by JD Hawkins
“What do you mean ‘everything’?” Hazel says, sitting up a little in the bed.
“They figured out I was hiding something, but they didn’t have any idea what,” I say, then laugh before the next part. “Funny thing is, I think the part about you being my fiancée was the only part they believed fully.”
Her brows draw together. “You told them I’m not?”
“I told them more than that. I told them the whole thing. That I got engaged to someone, and then she left me, and I was too set on getting the job to admit it, and that I met you at the conference by some fucking miracle, and that the whole thing was a pretense and that…that…”
“What?” Hazel urges gently.
“That I fell in love with you,” I say, then laugh at the ridiculous joy of saying it, of remembering how good it felt even to tell Eddy and Sam. I laugh again at the memory of their expressions. “There’s no way they don’t think I’m absolutely crazy now.”
“What did they say?” Hazel asks, sitting upright and rubbing my back now.
“Well…Sam barely cracked a joke and Eddy barely touched his omelet. Once they realized I wasn’t joking, Eddy told me it would have been better to tell the truth from the start about Nicole leaving,” I say, then pause for a moment. “I said, ‘No it wouldn’t, because then I’d never have met Hazel.’”
“Oh Nate,” Hazel says, climbing over the sheets to hug me, her embrace the kind of balm a hundred years of therapy couldn’t match. “You didn’t have to…we could have found some other way.”
“No,” I say, looking her in the eye as she pulls away again. “No, I’m not cut out for playing games with people. I’m done with it. Screw the whole thing. M and B, this damned apartment, my reputation in finance…I don’t care. If it means continuing to twist myself up to fit some other shape, I’m not doing it anymore.”
Hazel continues to look at me with eyes filled with compassion and sympathy, gentleness and support.
“Listen,” I say, taking her hands and turning to face her on the bed. “I want you to know that I meant what I said just before I left L.A. Even if you decide not to be with me—and I wouldn’t blame you—I’m still grateful. You’ve still changed me more than anything. Don’t for a second think that I’m doing this because I’m expecting anything from you. I did this for myself, and it was maybe the best decision I’ve ever made. And I made it because of you, not for you.”
Hazel laughs and it stirs a happiness in my heart that’s been dormant ever since I came back. “Did you think I walked out of a shift halfway through and came all the way to Chicago because I didn’t seriously want to try to have a future with you?”
“But a future with one of the country’s biggest investors is very different from one with an unemployed guy with debt up to his eyeballs.”
Hazel laughs again and I feel like I’m still falling in love with her. It’s a laugh that turns everything upside down, that makes the things I took so seriously seem unimportant, and things I’m only just learning to appreciate seem like the only things in the world.
“Do you think I care about that?” she asks, putting a hand on my cheek.
“No,” I say with a smile. “I know you don’t.”
She reaches forward and kisses me. It feels like some kind of absolution, a proof of everything I’ve gone through. With a kiss, Hazel makes me feel like I’m waking up, like the values I held my whole life were wrong, like the truth was so simple.
This…this is what I’ve wanted. Something inside of me seems to align, only now making me aware of how wrong so much has felt to me for so long.
She pulls away but leaves her hand on my face, and I open my eyes to her beauty once more.
“I’m sure I’ll find something for you to do,” she says, then laughs gently.
“Oh yeah? Like what?” I say, playing along.
Her hand moves down my cheek, my neck, fingers taking a grip over my unbuttoned collar to pull me with her as she falls back onto the pillows.
“Let’s start with what you’re good at…” she purrs.
Somehow the airport is filled with sunshine. California sunshine, West Coast warmth. Even though it’s nowhere. And I’m floating through it, the glow so peaceful even gravity doesn’t work.
Planes keep taking off behind the glass with satisfying roars as they climb into the sky, and each one that goes feels like it’s carrying something heavy—memories, or emotions, or obligations—far away. Each time making me lighter, making me glide even more easily through the pristine environment.
I feel a presence, the gentle nudge of somebody else, and look to my side and see her, Hazel, smiling at me. Suddenly I grasp for her as we spin through the sun. She calls my name and it feels like a bond. The gentle, hushed way she says it. Again and again, a little louder, a little faster, each time…
“Nate…Nate…Nate!”
Waking up feels like being wrenched from the depths of the sea. I’m almost surprised when I open my eyes to the gray light coming through the windows—I haven’t slept like that since…maybe ever.
As my eyes adjust, the vague silhouette hovering over me becomes Hazel’s gorgeous frame. She’s wearing one of my shirts, her legs bare, hair dangling loose, knee on the bed as she leans over me to shake me awake.
“Nate,” she repeats in a quiet but forceful whisper. “There’s someone at the—”
She’s interrupted by heavy knocking, and makes a face as if to say see.
“Let them knock,” I say with a groggy carelessness.
I reach for her hips but she pulls away slightly.
“They’ve been knocking for a while,” she says, the hushed urgency still in her voice.
I groan and twist myself out of bed as Hazel stands aside. Whoever it is knocks again while I’m pulling on my pants, buttoning them as I walk to the front door. I tense myself up as I go, preparing myself for it to be Nicole, unable to get in because I’ve latched it from the inside, and readying myself to give her a few home truths from the other side of the lock.
