28. BRUNO

Iemerged from the cocoon of sleep to find myself alone in the apartment. I got up and just padded around the apartment naked, eating a bowl of cereal over the sink and then making myself some coffee. Evan would surely have screamed "Hypocrite!" to see me do it… But it felt so nice, just being a grown-up in his own space. I loved having Evan here, but it was nice just to be a regular twenty-eight-year-old for a weekend. I checked my phone. Kelly's mom had texted me:

ALL FINE HERE!

I smiled and put the phone away.

Sitting down at my work desk with my coffee, I went through the emails. It was Saturday morning, and Evan wasn't back till Sunday night, so I was able to catch up with a few things. I promised myself I wasn't going to work, but I did start to look through a few things.

My editor, Karin, had sent over her initial thoughts about the first editorial pass over A Place to Stay. I thought her comments were really perceptive, although she didn't want to change much. The ending still wasn't completely written, what happened between the new lovers, how it worked out, but she said that once I knew that, she could work through that, too. "All sounds good, will start working on it," I emailed back.

Marlon's words in his text still echoed in my mind, reducing the complexities of love and relationship to a simple command to recognize what it is you want. He was right, of course, and yet I didn't know what to do next. Should I just text Danny? Should I write back, "Can we talk"? That seemed impossible. Too much time had passed, possibly. But gradually, I realized that maybe that was what I wanted: for us to be in touch at least, to talk at least.

But even as I acknowledged the truth of Marlon's wisdom, I found myself grappling with the daunting prospect of making myself vulnerable. It was a while since I had heard from him much at all, and we hadn't spoken meaningfully since we had broken up.

Then, a cold thought ran through me. What if he had met someone? What if the first time he was back on the apps, some woman had messaged him, and now he lay in her bed, and she lay in his arms? I suddenly had the flash of an image of him hard inside someone else. It hadn't even occurred to me before, but now it felt so awful.

Had I lost my chance, and for what? For him? For happiness?

I decided to go out and get some air. I considered a run but, in the end, actually preferred to go and stroll around the city on my own on a lovely, sunlit Saturday. On the weekend, New York changes, of course. Its business-suit intensity changes to cute couples, young families, and trendy groups of friends finding some time to relax and hang out.

As I walked through the East Village up to the big shopping avenues, the towering landscape of Midtown moved into view. The pulse of the city grew steadily around me, car horns and conversations and footsteps as people perused the store windows or queued for brunch at fashionable places.

By the time I was heading toward the gleaming skyscrapers of Midtown, the streets seemed alive with the might of the city, even on a Saturday. Passing by the iconic Grand Central Terminal, its majestic facade a glory to behold, I marveled at the hustle and bustle of commuters of a different kind, those coming to spend the money they had spent all week earning. The Great Hall echoed with the din of the city alive, the beat-beat-beat that gave New York its singular identity.

Turning southward, I found myself in the Garment District, with its vibrant mix of old and new. The area buzzed with activity, and it felt like a part of New York that was still very purely the city. I always liked it there; it reminded me of why I had come to the city and stayed here.

As I ventured further downtown, the streets grew narrower, the buildings shorter, and the grid pattern threatened to peter out. I didn't walk on toward SoHo but turned east again, down toward home.

Crossing the Bowery, I found myself back on the Lower East Side, with all its energy and diversity. The tenement buildings stood all around, changing as the area changed, too. Finally, I arrived at Avenue C and was almost home. I had been out a few hours by then, and even though I was a runner, my legs were sore, and I was ready to get into my apartment and rest. And then, just as I was walking up to my front door, I saw him sitting, almost like a schoolboy, on the front step. He was sitting with his hands on his chin and his legs splayed, just staring into space, waiting.

It was Danny.

Looking up as I got close, his eyes sprang wide, as if caught up to some mischief, but slowly, a shy, embarrassed grin spread across his face. He started to get to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, and I could hear my own disbelief.

"You won't answer your phone, or at least you won't give my texts a proper response, so I came to see you," he replied matter-of-factly.

We stood there, the two of us, rooted to our spots.

"You flew here?" I stammered, gazing at him, at his beauty, at the strangeness of him being there unannounced. Only then did I see he had quite a big bag with him.

"Are you hoping to stay?"

He looked down at his bag and then back at me and shrugged.

"Yes, I guess so," he said. "Is that okay?"

The implications of his words hung in the air between us. I hadn't answered his question.

"What about your work?"

He gazed at me for a long time.

"I have left my job," he confessed.

"What?"

His gaze stayed on mine.

"I think I've come to New York to…" His voice trailed off.

"To what?"

My heart was pounding.

"To tell you that I love you," he said.

In that moment, it was as if the world stopped spinning, as if the universe locked into position, focused on us.

"What?" I whispered.

"I love you, Bru. And if you still want me, I want to move here. I don't have a job, but I am a good architect, and someone will take me on. And I can help with the apartment costs, just like I said."

And the words that came out of me were simultaneously so odd and so satisfying.

"I am worth hundreds of thousands of dollars now," I replied, meaning it as the dumbest of jokes, almost bursting into laughter as I said it. "If we're going to be together, it will be as equals."

Those words hung in the air, the weight of them settled between us: if we are going to be together… The street, the city, seemed to fade into the background as we stood on the doorstep.

"Are we?" he asked.

"What do you mean, be equals?"

He shook his head.

"No. Are we going to be together?"

But I didn't know. I had to think. I had to think of my own feelings and what was right for Evan. But also, I just needed to think.

"I don't know," I replied. His eyes fell to the ground. I could sense his disappointment. But also, he had just flown halfway across the country to do this. "We should go inside," I said. He didn't react to that.

"How do you feel? Has that changed?" he asked.

"We should go inside."

"I mean, your feelings, have they changed?"

I met his gaze as he finally looked up.

"I want love, Danny. I want to be loved. I want to know that I am loved and to know that the other person knows I love them. I want a person to want me. Me. I want them to shout to the world that they want me, too." And with those words, I made a grand declaration of my desires – a testament to the depth of what I needed now, for my life, so changed already, to be truly complete. "Do you want that?" I asked.

Danny's response was immediate. He walked out into the sidewalk, and put his hands above his head. Then he began to say, almost shout, at the top of his voice.

"My name is Danny West!"

"Danny!" I cried, starting to laugh. One of his hands fell, then pointed straight at me.

"And I am in love with this man, whose name is Bruno Burgess!"

New Yorkers stole glances and hurried past, but one woman, middle-aged with bags of shopping under her arms, took one look at Danny and said in the most matter-of-fact way:

"Good for you, honey."

His hands dropped to his side and walked back toward me.

"I want every part of it," he said. "But more than that, I want you."

He stepped forward there in the middle of the street, on the doorstep of my building. He was a lot taller than me, of course, so I had to look up at him. He put his arm around me, in front of all New York, looping his hand into the small of my back, and he pulled me toward him, and his mouth was close to mine. "I love you, Bru, and I want you, and I want you in my life and to be in yours."

His eyes were glittering, there in the New York light.

"I want that, too," I said.

He seemed afraid of his next question.

"Do you still love me, Bru?"

He held my gaze a moment, and I held my breath.

"Yes, Danny. I love you so very much."

And then finally, he kissed me, right outside the place that we were going to call home.