Chapter Thirty-Five

Nora

I'm so busy fighting with Benji's rusty old corkscrew I almost don't notice my phone going off in my back pocket.

When I finally feel it, my foolish, smitten heart flutters in a rhythmic way as if chanting Seb-as-tian in time with the vibrations.

It'll never be him again , I remind myself.

I take a break from opening the Cabernet and pull out my phone. That fluttering gives way to an ache when I see who's calling.

Momma Bear .

Finally.

"Mom?" I cradle the phone with my shoulder.

" Baby ! It's so good to hear your voice." Her voice is light and summery, a bubbly aperitif spritzer on this hot day. "What's cookin' good lookin'?"

"I've been trying to call you for weeks . Where have you been?"

"I had to get a new phone after mine fell in the ocean. You'll never guess which one!"

My immediate relief at the fact that she's alive gives way to confusion. "Um…the Pacific? Last time we talked, you were in Seattle with helicopter dude." As ever, I sound like the worried mother and she sounds like the free-spirited daughter.

"Nicholas," she supplies. "Yes, that's who I'm with. Hang on, I have something to show you!"

I hover in front of the fridge and study the assortment of magnets Benji keeps there. "Holding."

My phone pulses once. A photo comes through. She's riding a mule with white stucco buildings in the foreground and pristine turquoise waters sparkling in the distance.Her straw hat obscures half her face. "Nicholas whisked me to Santorini. Can you believe it?"

"Whoa." Of my mom's various types, men who whisk her to Europe are my favorite. It's much better than men who bleed her dry financially , or men who order her around ."That's awesome."

"Sorry I've been out of touch. Between traveling, missing a flight at Heathrow, spending two days in Paris before flying to Greece, it's been hectic, but you know Europe is one of my dreams."

She has so many of them. A million tiny dreams she collects like trinkets. Her biggest fear, she told me one night when we were sharing a bed in our Oklahoma studio apartment many moons ago, was that she wouldn't get to live enough lives and be all the versions of herself she wanted to be. There's always something more or somewhere else, if only she can get there.

"That does sound like a dream. I'm happy for you."

"One more picture," she says, voice tinged with wicked glee. "It's a birthday present I want you to see."

I pull the phone away from my ear.

My heart stops as the photo fills my screen. " What is that? "

"It's a ring, silly."

My mind is spinning. It's two two-liter bottles stuck together to create a tornado. "I— holy crap . You're engaged? How long have you been together?"

Her laugh is a featherlight trill. "Nora. It's just a ring. Ruby is my birthstone."

I blink twice. Sure, I've had wine, but I know a left hand when I see it. "It's on your ring finger ."

"Isn't every finger a ring finger if the ring fits?"

"No. Not at all." I shake my head for no one's benefit but my own. "You gave me a heart attack. I thought you were engaged to a guy I haven't met whose last name I don't even know. I really wish you'd text me back once in a while."

"Oh, honey, I'd never get engaged without telling you. We're just having fun."

Fun . When it comes to her and relationships, it's always fun until it's not. The shiny varnish of this thing will wear off as sure as the sun setting.

I peer at the doorway that leads back to the dining room. Benji is contentedly holding Tairn as he waits for me.

I turn my back and lower my voice. "Hey Mom?"

"Hey daughter."

I press the phone harder to my ear, like maybe it'll bring us closer together. "In all the relationships you've had, did at least one of them stand out as being…more?"

I hear something that I like to think is the ocean but could just be poor reception since she's a world away. "David."

My heartstrings pull tighter. Key West left its mark on both of us. "Why'd the relationship end?"

She hums, and then a long pause follows. "I guess I didn't know it was special until after it was over. Hindsight is cruel, which is why I try not to concern myself with the past. I'm sure at the time I thought Patrick ‘McDreamy' Dempsey was still out there waiting for me, so I wasn't willing to settle. Between you and me, I still think about— Shit, here comes Nicky."

A deep voice rumbles in the background. There goes any shot at a meaningful conversation, not that Benji's kitchen is really the setting for it.

