Chapter Text
Two years ago
J. R.
Javi stepped off the plane and into Antarctica. The cold air outside seeped into the jet bridge, turning it into a freezer. His thin sweatshirt and jeans were almost too much for Miami. February in New York pierced his skin.
He thawed as he walked through the airport, grateful that he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Between getting back from deployment and catching his flight home, he didn’t have time to change. He should’ve made time. It wasn’t the amount of people that thanked him for his service, but how they did it, loud and proud as they enunciated each word. They looked him in the eyes and smiled expectantly, like this was one big play and they were waiting for him to say his line. He got the feeling after the nth pantomime that it didn’t really matter what he said; he was less of an actor and more of a prop. And wasn’t that the story of his life? At least, it had been ever since he joined the military.
He felt nothing but relief when he'd landed in Miami and found his brothers waiting for him, no American flags or “Welcome home!” signs in sight. He had two weeks of leave before he had to report back to South Carolina. Spending half of it with Roberto and Andreas was the least that he could do after the way he left—not that he ever intended to bring that up.
He spent the week at Roberto’s and Natalia’s place, preferring their actual guest room to Andi’s pull-out couch in his studio apartment. He loved his family, he did, and he missed them, he did, but after a week of his sister-in-law obsessively playing the world’s most perfect host and the kids wanting to spend every waking moment with their tío, he was even more drained than he’d been when he arrived. That wasn’t even getting into the careful way Roberto asked how he was doing or the looks that Andreas kept sending him when he thought he wasn’t looking.
But things felt almost normal when, over drinks, Andreas casually asked Javi to remind him where he was going next. He hadn’t forgotten. Javi knew that he knew if not by his sly smile, then by the fact that his second oldest brother had always been a little shit. He knew what he was gonna say. He reminded him anyway.
There was no reason at all for Javi’s blood to rush to his face when Andreas replied, “Oooh, Kate.”
Roberto told him to leave it. Andreas feigned innocence. He asked how small Kate’s apartment was; how cozy were they gonna get? Roberto told him off for that, too, and then they started bickering over their baby’s brother’s interpersonal relationships or lack thereof like he wasn’t right there.
Javi thought about telling them. He could’ve told them everything, but they wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t like it was permanent. He didn’t need to worry them any more than he already had over something that didn’t matter, so he kept his mouth shut and ignored how naked his left hand felt as it tightened around his drink.
He didn’t put the ring back on until he left Florida. He kept fidgeting with it throughout the flight, twisting the smooth golden band around and around his finger. He wondered for the first time since he left Kate standing in the rain if she was still wearing hers.
He fought his way through the massive airport, trying not to lose himself in the sea of people. He’d texted Kate when he landed. She hearted his message, then unhearted it and said that she’d be waiting for him by baggage claim. He hadn’t heard from her since.
He knew that she’d missed him. They’d talked while he was away—by call and by text—almost everyday. He probably heard her voice more than he had his own family, which he decided not to reflect on too much. When he gave her his homecoming date, she sounded so happy. Relieved, even. Of course he could stay with her, she said before he'd even asked if he could.
She wanted to see him on some level. He knew that. It was just… They never really talked. They talked about a lot of things, but not about that. Never that. The elephant was easier to ignore when they weren’t in the same room, let alone continent. And so they did. He was regretting it now. He wanted to know, heart in his throat, what he was walking into.
Baggage claim was just as busy as the rest of the airport and twice as loud, full of people getting dropped off or getting picked up or arguing with airline reps over who-knew-what. Javi kept his single suitcase close as he pushed through the crowd, trying not to run over anybody’s toes as he looked, overwhelmed, for Kate.
He was tired. He was anxious. What if Kate didn’t really want to see him? What if she realized now, once she saw him again, that this was a mistake? What if she already had? What if this was all just a polite courtesy before the inevitable? Everything threatened to boil over. He was just as aware of the ring on his finger as he’d been the whole time it was off. Maybe he should’ve-
“Javi!”
He turned. Whiplash. There she was, there, waving her right hand as high as she could reach. She was visible in slivers between jostling, impatient bodies. She was a beacon. Javi went to her. The sea parted.
