Sugar: A Novel Part 23

She sighed but kept me in her grasp for a while longer. Just when I thought she had no more to say, she reminded me of the man who, for better or worse, had come to represent Seattle to me. "I liked you two together."

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to tease out a plat.i.tude or a wise, accepting response. It was no use.

"I did, too," I said.

31.

ZARA sat next to me on the couch, tulle skirts gathering in exuberant sprays around her k.n.o.bby knees. She held my face with care, her blue eyes roaming slowly across my forehead, down my cheeks, and around my mouth.

"I'm taking a picture in my brain since I won't see you in Seattle forever after."

My spirit continued its downward spiral. I was becoming accustomed to its weight after the last few days of packing and planning. The movers were on schedule to arrive the following day, and I had stopped by the Henricks for a final goodbye before flying to JFK the next morning.

I put my arm around her tiny shoulders. "Not forever. I'll be back."

"But not in time for my dance recital. And you won't be at our house for Thanksgiving. I heard Mommy and Daddy talking about it and Daddy said he was depressed because you make good pies, but Mommy's pies are healthy."

I winced. Dane clambered up to sit on my other side. He shoved his pudgy fist in front of my face, too close for me to recognize the small vehicle it held. He named it for me and I gasped.

He said it again.

"Dumb what?" I said. I knew Jack had his flaws, but I couldn't imagine he'd taught his young son one of the most deplorable words in the English language.

Zara looked at my uncomprehending face and stepped effortlessly into her role as older sister interpreter. "Dump truck. It's his favorite."

As if to prove her point, Dane began to chant the name of his favorite construction vehicle, which also, conveniently, could serve as a devastating insult if the need arose later on in his life.

His foul language reminded me of New York, and I slumped my shoulders again, fussing with the wrapping on the package in front of me.

"Is that your lunch for the airplane?" Zara asked.

I stared at the package so long, I jumped when Zara nudged me and asked her question again.

"No," I said. "It's a gift for someone."

Manda came around the corner holding Polly, who was naked but for a fresh diaper. Manda had called her most recent explosion a "ten-wipe blow-out." I had begged off tagging along for the wardrobe change.

"Char, you have to do it." Manda's voice was kind but firm. "If you don't, you'll always feel like you should have. Don't add regret to a cross-country move."

"You're right." I stood, resolved. "I've sat here long enough. You're sure he isn't home?"

Manda c.o.c.ked her head at me, eyebrows raised. "I believe you've asked me to clarify that eighteen times since you got here an hour ago."

I sucked air into my teeth. "So he could have come back within the last hour."

Manda shoved me from behind. "Help me out, kids," she said to Zara and Dane. "Auntie Charlie needs a gentle push out to the porch."

Jack met us on the front walk, where he was gathering leaves into a pile. "Go get 'em, Char." He punched me lightly on the arm. "We'll all watch to make sure you don't run and that you feel as uncomfortable as possible during your private moment." He grinned at my scowl.

I walked up the sidewalk as quickly as I could, newly worried that Kai might return home at any second. Taking the front steps two at a time, I crossed the wood slats of the porch floor, stepping around a group of irregular white and blue-black pumpkins flanking either side of the door. I paused, looking over to the Henricks for moral support. Manda and Jack gave me thumbs-up, while Zara called, "Give Mr. Malloy the cupcakes, Aunt Charlie! He loves bacon cupcakes! They were the grand prize winners at my party!"

I nodded, ignoring the jab. "Okay," I said quietly, positioning the short but no-less-agonized-over note I'd written on top of the cupcakes. "This is it then." I was crouched, staring at the cupcakes, my hands hovering over the package.

"Wait." The sound of my voice bounced off the bare wood floor. "What am I doing?" I was muttering, hands still on the package. "I'm a fool. This is crazy. I can't do this." I stood up abruptly and saw spots dancing between me and the Henricks. Running down the steps, I shouted to Manda and Jack.

"Where is he?"

Manda looked at me like I was nuts. "Charlie, I told you. He's not here. Just leave the cupcakes-"

I shook my head, impatient for her to understand. "I need to find him. Right now. I leave tomorrow morning and I've been an idiot and I have to find him. Now."

I saw the light dawn in Manda's eyes. She smiled.