Though with how anxious I've been, I'd take just about any pearls of wisdom wherever I can get them.

"Right, I'm saying that's how I met you! Because I was smart enough to be picky!" Mom laughs her smooth-it-over laugh. "I can't wait for you to meet him, Nora. Oh, and his last name is Weaver. Nicholas Weaver the third."

I stick her on speakerphone and go back to wrestling with the corkscrew. I don't know what I was hoping to hear but knowing my mother—queen of never looking back—still thinks about the one who got away is enough to get my gears turning.

Nicholas Weaver the third gets close enough to the phone that I hear him say the word holidays .

"Baby, do you want to come to his for the holidays? He lives outside Chicago. Sorry— we live outside Chicago. Slip of the tongue, it's all so new!"

"We can talk about it when summer is over."

Again, I sound like a stern adult. Because, no, I don't want to go to this stranger's house for the holidays.

"I'll let you get going," I tell her. "You two have fun and be careful."

"Hey, that's my line. Start thinking about Christmas and we'll talk soon. I'm excited for you to see my new place."

I say nothing. There are three certainties in my life: My name is Nora, I love books, and my mother will not be living with this man come Christmastime. But weirdly, knowing that brings me a kind of comfort.

She's always been exactly herself, and I've always loved her despite her flakiness—it's just easier when her whims can't hurt me anymore. "Love you, Mom."

"Love you forever and like you for always."

This well-worn sendoff brings a smile to my face. And I guess those words are magic, because the cork finally pops from the Cabernet, and I refill my glass with way too much.

I plod back into Benji's eclectic dining room. "Sorry, my mom called. If I don't answer it's like missing a hold at the library and getting sentenced to two more weeks of waiting."

"No problem." Benji returns Tairn to his perch. His gaze then moves to the globe of liquid in my hand. "You opened another bottle already?"

I gesture at the Catan board set up in the center of his round table. "It's four p.m. and you just took road and army. Leave me alone."

"You'll get it next round. Your numbers just aren't rolling so far."

"This round's not over yet, bucko."

It almost assuredly is, but I intend to go down swinging in this battle.

Mostly, I'm just grateful for my regular routine.Game nights with Benji. Mediocre wine. It's exactly what I need to help me feel centered.

It almost helps distract me from missing Sebastian.

I take my seat and remove my hat to fan myself. It's bitterly hot out and Benji's AC is struggling to keep up. I don't know when it officially counts as the dog days of summer, but I think we're getting close.

Benji points at my head. "Where did you get that hat?"

I run a hand over the brim of the Mets hat. "Uh, from you ? It showed up on my doorstep from Amazon this morning with a gift receipt with your name on it."

His face screws up in confusion, and then settles into vague indifference. "Right. Yeah."

I frown. "You didn't know you bought me a hat?"

He opens and closes his mouth, then shakes his head. "The guy wants to be caught, I swear."

"What are you talking about?"

Benji's phone chimes with an incoming text. He frowns at it and turns the thing facedown. "Sebastian has developed a bit of a buying-you-shit habit this week and has been making me give them to you so you don't know they're from him," he tells me. "The coffee you drink religiously, the mango smoothie you're weirdly obsessed with, the soup on that day it rained." He waves at the hat. "That. I'd never buy you a hat from an organized professional sport. I'm surprised that didn't tip you off."

I gape at him, unable to process blinking a very loud red in my brain. "But…why would he do that? We're over."

He rearranges the cards in his hand. "Nora. He strong-armed me into bringing you things like a cat brings fresh kills to its owner. He likes you. At the very least, from a scientific standpoint, he wants you taken care of."

"Wow, that could've been really sweet without the fresh kills part."

My heart clenches anyway. Giving gifts and taking care of someone doesn't seem like things people who've gone their separate ways do. If we were friends, maybe. Benji and I exchange gifts sometimes. So is that what we are now? Why not just give them to me himself? I have so many questions and no one to answer them. "I'm so confused."

