Page 21 of Ready or Not (The Nape #I)

Staring at the address in the history of my Uber app, I contemplated whether I was truly about to do what I was thinking about. Though this was the next step that I needed to take after confronting the uncomfortable parts of me, I was still chickening out.

Sitting in a park alone with your thoughts was a lot easier than facing the man who I wasn't sure I even had the courage to confront. It wasn’t just the fear of what he might say—it was the fear of confirming what I already suspected deep down: that I’d ruined something fragile before it even had a chance to bloom.

And the thought of him looking at me with that same mixture of pity and exasperation, Andrew always tossed my way? That was enough to make my stomach twist into tight knots as if it were preparing to implode.

Yet I continued to stare at the address again.

Ready to close the app, a call from Alexandra came instead. I hovered over the green button for a moment before answering, steadying my breath like it might make me sound less on edge.

“Hey,” Alexandra’s voice came through calmly. “You okay?”

I exhaled, leaning back against the park bench as I stared up at the trees swaying gently in the breeze. Their movement felt soothing—a contrast to the storm brewing inside me.

“Define ‘okay,’” I said with a weak laugh, trying to inject some humor into my voice.

“You’re thinking, aren’t you?”

My jaw clenched as I debated denying it, but what would be the point? “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” she countered with a knowing tone that made me want to roll my eyes.

“We’ve been best friends since middle school, so I know you, Sol.

Also, Mimi texted me five minutes ago saying, ‘I betchu Sol sitting somewhere overthinking her life right now instead of showing up to Desi’s door and talking like a normal human being. ’”

Damn you, Naomi.

Groaning, I let my head fall back against the bench. “Of course she did.”

“She’s not wrong,” I could feel my best friend smile over the phone as if she could read my mind. “But she’s also not entirely right. You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel ready… I don’t even know what I’d say to him.”

“Is this your way of asking me for help?”

“I—I guess so.”

Alexandra sighed, her silence stretching just long enough to make me wonder if the call had dropped before she finally spoke again. “You say the truth. As messy and uncomfortable as it is, you just… tell him how you feel.”

“What if…” I let out a shaky breath, pulling my knees up to my chest as I balanced the phone against my ear. “What if he doesn’t want to hear it? What if he tells me that I’m not…”

“Enough?”

Her words filled the silence I couldn’t bring myself to break. It was like she had reached into my chest and yanked out the one thought I was too scared to voice.

“Yeah,” I whispered, the word barely audible, but Alexandra caught it.

“If that’s what you’re so afraid of, then maybe he’s not the right person for you after all. But Sol… What if he does want to hear it? What if he doesn’t think that at all? What if you find out that he’s been sitting on the other side of this whole scenario, wondering why you left?”

I swallowed hard, her words cutting through me in a way that left no room for denial.

“You’ve spent all this time imagining what could go wrong,” she continued. “But have you even dared to imagine what might go right?”

“I—”

“I know you’ve been through hell with Andrew—trust me, I do—but not every man is going to treat you like he did.

And from everything you’ve told us about him, Desi doesn’t strike me as the type to walk all over you without a second thought.

So, you owe it to yourself to stop assuming the worst and give it a real chance. ”

“But…. you didn’t see how perfectly folded the clothes were, though…”

“I didn’t,” she quietly laughed. “But I also know you’re like me when it comes to romance.

We both self-sabotage at the first sign of vulnerability.

” She paused, letting her words simmer before continuing.

“What if this is different? What if you’re wrong about what those folded clothes actually meant?

What if instead of being a closure, they were… I don’t know, assurance?”

“Assurance? How can that be assurance?”

“Sometimes actions—small, insignificant actions—carry more weight than anything words could say. Maybe folding your clothes was his way of showing care without waking you up or imposing on your rest. Not every gesture has to read like a novel, Sol. Some people speak in little things. You just have to listen differently.”

I let her words sink in as I traced the edge of the Uber app on my screen with my thumb.

“I—” I furrowed my brows as her words took root in my mind, causing me to close the ride-share app. “I gotta go, okay?’

“Text me later,” she said. “And Sol?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re braver than you think.”

