by Box Set
By the time her work day was over, Cara was more than ready to find out what had survived the fall and winter. She went straight to her storage unit and spent nearly an hour poking around, reorganizing boxes and carefully selecting what she would take home with her. She didn’t want to trample her mother’s newfound good will by bringing home boxes of stuff.
It was a quick drive home from the storage facility, which she was grateful for. There were so many ideas in her head. It was like…before California she’d been living in black and white, and now all the colors were back. The only thing missing…was Nate.
Tonight, she’d have to talk to him. To figure something out. She didn’t want a future that didn’t include him, but they could very well not want the same thing. She still didn’t know what that was, but she’d never find out if they didn’t talk. It was the adulty thing to do, when all she wanted was to hide.
Cara gathered her things and headed into the house. If she were lucky, she’d be in time for dinner. For once, she wasn’t trying to miss sitting down as a family.
She pushed the front door open and paused.
Laughter reverberated through the house.
That in and of itself was unusual enough, but there were more notes. Lower ones. Bass tones she was familiar with.
A familiar sound that wasn’t quite right here.
“Cara!” Her mother popped around the corner from the living room. “We were wondering if you’d ever show up. What happened to your phone?”
Mom hurried forward, pushing the door shut and taking the box from her hands.
Had Cara hit something? Bumped her head? Slipped on some ice?
That voice, the one in the living room, did not belong here.
“Mom…” Cara stared at her mother.
“Go on,” Mom whispered.
Cara wanted to hit reverse. This couldn’t be real. She wasn’t ready for this. And yet, Mom gave her a shove forward. Cara stumbled a couple of steps, clutching her tote to her chest.
She hesitated at the end of the entry, staring into the living room.
Holy shit
Ellie’s surprise had legs and a face.
He was sitting on her parent’s sofa.
“Hi, Cara.” Nate unfolded himself and rose to his feet.
She gulped.
For some reason, he seemed to dwarf the whole room.
“I was holding dinner so we could all eat together,” her mother said from the kitchen. “It’ll be ready in just a couple of minutes. Denis, will you help me?”
Cara’s step-father squeezed past her, leaving Cara and Nate somewhat alone in the living room.
Nate pushed his hands into his pockets and kept staring at her.
She should have listened to the voicemails.
Why was he here?
What was going on?
She wasn’t ready for this.
She’d never be ready for this.
“Can we…talk?” Nate nodded toward the hall.
No, Cara didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want things to change. But she was here and she didn’t have the luxury of pretending things were all right.
“Okay,” she said, after a pregnant pause.
“In private?”
Cara didn’t want an audience for what Nate might say, that was for sure. She ducked down the hall toward her bedroom, Nate following her, blocking out the light from the living room.
She pushed the door to her room open and glanced around. It was neat-ish, though the face down photographs were rather conspicuous. She deposited her tote under her desk and retreated across the room.
Nate closed the bedroom door and turned to face her.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. They just stared.
Cara shifted her weight from foot to foot.
Nate dragged his hand across his jaw.
“Ellie said she was sending me something. I didn’t…” Cara’s mind stuttered to a halt. What if this wasn’t what Ellie was talking about?
“Yeah, this was her idea.” Nate chuckled and sat on the foot of her bed.
Cara blew out a breath and shrugged out of her coat. Okay, then, so this was Ellie’s doing. It seemed like her. All ripping Band-Aids off and stuff.
“About last night…” Nate stared at the floor. “I’m sorry for all the voicemails. I’m…fuck, I have no idea what I said…”
“I haven’t listened to them. I was going to. Tonight.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Nate glanced up at her. His glasses were on, thick, black rims that were so out of place with his football star body. Yet, it worked. Because it was Nate.
She had the silliest urge to curl up on his lap and be held.
But they weren’t those people. Maybe they never had been.
“Cara…” Nate twisted to face her, his face scrunched up.
“Dinner!” Mom knocked on the door.
“One minute, Mom.”
“We’re hungry.” Mom tapped on the door.
“Eat without us.” Cara wished she could will her Mom away. Didn’t she know this was important?
“Why don’t we eat then talk?”
“That’s a great idea, Nate.” Mom pushed the bedroom door open.
Cara swallowed her groan.
Great. She was going to have to sit through family dinner, across from Nate, and not know which version of him had come to call.
Nate wrapped the throw blanket tighter around his shoulders and tried to not think about the lack of feeling in his toes. Cara’s beat up old car hit every bump and pothole on the road.
“Denis is nice,” he said to fill the silence. Neither had spoken since Cara had offered to give him a ride to his hotel right after dinner.
“He is.”
“Your mom seemed happy tonight. Things getting better?”
“Yeah.”
One-word answers.
Cara wouldn’t hardly look at him.
The depressing reality that he’d fucked things up irreparably was sitting a few feet away. She didn’t want to acknowledge his presence, much less talk to him.
