Rebound With Me Page 18

  “Hi. Everything okay?”

  “Oh yes, just dropped Tyler off.”

  “Oh good, whose class is he in?”

  “Mrs. Yee.”

  “Oh that’s great, she’s wonderful.”

  “Yeah, she seems cool.”

  We stare at each other for a second.

  “So you all had a good summer?” I ask.

  “Yes, very good…You?”

  I smile, and feel my eyes getting watery, clammit. “It was the best.” I place a fingertip in the corners of each eye to stop the flow. “How is he?”

  She lets out a long exhale through her mouth and puts her hands on her hips. “He’s…okay? Kind of. I mean, it was rough for a few days there, I was really worried about him. He wasn’t sleeping and I guess he was drinking a couple nights in a row, but…he’s been seeing his therapist three times a week, and I think…I mean. It’s not my place, but…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But I think you guys should talk.”

  “Oh.”

  “Like, soon.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  A horde of parents and five and six year-olds suddenly crowds in towards us, and Eve and I get separated. I hear her say “bye” and I have so many questions, but no time to think about anything other than getting backpacks into cubby holes and kids into their desks.

  By 3:20, when my classroom is miraculously emptied and quiet, I start to tidy up and reorganize and pack up my things, and acknowledge the butterflies in my stomach and the re-emerging tingle in my lady parts in anticipation of talking to Vince, like soon.

  There are no messages from him on my phone.

  I reply to Marnie’s text: Staff room before home? Afdsoiui

  With: Heading home! Talk later.

  When I’m three blocks towards home, composing a speech in my head, I hear a motorcycle engine approaching behind me and stop in my tracks.

  Un, deux, trois, ohhh merde, please be him.

  The man on the motorcycle pauses alongside me and pulls off his helmet with his strong, slightly rough, very capable hands. Seeing his beautiful face again takes my breath away.

  “Hello, Miss Parks.”

  I have to clear my throat. “Hi.”

  His eyes are the color of a summer lawn after a long day of welcome rains. “Sorry I don’t have more of a grand gesture prepared,” he grins. “I’ve been too busy going to therapy and working towards becoming a partner at my Dad’s brokerage, so I’m exhausted. But I’m doing it for you.”

  “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear someone say that.”

  “You want a ride home?”

  I nod my head. “Yes. Yes I do.”

  “Hop on.”

  I put on the extra helmet, climb onto the seat behind him, hiking up my shin-length cotton skirt and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his back. He smells like a warm musky forest that I want to run through naked and get lost in with him.

  When he parks the bike in front of my building, he stays on after I climb off. He removes his helmet, runs his fingers through his hair and says, “I didn’t call you because I figured you needed to get ready for school…”

  “Yeah, I didn’t call you because I was getting ready for school, and…I didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me or not.”

  He grins. “Can I come up?”

  “Yes.”

  He nods once. There’s a clarity in his gaze that I haven’t seen before. I’ve always felt like he could see right through me, but now I feel like I can see into him too. He locks both wheels of his bike and follows me upstairs. We don’t speak or touch or look at each other, but I feel the electricity of him on my skin all over.

  As soon as we’re through the door to my apartment, I drop my bag, he drops his motorcycle helmets and messenger bag and my back is pressed up against the wall, his lips on mine, my hands all over him, and I finally feel like I’m home.

  “I missed you so much,” he says, “I love you so fucking much, I’m sorry I was such a dick that day.”

  “Vince, I’m more in love with you now than ever.” He kisses my neck as he unbuttons my blouse, and all these random words and sounds pour out of my mouth, until I’m finally able to form a sentence: “I realized I’m more me when I’m with you than when I’m by myself or with anyone else. I’m so sorry I had to hurt you to figure that out.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

  “No, I do. I have to say this—wait. Wait.” I hold him away from me so I can get it out before my brain drowns in a bath of hormones and relief. “I keep thinking it’s like I was hiding this hole in my heart, and you came along and revealed it to me, and then you patched it up. And then I broke yours. I’ll never forgive myself for that…” I brace myself and wait for him to laugh at me for saying anything so corny out loud.

  Instead, he says: “I would rather let you break my heart every day of my life than live without you.”

  I cover my mouth. “Oh my God. Vince. We’re so cheesy.”