Kate loved color. She always wore at least three. He remembered doing data collection for class, cataloging wind speeds and air pressure, before turning around to ask her something only to find her her yards away, taking photos of the clouds. She stood tall above the plains like the first bloom of spring. She’d struggled to find enough black in her closet for the funerals.
It was… jarring to see her so monochromatic. She was dressed for the weather, unlike him. Her big gray coat went down to her knees, swamping her, unbuttoned to reveal a simple black sweater and white skirt layered over what he could only assume were a pair of very warm black leggings. She finished the look off with an equally black pair of boots.
She met him in the middle; they were finally face-to-face. That was when Javi realized that her skirt wasn’t a skirt.
Yellow petals peeked out from beneath the sweater’s hem, tumbling down and staining the white fabric like paint thrown across a canvas. It was a dress. The dress. She was wearing The Dress. That had to mean something. Javi just didn’t know what.
“Hey,” she said, sounding out of breath. There was a brightness to her eyes. She reached up to fix her hair, sweeping back a few loose strands that had fallen in front of her eyes. The ring on her finger slid through long, blond waves.
Javi was breathless. “Hey,” he managed somehow.
“How was the flight?” She was smiling.
“Good.” The ring, that dress. Kate, standing, here. “It was good.”
“Good! And- Have you been? Good?”
He’d developed a new recurring nightmare involving dust storms and all of his friends dying in a country that they’d never been to. They all looked the same, but Javi’s hair was short. “Yeah, I’ve been good.”
A beat. They stared at each other. Kate’s smile hadn’t changed, but, upon closer inspection, it looked a little pasted-on. Javi said, “How’re you?”
“I’m good,” said Kate, quickly. Her smile widened, stiff and overstretched. “I’m great! Been doin’ great.”
“That’s great.”
“Yep.”
Javi wondered if she’d been sleeping. He couldn’t tell if the shadows under her eyes were a trick of the light or if they looked worse beneath her makeup. More than once, he came back from a shift to find a dozen missed calls from her, one after the other, left well after her sunset and his sunrise. He hoped that she’d been sleeping better than he was or at least not any worse. Maybe she was just as sleep-deprived. Maybe that’s why she kept staring at him, unblinking, not saying a word.
The nerves were back, as if they ever left. “Are you-?”
Kate rushed forward and hugged him tight. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding on for dear life, while the rest of her body pressed as close as physically possible, hampered by the bulkiness of their clothing and the rules of quantum mechanics. She was a warm, solid weight. Not heavy, though. No, not heavy at all. When he curled around her, hugging her back without hesitation, his face pressed into her hair. He breathed in and smelled lavender.
Kate, her own face buried somewhere between his neck and shoulder, took a long, deep breath. He heard it in his ear; felt it rise with her chest and shoulders. She held it for a second. Then, with a sigh, she exhaled and melted into him. She whispered, “I missed you.”
For the first time since he left the country, Javi felt like he was home. He shut his eyes and held his breath until he knew that his voice wouldn’t waver. “I missed you, too.”
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that for. He would’ve held her till the end of time, but she pulled away first. “So,” she said. Her smile was real. Her eyes were shining. “You hungry?”
She did her coat back up as she spoke about cabs versus rideshares and where they could grab lunch. There was a sushi spot near her apartment that she liked and an Ethiopian place not too many stops away. If Javi wanted, they could go a little further out, flip a coin, and try literally any of the Puerto Rican restaurants on Ave C. She kept meaning to take the train out there. Now she had an expert with her.
They’d stop at her apartment first to drop off his things. They could just stay there, too, if he wanted—if he was tired. He was probably tired. She got an air mattress for him. No holes! She’d checked. They could take it easy; order some pizza. They could do whatever he wanted. They had time. She’d taken the whole week off.
All Javi could say was, “Whatever’s fine,” because it was true. Javi didn’t have the energy for decisions. He barely had the brain power to put one foot in front of the other. Besides, he wasn’t here to see New York. He was here to see Kate. Kate, who was wearing her wedding ring. Kate, who’d missed him. Kate, who wanted him here. Whatever she wanted to do was fine. All Javi wanted was to keep making her smile like that.
