Rebecca Serle - In Five Years

But Bella has always been one for a project. She loves potential, possibility, an unknown terrain such as this one. The only trouble is she rarely, if ever, sees anything through. I’ve seen her spend obscene amounts of money on projects and renovations that never ultimately come together. There was the Paris apartment, the LA loft, the jewelry line, the Thai silk scarf company, the shared artists space in Greenpoint. The list is long.

“She does,” Aaron says. “Or at least see if she can.” He’s speaking quietly. His attention isn’t on his words but instead on his surroundings. I can see him sketching, drawing, molding this place to life in his head.

They’ve only been together two months. Eight weeks. Granted that’s two weeks longer than Bella’s longest relationship, but still — David didn’t even know my middle name at the end of two months. The fact that Aaron is here — looking at a place for Bella to live? That he’s tapping the walls and stomping the floorboards — it gives me pause. Whatever level they’re at, this quickly, isn’t good.

“Seems like a big project,” I say.

“Not too big,” he says. “There are good bones here. “And Bella tells me she likes a project.”

“I know that,” I say.

At this, he looks at me. He turns his entire attention toward me — my lone figure, standing in this swampy, sweaty space, clad in black running pants and an old camp T-shirt, while the potential of the future hangs around us like storm clouds.

“I know you do,” he says. It’s softer than I imagined whatever he’d say would be. “I’m sorry if I misspoke.” He takes a step closer to me. I inhale. “The truth is I saw you go into the deli. I circled around and followed you back to the water.” He rubs a hand over his forehead. “I wasn’t sure if I should say hi, but I really — I really do want you to like me. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot and I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to change that.”

I back away. “No,” I say. “It’s not—”

“No, no, it’s okay.” He gives me another lopsided smile, but this one looks hesitant, almost embarrassed. “Look, I don’t need to be loved by everyone. But it would be nice if my girlfriend’s best friend could stand to be in the same room as me, you know?”

This room. This apartment. This unfulfilled space.

I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

He brightens at this. “We can take things slow. No meals for a while. Maybe just start with some sparking water? Work our way up to a coffee?”

I try for a smile. On anyone else, that would have been funny. “Sounds good,” I say. It feels physically impossible to say something interesting.

“Great.” He holds my gaze for a beat. “Bella’s gonna flip when I tell her I ran into you. What are the odds?”

“In a city of nine million? Less than zero.”

He goes over to where wires hang unaccompanied off walls. “What do you think of putting the—”

“Kitchen?” I offer.

He smiles. “Exactly. And you could do the bedroom back there.” He points toward the windows. “I bet we could get a sick walk-in closet.”

We walk through the apartment for another five minutes. Aaron takes some photos as he goes. When we head back down the elevator, my cell phone is ringing. It’s Bella.

“Aaron texted me. How crazy is that? What were you even doing down there? You never run in Brooklyn. What did you think of the place?” She stops, and I can hear her breathing — shallow and expectant through the phone.

“It’s nice, I guess,” I say. “But your place is perfect. Why would you want to move?”

“You hate it?”

I think about lying to her. About telling her I don’t like it. That the windows have the wrong view, that it smells like trash, that it’s too far. I’ve never lied to Bella, and I do not want to, but she also can’t buy this place. She can’t move here. It’s for her protection as well as my own.

“It just seems like a lot of work,” I tell her. “And kind of far.”

She exhales. I can feel her annoyance. “From what?” she says. “No one lives in Manhattan anymore. It’s so stuffy, I can’t believe I do. You need to be a little more open-minded.”

“Well,” I say. “I don’t really have to be anything. I’m not going to be the one living there.”

“David, we need to get married.”

It’s the following Friday, and David and I are on the couch trying to decide what to order for dinner. It’s past 10 p.m. We had a reservation for two hours ago, but one of us had to work later and then the other decided to do the same. We got home ten minutes ago and collapsed jointly onto the sofa.

“Now?” David asks. He takes his glasses off and looks around. He never uses the bottom of his T-shirt because he thinks it smudges the lenses more. He makes a move to get up and go in search of a cleaner when I grab his hand.

“No. I’m serious.”

“Me, too.”

