“You’re slaughtering this poor metaphor,” June says gently.
“I meant what I said about sharing your problems,” I say. “Let me do this with you.”
She smiles, looks down. A tear drops and she quickly wipes it away, takes a deep breath.
“Can you?” she says, half-laughing.
“I can try,” I tell her. “I did once spend a weekend removing wallpaper—”
“That metaphor died already.”
“How about this,” I say. “You call the paper and quit. I call this apartment and cancel the tour. We fly home. You…”
Suddenly my mouth goes dry and my heart skips a beat because I didn’t mean to have this particular talk at five-twenty in the morning while June was having a life crisis, but here we go.
“…move in with me, officially, and then we figure out together where you’re going next.”
She looks down at our hands for a moment, then back up at me.
“Okay,” she says.
And then she smiles. It’s all I need, all I really wanted: okay and a smile and suddenly I’m floating.
I’m finally realizing that what fills my heart up and makes it overflow to bursting might not be what I’d anticipated. Not that I’d ever given a great deal of thought to the possible romantic moments in my life, but some part of me had always assumed that they would involve rings and flowers, grand gestures, maybe the Eiffel Tower.
But that’s not it, is it?
It’s research scattered on the floor, a bright-eyed girl who excitedly tells me about long-dead brigands named Phineas and Obadiah. It’s microfiche and a wireless router. It’s sharing your solitude with someone and realizing that she makes it better.
It’s the early-morning agreement in a cheap motel room that you’re going to leave together, go home together, tackle life together.
“We should figure out flights to get home,” she says, disengaging our hands, lightly playing her fingertips over my knuckles. “I canceled mine when I agreed to start right away.”
“Mine were one way,” I tell her.
June gives me an incredulous look, and I laugh.
“Because I didn’t know what to expect, not because I thought I’d never go back,” I say.
“I should call the paper,” she says, already listing off what’s to be done. “Tell them they can go fuck themselves, pack…”
I stand, her hand still in mine.
“C’mere,” I say, and pull her up.
“I love you,” she says, the quiet of the early morning sinking into her words.
“I love you too,” I say.
“I’m glad you came,” she tells me as I press my lips to her forehead.
“Me too,” I say.Chapter Forty-ThreeJune“Golf tournament,” Levi says, his voice rumbling through me.
“You can’t guess that anymore,” I tell him, my head resting against his shoulder. “You’re banned. Blacklisted. Whatever.”
“But I think this one really is,” he says, nodding lazily toward the man wearing khakis and hauling ass along the terminal while dragging two small roller bags behind him.
“Why?” I challenge. “There is nothing about that man that says I am going to a golf tournament, and you’ve guessed that about the last six people just because you think it’s funny.”
Levi’s quiet for a moment. Somewhere far away, there’s an announcement for what sounds like Blitheroy Mazendorf to please hurry to their gate.
“I’ve forgotten any other places where people might go,” he finally admits.
We’re both slouched at an empty gate in the Charlotte International Airport. We’ve been here for two hours, and we’ve got two more to go before hopping a short flight to Roanoke and then taking a two-hour drive home.
“The only place or event you can remember is golf tournament?” I ask without moving. “Weddings. Bar mitzvahs. Vacations. Conferences.”
“Golfing vacation?” he asks.
“You don’t even like golf,” I mutter, just as his phone rings.
That gets my attention. Levi doesn’t exactly get a lot of calls, so I watch him as he flips his phone open — flips, my God, if we’re going to live together I have to do something about that — and answers.
“Loveless,” he says, then listens. He clears his throat. “Yes, I think — uh, I really am feeling much better today. I’m on the mend. My fever is considerably reduced to… ninety-eight? or so. I expect I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I just cover my face, like it can block out how bad he is at lying.
“You did?” he says and shoots me a look. “Uh huh. Uh huh.”
A pause.
“A chainsaw?”
I sit up straight, suddenly not tired any more. Levi’s just listening intently, staring at me, his face dead serious.
“Thank you for calling me,” he says at last. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
His phone shuts with a snap, and he turns to me.
“One of the rangers covering the area with a lot of likely victims caught a man and a woman hiking out of the forest cross-country,” he says. “With a chainsaw.”
I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth.
“Is it them?” I hiss.
“There’s a very good chance.”
“Did they confess?”