I glance through the peephole and immediately drop the tension however, reaching for the latch to swing the door open.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask as soon as I reveal Sam and Eddy standing in the doorway.
“You didn’t come in for work,” Eddy says.
Instinctively I check the clock by the door—it’s two in the afternoon—and feel a pang of guilt before remembering everything else.
“Did you expect me to?” I ask rhetorically.
“Can we talk?” Eddy asks, and in response I step aside to let them in.
Eddy wipes his shoes on the welcome mat while Sam steps right in.
“You mind putting on a shirt?” Sam says. “My ego’s fragile enough as it is.”
I let the quip slide as I close the door behind them, then lead them to the sunken couch area and gesture for them to take a seat there.
I remain standing and call back to the bedroom. “It’s all right, Hazel—it’s just Sam and Eddy. They want to talk.”
Hazel emerges from the hallway shyly smiling, holding my borrowed bathrobe around her with one hand and waving with the other.
“Hey, guys,” she says, letting off a little laugh. “Sorry I’m a bit underdressed.”
“Hazel! It’s lovely to see you again,” Eddy says with a genuine smile.
“Don’t worry, I’m not looking,” Sam says. “My wife has a telepathic sense for whether I’ve checked out another woman and I’m already in the doghouse for drinking too much last weekend.”
Hazel laughs and says, “It’s lovely to see you too. Anyway, I’ll leave you all in peace now.”
“No, it’s all right,” I say without taking my eyes from my colleagues. “Stay. No need to keep any secrets between any of us anymore.”
Hazel shrugs a little and takes a few more cautious steps toward the couch.
“You guys want anything to drink? Coffee?” I ask.
“No thanks,” Eddy says. “
We just had lunch with Warren actually.”
I let out a heavy sigh and move to sit on the couch opposite the one they’re sitting on.
“Listen,” I say, “you didn’t have to come all the way here to let me down gently. I told you this morning I’ve accepted it. I appreciate you coming but you could have just called.”
“Why don’t you listen to what we have to say first, Nate,” says Eddy.
I let out a fatigued smile and hold my hand up.
“I already know what you’re going to tell me,” I reply. “And I appreciate it. I know you’re both sympathetic, and you’re probably going to try to figure out some way of helping me out. Maybe try to hook me up with another position… I shouldn’t have told you about my debt. But really, there’s nothing you can do for me. I’m on my own now.”
I look to the side to see Hazel sitting sideways on the armrest of the couch, her face pensive and worried.
I smile at her and add, “Well, not really alone.”
Eddy and Sam swap a look, a little humor creeping into Sam’s face, a little happiness into Eddy’s.
“You got the position, Nate,” Eddy says.
I glare at both of them for a full five seconds before managing to speak. “Warren said so?” I ask.
“He did.”
“Even after knowing everything I told you this morning?”
They swap another look.
“We didn’t tell him that part,” Eddy says.
“As far as Warren knows,” Sam says, “Hazel’s your wife—”
“Fiancée,” Eddy corrects.
“Always has been, always will be,” Sam finishes.
Mind blown, I say, “You two decided to save my ass?”
“I was saving my ass,” says Sam says with a grin. “Can you imagine if we’d told Warren that we’d been working with you day in and day out for months and you pulled the wool over our eyes that much?”
“That’s not quite true,” Eddy adds with a chuckle. “Sam’s just trying to hide the fact that he’s a soft-souled romantic at heart.”
Sam grins and glances at Hazel as if embarrassed. “Yeah…I’m kidding,” he says.
“In truth,” Eddy continues, “we were kind of relieved with what you told us this morning.”
“Relieved?” I echo.
“Yeah. We imagined something far worse. The way you were hiding Hazel it seemed like you were worried she’d let something slip. We thought you might be dealing in trade secrets.”
“A big problem for us as you know,” Sam says.
“Or insider information.”
“Sometimes your work was too good.”
“Or even that she was involved in it with you.”
“That whole ‘health business’ thing you said you had,” Sam says to Hazel, then shakes his head. “Warning signals everywhere. Someone has a good job and their partner has a business that doesn’t seem to do anything but always turns a profit—could be a scam, money laundering. Almost always bad, bad news.”
Hazel laughs and says, “No! I don’t even have a health business. I’m a full-time nurse.”
Eddy and Sam turn to smile at each other, then Eddy says, “So no embezzlement then?”
“Well…I do sometimes steal highlighters from the hospital.”
“Is that a confession? That’s it. Let’s call the whole thing off,” Sam says and they continue laughing but I’m still heavy in thought.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, the seriousness in my voice like a rock dropped into the lightened mood. “I don’t want the position.”
They stop laughing and look at me in surprise now.
I look at Hazel, reminding myself, then continue slowly, “I’m sorry, but I’m not staying in Chicago. I’m going to California with Hazel.”
“Yeah you are,” Sam says, and it takes me seconds to figure out his strange phrasing.
“Nate,” Eddy says, “you know that M and B has needed a West Coast venture capital arm for decades.”
