Page 51 of Sublimate
He was quiet for a moment. “Would you say that you’re happy?”
“Me?” I thought about it. “I guess that’s kind of the same question that Cadence asked me today, when she was wondering if I’d had any unfulfilled plans for the future. I never considered plans or happiness because those things didn’t matter. I had to get through the day or even just the minute, and everything in front of me seemed so scary that I wasn’t sure how to face it. So I didn’t.” I paused. “What about you? Would you say that you’re happy?”
“I’m working on it,” Nolan answered.
And I decided that I would help him.
Chapter 11
Help. I needed help, a lot of it. How did any of this make sense?
“Viv? Can you come taste something?”
I heard Nolan’s voice only vaguely, because he was in the kitchen and I was hiding out in my bedroom to work on my project. I got up and walked toward where I knew he was testing a theory he’d had about how to improve his recipe for whole wheat bread. The house smelled delicious.
The bread tasted that way, too. “Mmmm,” I said. Nolan didn’t believe in waiting to release the steam so the slice I’d bitten into was tasty and also warm. “I think that might be your best one yet.”
“You say that about everything I bake,” he reminded me, and it could have been true.
“You know, this could be more than a hobby for you. You could become a professional,” I suggested. “People would line up to buy this.”
“Mrs. Harrison next door is still hiding when she sees me.”
“It’s only due to her fear of carbs and she’s missing out,” I assured him. “I would buy a hundred loaves.”
“You get it for free. And I have no desire to be a baker,” he told me. “I like the science and math of it, though.”
Maybe that was my problem with baking: I wasn’t scientific or mathematic. I took another bite and sighed inwardly. “You spend a lot of time in the kitchen,” I pointed out. “I think it’s because you like being productive.”
“I’ve never been accused of that.”
“I’m accusing you now.Je…” Never mind, I didn’t know how to say it.
“Je t'accuse,” he supplied. “I’m not going to become a professional baker.Désolé.”
“Well, what about the other ideas for jobs that we came up with? There were lots of things on that list we made when we were in Detroit. What about your engineering stuff? You have a degree.” I heard envy in my voice. He had two degrees, high school and college. It was pretty amazing for someone who had never had to study, according to Cadence. He had never done any homework either—it just came to him that easily.
“I was terrible at that job,” he said.
“Because you used to be an asshat who didn’t listen and didn’t want to be told what to do. Those were your words, not mine,” I quickly added.
“Did I call myself an asshat? Yes, I probably did, because I was,” he answered his question. “I was an awful employee then and I would be again.”
“Why?” I asked. “You stopped drinking and I bet that was a big part of your bad behavior. And you changed other things, like not going out all the time and traveling constantly. I’m sure that also got in the way of doing your job.”
He was nodding slowly. “But it was fun to go places. We should take a trip.”
I got sidetracked. “Where? Where do you want to go?”
He had lots of ideas about warm destinations, which sounded wonderful. It was only getting colder outside and I had very vivid memories of the prior winter, the one I’d spent in Kolter’s lukewarm house. I shivered.
“Turn the heat up,” Nolan said immediately. It was just one of the differences in my life now: I was living with a man who cared about my temperature. I also wasn’t afraid of him. I really liked him, too, which would have made traveling fun.
“It must have taken a long time to get to Maui,” I noted. Later, I could look up exactly what that distance had been. “Did you have to make a stop along the way?”
“You don’t have to, but you could,” he said. “If we went, we could stop in Nevada and visit people.”
I considered that. “I’m not sure if I know anyone there anymore. Patchouli’s in prison and my mom…I have no idea where she is.”