"Oooh," Zara said. She shook her finger at me. "Auntie Charlie said 'idiot.' That's an automatic time-out."

"Sometimes the shoe fits, honey," Manda said distractedly. She called to her husband. "Honey, did Kai tell you where he was off to this morning?"

Jack paused, two gloved hands on the top of his rake. I gave him four full seconds before hollering.

"A little faster, Jack! This is an emergency!"

He twisted his mouth to one side. "I don't think he said where he was going." He squinted, frowned. "I just remember him saying some lame joke about jumping off a cliff. I told him suicide was never a laughing matter-"

"Jumping off ... a cliff! I know where he is!" I ran toward the Henricks' minivan, which was parked along the curb. I pulled on the sliding door handle and groaned to find it locked. My body twisted with one hand still on the car. I looked back toward the house. No one had moved.

"I have to find him," I said, feeling more sure of those words than anything I'd felt in months. "And I need you to help me. I don't know how to get anywhere in this city."

Manda frowned. "Now, that is just sad, Charlie."

"It's true!" I was starting to shriek. "Everybody in the van! Auntie Charlie needs help on a treasure hunt or Auntie Charlie is going to have a nervous breakdown."

"Awesome," Jack called. He jogged to the driver's side door, his entourage hot on his trail. "This is like geo-caching only more urgent. I love it."

I nearly had to breathe in a paper bag while waiting for Manda and Jack to buckle three car seats, particularly when Dane began weeping inconsolably about something involving his tennis shoes (a hateful choice, apparently) and his snow boots (too small, but eventually retrieved from his closet so we could leave in peace).

After an intense debate between Jack and Manda, they decided on the general location of the cliff where Kai and I had accidentally fallen asleep all those months ago. Once he had his coordinates, Jack raced into every busy intersection as if he were in a high-speed chase, tires squealing and kids giggling with delight. Manda clamped white knuckles on her armrests and occasionally exclaimed in disbelief.

"You didn't speed like this when I was in labor!"

"Just close your eyes, Manda!"

As we rounded a corner, the kids squealed and Manda turned to the backseat. "Kids, stop encouraging your father!"

Jack pushed even harder on the gas pedal when she added, "You are not a stunt driver and never will be!"

We drove more slowly once we reached the neighborhood where Manda and Jack suspected Kai and I had walked. When we pa.s.sed a dilapidated wire fence with a narrow path beyond, I yelled for Jack to stop. The brake action was so swift and severe, I tumbled between the front two seats.

"Thanks," I said, yanking open the infernally slow slider. "Wish me luck." I was jogging by the time I heard the door close behind me.

The path was steeper than I'd remembered and overgrown with branches after a full summer's worth of rain and sun. Lines of shallow scratch marks traced pink stripes on my arms, and, at one turn, I tripped over a rock and went sprawling on my hands and knees. When I cleared the final curve and stepped onto the soft gra.s.s, I was panting.

I scanned the clearing quickly, the rush of blood in my ears louder than the surf that crashed on the rocks below. The trees moved in the breeze, the music of their leaves a crisp lullaby in the fall air. My body tensed at the sound of movement, but all I found was a squirrel running along an outcropping of rock.

Kai wasn't there.

I stood, chest heaving, thoughts returning with an unforgiving thud of truth. Of course he wasn't there. Letting my legs give beneath me, I lowered myself to sit facing the sea. Why on G.o.d's green earth had I thought he would be here? Seattle was an enormous city.

I stared out at the water, feeling every bit the ridiculous fool I was. Balancing my elbows on my knees, I closed my eyes and felt a cold mist from the ocean tickle my face.

I was too late.

"Charlie."

I turned around, my hand clutching my chest. Kai stood with rumpled hair, eyes intense.

I rose to my feet, slipping a bit on the wet gra.s.s. "You're here," I said, surprise and relief filling me in equal parts.

Kai remained still, his eyes on mine. "I was on a walk." He nodded to a path behind him.

I blinked. "I didn't know the path continued."

A half smile. "We didn't exactly get that far." He shook his head a bit, as if to clear it. "Jack said you're moving back to New York. Tomorrow."

