24. Fern

24

Fern

“ H ey Fern.” Ethan walked around the corner half a second after her last student left.

“Hi.” She clutched a pile of yoga pillows to her chest and grinned like a fool.

“You’re done with work for the day, yeah?”

“Yep, that was my last class.”

“Come upstairs when you can, would you? I want to talk to you, but I don’t want to leave Theo too long.”

Her heart stuttered and sank. “Of course.”

“Okay, thanks.” His grin was nervous as he took a couple of steps backwards. Then he turned and disappeared around the corner.

A quiet sense of dread settled into her stomach.

She took calming breaths as she cleaned up, deep breaths through her nose, but it didn’t stop her thoughts from skittering.

Worries buzzed around her head like mosquitos:

He was going to tell her that he needed space.

It was all too much too soon.

He regretted getting involved with his landlady.

He regretted the kiss. Kisses.

They hadn’t meant to him what they did to her. Not even close.

Three days had passed, and it hadn’t happened again. She had barely even seen him.

To be fair, that was more her fault than his. She had made an excuse and bolted as soon as he had come back to the apartment, and she had kept busy in the days that followed.

She was terrified. She had been unintentionally keeping him at arm’s length to postpone any sort of rejection – or worse, the news that he was moving back to the mainland and taking Theodore with him.

Maybe some corner of her mind was convinced that if she put distance between them now, it would hurt less when the inevitable happened.

“No more hiding,” she said under her breath as she stacked the last of the pillows.

She missed them. She missed the low rumble of Ethan’s voice and Theo’s gummy smiles. Just being near them made her incandescently happy. Keeping her distance was stupid.

She would soak up whatever time she had left with them… if there was any time left at all.

And after that, well… she would figure things out.

She had been alone before. She would be fine.

Her steps were heavy as she walked up the stairs, but her heart soared when she caught the sound of baby babbling. Theodore had found his voice, and she loved to hear the grumbling sing-song of him trying out new sounds.

She opened the door without knocking. Before she could fully second-guess that impulse, she was overwhelmed by the rich smells of red sauce and parmesan. She closed the door behind her before any flies could get in.

“Perfect timing.” Ethan grinned at her from the kitchen, where he was pulling a big pan out of the oven.

“It smells amazing in here.”

“I made lasagna.”

“Made it… from scratch?”

“Yep!” His smile was the brightest she had ever seen on him. “I’m not much of a cook, but I’ve been making lasagna since I was eight. It’s my grandma’s recipe. I made my own sauce and everything.”

“Wow.” Her mouth watered at the bright smell of tomatoes and basil.

A happy screech pulled her attention to the left, where Theodore was clutching the bars of his playpen with both hands and smiling up at her.

“He’s standing!” she exclaimed.

“Yep! Pulled himself up for the first time a couple days ago.”

“I can’t believe it!” She crossed the room to stand in front of Theo. “Look at you!”

He screeched again and reached for her with both hands, then immediately fell backwards.

“Oops!” She picked him up and set him on her hip. “That was amazing, Theo!”

He responded with a string of happy, incomprehensible sounds.

“Is that a new tooth?”

“He has five now,” Ethan confirmed.

“New teeth, new skills. I don’t see him for a couple days and he’s a whole new baby!”

“Yeah, they do that.”

“You seem… good,” she said cautiously.

“I feel good.”

She walked into the kitchen. Slowly, her worries and insecurity began to fade.

They evaporated completely when he greeted her with a kiss to the cheek.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“I could eat.” She looked down at Theo, who was gumming on his fingers. “How about you?”

He replied at length, still chewing on his hand.

“Pop him in his high chair,” Ethan said. “I made him some scrambled eggs, and they’re just about cool enough to eat.

Fern lowered Theo into the chair, where he immediately started banging on the tray like it was a new set of bongo drums. She played along, drumming on the table, and he screeched happily. Whoever would have thought that such a shrill sound would bring her so much joy?