"Me too." He points at the board. "Now were you going to buy a settlement or—"

"This has been a hellish roller coaster," I blurt. "Being with him brought me to the top of the world, higher than I ever thought possible, and then I crashed when it ended." My stomach sloshes, and not from the wine. "Every day is mental warfare imagining what it will be like when I catch wind from Alessia or whoever that he's found someone else who wants to save the world with him because he's basically Superman and who wouldn't want to be a part of that?" I plunk my glass down on the table hard enough that wooden roads and settlements shudder on the board. "The point is, it ended, but I still want him. And hearing he's buying me gifts? Now it doesn't feel over ."

"Nora. You're spiraling."

I throw my head back and groan at the ceiling. "I know. I can't help it."

"Yes, you can," Benji says, returning the pieces to their proper places. "Ask yourself, what do you want? Do you want to date him long distance?"

"I've thought about it, but I'm not sure what we'd be dating toward? What's the endgame? It's not just that he's moving this one time. It's Nebraska now, but it'll be somewhere new all the time after that. I want to settle down and have family sooner rather than later. I want my kids to have a permanent home."

"I see. And you aren't willing to move again?"

My heart drops. "You think I should move ?"

"No." He looks deeply ruffled by this. "Don't go putting thoughts in my head."

"Sorry. It's just that I have a life here that I love. Liking someone isn't enough of a reason to uproot my life. Do you know how many times my mother did that for a man?"

"A lot?"

"A lot ," I confirm. "And I don't expect Sebastian to change his plans, either."

Maybe I should've had a little empathy for my mom, because if she felt for the men in her past even a shred of what I'm feeling for Sebastian, it makes perfect sense to me that she'd take a risk. Chase them and put her heart on the line. Because when I'm with Sebastian, my usual pragmatic brain exits the building and I'm totally willing to wrap myself in danger and plunge headfirst into risk, so long as he's by my side.

Though there's one big difference between me and my mother: she's always the one to end things with the guys, and I know if I went all in with Sebastian and he felt the same, that'd be it for me.

I groan and drop my head to the table. "I think I'm falling for him."

"Obviously. You're being sloppy during Catan."

"What do I do ?" I lift my head and search for an answer in his steadfast gaze. "You're the smartest man I know. Tell me the answer and I'll accept it."

"Decide. You have to."

"Okay, Yoda."

"I'm saying I can't make this decision for you. Nor will anyone else."

He is so frustratingly logical and correct.

"I guess." I can feel myself frowning but do nothing to stop it.

He sighs and leans over and takes the cards from my hand. "For example, I'm not going to tell you to buy a settlement"—he pulls out four cards—"but you should buy one and put it on the sheep port." His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. "And I'm not going to tell you to go for it with him, but I will say some people wait their whole lives to meet someone worth agonizing over and never get the chance. You're going to miss him either way when he goes, why not at least give it a shot? It's not a perfect plan, but it's a start. Otherwise, what was all this misery for?"

I level him with a look as heat pricks behind my eyes. "Oh my God, have you secretly been a romantic this whole time?"

"No."

"Benjamino Tobleroni—"

"Stop."

I sit up straighter in my seat as a dangerous, heady hope works through me. "You're right. I am going to miss him either way. I already do. Why not give it a shot?"

"There you go." He places my wooden settlement piece for me, the equivalent of this pity party has gone on long enough. "Statistically, women fall in love slower than men. With you feeling all this"—he gestures at me like I'm a museum exhibit—"chances are he's somewhere having the same thoughts, even more intensely."

I like the sound of that. "Should I just blast into his house Kool-Aid-Man style and ask him to talk? If he even wants to talk to me, at this point."

He hands me the dice. "You may be seeing him sooner than you think. At least, I assume he'll be there tomorrow."

My stomach pulses. "Wait. Where?"

His phone chimes again, this time several times in a row. "You'll never guess who called me last night."

"The same person who is blowing up your phone right now?"

"One and the same." He slides the phone my way. "I can't believe what I just agreed to, but I'm going to need your help."