The glass doors slid open as she lead them outside. Icy air rushed in after her, cutting Javi’s cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him again. He was helpless to follow.
Present
K. C.
The door shuts behind Kate with a soft click. She takes a second to just breathe. Out goes the clamor of the city, the stress of the workweek, the dull ache in her legs from living in a city that was designed to be walked. In comes the soft silence, car horns and human voices muffled by seven stories of insulation.
She drops her keys in the dish in the foyer, a two-and-a-half-foot cube of squeaky hardwood just big enough for the front door to swing across before the kitchen tile starts. She kicks her shoes off and into the closet on the right; sniffs her blazer before hanging it back up. Her bag lands on her unmade bed. She squats in front of the laundry basket full of clothes that they washed last week, but still haven’t gotten around to folding. Laundry day is already just around the corner.
She plucks out her softest plaid shorts and a mismatched pair of socks that lost their better halves ages ago. She rummages some more before considering the old Air Force tee. It’s her favorite sleep shirt, even though it’s not hers, technically. But it’s also not not hers, like her paycheck isn’t not his, like his last name isn’t not hers, either. And it’s not like Javi’s ever said anything one way or the other about it.
She’s fresh out of the shower, still toweling off her hair when she hears the front door open again. “I’m home!”
“In the bathroom!”
Shower steam wafts out; something garlicky and fried waltzes in. The sun only just started drifting downwards when she got back, so she hadn’t bothered turning any lights on. Now the sky outside has gone from a sunset yellow to worn out denim, the last bits of daylight weak and pale through the kitchen window. Technically, they have two, but the second only offers a view of a lovely brick wall that she could reach with her fingertips if the windows actually opened. The kitchen cabinets jut out just so, blocking the already wilting light from reaching half of the room. Kate pushes the bathroom door a little further, letting the flickering bulb that they keep meaning to replace reach out and illuminate the path to Javi’s back.
During his last deployment, after not seeing his face for three months and not hearing his voice for two weeks, Kate woke up at one-thirty in the morning and counted how many steps it took to walk the perimeter of their apartment. She started from the foyer in the southwest, walked around the awkward jutting of the bathroom in the southeast, and let her fingers trail along the futon stuffed between that corner and her bed in the north, the kitchen taking up the wild west. Then she did it again, but this time with Javi’s gait—or her best approximation of it—and noted how it didn’t take him much longer to make his way around the studio despite the masculine walk she’d seen him practice in college back when he was still unsure of himself, new to himself. She repeated this several times, superimposing Javi back into the space and remembering how much of a shoe box it was for two people. It was a great yawning void on her own.
The point being: it takes exactly twelve steps to reach out and squeeze Javi’s shoulder. “Hey.”
He turns, tucking a thick set of curls behind his ear. He has that small smile he always does when he gets home. When his gaze flickers down to her shirt, the smile stutters before coming back just a bit wider. “Hey yourself.”
He’s been growing his hair out since he separated last fall. It’s finally at chin length. Kate can’t help but think it suits him, face framed by dark locks, short beard and mustache brightening up his green eyes. They crinkle at the corners when she makes grabby hands for the food. “Ah, ah, ah,” he says, holding the box labeled ‘gambas’ in wide looping cursive close to his chest. “Can I get a little appreciation?”
“Thank you, Javi,” she sing-songs. She grins when the plastic meets her open palms, almost too hot to hold despite the long journey here. Less sarcastic, a little softer, she says, “You’re too good to me.”
“Nah. I just wanted mofongo. Figured I should feed you, too, while I’m at it.”
“Well, I ain’t complaining.”
They do have a table, a dark wooden thing wedged between the stove and the kitchen window. They always end up eating on the futon, though, Kate on the left and Javi on the right. He sits with one leg up, left ankle propped atop his right knee, while she sits criss-crossed, her right knee brushing against his left when they shift.
Javi is shifting a lot tonight. He’s always a little tired, eyelids heavy, gravity tugging at his sleeve just a bit too hard, every movement a tax to pay. But right now, his eyes are wide and his leg is bouncing. There’s an energy to him that makes the hair on Kate’s arms stand up. She expects an electric shock when their knees touch. She turned the TV on to some house renovation show that neither of them actually pay attention to, except Javi looks so on right now that he might actually remember what the couple’s budget is if she asks.
