Page 17 of Cruel Winter with You

We wereneveralone, not even once. And he’d never brought up any of the things he’d said to me before dropping out of college.He’s changed his mind on me,I thought, and told myself I was too busy with work to be disappointed.He made it big and met new, more successful, more interesting people. Plus, I don’t care. I’m with Shane.

But when Marc showed up for my birthday, Shane and I were no longer together.

And he’d come alone—just him and a bouquet of sunflowers, my favorite.

And my happiness at seeing him was so bright, I felt more unstable than a supernova.

“Happy birthday, Butt Paper.”

I snorted out a laugh, at once wanting to throw myself at him and afraid to overstep. “Thanks, Marky.”

“Glad we got the mandatory insult exchange over already. That way, I can focus on feeding you.”

I didn’t ask why he was there, how long he’d been waiting, how he knew that I was hungry. I just got in his car and let myself be driven to a ramen place a short distance away, one I’d never tried before.

“Remember how last time we met up, you told me that I needed new hobbies?” I asked as we walked up to the hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

“Yup.”

“Well, my quest in the past few months has been to find the perfect ramen.”

“I know.”

“Oh. How?”

“I follow you on Instagram.”

“You do?” I gave him a puzzled look. “Do I follow you back?”

“Nope. Which isverycruel of you.”

We sat outside, where Marc bought me a lot of food; gently reminded me of every embarrassing thing I’d said, done, and worn in the first sixteen years of my life; and made fun of me for being terrible at using chopsticks—“Thank God you didn’t decide to become a surgeon.”

He was relaxed. And solid. Self-assured. Marc was—and had been, for a while—aman. There were traces of the boy I’d adored (and detested) for years, sure, but I could no longer picture him eating my egg baby or smearing peanut butter under his sister’s pillow. And yet, he knew me. All the little tender bits, the building blocks that added up and made me who I was.

“Did your father remember your birthday?” he asked, like he already knew the answer, and I just shrugged. “Jamie. You should tell him when he fucks up. Otherwise, he’ll never learn.”

“It’s okay. He has a new girlfriend, so he’s been really busy. I just hope it lasts this time.”

He pursed his lips. “You know you deserve better, right?”

I wasn’t so sure. But being alone with Marc was at once soothing and thrilling, and it was all I wanted to focus on. Once I was full and the sun was setting, we went on a walk down the shore, and I asked him how work was going.

“Good.” There was a subtle shift in his presence. “Great, actually.”

I already knew that—everyone in the worldknew that. Still, I grinned, proud and happy for him.

“You know ...” Marc stopped and turned to me. “A while ago—five years, give or take—I gave myself a benchmark.”

“A benchmark for . . . ?”

“Success.”

“Ah. Like ... a gross profit margin of sixty-five percent?”

“Jamie, do you know what a gross profit margin is?”

“Nope.”

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