That’s why I don’t do any of those things. I don’t buy flowers. Or chocolate. Or balloons. Or a teddy bear. I don’t grab a boom box and play Peter Gabriel outside her window. Instead, with an eight by twelve envelope in hand, I head to her building and press the button for her apartment.
It rings, and it rings, and it rings.
I take a deep breath.
Maybe she’s in the shower. I look at my watch. It’s two in the afternoon.
I buzz again.
And it rings, and it rings, and it rings.
I grab my phone from my back pocket. Maybe I should have called first. I definitely should have called first. This was fucking stupid. She could be anywhere. She could be doing a magic show.
Okay, maybe not on a Monday afternoon.
Wait. I snap my fingers. She said she was taking a class. Then doing laundry. I slide open the screen to call her, and when I see a message from her, my heart goes into overdrive. Holding my breath, I click open the text.
I learn she’s doing none of the above.
Princess: Where are you? The doorman is ringing, and ringing, and ringing.
That note is followed by another.
Princess: Oh, you could be anywhere. I guess I could call. My phone is bi-directional after all.
My heart soars at her words. She’s at my house. Holy shit, she’s at my house. I dial her number, but before I can hit send, my phone beeps. “I’m at your building,” I say as soon as I answer her call.
“I’m at yours,” she says, and I can hear something like lightness in her voice, like hope. I want to clutch the possibility of what it might mean tight in my hands.
“I have an idea,” I say, thinking quickly. “Meet me in the middle?”
“Eighty-Fourth Street then?” She lives on Ninety-Fifth, and I’m on Seventy-Third.
“I love it when you do math. Yes, meet me at Central Park and Eighty-Fourth.”
“Are you Ubering it or walking?”
“Walking.”
Ten minutes later, I stand by the park entrance, under the bronze and wine-red leaves of a cherry tree, as afternoon traffic whizzes by. I pace, waiting for her, searching for her, until I see her, walking fast, practically running to me.
My heart beats like a wild bird, and I don’t know how it can stay inside my chest. I have no idea what she’s going to say, or why she was at my house, or what’s going on, but she’s here now. She came to find me, and the last time she came to find me was the start of our first real night together.
The autumn breeze blows her hair, red strands floating past her cheeks as she marches right up to me, looks me square in the eyes, and says, “I’m in love with you, Nick. If you ask me to go with you, I will.”
And my heart, I swear, it jumps out of my chest into her hands, where she can hold it forever because it belongs to her. I fall deeper into love with her in that moment.
She cups my cheeks and says more before I can even speak. “I didn’t say anything when you told me this morning because I wanted it to be your decision,” she says, her blue eyes fixed on mine. “That’s why I left right away, so you could be free to make the choice that works for you. I didn’t want you to worry about me, or think you had to turn down something you love because of me. But the whole time I was a wreck because I feel the same way you do. And I know how much this means to you, and you mean so much to me, and I want you to know I’d go with you. Because I love you, too.”
I can’t not kiss her. I slant my mouth to hers, brush my lips against hers, and kiss the woman I love, who loves me, too.
New York and autumn. Harper and me. Love and friendship.
I’m so damn happy it can’t be contained. There’s no way I can hold all this joy inside me. We kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss, and I can’t stop. I thread my hands in her hair, the soft, silky strands spilling over my fingers as I kiss her outside Central Park where I’ve met her in the middle.
Only, there’s no need to compromise. There’s no need for her to give up anything for me. When I break the kiss, I’m lightheaded and grinning like the love-struck fool I am.
“You can’t go with me,” I tell her, and her expression morphs as sadness flickers in her eyes.
“Why?” Her voice breaks.
I press a finger to her lips. “Because I’m not going.”
“What?” She swats my chest. “Are you crazy? This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
I shrug. “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t care about the show right now. The show has given me everything I could ever want, but it hasn’t given me you. My whole life, I’ve loved to draw more than anything. It’s been what I love most,” I say, running a hand through her hair. “Until you.”