“Kash promised to teach me how to grow something.”
“You? I’ve seen your cactus graveyard. Kash doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.”
“He really doesn’t,” I said on a laugh as something in my chest twisted.
A pause while she watched me. “You like him.”
An answering sigh from deep in my lungs. “I really do.”
She turned, folding her arms on the back of the couch with her brows drawn. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Not yet. I don’t have to decide,” I said for the thousandth time that week.
Carefully, she said, “No, you don’t. But at some point, you will.”
“I know,” I answered to my fingernails, not wanting to meet her eyes.
“It’s been weeks. I don’t mean to rain on your parade—”
“But you’re going to.”
“—but I’m going to,” she confirmed. “Things can be uncomplicated, but not forever. And not unless you’re booty calling and don’t actually like the other person. Which isn’t the case.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re going to the greenhouse on what can only be considered a date—”
“It’s not a date,” I insisted.
She gave me a look.
“What? We’re mucking around in the dirt, for God’s sake.”
Her look exaggerated. “It’s a date, and dates are supposedly verboten. Just like spending the night, which was also forbidden, and which you have also disregarded.”
“You sound awfully judgy,” I snarked.
“I’m not judging, I’m trying to get you to admit the truth. You like him, Lila, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re allowed to have feelings for him.”
Shock hit me first, the simple and naked truth of it blinding. For a moment, I was stunned, not realizing something very important.
Ever since Brock, I’d been telling myself I wasn’t allowed to feel anything beyond lust, not with Kash and not so soon after the way things ended with Brock.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been hiding behind that lie.
The twist in my chest unfurled with the permission to care about him. “I … I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You seem convinced there’s something in the way, but what if there isn’t?”
“And what if it’s not that easy?”
“And what if shrimp learn to whistle and chickens grow teeth? If you want to really live in the moment, stop worrying so much about what if and just go for it. Living in the moment means damning the consequences. It’s about choosing what you want instead of what’s safe.”
“And what if I’m not ready to choose?” I asked, knowing that if I did, there would be no turning back.
But with a knowing smile, she said, “Pretty sure you already did.”
A laughed touched with surprise and relief and a healthy amount of fear shot out of me. Because she was right, and it was a bare and honest truth. I’d already chosen. And I’d chosen Kash.
“When did you get so smart?” I asked.
“When I fell in love and got knocked up. As dumb as pregnancy has made me, I feel super freaking wise. Ask me about preeclampsia or mucus plugs. Go on, ask me.”
I made a gagging sound around my laughter. “Mucus is just as bad as moist.”
“Worse. At least moist can be associated with happy things like cakes and vaginas. There is nothing happy about mucus.”
I turned for the door, shaking my head, scooping up my bag on the way. “I love you, weirdo.”
“Love you too. Have fun on your date.”
With a parting rolling of eyes over my shoulder, I said goodbye and trotted down the stairs, musing over the revelation.
I wondered when it had happened. In the small hours of some long night, wrapped in his arms. Eating takeout in bed for dinner every evening—me in his T-shirt, him in nothing but sweatpants and a smile. The night he’d first kissed me and promised he’d give me all I wanted. Or was it before? Had I known before I’d recognized the feeling? Had I leaned into him instinctively, knowing without knowing that he was good for me?
With some certainty, I realized that I didn’t want him to be my rebound or fling or distraction. What I didn’t know what whether or not he felt the same.
I’d known Kash for more than a decade, and I’d never seen him with a girlfriend. Girls, sure. But steady relationships? Never. Even now, the only woman I knew of was Ali, and even that was enigmatic. I didn’t feel it was my business to ask, as if speaking of serious things, such as past relationships, was oddly intimate, too close to a true relationship status, which