This whole trip was a wreck.
“Here we are.” Cara pulled into the hotel parking lot and instead of pulling under the covered walk, parked her car.
“You want to come in?” He didn’t know if he should hope for a yes or a no at this point.
“Isn’t this why you’re here? To talk to me?”
“I was hoping we could talk.”
“So, we’ll talk.”
“Inside.” He was going to freeze to death in this car.
He sprinted for the doors, Cara following at a slower pace in her boots and winter coat. By the time she was inside he was getting the room key. They didn’t speak on their way to the second floor, and the first thing he did once they were inside the room was to crank up the heater.
“I can’t believe you’re wearing flip-flops and didn’t bring a jacket.” Cara chuckled.
“Yeah, well, I was pretty much shit faced when we decided this was a good idea.”
“We?”
“Ellie, Bryan and me.”
“How’s Bryan’s nose?”
“Broken.”
Nate turned to face Cara.
She stood at the door, hands in her pockets. There was only six feet of space between them, but there might as well have been a mile.
“What did you want to talk about?” Cara asked.
There was something just a little different about her. He liked it, wished he knew what it was, but she’d shut him out.
“Sit?” He gestured to the bed.
She crossed the room and sat on the other queen bed facing him, that yawning chasm still between them.
Nate perched on the other bed and gathered his thoughts. Where to begin? How to proceed? He’d practiced a hundred different lines during the flight, but none of them were right.
“I fucked up, Cara.” Nate sighed. “I fucked us up. I’m sorry.”
She flinched and crossed her arms ac
ross her chest. Defensive. Protecting herself.
“I didn’t tell you about Ellie because…because I never expected things between you and I to go the way they did, then I was scared that if I told you, it would be one thing too many. So…I didn’t. I kept saying that I’d tell you later, that after we were good, after I knew you’d understand, I’d come clean. I didn’t want to hurt you. And neither did Ellie.”
Cara frowned.
She opened her mouth and closed it.
Nate focused on her face, committing everything about her to memory.
This might be the last time he saw her.
“I’m not—I wasn’t mad about you and Ellie. At least, not once the shock wore off.” Cara lifted her shoulders.
“You weren’t?” Nate blinked. Was he hearing her right?
“I mean, do I wish I’d found out a different way? Yeah.”
“Then… I don’t understand…”
“We’re different people.” Cara gestured to Nate, then herself. “We fell in love with someone neither of us are anymore. We don’t really know each other now, and…I realized that while everything was happening. I went to see my friend, my old friend, except you aren’t him anymore.”
“Yes, I am, Cara.”
“No, you’re not.” She smiled a sad smile. “You’re better now. You’re happier. More comfortable as you. It’s not a bad thing.”
It was Nate’s turn to flap his lips like a fish. What did he say to that? He didn’t have an argument, nothing in his arsenal to deal with that reasoning.
“Along the way, we both grew up. You, more than me. But whenever we talk ,we go back to being those people we were. Think about all of the things in your life now you never told me about.”
“It doesn’t change the way I feel.” That much Nate knew. “Does…did it for you?”
Cara lifted her shoulders again and glanced away.
“Cara?” Nate leaned forward but didn’t touch her. “I love you. I know I love you. Have I fucked up? Yes. Yes, I have, and I’ll own it. But I know that I love you.”
“How can you know that?” She shook her head.
“Because I’ve always loved you.”
“Nate, that’s crazy.”
“Maybe, but it’s the truth.” He braced himself to ask the important question. The one he needed to know. “You said you loved me. Do you not anymore?”
“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes. “We jumped in way too fast. I’m not sure I know.”
“What do you feel right now? Don’t open your eyes, just—tell me. What do you feel?”
“Confused.”
“About?”
“Us.”
“Why?”
“I’m confused, doesn’t that imply I don’t know?”
“I think you know, you just don’t want to admit it.” Nate gripped the side of the bed. She didn’t love him and she didn’t want to hurt him.
“I’ll always love you, Nate, but…we don’t really know each other.”
“Yes, we do.” He pushed off the bed and sat next to her. “Cara…you are the most important thing to me. I love that you don’t change who you are for anyone. I love that you accept people. I love so many things about you. There is no one who knows me better than you. Not Josh. Not Bryan. Not Ellie. No one. If you don’t love me the same way, that’s…that’s okay. But I know what I feel.”
Cara glanced up, her lashes damp. He hated seeing her tears, but at least he knew she had feelings.
“What’s really going on, Cara-bear?” He wrapped his hand around hers and she let him.
“I just…”
“Is this about your dad?”
“Kind of. I’m like him. Mom and I had a talk the other night that made me realize a lot of things. I keep making the same ‘leap before I look’ mistakes my Dad did.”
“And now you’re worried that’s what you did with us?”
“Yeah.”