I hung up before I could respond with something snarky or let her kindness unravel me completely. For now, I needed to focus—to block out doubts, fears, and the nagging little voice that sounded an awful lot like Andrew at his worst.

Quickly opening the maps app on my phone, I looked up which train line would take me back to Desi’s. The J train seemed the most direct, though it required a switch at Broad Street. I could also walk to the L, and it would cut down my commute by two to three minutes.

I bit my lip, tapping my phone against my thigh, knowing time wasn’t the real issue at hand.

The thought of returning to his apartment, to the scene of my self-made chaos, was what made my stomach churn.

But the thought of not returning, of leaving things unsaid and unresolved, was worse.

So with a deep breath, I stood up and opted for the J train on Marcy Ave to cut down the nerves. The L felt too close to cheating, and I deserved the extra minutes of contemplation as I rehearsed what I’d say.

I’m sorry for leaving. No.

I’m a mess, and you deserve better. C’mon, Solène.

Maybe I should just start with, Can we talk? Simple. Direct.

It left room for him to choose whether or not to even engage.

That seemed fair, right?

Fairness wasn’t exactly my strong suit lately, but maybe this was a good place to start.

“Butterfingers!”

I froze.

It couldn’t be.

My heart leapt into my throat as I turned.

At first, I couldn’t locate the source of the voice amidst the sea of commuters roaming the platform, but then as I continued looking?

My eyes found him on the other side of the platform with a couple of teenagers.

His hands in the air, waving exaggeratedly like he was flagging down a plane, there stood Desiderio.

He was dressed in a plain white t-shirt and black shorts, his dark hair a tousled mess.

For a second, I thought my mind was playing some cruel trick on me.

Maybe I had willed him into existence with nothing but guilt and wishful thinking.

But then he smiled—that sharp, crooked grin that always seemed to toe the line between charm and trouble—and yelled. "Don’t move! I’m coming to you."

I blinked.

Before I could so much as process his words, he was already jogging toward the stairs of the opposite platform, weaving through the crowd with hastiness.

A train rumbled in on his side of the station, its screeching brakes briefly drowning out the chaos in my chest, and for a moment, I lost sight of him.

I took a step back, clutching my phone like it was a lifeline.

What was he doing here?

This wasn’t his neighborhood—not even close.

And why now, of all times, when I’d finally summoned the courage to face him on my terms?

My legs itched to bolt down the platform and onto the waiting train like some invisible cue had just sounded an alarm.

But before I could act, there he was again—emerging from behind a cluster of commuters, leaning heavily against the stair railing as if he'd run a marathon.

His breath came in audible bursts by the time he reached me, hands bracing his knees as he glanced up with that same grin that disarmed me far too many times before.

“You… you,” he panted between breaths. “You left and.. I was… Jesus.”

“I was what?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended.

Fuck, not a great way to start.

However, I didn’t know how else to sound.

My heart was hammering, my brain ricocheting between confusion and that annoying flicker of hope I was desperate to swat away.

He straightened, his chest still heaving as he pressed one hand against it.

“I was trying to figure it out,” he said finally, his grin fading into something softer, something almost unsure as his eyes searched mine. “You left without saying anything. No note, no text, just… gone.”

I looked away, searching the platform for something to look at, but everything my eyes landed on redirected me right back to him.

“I thought you wanted me to leave,” I said quietly, my lips dry as they formed the words. "I saw the folded clothes and?—”

“That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have left them out like that. It wasn’t… it wasn’t what you thought.”

I frowned, the noise of the subway tunnel around us dimming as his words sank in. “Then what was it?”

“I didn’t think much of it,” he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I took your clothes out of the dryer, folded them and left them next to mine to get us breakfast. I thought you’d still be there when I came back, and.

.. you were just gone.” His voice cracked.

He stepped closer, his face shadowed but his dark eyes relentless as they locked onto mine. “Solène, I didn’t want you to leave.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. My mind was cycling through fragments of memories, still trying to realign what I'd perceived that morning with what he was saying now. The clothes, freshly laundered and perfectly folded, had seemed like such a glaring signal at the time.

“So…” I began, my voice soft and uncertain now. “You weren’t… trying to push me out?”