maiden name,” he tells me, biting his thumb to keep his ear-to-ear grin from transforming into a full-fledged laugh. “I thought the typo would be funny. Works out my frustration to get back at her in this small way, and so far, she hasn’t guessed I’m behind them.”

“Good lord!” I clutch a hand to my chest. “How could you give me access to nuclear codes like this?”

Dear Deborah, my mother fails to recognize personal boundaries. I’m in my thirties. How do I tell her to cut the umbilical cord and stop calling me twenty times a day?

Dear Deborah, my mother is overbearing and steamrolls my fiancée. She digs into our business with more determination than a dumpster diver, but whenever I express this to her face, she doesn’t seem to get it. What am I going to have to do to make her get the point? Should I put it in writing?

Dear Deborah, I plan to propose to my girlfriend but I’m concerned my extremely interfering mother might attempt to hijack wedding plans. I hope she understands that this would be inappropriate, and I’m sure you’ll agree.

“Does the newspaper ever post your letters?” I ask.

“They’ve posted six of the seven I’ve sent in.”

“And your mom hasn’t made the connection?”

He shakes his head slowly from side to side, a wry smile twisting his lips. “Nope. Total cognitive dissonance in her replies. She told me to just tell my mother nicely that I don’t want her involved in my wedding plans, and the mother in question would likely say ‘Okay!’ and back off. You should have seen my face when I read it. I write these letters to get it out of my system when I’m really upset with her, but her replies just make me want to bang my head against a wall.”

“Nicholas, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. For my Christmas present, I want you to write in and tell her your father used to go to brothels.”

He clutches me close to him in reflex when he laughs. “Oh god, yes. I’m doing that for sure.”

After we reread his letters several times, replaceing new bits to chuckle over, we go back to Nightjar and he familiarizes me with the game. He bounces me involuntarily on his knee, which won’t stop jostling, and his fingers tighten around my waist. He’s not mindful of his body language, absorbed in his storytelling, his tips and opinions. He’s more animated than I’ve seen him in a long, long time, and he’s loving this. He loves introducing me to a game that gives him so much joy.

I smile inwardly and pay close attention to every word he says. When we next glance at the clock, it’s two thirty in the morning and I’m struck by the realization that my fiancé and I are becoming friends again.