You made me want to. She looked up at him. What happens now? He thought about it. I think we keep going.
Same as we have been, but he paused. More honestly than I have been. More honestly, she repeated. I've been inside this relationship with one foot, ready to back out the door. Not because of you, because I kept waiting for the thing that would prove it was wrong to stay.
He met her eyes. I don't want to keep waiting for that. She was very quiet. I'm in, he said. If you're still in, she looked at him for a long moment, long enough that he felt the full weight of the question hanging.
Long enough to be uncomfortable. Long enough to be real. I bought curtains to stop myself from watching for your truck, she said. I've been in since before there was anything to be in. He looked at her.
Something in him that had been armored for years, not just since Renee. Before Renee, too, something older built from something harder came down. Not entirely. These things don't come down entirely, but enough. He reached out and pulled her in and held on with the specific full presence of a man who has stopped managing the distance between himself and what matters.
She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. They stood in the driveway for a while. The neighborhood was quiet. Someone's porch light two houses down blinked off.
A car passed. The night did what nights do. Then Clare said against his shoulder, "Your porch light is slightly off center. I know. It's bothering me.
It should bother you. It's 11 degrees off plumb. Are you going to fix it tomorrow? He said, "You're going to be thinking about it all night." "Absolutely," he said.
She laughed. He felt it against his chest. And it was the best feeling he'd had in years. Not the grand feeling. Not the one from movies, but the real one.
The feeling of being known by a specific person who laughs at the specific things that are actually funny about you. He walked her to her door. She turned at the threshold. Darius. Yeah.