Page 63 of Night Shift

The bar really is too low for men.

“My shift doesn’t start until ten,” I say. Then, because I’m genuinely stumped: “What are you doing here?”

Vincent freezes up like he’s suddenly remembered that he’s holding a romance novel in one hand. Before he can either hide it behind his back or lob it over the stacks and into the next aisle, I tip my head to the side to read the title on the cover.

“Oh, ew. Don’t get that one. It was published, like, a decade ago. There’s tons of unchecked sexism and homophobia.” I pause and then add, a bit sheepishly, “The main character is the worst too. She always says the wrong thing at the wrong time. It’s infuriating.”

I worry I’m being too subtle.

But then Vincent arches one eyebrow, as if to point out the irony of my critique, and it’s such a familiar expression of his that I could cry. I’ll gladly take his snark, his passive-aggressiveness, his scathing commentary on my high expectations and romance novel obsession. That I can handle. What I don’t think I could handle is if he treats me like a stranger. But before I can latch on to the little spark of hope, he slides the book back on to the nearest shelf, shoves both his hands into the front pockets of his jacket, and fixes his gaze on a spot somewhere over my right shoulder.

It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to read the closed-off body language and scattered eye contact. He’s got his guard up.

“I got your note,” I blurt, lifting the slip of paper up as proof. “Nina donated my stupid Mafia book, so I had to come here to find it. And I did. Obviously. Finally, I . . . got your note.”

I don’t know what reaction I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Vincent balling his hands into fists at his sides and biting down so hard a muscle in his jaw ticks. At first, I think he’s mad. But then I catch the blush crawling up the column of his neck and painting the tips of his ears, and I realize that he’s embarrassed. This note was him putting himself out there, and now he thinks I’ve come back to rub it in his face.

Fuck. How am I messing this up so fast?

“These are for you,” I announce, thrusting the bouquet of sunflowers at his chest.

Vincent doesn’t take his hands out of his pockets. “What are they?”

“Sunflowers.”

“I know that,” he huffs. “I meant what are they for?”

“Because I was going to look for roses, but I think the sororities are doing their recruitment or something, so this was all Trader Joe’s had, and I—yeah. I got them for you. Because you deserve flowers.”

Vincent’s fully blushing now, but his eyes are narrowed.

“Is this another poetry thing?”

“What?”

He looks down at the bouquet, then up at me, and then the bouquet again.

“Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers,” he grumbles. “It’s an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem. You know it, right?”

“I don’t think so,” I admit. “What’s the—oh, wait.”

I tuck the sunflowers and the romance novel up under my arm and use one thumb to pull up a new browser tab on my phone. Vincent twitches like he wants to step forward and take something out of my hands before it all goes tumbling to the floor, but instead he folds his arms tight across his chest and watches me struggle to type out the aggressively long title into the search bar. The poem is public domain, so it’s easy to find. I recognize it by the third line. I have read it before—we covered it in one of my freshman-year English lit classes.

The narrator’s lover brings her flowers, and she cherishes them—really, she does—but the gifts she prefers to give and receive are far less ephemeral.

So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground.

Poems.

Her love language is poems.

It hits me then that Vincent and I don’t need enormous public displays of affection. We need words of affirmation, and eye contact, and a quiet moment to shed our armor and face each other with honesty and vulnerability—things an airport or a crowded stadium can’t afford us.

Most importantly, I need to use my own words right now.

I owe it to Vincent to be brave. I owe it to myself.

I close my phone, hold my chin high, and ask, as seriously as one can: “Did you take my underwear?”

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