Page 124 of Never Alone
I glanced at him.
"Yeah?"
"You stopped doing the hair thing. And the lenses." He gestured at his own face. "I know it wasn't my business when you started. I figured it wasn't my business when you stopped. But you look good. Lighter. Happier."
I smiled at him.
"Thanks, Benjie."
"It suits you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He went back to the case.
I stood at the counter and let the compliment settle. I hadn't been complimented on my own face in a long time. The face I'd been wearing for eight months had been designed to be unmemorable. The face I had now was the one I'd been born with. It was a strange thing, catching my reflection in the bakery window and recognizing it.
I let my mind go where it wanted to go.
It went where it had been going for two days.
To Cole on the couch. To the way his hand had felt on my jaw when he'd said it. To the way I'd said it back. To the way we'd spent the rest of that afternoon, mostly quiet, mostly close, with my head on his chest while he ran his thumb up and down my arm and the boat documentary played to an audience of nobody.
To the Ashford Street house. Almost finished now. Cole and Keith arguing about the porch furniture in a way that meant they were both having fun. Noah making a list of which friends he wanted to invite for the first sleepover at the new place. The room down the hall that Cole had painted in my color.That's yours,he'd said.Do whatever you want with it.He'd said it like it was obvious.
To the man Cole was. The man who had read a romance novel to learn how to be careful with me. The man who hadn't slept with anybody for thirty-four years because he didn't want to be one of the men on his mother's couch. The man who'd carried his sister for seventeen years and was, because of me, finally putting her down.
Cole was the first man in my life who'd thought about what was best for me before he thought about what was best for him.
I hadn't known a man could do that.
The bell on the door rang.
I looked up.
I had time to register the suit before I registered the face. Light gray. Cut close. The kind of suit a man wears in a city, not a small bakery in coastal South Carolina. Then the face.
Nicholas.
My hand went to the counter.
He stopped two steps inside the door. Hands at his sides, palms forward, the way a man surrenders.
"Tessa. I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to say goodbye."
Benjie's hand was already on the back-room door.
"Tessa. Do you want me to?—"
"It's okay, Benjie."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. Stay where you are. I want you there."
Benjie didn't move from the doorway. I was glad he stayed.