“So,” says Kate, poking at her plantains and side-eyeing him as he watches the hosts shake their heads at the asbestos they just found. “How was your day?”
Javi says, “You first,” then stuffs the last of his pork in his mouth before she can say ‘I asked you first.’ Bastard.
“Work was work.” She watches him chew. He watches an entire commercial for Alzheimer’s medication without blinking. “Javi-”
“Okay, so”—he turns to her fully, her body turning in response—“I have good news and bad news.”
She draws her legs under herself. “Bad news first.”
“My supervisor pulled me in today. They’re not renewing my contract.”
“Oh, Javi.”
He shrugs, setting his empty container on the floor, eyes hidden behind his hair. “We saw it coming.”
“But still.” She sets the rest of her food down, appetite lost. The job itself hadn’t been anything exciting—a programming job with a security company—but it seemed stable. An open door into the civilian job market.
“I gave it my best. Besides, they’re going all in on Defense contracts now and y’know how I…” He shrugs again.
“…Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“But, hey.” She reaches out, thumb catching in the fold of his slacks, and tries to catch his eye as numbers run through her head. “We’ll be fine. We’ll just eat in for a while, stick to our coffee machine, and I think we’ll be good on rent for a couple months before we have to dip into our-” She backtracks. “Lemme worry about that. Just focus on job hunting. I know you’ll find something quick.”
He looks at her hand on his knee. “Actually, that’s the good news? ‘Cause… I got a job offer.”
The numbers grind to a halt. She blinks. “I didn’t know you were applying.”
“Uh. I wasn’t.”
Javi doesn’t keep stuff from her; they don’t keep stuff from each other. He would’ve told her that he was applying. Of course he would. It’s such a little thing. She feels silly for thinking otherwise, even for a second.
“Did I ever tell you about a Scott Miller?” he continues. “You wouldn’t remember, that was, god, over a year ago now. We met during my second deployment. He was Army, but we were both on that PAR project together. I know you remember that one. I wouldn’t shut up about it. You probably got tired of me going on and on.”
Her fingers twitch. “I don’t get tired of you.” She pulls her hand back.
He watches it go. “Anyway, um. Our shifts lined up. We were working on completely different parts of the project—I was more technical, he worked on logistics—but we chatted, y’know? Hung out on breaks, got friendly. We got along. His homecoming was three months before mine, then his retirement was my homecoming date, but he told me to look him up when I got back. Slipped my mind with everything else going on, but I guess he remembered me, ‘cause he reached out this morning, and- You remember what I said back then? About how that tech could be used in weather radar?”
There’s faux-cowhide throw pillow behind her from that flea market they went to back in March. She’d called it cute. Javi called it an eyesore. Kate won. She pulls it into her lap and starts playing with the fraying gold tassels sewn onto the sides. “Yeah, I remember.”
Javi’s smile goes wide. “Scott figured it out. I mean, he got some funding and told a bunch of PHD’s to figure it out for him, but they did it. And he wants me to be a part of it.”
His eyes are bright green like a lightning-struck sky before the clouds start turning counterclockwise. Something in her stomach stirs. “This is a research project?”
“It’s a startup. The tech is still in beta and the radars are more prototypes than anything else, but they work. They’re generating more precise models than anything I’ve seen before. It’s amazing, Kate, I gotta show you. A lot of people are interested in this data—insurers, researchers, the NWS. Scott thinks they’ll be profitable by next year. He’s funneling as much as he can back into R&D. Once the tech matures, we can build relationships with the big agencies, maybe go for some government proposals, make bigger radars, and then we can do the real work. Combine our tech with the current radar network, help advance warning systems-”
Javi does this thing, sometimes. He’ll start talking a mile a minute, gesturing wildly, circling ‘round and ‘round the point till he’s out of breath. Kate’s familiar with it by now. It’s what he did before coming out to her in freshman year; before confessing to Jeb that he and Praveen spilled bright blue Slushees all over his nice leather car seats; before admitting to her that he enlisted. She says, “What’s the catch?”