“Something to drink?” Ethan asked. “I bought every one of Juniper’s iced tea blends at the market today, so we’ve got lots to choose from.”

“Hibiscus?”

“I hear the bright purple one is hibiscus forward.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

“Here.” He poured her a glass of tea and pulled out her chair. “Take a seat.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

This solicitous, smiling version of her upstairs neighbor was so different from the brooding contractor she had shared the building with all summer. Was it possible that the bright smiles she had glimpsed here and there were the real him? Was that what he had been like most of his life, before grief had knocked him flat?

He set a plate down in front of her, a huge slice of lasagna and a side of island-grown sprouts.

“I bought a ginger dressing at the market too,” he said, putting a glass bottle down in front of her, “if you’d like to try.”

Fern just stared.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“You seem… different.”

She caught another flash of that boyish smile that she loved so much. Ethan grabbed another glass and plate from the counter, set them down, and then went back for Theo’s scrambled eggs. They were in a bowl that had a big suction cup on the bottom, and he pressed it carefully onto the highchair tray.

“I’m feeling more like myself these days,” Ethan said as he sat down. His expression was thoughtful as he reached for her hand. “It’s slow going, but I feel like the fog is finally starting to lift… like I can see what life might look like going forward, and I like what I see.”

Fern tried to take in one of her yogic breaths, but her lungs seemed to hitch and catch on her ribcage.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m okay.” She took another shuddering breath. “Just… would you be careful throwing those ‘we need to talk’s around? I thought you were going to tell me you made a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“When you kissed me.”

His eyes widened in surprise, and he pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“No,” he assured her. “No. Fern, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But this,” he squeezed her hand, “whatever this is, it’s not one of them.”

“Good. Because I don’t want to lose you. Either of you.”

His grin was dazzling. “I feel the same way.”

Theo slapped his plastic tray with both hands, a sound accompanied by something that fell between screaming and singing. His face was covered in scrambled eggs.

“So does Theo,” he added, and they laughed. That made the baby laugh too, and Fern’s heart felt full to bursting.

“I love him,” she said without thinking.

As soon as the words were out, she looked to Ethan, wondering if she had crossed a line. There was a tumultuous mix of emotions in his hazel eyes, and she didn’t know him nearly well enough to guess at what was on his mind.

“He’s easy to love.” Ethan smiled, but there was a familiar sadness to it.

“I’m not sure where we stand,” she admitted.

“Ditto.”

Her anxious heart hitched, then settled again when he pressed another kiss to her knuckles.

“I need to go slow,” he told her. “I’m still processing a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with you, and none of that should be your burden to carry. So I’m going to need a little bit of patience, and I’m going to ask you not to take it personally if there are days I seem distant.

“I need to go slow,” he said again, “but I don’t want to lose you. I want to keep hiking together, adventuring together, eating together… I want to see where this goes.”

“I want that too.”

His smile was brighter than a sunrise over the volcano. “You’re the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know what you see in me but, I’ll try my best to live up to it.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Good. Now try your lasagna before it gets cold.”

She picked up a fork and sawed off a corner of the huge slice he had given her. Firm pasta gave way to luscious cheese and flavorful sauce, and for a moment, her mind was blissfully clear of everything but that bite of home-cooked food.

“That’s phenomenal,” she told him.

“Is it?” Still holding her hand in his, he wielded a fork in his non-dominant hand and took a big bite. “Not bad. Not quite as good as my grandma’s, but not bad.”

“Will you show me how to make it?”

“If I reveal all my secrets, what reason will you have to stick around?”

“For you,” she said, and she saw vulnerability flicker behind the joy in his eyes.

“The pleasure of my company?” he asked, trying to turn it into a joke.

But she wasn’t joking. “Yeah.”

He leaned over to kiss her full on the lips, and the heady sensation that overwhelmed her was more delicious than any lasagna. Then he retreated again, and picked up his fork, and turned the conversation to more mundane things as they ate the dinner that he’d made.

And through all of it, he kept hold of her hand.