Page 141 of Until August

“Can we talk?” she asked, her voice low.

“Sure.” I had a bad feeling that I knew what she wanted to talk about. I saw the writing on the wall two nights ago. Now all I wanted to do was delay the inevitable. “Coffee?”

Without waiting for her response, I made her coffee how she liked it. When I handed her the mug, she thanked me, and our eyes met briefly before hers lowered.

Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and the sorrow and the sadness had returned to her face. She looked more like the Nicola I met six months ago. Not like the woman who had tossed her clothes onto the beach and ran into the ocean, claiming that it made her feel so alive.

I followed her to the terrace, and we sat on striped beach chairs facing the water. It was early, so there was still a slight chill in the air, but the sun would hit the terrace in a few hours, and it would feel like a summer’s day.

“This has always been my favorite time of year,” Nicola said, cradling her steaming mug of coffee in both hands. “Sometimes, I forget to stop and appreciate this.” She tipped her chin toward the view. “How lucky are we to have the ocean on our doorstep? It’s funny how you get so caught up in all the minutiae that you take things for granted,” she mused.

I didn’t think she brought me out here to talk about the weather or the scenery, but I sat in silence and waited for her to get to the point.

She didn’t. She took a detour.

“We met in October.” She turned her head to look at me, a hint of a smile on her lips. “On a day like today.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday.” Weirdly, I did.

I’d forgotten many things, but that day still held a special place in my heart. Maybe I’d been waiting for Nicola since I was eighteen without realizing it.

She smiled. “So do I. I remember every detail. If you could go back in time, what would you tell your eighteen-year-old self?”

I thought about it for a minute. There were so many things I wished I’d known then. But at the same time, I was glad we couldn’t see into the future. “I don’t know. I didn’t listen to anyone at eighteen, so it probably wouldn’t have helped. There were a few things I wish I could have changed, but I think my life turned out the way it was supposed to. If I hadn’t met Sasha, there would be no Sage. And if Sasha hadn’t married Travis and moved to Costa del Rey, I wouldn’t have met you again.”

I turned my head to study her face as if I needed to commit it to memory. The high cheekbones, the curve of her jaw, those big brown eyes that got to me every time. “And that would have been too fucking sad for words.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away before they could fall. “You make it so impossible….”

So do you. “To what?” I prompted.

She took a breath and let it out. “How could Inothave fallen in love with you?”

It was the closest she’d ever come to saying the words, but there was too much sadness in her voice to revel. On some level, I knew she loved me without having to hear the words. But I guess I was the kind of guy who needed to hear the words to believe them.

Old childhood wounds had stayed with me longer than I cared to admit.

Our eyes met. “You’re everything, August.”

I heard the regret and sadness in her voice and saw it in the downturn of her lips before she turned her head and faced forward again.

“Cruz has pneumonia,” she said quietly. She swallowed, her eyes on the view before us. The ocean in all its glory. The pier extending out into the water. A handful of surfers waiting for their next wave.

“I got the call from his doctor yesterday when I was on my way to work. That’s why I didn’t come in. And I…” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I need to be there for him. I’m sorry to ask. But can you run the kitchen while I’m away?”

I need to be there for him.That’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it?

“You don’t have to ask me to do my job. Take all the time you need. I’ve got this,” I assured her.

“I know you do. But…”

Sad eyes found mine. Nicola looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Which she was.

On top of everything, her husband had pneumonia. I wanted to crawl into her skin and take on her burdens as my own so she wouldn’t have to do all the heavy lifting.

But her words were still hanging in the air between us, her thought left unfinished, and I knew she wasn’t about to deliver good news.

She chewed on her lip, and I almost told her to spit it out so we could deal with it and figure out a way to move on. Seemed to be the recurring theme lately. Finding a way to move on.