Somewhere in the middle of his rambling, his eyes slipped off hers, down to that cow pillow she hadn’t realized she was clutching tight against her belly. “The radars are small. It makes them portable, but it also means they can only work at close-range, and they have to be triangulated just right to get a proper reading. This is the most active tornado season in decades, so we have plenty of opportunities to-”
There’s a pressure building at the base of her skull. “What’s the catch?”
His eyes trail back up. He takes a deep breath. “Scott wants me to do the field tests.”
She’s already shaking her head.
“We just need to place them close enough to get a reading and then we’re gone.”
“No.”
“I’d just be in and out-”
“No.”
“Kate, please.” He reaches for her hand.
She shoves the pillow toward him and stumbles to her feet. “Absolutely not.”
“You haven’t seen what it’s capable of. This could save lives.”
“I don’t care.”
He gets up, too. “Yes, you do.” She bends down, picks up the to-go boxes, and turns her back on him. “You’re not listening to me.”
“Of course I’m not!” She laughs as she says it, even though it’s not funny, not funny at all.
“Kate.” He follows her retreat to the kitchen. “Kate. What if I could be doing something with my life? Something that matters? I could make a difference. I could help people. I could be a part of something.”
It’s June again. They’re sitting at her mama’s kitchen table, five years younger and feeling so much older. Javi’s face is bare, his eyes are something other than dead and dull for the first time in months, and he’s saying the exact same shit while his recruiter adds another tally to that month’s quota. Kate knows now, just like she did then, that Javi is a fool.
She tosses his empty container in the trash. “You’re not going.”
“I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“They need me there.”
“And why’s it gotta be you?”
“Because there has to be a reason I’m still here!”
Their apartment is small. There's no space left on the walls. Past Javi’s shoulder hangs the Puerto Rican and Cuban flags from his dorm room walls. Between them is a watercolor of Oklahoma’s silhouette done up in weeds and wildflowers. There's the plastic tree shoved in the corner that they got last Christmas and couldn’t be bothered to dismantle, the futon she bought for him after he flew up to help her recover from her vaginoplasty and wrecked his back on the air mattress, the big square rug that they got at the same flea market as the silly little pillow because the blues and creams reminded Javi of childhood beaches and Kate of a calm sky. Her jaw hurts from how hard she’s biting down.
"Kate.” Javi steps closer. “Don’t you ever wonder why it was us that made it out of there?”
His whisper reverberates off the walls. Her ears ring. The fridge hums. Stuck to the front are old holiday cards from his brothers, their grocery list, and the fuzzy group selfie from Praveen’s twenty-first birthday. The countertop is cool beneath her hands, the chill of the tile seeping up through her thin socks. Not for the first time, her wedding band feels tight.
“No,” she lies and throws her leftovers in the trash.
Kate is used to insomnia. She’s been battling it for the past five years. “Battling” might be the wrong word. She’s managing it. Dealing with it. Learning to live with it.
Like with everything else, she’s had mixed results. Melatonin made her nightmares more vivid. Diets made her irritable; intermittent fasting robbed her of the little energy that she had left. She could barely find the strength to get out of bed some days. It’s still a struggle, but less so now that Javi’s here. She still doesn't sleep the whole night through, but she sleeps. On good nights, she’s out the second her head hits the pillow.
This is not a good night. She considers the inky blackness of the ceiling, teeth aching from how tightly they’ve been clenched. This could certainly be a worse night, she figures. She could be having nightmares. Of course, she’d have to be asleep first. She hasn’t slept at all. She sits up and squints toward the kitchen, where the little clock on the microwave glows just past midnight.
Javi lays still on the futon, flat on his back, his sleeping face tilted toward her. His hands rest limp on his stomach. He looks soft; peaceful. There’s no sign of the silent, strained tension that they went to bed with. At least he’s sleeping just fine.
The thought tastes sour. Something curdles in Kate’s stomach.