I nodded. "Yes." My toes and fingers suddenly felt numb with cold. "About that." I paused, willing him to hear my heart, even if I mangled what I was about to say. "Kai, I was hoping you'd be here so I could talk with you in person before I left."

He waited. His eyes looked more gray than blue surrounded by the sky and sea.

"I'm sorry." I rushed ahead, scared that if I stopped talking, I'd chicken out and walk away. "We had something good and true and ..." I paused, searching until I found the right word. "Hopeful. We had something hopeful. And I screwed it up." My words caught in my throat, but I pushed on. "You were good to me and very, very patient. And I squandered it all because I could only see one thing."

His face remained unmoved, but I watched his jaw tense.

"I could only see the goal that I had set for myself and I didn't want anything to trip me up. Anything or anyone." I sighed, feeling a deep exhaustion start to settle in my bones when Kai crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I expected you to wait," I continued, my voice quiet. "Wait to see me on my nonexistent days off, wait to talk to me on the phone until the middle of the night, wait to hear me acknowledge I was falling in love with you until it was convenient for me."

I was sure he could see my heart doing gymnastics under the b.u.t.tons of my coat. "I shouldn't have waited. And I'm sorry. Maybe you can't do it today, but I hope you can forgive me."

Kai took three steps toward me, and the grit in his gaze was enough to make me take a step backward toward the cliff.

"You are infuriating."

I swallowed hard but met his gaze. "I know."

"And difficult."

"I agree."

"And you're an elitist," he said, finger pointing at my nose. "About stone fruits. And flowers. And b.u.t.ter, for the love of G.o.d! You're very weird about b.u.t.ter."

I nodded. I knew.

He let out an exasperated sigh. Hands shoved in his pockets, he shook his head.

"You are a total mess about wanting any kind of personal life, Charlie. I just can't see how it would ever have worked."

The big lump in my throat that I'd been intent on ignoring made my cheeks burn with the effort. My eyes stung and I shut them against the salty spray in the air, the heart-stopping view of rock and sea, the truth written so clearly on Kai's face.

"There are so many reasons for us to walk away." Kai lowered his voice.

I opened my eyes to watch his mouth form the words.

"I rehea.r.s.e all those reasons at night when I can't sleep, but I'm always distracted. I keep thinking of the way your smile makes my chest physically hurt."

He was pacing now.

"I've made lists-actual lists, with bullet points, like I'm going grocery shopping or something-when I'm at work and all I can think about is the way your eyes get deeper green when it's raining or the crazy pa.s.sion you bring to making a d.a.m.n cupcake."

I thought to smile but couldn't seem to breathe.

Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he ran one hand through his mussed hair.

"And this morning, I finally convinced myself that the lists are right and that none of the other stuff mattered. Not that you can make me laugh hard enough that I beg for mercy, or that every other woman looks uninteresting and dull to me now, or that you are, without question, the most beautiful woman I've ever known." His words tumbled out in a rush, as if he were trying to keep up with them. "None of that mattered this morning. I was ready to be done with the girl from New York who came here and ruined everything."

Kai lifted his hands and slowly, gently, he took my face between them.

"You ruined everything," he said, leaning in.

"I know, but-"

He reached for me and gathered what felt like every inch of me into his arms. He kissed me long and deep, a take-no-prisoners kind of kiss with his hands in my hair and my feet barely touching the damp earth.

It required all my remaining self-control, but I pulled away, shook my head. "This isn't fair to Sunshine." I pressed my fingers to my lips. They still tingled after his touch. "We have to talk about her before we go one step further."

Kai's forehead creased, but he didn't loosen his arms around my waist. "Sunshine. You mean Sunshine who worked at the diner."

I pulled a face. "Please tell me you don't know more than one woman named Sunshine."

He tilted his chin, daring me to continue. "Why would I need to consult Sunshine before kissing you?"

I raised my eyebrows. "I saw you together. One night, about a month ago, when you and Sunshine were sharing a booth at Howie's." I gulped. "You were sitting very close. You had your arm around her, you leaned into her, and, well, I couldn't stand being there any longer, but we both know what happened."

Kai waited a full, interminable beat before bursting into laughter. "Garrett, for being a woman who alphabetizes her spice rack, you have a remarkable imagination." He laughed again, and now I was getting annoyed.