Page 85 of Shifting Gears

The drive home is quiet. It’s been days since Dani slept at her own house, and she follows Nora inside without question. After stripping down and getting ready for bed—a two-person dance of a routine that Nora hadn’t realized they’ve developed, weaving around each other as easily as breathing—Nora ends up tangled with Dani in the bedsheets, wrapped around her in every way she can manage.

Neither of them pushes it further than that. The room is dark and quiet except for a shaft of moonlight between the curtains and the sound of their breathing. Their legs are wound tightly together, and Nora’s head pillowed on Dani’s chest. Dani is playing idly with Nora’s hand, running her calloused fingertips over the softer pads of Nora’s like she’s trying to learn every swirl.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Nora says quietly. Dani’s answer is equally soft.

“I know.”

Dani’s hand doesn’t still. She moves to Nora’s wrist, tracing the blue veins under her pale skin.

“I’ve been gone too long already,” Nora continues. She’s not sure whom she’s trying harder to convince—Dani or herself. “I can’t put it off anymore.”

“I know,” Dani says, her voice never wavering. Understanding, even, and calm. A rock in the tempest Nora is failing to navigate. The sound of it is like a beacon. Nora breathes in deep: warm vanilla, machine shop. Crisp deodorant and the base-level chemical attraction of her skin.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Nora whispers, as if saying it quietly will make it hurt less.

Dani squeezes her shoulder, kissing the top of her head again. Her lips linger this time. “It doesn’t. But I’m grateful for the time we had.”

There’s a quaver in Dani’s voice that Nora hasn’t heard before.

* * *

Nora hardly sleeps, and she’s fairly sure that Dani doesn’t either. It’s like her mind won’t let her give up a single moment of their last night together, even if it means the morning finds her red-eyed and groggy as she throws together the essentials and schedules a moving crew for later in the week.

Dani helps out, efficiently carrying Nora’s bags out to the car while Nora is on the phone with the movers. While Kayla loads her things into the trunk, Nora pulls Dani aside.

She looks as beautiful as always. She’s in a tight henley and jeans, her hair a bit tangled from their sleepless night, and it strikes Nora all at once as the weak morning sun lights up her grey eyes.

This is goodbye.

Nora can’t find the right words. She lets Dani pull her into a hug, pressing her face into Dani’s neck and trying to memorize how it feels.

“Remember how you said you wouldn’t beg me to go with you when you left?” Dani says quietly.

Dani doesn’t say anything further, but Nora knows. It’s about as close to begging as Dani Cooper will get, as concerned as she’s always been with making sure Nora never feels unduly pressured. Dani is putting herself out on a limb. Offering something and trusting Nora to tell her the truth.

Nora couldn’t stop the tears if she tried. They run down her nose, wetting Dani’s skin.

Nora wants to say yes. God, does she want to. But there’s a pit of fear in her belly, one that whispers at her—telling her that Dani moving to the city is a bad idea, no matter how much Nora wants to keep her close. That her instinct to say yes is just u-hauling, stuck in the honeymoon phase of a summer relationship they haven’t even defined.

Nora can’t imagine being the person to drag Dani away from here. To take her from somewhere that makes her so happy and force her to live the kind of life that Dani has already made the conscious choice to leave. To subject her to the person Nora really is, the person she’s sure she’ll revert to as soon as she gets back—the uptight, aloof workaholic. The woman who sleeps in the office. The woman who doesn’t have the time or inclination to maintain anything beyond a physical relationship.

Isn’t it better to break both their hearts now and keep the good memory of their summer together, rather than draw it out until it all ends in a bitter mess?

Dani seems to know it, too.

“Sorry. Forget I said that.” Dani pulls back from the hug, smiling in a way that looks more like a grimace. Her face tightens, like maybe she’s struggling not to cry. Nora herself has to put all of her energy into holding in the sob that claws at her chest.

Nora wants so badly to say all the things she’s been holding in all summer—I’m crazy about you, I love it here, I loveyou—but no sound comes out. She’s silent, her mouth quivering in the face of Dani’s sad acceptance.

Dani inclines her head toward the idling car where Kayla is patiently waiting. “You’d better get going. You’ve got a big meeting to get ready for.”

“Right,” Nora says. Her breathing is shaky. “Of course.”

“One more for the road?” Dani says, holding her arms out.

Nora throws herself into them with no hesitation.

The kiss they share is just as intense as their first. Dani holds Nora so tightly that she can hardly breathe, but Nora wouldn’t want it any other way—she wants to feel like the only air in her lungs is coming from Dani’s mouth, that they’re connected in every way possible in their last moments together.

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