She wasn’t angry, she thinks, padding past his sleeping form, careful to avoid the squeakier floorboards. There was nothing to be angry about—nothing to talk about, either. It was just a job offer. A bad one, nothing more. Javi was suddenly unemployed; he was desperate; he wasn’t thinking straight. All Kate did was make him realize that. There wasn’t anything to go to bed angry about, so they hadn’t. She’s not angry. She’s not-
She’s clenching her teeth again. She relaxes her jaw, feels it click. A glass of water, she thinks. Then she’ll go back to bed and try to sleep. In the morning, none of this will matter. They won’t fight. They won’t argue. They’ll stay in New York. They’ll be fine. They are fine. Kate is fine. She opens the fridge.
The chill of the open door brushes against her skin. She doesn’t feel it. There are two little foil cups sitting on the middle shelf, topped by clear plastic lids and full of white pudding dusted with cinnamon.
Fondness washes over her and threatens to drown her. She sighs Javi’s name. Then she whips around, tensing again, eyes landing on Javi. A long arc from the fridge illuminates his form. He doesn’t even twitch. She waits for movement, but there’s only the slow rise and fall of his stomach. Kate carefully closes the fridge, casting them both back into darkness. Then she leans back against the counter and watches Javi sleep for a while.
Kate has been living in New York for three years. She's been living with Javi for eight months. Javi didn’t have to follow her out here, not when he could’ve gone back home to Florida after the military was through with him, but it was his idea. When he told her, all Kate could ask was why. His response was logical: his housing allowance would end once he separated. He still wanted to help her with rent if she didn’t mind having a roommate. “I want to help,” he said.
It’s what he always says. He said it when she was recovering from her bottom surgery, barely able to sit up, let alone stand, while he waited on her hand and foot for two weeks straight. He was there by her side when she went under and was there again when she woke up. He drove her home and took care of her; helped her sleep; made her laugh. He cooked for her and cleaned for her and slept on the sagging air mattress and didn’t complain, not once.
She tried convincing him, after a week of this treatment, that she was feeling better. She could stand for minutes at a time, now; she didn’t need his help to walk to the bathroom anymore. She was perfectly capable of sitting up and ordering takeout. He didn’t have to be here.
He asked, “But does it help, me being here?”
Kate couldn’t lie to him. She still can’t. Except, apparently-
(“Don’t you ever wonder why it was us who made it out of there?”)
Javi always wants to help, like when they both come home from a hard day and he’s washed the dishes before she can even offer to help or when he comes back from the laundromat with two weeks worth of clean clothes the day before she planned on doing it herself. He’s just… so helpful. Always helping, even to his own detriment. Kate never says no. She takes what's offered and then some. He may have started this whole mess of joint bank accounts and shared living spaces, but she’s the one who wanted to change her name.
And what has she given him in return? Intermittent, lukewarm comfort. Nothing of value.
When Javi had his phallo, she tried paying him back. She had to argue with him to take the bed while she took the futon. He was in more pain than she’d been, or maybe he just carried it differently, all stiff limbs and gritted teeth. She wanted to make him smile, but she wasn’t as witty and her jokes fell flat. Her cooking wasn’t anything to write home about, either. She offered to call the clinic, see about getting him stronger painkillers, but he refused. After three nights in a row of listening to him shift and whimper when he thought she was asleep, she got up on and curled up beside him, her head on his chest. She stroked his hair, careful not to jostle his aching body.
She spent the night drifting in and out of consciousness, warmed by the hot furnace of his body. It was like they were back in Sapulpa—those long, humid nights after the world ended. She listened to his rhythmic heartbeat, slightly elevated from the pain that she couldn’t take away no matter how much she tried. She just wanted to help him sleep. She just wanted to help. She was stupid to think that she could.
Kate has known Javi for ten years. He’s smart. He’s also stubborn. And he is so, so frustrating when he finds a solution and decides that it can be the only one. But he’s sweeter than he thinks he is—rough around the edges, soft in the middle. He listens to her. He’s kind, so kind, to her.
He keeps to himself, these days. He’s quiet. He wasn’t always like this. He used to be so loud. He used to have so much fire. She saw him spark again tonight for the first time in five years. He talked about helping people; saving lives; making a difference. He sounded so familiar, like the old Javi coming back to haunt her. He sounded like her, talking about the Tamer project. So of course she isn’t angry. She’s terrified.
There are two simple laws that Kate follows:
- Keep Javi happy.
- Keep Javi safe.