  “I think we should stop talking now.”

  I smile. “I have a surprise for you.” I slowly push my skirt down from my waist.

  “I like it so far,” he smirks.

  “You’re going to have to be gentle with me,” I say, as I push the skirt down a couple more inches to reveal the tattoo I got when I was in Indiana. It’s healing nicely. I think Joni Mitchell would be proud to know that her lyrics have a permanent place on my lower abdomen.

  I watch his eyes light up as he reads:

  Oh I could drink a case of you darling

  And I would still be on my feet

  I would still be on my feet

  “For me?”

  “For you, darlin’.”

  He pushes my skirt down so that it falls to the floor, scoops me up in his arms and carries me to my bed, placing me down ever so gently. He kisses all around the tattoo, and keeps staring at it when he says, “You got any big plans for the Fall, or…the rest of your life?”

  “Yeah,” I say, reaching for him. “I know a guy.”

  Epilogue – Vince

  Ten months later

  The wedding of Neil Devlin to Sharon Hale is warm and pleasant and understated, just as they wanted it to be. A second marriage for both of them. I am as sure that my Mom would like Sharon as I am that Charlie adores her and that my Dad will love and cherish her for as long as she’ll have him. Watching him slowly give himself up to her has been good for me and Gabe, as neither of us ever thought we’d see the day he’d look at any woman the way that he looked at our mother.

  Life goes on.

  My Dad’s married again. Gabe’s been dating a great lady for over two months. Charlie even has a little girlfriend, as I predicted. Russell and Sadie broke up like half a year ago, and I even sort of get along with him when we have to see each other.

  As Dr. Glass would say: “All in good time.”

  The good times with Nina continue, but I’ve been waiting patiently for what feels like an eternity to get to this moment.

  She looks warily at the drinks I’ve just made for us at the bar at the back of our friend’s restaurant during the reception. I just invented this cocktail. It’s big and Irish green and contains twelve ingredients. One for each month I’ve known her.

  “It’s called a Lucky Motherflorker,” I say.

  She laughs and takes a sip. “It tastes so bitter and so sweet.”

  “You got that right.” I pull something out of my left pocket and slide it across the bar counter towards her. “This is for you.”

  Her eyes go wide at the sight of the little black velvet box, but she doesn’t hesitate to grab it and open it. That’s my girl.

  She looks a little confused when she sees the key inside of it. “But I already have a key to your place,” she says.

  “This is just a metaphorical hypothetical key to our place. A couple of months ago I told a guy I know to keep an eye open for two bedrooms in Carroll Gardens
or Cobble Hill, so you can still walk to work, and there’s a place about to come on the market that I want to show you tomorrow. I really think you’ll like it. And I’d really like to live there with you.”

  She smirks.

  God, I love it when she smirks.

  “Well, that sounds great, but I’m not in the mood to get raped or murdered this summer.”

  Ahh, memories. “I promise I’ll keep my hands where you can see them. So you know exactly what they’re doing to you at all times.”

  She giggles. “People do this? Meet in a liquor store, rebound with each other, go on a double date with their exes and then move in together?”

  “We do.”

  “Yeah. We do.”

  “Good.” I pull another box out from my right pocket, and walk out from behind the counter. It is too fucking priceless that the Beyoncé ballad that she loves just happens to be playing when I get down on one knee in front of her.

  I hear Eve scream from the other side of the room, and I don’t even care that all my co-workers are watching me do this, all I care about is the look on Nina’s amazing face.

  “I want to live there with you as your husband. If you’re open to that.”

  “I am. I am very open to that.”

  “You’ll marry me?”

  She pulls me up, takes the ring and slides it onto her perfect finger. “Vince Devlin, I’m gonna marry the fuck out of you.”

  And that’s how I know that it’s summer again, and that for us, it always will be.

  Author’s Notes

  Quote from the song “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell from the album Blue.

  If you have a Spotify account, you can listen to this song on a rather eclectic Spotify playlist of songs that I listened to while writing Rebound With Me HERE.

  Quote from The minute I heard my first love story… by Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi.

  Since this poem isn’t in the public domain, I can’t include the whole of it in my book, but you can find this perfect tiny poem all over the internet, and on my Pinterest board HERE.

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