“I beg to differ. I think we’ve both spent a long time looking at this. Us. That it’s hard to figure out how to leap.” Nate searched her eyes, watching the way emotions played across her face. She was struggling. She hadn’t yet made-up her mind. Which meant they had a chance.
“But…”
He waited for her protest that never came.
Nate slowly lowered his face to hers. He brushed his mouth against her lips, then pulled back.
“Nothing about us is a mistake. I only regret not trying something sooner. That’s it. I want you in my life, I want to share my life with you, however that looks. It’s your call, Cara.”
The question now was, would she break his heart?
Cara bit her lip.
On one hand, she wanted everything Nate offered. On the other, this could be a crazy, rash decision they would both regret.
He was right, they’d both spent a lot of time wanting each other, but the problem with that was, could reality measure up to fantasy?
She knew what she wanted, but was it the right choice?
“I need to think about it,” she said.
Those six words hurt, but they were the smart thing to say.
Nate pulled back, the simmering heat in his gaze dying. She hated the empty way he stared at her, as if she’d just killed a part of him.
“I should go.” She stood and crossed the room before she did something, whatever it took, to make him look at her the same way again.
“Okay,” Nate said softly.
She jerked the hotel room door open and fled out into the hall. Her mind was abuzz of possibilities, while her heart screamed at her to stop. To turn around. That this was a huge mistake.
She jabbed the elevator button and glanced over her shoulder, but Nate wasn’t coming after her this time. Because she’d said she needed to think. Did she really?
Cara bounced on the balls of her feet.
Her lungs constricted and her eyes prickled with unshed tears.
She wanted Nate, but would leaping like this be a mistake?
It wasn’t like he was saying she had to move back right now. They were simply talking about the chance, a possibility at more.
The elevator dinged.
An older gentleman shifted to one side and smiled at her.
Cara stared at the empty space in the elevator car.
She could leave. Do the responsible thing. And all the while, her heart would know it was wrong.
“Going down?” the man asked.
“No, sorry. I forgot something.”
Cara turned and walked as if in a daze down the half dozen or so doors to where she’d left Nate. She lifted her hand and knocked.
The door opened almost immediately.
Nate stood on the other side, her purse in hand.
“Forgot this?” He smiled, but again, it was sad and empty.
“I thought about it,” she blurted.
Nate shook his head.
This was right. She knew it in her bones.
Cara walked forward, straight into Nate’s chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed.
He let go of the door. It banged shut about the same time he gathered her closer, resting his chin on her head. She buried her face against him and breathed deep, the smell of him, the feel of his arms, it was all right. Like this was where she belonged.
“I love you, Nate.”
“I love you too, Cara-bear.”
“No.” She leaned back. “Like, spend-the-rest-of-my-life-with-you, love you.”
“Are you—that’s… Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That’s major leap before you look territory.”
“I know, and I’m kind of freaking out on the inside, but that walk to the elevator was the worst thing ever and I don’t want to do that again. Like, never. So, if I never want to do that, then, yeah, this is where I’m at. I think. Too much?”
“No, it’s perfect.” Nate’s smile turned into a grin, practically splitting his face in half.
“I basically just asked you to marry me.”
“You kind of did.”
“Oh, boy.” Cara stared at the wall, waiting for the panic to come. Something besides the building tide of rightness swelling up inside of her. He hadn’t said no, at least not a no to her. Which meant… “So…it’s a yes, then?”
Nate picked her up and planted her back against the wall, their noses bumping. His smile incited a riot of butterflies inside of her.
“Cara-bear, you’re never getting rid of me.”
Epilogue
Two months later…
Cara kept her fingers on the keys even while Ellie twisted her hair up into some sort of torture device called an up-do.
“Can you stop working for all of five minutes for me to finish?” Ellie sighed. “Tamara, take the keyboard from her, will you?”
“Come on. Give it here.” Tamara grasped the keyboard.
“No!” Cara wailed the word. “I need to finish this.”
“Cara, it is your wedding day. Stop it.” Ellie Smacked Cara’s hand and Tamara took that moment to whisk the keyboard away.
Wedding. Day.
Oh, God. It really was.
She blinked around Nate’s apartment. Her mother was fussing over flowers. Tamara and her friends were finishing the underskirt Cara had tried to put together last minute.
It was a dream. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
“Having second thoughts?” Ellie asked quietly.
“I’m having is-this-real thoughts.” Cara swallowed.
“Hey, you asked him to marry you.”
“I just thought…these things take time…”
“Clearly, you didn’t realize how badly Nate wanted his hooks in you. There.” Ellie presented Cara with a mirror.
“Wow…” Cara stared at herself.
Ellie had tried out a few hairstyles, but Cara could never make up her mind about what she liked best. The end result Ellie had settled on for her was…amazing.
“I went with the light saber clips here and here, and in the back the veil will attach here.” Ellie kept talking and Cara nodded.
“Ladies, we have twenty minutes, if we’re going to hit the mark,” Cara’s mother announced.