They’re not supposed to come into conflict like this. Javi doesn’t ask for things as a general rule. He’d been asking for permission when he talked about chasing again. It’s not like he needed it, though, her approval, and he knew that. What he was really after was her opinion, but he must’ve known what that would be, too. He doesn’t have to listen to her. He can do whatever he wants. What’s Kate gonna do? Divorce him?
It’s one thing to console herself with maintaining Javi’s safety even if she can’t figure out how to make him laugh like he used to. It’s another thing to consciously trade one for the other. She wants both. He deserves both. He’s done so much, lost so much, and she can never-
Javi snuffles in his sleep. He shifts; one hand slides off his belly. His whole arm hangs off the futon, fingertips grazing the floor. With his hair really starting to grow out, he reminds her of a pietá that they’d seen during their last visit to the Met.
She’s taken so much from him. She owes him everything. She’ll never be able to pay him back and Javi would never ask her to. That’s part of the problem—he asks for so little. He deserves it all: safety and happiness and a good night’s sleep. She can give him that. She can help. It’s the least that she can do.
J. R.
Javi wakes up to the smell of coffee. He blinks up at the ceiling, off-white in the morning sun. He remembers that it’s Saturday. For a few, blissful moments, he actually looks forward to today. Then he remembers how yesterday ended; any sense of peace flees his body. How long could he fake sleeping before-?
“Oh, hey!”
Nevermind. He turns his head.
Kate smiles from the kitchen, pulling a carton of half-and-half from the fridge. “Lemme finish putting my coffee together, than I’ll make you a cup.” Her voice is bright. Cheery, even.
Javi sits up cautiously.
Kate pours maybe half a teaspoon into her mug, speckled blue like a robin’s egg. Once she’s done, she opens the cupboard and pulls out a second mug—speckled, just like the first, but in a deep rust red. Javi’s not sure when she bought them or when the blue became hers and the red became his.
He turned her on to the French press when he moved in. She empties the rest of it into his mug, her shoulders relaxed. She glances at him with that same, placid smile and asks, “How’d you sleep?”
Oh. So that’s how they’re doing it. “I slept fine.”
Kate hums and pours a generous shot of half-and-half into his coffee. When he walks over, he spots the dark circles hanging from her eyes. He doesn’t return the question. He reaches for the sugar, but she shoos him away. “I got it, I got it,” she says. Javi, with nothing else to do, sits down at their little table beneath the window to stare at the brick and steel outside.
He shouldn’t have brought it up last night. Storm PAR, Oklahoma, chasing—two out of the three are her least favorite things, so of course she’d hate the whole combination. He knew that going in. It’s why he told Scott that he’d think about it instead of falling to his knees and begging to start right then and there. He thought that he could convince her: appeal to her better nature, smooth out her fears, and make her believe that he could do this. It was never gonna work.
He breathes out, watching the sun cast shadows across the city. He needs to message Scott and turn him down. If he words it right, he could keep that door open. Just in case. Then he needs to update his resume and apply to literally every opening that he’s even slightly qualified for. He’s not letting Kate help. She doesn’t need to; she’s put up with enough of his shit. No, he can do this on his own. He can. He will.
Kate sets their coffees down in front of him, hers an almost pure black, Javi’s a delicate tan. He opens his mouth to thank her.
Then she sets the tembleques down, too. With spoons. The puddings jiggle a little in their containers.
He blinks at them. Then he blinks at Kate. Kate blinks back. “Breakfast,” she says, simply, and sits across from him.
Javi stares as she picks up her mug and blows across the dark surface. “Tembleques for breakfast?”
“People have pudding for breakfast.”
“Sure. But this is tembleque.”
“It’s pudding.”
“Dessert pudding.”
“Yeah. And donuts are technically cake.” She sips her coffee.
Javi might lose it.
“Besides,” she mumbles against the eggshell rim. “It’s my fault we didn’t get to eat them yesterday.”
It’s not, Javi wants to say. She’s not the one who tried convincing her spouse that returning to the field that nearly killed them both was a good idea. She didn’t spend all day thinking through how to do that and came up empty. And she definitely didn’t stop to pick up their dinner, see the desserts displayed in the restaurant’s chilled case, and decide that coconut pudding would sweeten the deal or at least help the conversation go down smoother. That would’ve been stupid.
