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February 23 - February 26, 2025
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but you’re the one who stopped short after a turn.” “Because there was a kid,” she yells, and god, why is she so pretty while she’s yelling at me?
“Sorry again,” I mouth, and she gives an absolutely lethal eye roll that I will be thinking about for the next three weeks while I shower and every time I close my eyes to sleep.
Willa, a nosy person first, mother second.
an icon
She and I have slightly different understandings of the term “best friend.” Namely, I believe we should talk on the phone once per day, even when we already have plans to see each other, and that she should send me texts when the slightest inconvenience happens. She, on the other hand, prefers to not touch her phone for sometimes tens of hours at a time.
why is he so relatable
As if her face isn’t already perfect, she needed to have a dimple. Sure.
Vanessa laughs, her eyes lit up at the image, and really just what does she need with a dimple like that anyway?
She’s smirking, like a cheeky, devious little angel, and I wish I had something clever to say back, but the smirk has sent me into a mute state.
I'm losing it over how down bad he isssssss
“And even if I did know many women, you might be the most beautiful one.” I blink at the relative ease in which this man just delivered a flirty compliment. Him calling me beautiful also makes my neck flush, but I will not be investigating why that is at this time.
I did offer up and down to drive since Vanessa’s wearing such high heels, but she said no to each one of my offers because she likes walking and that I would be amazed at the things she can do in her heels. (This made my neck hot because I just kept thinking about things she potentially does in those high heels and my mind isn’t better than that of my fourteen-year-old students, it’s just better trained.)
Sitting next to Vanessa through it all reminds me of what it felt like to date as a teenager. My palms sweat and I keep wiping them on my slacks wondering what it would be like to hold her hand and praying that they stop sweating in the case of such a thing.
I have this sneaking suspicion that if I let her out of my sight, I’ll never see her again, and I would very much like to see her for as long as I possibly can.
swooooon
“Where did you go just now?” She spoons another bite of ice cream into her mouth. “Was trying to figure out how to get you to like me,” I admit, and that, that is what I mean by not thinking before I open my damn mouth.
My mind paints a very clear fantasy, unbidden, in which Vanessa and I live in domestic bliss. I’ve quit my job, just for a few years, just until the youngest is in pre-school, and Vanessa runs the world all day before she comes home to be with me and our two babies. After the children are asleep, after a delicious dinner I made, unless we ordered in, we make love and in fact make another baby, a third, a girl who we name Vanessa Jr. She has my nose. I think there is something wrong with me.
I LOVE HIM
“Did you kiss?” she asks once she’s about three miles into her treadmill run. “I almost got him killed.” “But did you kiss, Vanessa?”
asking the important questions tbh
When I come downstairs in the morning, my mom is in the kitchen (expected) in total stitches laughing at something Nate’s just said (unexpected, unsettling, and frankly unfair that he’s won her over so immediately).
She looks me over like it’s a surprise to hear that a 30 year old man would be interested in the most iconic racing and action franchise of the last two decades. I was seven when the first one came out, it was like my bible.
I’m not sure what to write in my notebook, so I just scrawl and underline ‘cousins’ and return my attention to the screen.
idk why this tickled me
“Ultimately, we’re all family,” Vanessa says. “And family takes care of family.” This is very Fast & Furious of her, but I don’t mention it.
I am on the invite list, I think by merit of my being in the right place at the right time—namely a protected prisoner in their home.
“Don’t search too hard,” Cillian says, and offers the most disgustingly handsome smile I’ve ever seen. His row of bottom teeth are perfect, and commercial-white. What a dick. “She’ll come to her senses soon.”
Okay, I was sort of rooting for him a bit, but this gave me the ick
I think this must be how Vanessa feels every morning when she wakes up perfect.
<3
I can handle any number of things on my own, but I didn’t realize how nice it is, sometimes, to have someone whose job is to handle things with you.
It doesn’t matter if we’ve been friendly of late, doesn’t matter that he cleaned my nephew’s vomit off his clothes this weekend—he’s a little goblin man parading as a consigliere in nice clothes with big shoulders and he’s been letting this beard grow in a way that looks suspiciously handsome, and he’s invited my least favorite people into my house.
<3
Ryan’s beard is too solid, I know he uses makeup to fill it in. I have no problem with men wearing makeup, but Ryan has annoyed me since eighth grade, he could be delivering aid to war-torn countries and I would still be annoyed.
relatable
I’ve not once let myself be a victim—to do so would be a victory to the men who’d like me to be weaker than them.
She slides me the green mug I’ve taken a liking to. It’s the only one of its kind in the mug cabinet and fits well in my palm. Has she noticed it’s the one I like? Or was it by chance she gave it to me now?
it's HER MUG <3 <3 <3
I don’t know how to tell her she’s the most beautiful woman, monster or not, that I’ve ever seen, and with every day that passes in her presence, I’m increasingly certain that there’s hardly a bad or cruel or monstrous thing about her.
“It looked like he was talking business after that’s all you’ve done all night. You’re just tired.” “Do I look tired?” “No,” he smiles. “I just see it.”
swooooooon
I take a sip from my green mug on the counter only to wince at how absurdly sugary it is.
casual intimacy of sharing coffeeeeeeee
“I just hate being taken advantage of. Makes me feel small.” “You’re a giant,” Nate whispers, and kisses me on my head
“You know what I am,” Vanessa says. “I do. I think you’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Maxim is a better choice. He’s perfect for you,” I start. “But I want you to choose me instead.”
“But I want you all the time. Forever. And I can’t keep pretending that interviewing these men doesn’t make my blood boil imagining any one of them touching you, standing by you, putting a baby in you. There’s not a man on this planet good enough for you, not me, not even the Russian, but I want to try.”
“But the night of the gala, you said—” “I lied, Vanessa!” I press on even with the cracking of my voice. “I lied. You scared the shit out of me, and I was falling in love with you, and I thought you could never be with me, and I lied.”
“All I want for my babies is happiness,” she says. “My biggest advice is to find a champion for you and hold on as tight as you can until the end of the line.”
Her touch is a miracle to me. Everything about her alive in front of me is nothing short of a revelation.
“I know that Maxim is better for you, I get that on paper he is the perfect fit, but he isn’t. It’s me, Vanessa. It’s you and me, I can’t explain how I know it, but I do. It’s us. We’re meant to be, and I will not let some Russian mob boss come between that. If he tries, I guess I’ll just have to kill him,”
It still thrills me that I’m the man she kisses in front of everyone—the one she calls her husband, the one who will be the father of her children. I am the single most lucky man in the state of Massachusetts, and beyond.