David sits back down. “Dannie, I’ve asked you before to set a date. We’ve talked about it. You never think it’s the right time.”

“That’s not fair,” I say. “We’ve both felt that way.”

David sighs. “Do you really want to talk about this?”

I nod.

“Life has been busy, yes. But it’s not true to say postponing things has come from us equally. I’ve been okay with waiting, because it’s what you want.”

David has been patient. We’ve never spoken about it, not in so many words, but I know he’s wondered, Why hasn’t it happened? Why do we never talk about it, not in specifics? Life got busy, and it was easy for me to pretend he didn’t think about it a lot, and maybe he didn’t. David has always been fine with my being in the driver’s seat when it comes to our relationship. He knows it’s where I feel comfortable, and he’s happy to let me have it. It’s one of the reasons we work so well.

“You’re right,” I say. I take both of his hands in mine now. The glasses dangle awkwardly from his pointer finger — an unfortunate third wheel. “But I’m saying it’s time now. Let’s do it.”

David squints at me. He understands now that I’m serious. “You’ve been acting really weird lately,” he says.

“I’m proposing here.”

“We’re already engaged.”

“David,” I say. “Come on.”

At this, he stops. “Proposing?” he says. “I took you to the Rainbow Room. This is pretty lame.”

“You’re right.”

Still holding his hands, I slide down off the couch until I’m on one knee. His eyes widen in amusement.

“David Rosen. From the first minute I saw you — at Ten Bells in that blue blazer with your headphones in — I knew you were the one.”

I have a flash of him: young professional, hair cut too short, smiling awkwardly at me.

“I wasn’t wearing headphones.”

“Yes you were. You told me it was too loud in there.”

“It is too loud in there,” David says.

“I know,” I say, shaking his hands. His glasses fall. I pick them up and put them on the sofa next to him. “It is too loud in there. I love that we both know that, and that we agree that movies should be twenty minutes shorter. I love that we both hate slow-walkers and that you think watching reruns is a waste of time value. I love that you use the term time value!”

“To be fair, that’s—”

“David,” I say. I drop his hands and place both my palms on either side of his face. “Marry me. Let’s do it. For real this time. I love you.”

He looks at me. His naked green eyes look into mine. I feel my breath suspend. One, two—

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” He laughs, and reaches for me. My lips meet his, and then we’re in a tangle of limbs making our way to the floor. David sits up and bangs into the coffee table. “Shit, ow.” It’s wood with a glass top and tends to come off its hinges unless you move the whole thing in one piece.

We stop what we’re doing to attend to the table.

“Watch the corners,” I say. We pick it up and set it back down, nudging the top into formation on the base. Once it’s done, we stare at each other on either end of the furniture, breathing hard.

“Dannie,” he says. “Why now?”

I don’t tell him what I can’t, of course. What Dr. Christine accused me of withholding. That the reason I’ve been avoiding our forever is the same reason it needs to happen now — without delay. That in forging one path, I am, in fact, ensuring another never comes to fruition.

Instead, I say this:

“It’s time, David. We fit together, I love you. What more do you need? I’m ready, and I’m sorry it took me so long.”

And that’s true, too. As true as anything is.

“Just that,” he says. His face looks happier than I’ve seen it in years.

He takes my hand and, despite the three feet now between the couch and the coffee table, he leads me deliberately, slowly, into the bedroom. He nudges me back gently until I’m just perched on the bed.

“I love you, too,” he says. “In case it wasn’t obvious.”

“It is,” I say. “I know.”

He undresses me with an intention that hasn’t been there in a long time. Usually when we have sex, we don’t do a lot of mood-setting. We’re not particularly imaginative, and we’re always pressed for time. The sex David and I have is good — great, even. It always has been. We work well together. We communicated early and often and we know what works. David is thoughtful and generous and, although I’m not sure I’d call us ambitious, there is a certain competitive edge to our lovemaking that never lets it feel stale or boring.

But tonight is different.

With his right hand, he reaches forward and begins to unbutton my shirt. His knuckles are cool, and I shiver against him. My shirt is an old, white button-down J.Crew. Boring. Predictable. He’ll be met with a nude bra underneath. Same old. But what’s happening here tonight feels anything but.