Carlos filled any room he was in. He was just so big, and he had such a presence. The whole downstairs suddenly felt warmer, brighter, happier.
He was looking around, and if Pauline had been afraid that the rich man would judge her shabby furniture, it was clear she’d had nothing to fear. He was smiling, and he said to her, “What a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” Pauline said. “I’ve lived here for fifteen years, now.” Since her divorce. Gary had wanted to keep their house, and she hadn’t wanted to live there anymore, anyway. So she’d bought this little one-story place, and had scrubbed the floors and tended the garden and mourned the future she’d thought she’d have.
“A long time.” Carlos was still looking around, examining the bookshelves, picking the picture of her parents off the mantelpiece. “I’ve lived in my apartment in New York for about that long, and it’s never looked as much like a home as this does.”
“Should have put some work into it,” Pauline murmured, and then immediately regretted it—it sounded like she was admonishing him. Of course he could treat his apartment however he wanted.
But he just laughed. “You’re right, I should have,” he agreed.
“Are you going to move somewhere, now?” she asked tentatively. “You said you wanted something new to do. Do you have any idea where that might be?”
“Well,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “Should we sit down?”
It was strange. We need to talk was the bogeyman of the romantic world. It heralded breakups, it’s not you it’s me, confessions of cheating, and all sorts of terrible consequences. She should have been filled with dread from the moment Carlos had said he wanted to go somewhere private just to talk.
But she wasn’t. She was sure, somehow, that this wouldn’t be anything bad. In fact, she was filled with a sense of—whatever the opposite of dread was. Anticipatory joy. She knew, down to her bones, that something wonderful was coming.
Which was ridiculous. Pauline had never believed in psychics or precognition or anything like that. There was no way she could know what was ahead.
But she did.
They sat down on the couch together. Carlos was close, warm, his thigh against hers. He took her hand, enveloping it in his big fingers.
“When I was here before,” he began, “helping Nate and Stella, I saw you at the restaurant. And I felt—drawn to you, somehow. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t understand it at all.”
“I felt the same,” Pauline confessed, her voice low. “I kept watching to see if you’d come back.”
Carlos winced. “I should have said something then. It might have saved me some—but I hadn’t figured it out.”
The joy-bubble that was building in her chest grew a bit larger, a bit brighter. “Figured what out?” she managed.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he said, his voice warm and low. “This connection. I know how to read you. I know you. That doesn’t seem possible, after so short a time. And I think you feel the same.”
“I do,” she said quietly. “I don’t—trust people like this. I’ve been a loner for so long, because I learned that I couldn’t depend on people like I wanted to.” People turned out to be different than they’d pretended to be. People grew old and sick, and died. People drifted away. “But you—I know I can rely on you.”
“You can,” he said immediately. It was like a shock of pleasure, of comfort, right to her chest. Because she knew it was true.
“I know that you mean what you say,” she continued. “I know that you want me to be happy. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.”
“I never thought I’d find a mate,” Carlos said. At the word mate, a thrill went through Pauline’s whole body. “It just didn’t seem to be in the cards for me, with the life I’d chosen. But I guess I was wrong, because it’s you, Pauline.”
Pauline had a second of wondering what was even happening to her—she was so happy, but her heart felt almost bruised. The power of joy, when you were only expecting more pain, she thought dizzily, as her eyes overflowed.
Instantly, Carlos had her in his arms. Pauline’s breath hitched, and then she was simply crying, the way she hadn’t let herself do for so long. Tears of—of relief, coming out of some place inside her that had been hardened into stone for so long, to let her keep going. And now it had broken open, and all of the pain inside it had come flooding out.
And Carlos was there. He was like a warm, comforting wall, holding her up while she broke. “I never thought—” she gasped. “I was so sure—”
“Me too,” he said. She could hear the pain in his own voice. “I was certain that this was it. But it’s not. There’s more for us.”
Pauline shuddered. What was this that she was feeling? It was like pain, but it wasn’t, quite. But it had overwhelmed her as surely as the worst pain could.
Carlos held her through it. His hand moved slowly up and down her back, and it was like strength flowed from him into her. Gradually, she was able to breathe again, and her tears slowed down, and she felt a sense of...peace.
It was odd. Before this, she would’ve claimed to anyone who asked that she was at peace. She’d reached a peace with her parents’ death, and she’d forced herself into peace with the fact that she would never have children of her own. She had a decent job, a good home, and a nice little peaceful life.