“And I need a good excuse to go visit when I can,” Sam adds. “Can’t beat that weather.”
“When we spoke to Warren we insisted that you were the best—”
“The only,” Sam interrupts.
“Man for the job.” Eddy pauses to shrug. “He agreed.”
I look at Hazel again. Her hand is over her mouth but her gigantic eyes reveal her joyous surprise.
“You’re going to be leading the new division. New offices, new hires, new strategies,” Sam says. “You’ve got a blank check. Carte blanche. Our ‘man in Monterey.’”
“Oh my God, Nate!” Hazel squeals, jumping beside me on the couch to throw her arms around me tightly, but my body’s gone so cold and stiff I can barely feel it.
“Don’t mess it up, Nate,” Eddy says.
“You know I won’t,” I reply. “But I… Why? I don’t get it. Why did you… Even after I told you everything?”
Eddy and Sam have faces glowing with the warmth of delivering good news, with the infectious smiles that Hazel’s happiness seems to bring.
Eddy says, “The fact you did work as good as you did while going through all of those personal issues—it’s sort of impressive.”
“Anyone can buy the best company in their field,” Sam says, “but when you find a company with talent, a good product, weathering a storm and getting the stock price beat up by forces that have nothing to do with the product…that’s when you load up. And that’s when you make the big bucks.”
Eddy chuckles. “Yes,” he says. “And perhaps it’s silly, but we have a good feeling about the two of you.”
“Consider it an investment,” Sam says.
Hazel slaps a big kiss on my cheek, then gets up to show her excitement to Eddy and Sam, the two of them instinctively standing so that she can throw her arms around them too.
“This is amazing!” she laughs in a voice pure with happiness. “Thank you so much.”
I stand up myself, scratching my head as I still try to absorb it all, barely even noticing how bashful and boyish my colleagues look after Hazel’s hugged them.
“Anyway,” Sam says, rubbing his red face, “we should get back to the office.”
“Yes—and we’ll expect to see you there tomorrow, Nate,” Eddy says as they move to the door.
“Sure. Yeah. I’ll be there,” I say.
“It was lovely to see you again, Hazel. Are you free next weekend? You see my wife has really become talented at cooking Arabic food and she—”
“How about we give Natey-boy a chance to grasp what we told him through his muscle-bound skull?” Sam jokes as he pulls Eddy through the door.
“Bye!” Hazel beams.
“See you.”
“Tomorrow.” I nod, closing the door behind them and turning back to Hazel.
She shrieks immediately, giddily raising her knees as she jogs on the spot, her sudden delight making me laugh, making me finally realize it’s real.
I pace across the apartment, over to the window, looking around as if searching for something. The view from this high up making me dizzy for the first time since I moved here.
Hazel slams her quivering, excited body against me and I instinctively grab her, the two of us fitting together like a whole. She puts her hands on my cheeks and we spend seconds just laughing and smiling at each other. Expressions filled with awe and happiness and a sense that anything else couldn’t possibly ever exist for us.
“I don’t believe it…” I say incredulously.
Hazel laughs and says, “Luckily I was also in the room, so I can definitely confirm what they said. You got the position.”
I let out a heavy breath and shake my head. “Not that…I can’t believe you’re really here. With me.”
Hazel’s smile is so beautiful I can’t resist leaning in to kiss her. Soft and patient, like I might never pull away. Until our lips slide to each other’s cheeks, necks, and an embrace simple but soul-nourishing. A sense of trueness fills me up as she presses her body ag
ainst mine, the heavy, dark things I’ve lived with all my life fading into the background, so that only now do I realize how much of me they’d taken up for so long.
And in their place now is some bright, shivering light. A happiness that makes me feel like I’m floating. Every muscle, every pore, every breath feeling like some exhilarating revelation.
Our faces move an inch from each other, eyes gazing into one another’s, and it feels like she can see all of this inside of me, like she might be the first to see beyond my defensive glare. Maybe she always could.
“Feels like my life just started five minutes ago,” I say in a voice so low only someone this close could hear it.
“Hmm,” she murmurs warmly, the sound of her body a noise I feel through our pressed skin as much as hear. “That’s what love feels like.”
I bring a hand to her cheek to feel her smile. “Then it’s my first time. And I still can’t believe it.”
Hazel laughs, a quiet, near-silent laugh. Just for me.
“It’s like what somebody very smart once told me,” she says.
“What?”
“That ‘what’s meant to be, tends to end up being.’”
Epilogue
Hazel
“Another one?” I say as I rush from one of the bedrooms to the kitchen, carrying a box of glasses, and catch sight of Nate putting another picture on the wall. I move toward him in the hall. “And you framed it? It’s got creases in it!”
Everything has been a crazy rush since Nate arrived in Los Angeles just a month ago. His search for offices, our new relationship, him looking for a place to live, my job at the hospital still going through a busy period, the fact we want to spend every moment we can together—it’s all blended together into a chaos of unpredictable urgency.
One night I’m working a double-shift while he’s flying back to Chicago, the next he’s got me calling in a favor with Jackie so that I can go meet him in Las Vegas where a business meeting descends into a raucous night of gambling for all of us.
