The Edge of Always

32

I guess we really did come full circle. But I have to say, now that we’re finally back in Galveston after seven months, it feels different this time. I’m not worried about being here, or afraid that mine and Andrew’s time together is going to end. I’m not waiting for a medical tragedy to rear its ugly head at any given moment. It feels good to be here. And as we pull into the parking area of his apartment complex, I feel a sense of satisfaction. I can even picture myself living here. But then again, I can also picture myself living in Raleigh, too. I guess what this means is that maybe we are ready to settle down. Just for a little while. Never forever, like I told Andrew before, but long enough that we can recuperate from being on the road.

Andrew agrees. “Yeah,” he says grabbing our bags from the backseat. “Y’know what?” He drops the bags back in the same place and looks over the top of the roof at me.

“What?” I ask curiously.

His eyes are smiling. “You’re right about not wanting to be on the road so long that we get tired of it, or staying fixed in one place for too long for the same reason.” He pauses and stretches his arms over the roof of the car. “Maybe if we only travel in the spring or summer, leave the fall and winter for living at home and doing the family thing during the holidays—my mom was pretty upset that we didn’t spend Christmas or Thanksgiving with her.”

I nod. “That’s a good idea. And since it sucks traveling when it’s cold, that makes total sense.”

We just stare at each other over the roof of the car for a long moment until I interrupt all of the gear-churning inside our heads and say, “Well, get the bags. We can talk about it inside. You need to check on Georgia.”

“Ah, Georgia’s fine,” he says, leaning over inside the backseat again. “My mom’s been watering her.”

I grab the guitars and my purse. When we enter Andrew’s apartment, it smells exactly like it did the first time I ever came here: vacant. And just like Andrew said, Georgia is alive and well.

I practically fall onto the couch, exhausted, hanging my legs over the arm at the knees.

“But the next place we go,” Andrew says as he passes the back of the couch, “will be far away from here.” I hear his keys hit the top of the counter in the kitchen.

I rise up and call out, “How far?”

“Europe, South America,” he says with a big grin as he reenters the living room. “You said you’d like to see Italy and Brazil and all of those places. I say we pick one and go there next.”

A shot of energy zips through my body. I stand up and look at him, so excited right now about the prospect that I can hardly contain it. “Seriously?”

He nods with a giant, close-lipped smile. “Hell, staying true to tradition, we could even write down all of the places we want to see on little strips of paper, drop them in a hat and pick one at random.”

I squeal. I actually squeal! My hands come up vertically against my chest. “That’s perfect, Andrew!”

He sits down on the couch now, propping both feet up on the coffee table, his knees bent. I can’t sit down. I stay right where I’m at and just stare down at his smiling face.

“Of course, we’ve got to keep the money flowing,” he says. “We’ve still got plenty in the bank, but traveling out of the country will definitely drain it quicker.”

“I can’t wait to get a job,” I say, and that comment stimulates my memory. “Andrew, you told me before to be completely honest with you about where I’d rather live.”

That gets his attention. “Where do you want to live?”

I contemplate it for a moment and answer, “For now, I think Raleigh, but only because I’d like to be where Natalie and my mom are, and because I know I can easily get a job where Natalie works. Her boss really seemed to like me and told me to fill out an application and—”

Andrew stops me. “You don’t have to explain your reasons.” He reaches out for me and I sit on his lap, facing him. I didn’t realize I was babbling nervously. I just don’t want him to feel obligated.

He smiles at me and locks his fingers together behind my waist. “My question,” he says, “is what exactly do you mean by ‘for now’?”

“Well… that’s the hard part,” I say.

He tilts his head slightly to one side, looking at me curiously, his dimples barely visible in his cheeks.

Eventually, I just come out with it, “I don’t think we should spend all of the money on a house because I don’t want to stay there forever. And besides, if we do that, we won’t have as much money to fall back on when we want to go to Europe or wherever, and working minimum-wage jobs won’t help us save much.”

He gives me a sidelong glance. “Wait. I hope you don’t want us to live in your mom’s house. We need our privacy. I want to be able to bend your sweet little ass over the coffee table whenever I want.”

I laugh and squeeze my thighs around his playfully. “You are so bad!” I say. “But no, I definitely don’t want to live with my mom.”

“Well, if you don’t want to buy a house and you don’t want to live with your mom, the only thing left is renting, and that drains a lot of money, too.”

I feel embarrassed, because it’s to the point where I have to talk about Andrew’s money as though it’s mine also, which I doubt I’ll ever get used to.

I look away from his eyes. “Remember when you said we could get a little house somewhere?”

“Yeah,” he says, and his eyes are getting brighter, as though he knows what I’m going to say already.

“Well, we could maybe pay cash for a very small house or a condo, just big enough for us… I don’t know, something cheap but decent, and still have a lot left over to keep in the bank for our trips. We won’t have rent, and all we’ll have to pay every month are utilities and things like that, which we can do from working and from playing gigs but never take from our savings.”

Why is he smiling like the Cheshire cat?!

I feel my head fall in between my shoulders, my face getting hot. “What’s so funny?!” I ask, pressing my palms against his chest and trying not to laugh.

“Nothing’s funny. I just like it that you’ve finally realized that what’s mine is yours.” He tightens his fingers around my waist.

“Whatever,” I say, trying to conceal the blush in my cheeks, pretending to be offended.

“Hey,” he says, shaking my hips, “don’t do that—just finish what you were saying.”

After a long pause, I say, “And when we leave to go wherever that piece of paper in the hat tells us to, we can get Natalie to housesit. Or!” I point upward. “When we finally find that peaceful place on the beach that you dreamed about and want to live there, we can either sell our house in Raleigh or rent it out to draw in extra income. Maybe even rent it to Natalie and Blake!”

I can tell there’s something going on inside his mind. His smile is still soft and he never takes his eyes off me. But he’s so quiet until finally he breaks the silence and says, “It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this. How long did it take you to figure all of that out?”

Only right now do I realize that it’s been long enough. I think back to the day when I started trying to piece together our future, when I officially had it in my head that I did want to settle down and that I was tired of being on the road.

Andrew waits patiently for me to answer, always with soft and thoughtful eyes, his way of constantly reminding me that nothing I can say to him is going to create any negativity between us.

“It was on the highway after we left Mobile,” I say. “When I first told you that I wanted to see Italy and France and Brazil one day. When I said I never wanted to settle down forever. From that night on, I was determined to figure it out. How we would pull everything off.” My gaze strays. “I broke the rules and planned it all out.”

He leans forward and kisses my lips.

“Sometimes planning is necessary,” he says. “You did a good job. I think the whole plan is perfect.” And then he crushes me against him, kissing me passionately.

When the kiss breaks, I gaze at him for a moment, his face in my hands. “But I want to marry you here,” I say, and his eyes brighten. “I don’t want your mom to feel left out, y’know? She’s really the only reason I feel bad about wanting to move to Raleigh. And I feel even worse that she was planning that baby shower and we never got—”

“She’ll like that,” he says, stopping me before I start babbling again. “I definitely do.”

He kisses me again.