“Words.”
Griffin got quiet, considering this. “Are they good ones?”
“They aren’t bad,” I said.
“You sound like you deserve a break,” he said.
“Oh, thank goodness!”
I closed the laptop, and reached for him, pulling him toward me for a long kiss. He held me there, against him, which allowed me to move me into the nook, right into the curve in his chest. The truth was, I was still doing it, listening to his heartbeat like that, far too often. I imagined there would come a time when I wouldn’t. Or it wouldn’t scare me in the same way. But, for now, it did.
Griffin kissed the top of my head. “So I was thinking,” he said, “since tonight’s my night off, we could watch a movie, if you want.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Yeah? ”
I took a large handful of popcorn. “Definitely,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”
As an answer, Griffin clicked on the DVD player, a movie already in there sneakily ready to go, the opening sequence coming to life on the screen: the crisp white credits, that fabulous orchestra, the Vatican coming across the screen. Roman Holiday.
I pointed at the television, the popcorn spilling from my open fist, onto the floor. “No!!!” I said.
“Yes.”
I didn’t even bother dusting off my hands before putting them over my eyes. Fast as I could.
“Have you lost your freaking mind? What are you doing to me? ” I said, my voice rising to a surprisingly high volume. “I can’t see anything! Whoever is listening, whoever decides these things, I didn’t see anything worth mentioning. I didn’t see anything, barely at all, that should bring on the bad.”
I was yelling toward the ceiling at this point—it’s sadly true—but Griffin was laughing too hard to hear just how loud. (He did hit PAUSE first, bless his heart.) He was laughing and gently removing my hands from over my eyes, kissing each of them, holding them in his lap.
“You trust me, right?” he said.
I looked at him, his sweet face. His knock-you-out smile—this close to being too smooth for its own good.
“Very much,” I said.
“Then trust me that it’ll be fine. I promise you.”
“You don’t get it. You can’t promise that.” I pointed at the screen again. “You turn that on, and I may as well just sit here and wait for the bad to happen.”
He shrugged. “Well, I guess I have a different idea.”
“What? You think you can turn it all around? Make Roman Holiday bring some good luck after all this time?”
“More like, I think the bad is probably coming anyway, so you may as well enjoy the movie.”
“That’s depressing!”
“That’s life,” he said. “It’s a great movie. It’d be good to enjoy it.”
It would. It would be good to enjoy it. For all the reasons it was my favorite movie—and one more reason that, maybe, was only occurring to me now. For a moment there, Audrey found it. Amidst the crazy experiment of taking a day to live life on her own terms. She did find it. The place she felt like she belonged.
“Here we go . . .” Griffin said.
Then he clicked PAUSE again, and turned the volume up higher, the movie coming to life on the screen.
“And I’ll be here for you,” he said. “If and when the bad does come. For whatever it’s worth.”