Page 73 of Fighting Words

“There’s nowhere to order takeout,” I tell him, taking the seat across from him at the table. He’s in my usual seat, and I’m where Nate usually sits. For some reason, I’m happy this is the arrangement. I would have felt bad if it were the other way around.

Andrew feigns a heart attack, and I laugh.

“No pizza?” He asks like he’s horrified by the concept.

“Nope.”

“No Thai?”

I shake my head.

“Nosushi?!”

“Nothing.”

“You’re going to waste away.”

I think of the dinner party we had the other night, all the delicious food we shared with Nate and his friends. “We’ve been cooking a lot,” I tell Andrew.

He looks like he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around this. No one we know cooks. Outside of the fact that everyone works long hours, kitchen space is not a top priority in most Manhattan apartments. It’s more convenient to eat out or pick something up on your way home from the office.

“Had I known you were living like this, I would have figured out a way to bring you something from Satsuki,” he tells me with a wink.

That’s our favorite sushi place. We used to go there every other week, but I haven’t been since our last breakup a few months ago.

God, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I doubt he thought our break would last a week, let alone a few months. I know he’s been waiting for me to come back to him with pleading hands, resolute about my future with him.

“How have things been for you? With work and everything?”

He’s studying me now, and I get the sense that our thoughts have drifted to the same place. Mention of Satsuki has brought back a flood of memories for the both of us.

He puffs out a heavy breath then reaches for his wine glass. “Work has beenwork. You know how it goes.”

Outside of my parents and siblings, Andrew is the most driven person I know. He has clear-cut goals for himself that aren’t just centered around productivity and his net worth. I know he wants to eventually move back to Connecticut and follow in his parents’ footsteps. I know if I were only more willing, he would have already proposed. He would have tackled wedding planning, paid for all of it, and he would have done it with a smile on his face because that’s just the way Andrew is. Emma has made it clear how lucky I am. We’ve had dozens of conversations about how many of her girlfriends woulddieto be in my shoes. These conversations never have the effect of making me feel lucky, though, more so just…ungrateful, like I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth. Like I don’t know how to get out of my own way and accept happiness for what it is rather than what it could be.

No one needs to explain to me all the ways Andrew is a total package. I know that.Heis not the problem, I am. My inability to commit to Andrew feeds on my insecurities about my general disinterest in relationships and love in general. I’ve pushed myself on Andrew for so long because deep down I’m scared there’s something broken inside me, scared I’m not like everyone else.

For a while, Andrew and I catch up at the kitchen table, talking about his work and the last time he saw Emma and Lincoln out for dinner a few days ago. He told them he was planning to come here and surprise me, and Emma teared up at the table.

I’m pouring more wine into Andrew’s glass just as the back door opens, and I flinch, startled by Nate’s presence. I didn’t even hear his car pull up outside. The headlights should have been a dead giveaway, but somehow I missed them, and now he’s here, standing on the threshold, frozen as he looks between Andrew and me.

Andrew’s neat appearance only intensifies Nate’s gruffness. His hair is mussed from his hands, and the scruff on his chin and jaw is a day past needing to be trimmed. His blue eyes are startling, icy and beautiful.

I jump to my feet, cognizant of how strange it must be for Nate to have one visitor in his cottage, let alone two. I feel weird being here with Andrew, and if there were any other place for us to stay, I wouldn’t be here right now, in his space. Andrew follows suit, standing up and coming to stand beside me, like we’re a united front.

“Nathaniel, wow. Huge fan.” Andrew steps forward, holding out his hand. “I’m Andrew Miller.”

Nate looks at Andrew with this pinched expression that’s hard to discern.Hatred? Anger? Annoyance?

It’s such a long, awkward moment between Andrew offering his hand and Nate actually reaching out to shake it that I almost laugh or say something to help ease the tension.

Differences between them leap out at me. I didn’t realize just how tall and broad-shouldered Nate is, masculine in a way that makes me feel for Andrew. He’s not so much smaller than him, just slender in a way that comes from spending most of his waking hours hunched over a desk.

“Great place you have here. Really cool location.”

Nate doesn’t respond to this, doesn’t even seem on the cusp of opening his mouth, and the longer Nate stays silent, the more Andrew feels like he needs to fill the void.

“My grandparents have a cabin in Upstate New York that reminds me a lot of this. Rustic and off the beaten path. We’d go up there a lot when I was a kid. Kayaked a bunch. Summer, you remember visiting?”

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