Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“No matter how things had gone, you and I would still be sitting here tonight.”

“Really?” I asked, my throat thick. “You think this is a kind of twisted destiny for us?”

“I don’t know about all that,” he said, “but it’s what I believe. It’s what I know. We were both kids, Lake. We made mistakes, and choices, and it took us a while, but I think all paths lead to here.”

Where was here? A fork in the road where we separated for good? A last goodbye? “You seem happy,” I said to him.

He looked at his plate. “How so?”

“You just have this calmness about you,” I said. “Not like in New York.”

“You think I wasn’t happy in New York?” He ran his thumb over the clasp of my bracelet. “Those were the best days of my life.”

My eyes watered remembering how he’d stood across a snowy street in the East Village, waiting for me to show up at my apartment. It’d been a whirlwind few days. Looking back, I could admit the red flags I’d willfully ignored along with Val’s warnings. Maybe Manning and I had each subconsciously known it wouldn’t last, and that had made us feverish. “This is different. It’s like you have it all figured out. I guess maybe it’s the business and the house.”

“You like it?” he asked, and I detected a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

“I love it. Everything about it. It’s a—” I wanted to say home, but it wasn’t that for me, and that made acknowledging it too hard. “It’s you. Masculine but comfortable. But, well, I think it could use a woman’s touch.”

“It has a woman’s touch. You just can’t see it.”

It did? Whose? Reluctantly, I slipped my hand from his warmth and touched my napkin to the corner of my mouth, trying not to look as crushed as I felt that there might be someone in Manning’s life. Then again, maybe that was why fate had brought me here tonight, to make the final snip I needed to cut myself free of him. I stood.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’ll help you clean up.” I stacked our dishes to carry them back inside. “Then I should probably get home. It’s a long drive, and it’s getting dark.”

In the kitchen, I turned on the faucet and plugged the sink, watching it fill with soapy water, as if it were just another night after dinner. I couldn’t remember a recent time I’d been this comfortable somewhere. Not since New York. I didn’t want to leave. I’d just arrived. What was closure, anyway? How exactly did one get it? Had it been enough to come and see that he was happy, that he’d moved on?

Once I’d started on the dishes, I felt Manning enter the room. “You don’t need to do that,” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

“Lake.” He came up behind me, put his arms around mine, and sunk his hands in the water, lacing our fingers together. “I used to think about doing this when we had Sunday dinners,” he said softly into my ear. “Holding your hand underwater for a few seconds, where no one could see.”

My breathing shallowed as I stared at the fizzing suds. “Why didn’t you?”

“I might’ve, if I’d thought either of us could handle it.”

I inhaled, my back against his chest, our hands hidden by the foam. He massaged my palms, knuckles, wrists. “What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly aware of his breath on the back of my hair.

“You promised me you wouldn’t bolt after dinner.”

“What good would it do to stay? This . . . it’s too hard, Manning. Being around you will always be too hard.”

“I know it is, Birdy. I wanted to ease us into this. I thought you could come here for a nice, simple dinner and tell me all about your life. But it really never was easy with us, was it?”

Nobody could say we hadn’t tried. We’d been pushed, and we’d pushed back. We’d wanted love to be enough, but it wasn’t. I shook my head and whispered, “No.”

“Nevertheless, I keep coming back to you. I can’t give you up.”

As good as it felt to hear that, I knew the truth—it wasn’t that simple. If it had been, we’d have figured this out long ago. I took my hands from the water and turned to face him. “What about closure?”

“Don’t want it,” he said, stepping back. “Don’t need it. Not even sure what it is.”

Water dripped from our hands to our feet. I frowned. “But you said . . .”

“I had to get you here, Lake.” He passed me a dishtowel. “I don’t know what that bullshit was earlier about being over me, but I’m not over you. No fucking way—not now, not ever.”

My throat closed. I couldn’t breathe. He’d given me no warning, and now I was either going to choke or keel over, and all this would’ve been a waste. “It wasn’t bullshit,” I said, drying my hands. “I’ve been stuck in this place for over ten years. I’ve tried to be happy, to find myself, but I can’t while you’re in my way.”