Javi drinks his coffee—sweet, cream and sugar smothering the acidity, exactly how he likes it—before giving in and picking up his spoon.
They have dessert for breakfast. Besides the scraping of their spoons against foil and the gentle ‘clink’ each time they set their mugs down, it’s silent. It’s nice. It’s good. Better than donuts. Better than going to bed raw and angry. Javi leans back against his chair, letting the leftover tension drip off of him. After a while, once the tembleques are gone, Kate’s face turns thoughtful. Her nails tap against her now empty mug. When she speaks, her voice is quiet. “Do you really want that job?”
The tension comes right back. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”
Kate frowns. “That’s not what I meant. I’m really asking. Do you want it?”
Javi feels like he’s standing on a minefield. His coffee—or what’s left of it—has turned cold, which he finds out only after he drinks a mouthful of it to stall for time.
“I don’t know,” she continues while he forces himself to swallow. “You were all… You were so into it. I’m trying to understand.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, finally, trying not to grimace. “It’s just a job.” Like if he says it out loud, it’ll convince them both. He doesn’t feel it.
Kate doesn’t look it, either. If anything, she frowns harder. “It didn’t sound like nothing last night.”
“I said a lot of stupid stuff last night.”
“You’re not stupid.”
He sighs. “Kate…”
“Javi.” She leans forward, grim. Serious. “Do you wanna chase again?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He throws his hands up, helpless. “I don’t wanna go back to pencil pushing and meetings and wasting my time drafting up reports that nobody’s gonna read about shit that doesn’t matter. I just want my work to mean something. I want to do something that matters.”
Kate leans back, arms crossed. Her frown is gone, replaced by a thin, flat line.
Javi tries not to squirm. He fails. “It’s fine,” he mumbles, trying to look anywhere else but those deep brown eyes studying him so closely. “I’ll find something else. There’s other jobs.” Safer jobs. Closer-to-home jobs. Jobs that pay the bills and not much else. Which is fine. It’s fine. He’s fine.
Kate says, neutral, “But you wanted this job.”
“It’s fine.” If he says it enough, it’ll be true.
A beat. “I think you should take it.”
Javi nearly lurches out of his seat. “What?”
“The job,” says Kate, like that’s what he needed clarification on. “You should take it.”
He’s reeling. “I- Scott wanted me as soon as possible. I told him I’d need at least two weeks, if I even accepted, but that was before- And I wasn’t promising anything. It was all hypothetical-”
Kate is nodding. “Two weeks,” she murmurs and Javi has the distinct feeling that she’s just thinking out loud. “Yeah. I can work with that.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t need this job.”
“But you want this job. Right?”
The morning sun gives Kate’s face a golden glow, her eyes shining like honey. The worst of her bed-head was finger-combed away, but a single lock of hair sticks stubbornly out of place. Javi’s fingers itch to reach out and tuck it back. He crosses his arms very tightly. “There’s a lot of things I want. Doesn’t mean I should have it.”
“But you can have this thing.” She taps the table for emphasis. There’s an edge to her voice that Javi doesn’t know what to do with. “You deserve the things you want. If you want it, you should have it.”
Her words are an echo of his own, three years old. His mouth is dry.
“Take the job. Go to Oklahoma.” She pauses. Her eyes are locked on his; he can’t bear to look away. “I’ll go with you.”
Amazing how nothing flies off the table as the world spins on its axis. “No, you’re not!”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.” Just the thought sends his heart running. “It’s too dangerous.”
He realizes his mistake when Kate’s gaze turns sharp. “Oh, so it’s fine for you to go running into danger, alone-”
“That’s not-”
“-and I’m supposed to just sit here and let you?”
Yes, she should. Kate should stay right here in New York. She shouldn’t have to babysit him. She shouldn’t have to upend her life, her peace, her safety, for him of all people. He can take care of himself.
“Javi.”
He looks down. Her left hand is flat on the table, wedding ring glinting in the light, fingertips stretched toward him. “Please. Let me help.”
The tembleques served their purpose after all, as if Kate needed them. Javi has never been able to say no to her.