More Than Words

“Ellory, come here a second.” Nick whispered from across the shop.

I looked up from my book and walked over to Nick where he was standing at the window.

“Why are we whispering?” I asked.

“Look.” he said, pointing out at the grass backyard of the bookshop where we kept a garden so people could go outside and read. I followed his finger to look where he was pointing and saw a small white bunny nibbling on some clobber.

“It’s adorable.” he said, still whispering.

“You know, I have a feeling that even if we don’t whisper, it won’t be able to hear us. What with the layer of glass between us.” I said, smiling at how adorable he was being.

“I’ve never seen one in person before.” he said, his eyes still fixed on the little white fluff ball.

“Well, now you have.” I said. “I’m surprised you haven’t seen one yet. They love the clover that grows over there.”

“It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” he said, paused, then turned to smile at me, saying “Except for you, of course.”

“Well, aren’t you the charmer?” I said, smiling even wider and wrapping an arm around his waist.

“You know, I’m glad I’m here.” he said. “Before I ended up here, I was just kind of… wandering. Getting to know the world, driving all over the US and stopping to work whenever I was low on cash. It was a great experience, but… I was lonely. I’d been alone for so long, so I didn’t even realize it, but I was. I missed living with someone, having someone to talk to… So, thanks, I guess. For giving me a reason to stick around.”

I smiled widely and kissed him deeply. “I’m glad you like me enough to stay. I have to admit if you’d just stayed until you had enough money to live off of for a while, I would’ve been pretty heartbroken.”

He smiled and pulled me in tighter, but didn’t say a word.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, and I had to ask. “Nick?”

He hummed in response and kissed the top of my head.

“When’s your birthday?”

“November 2nd. Why?”

“Nick!” I said, pulling away. “That was two weeks ago!”

“I know.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me? I wanted to get you something. Or a cake, at least.”

“Look, don’t worry about it.” he said.

“I don’t even remember what we did that day.”

“We spent it together. And that’s exactly how I wanted it to be. What about you? When is your birthday?”

“April 21st.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that.”

“Why haven’t we talked about this before? I feel like I know you so well, but I don’t know anything about your family, or your past, or… anything, really.”

“I guess we kind of skipped the ‘talk about your family’ bit and went straight into the emotional connection.”

“Well, the shop’s just about empty. Want to go sit in the reading corner and talk?”

“Only if we can sit on the bean bags.” he said, pulling me over to said corner and onto his lap on top of the bean bag. “Okay. 20 questions. But the basic ones, this time.”

“Okay, um… Do you have any siblings?”

“I have an older sister. She lives in Italy, though, with her husband. Every once in a while, she’ll send me a postcard, and we email, but I haven’t sent her this address yet. Remind me to do that when we get home.”

“Italy?” I said. “That’s amazing! Do you visit at all?”

“We went for her wedding, but before my road trip of self reflection, I didn’t really travel much. That was your second question.”

“Okay, fine. 3rd question. Where in Texas did you live?”

“Houston.” he said. “Along with my parents. I went to university there, too. At Rice.”

“Rice is a pretty amazing school, from what I hear. What did you study?”

“English for education.” he said. “I wanted to be a high school English teacher.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“There was… Someone in my family got sick.”

“Oh… that’s horrible. That you never got to be what you wanted, and that someone you love got sick. But I guess it’s important for family to stick together.”

“Yeah. I regret it sometimes, but I never would’ve met you.”

“That’s one good thing to come of it.” I said, smiling. “What about when you were little? Did you want to be a teacher, even then?”

“No, I wanted to be a musician.” he said, blushing slightly. “I even learned guitar and joined choir.”

“You’re gonna have to sing me something sometime then.”

“I'm really not that good.” he said, shaking his head.

“No, you can’t back out now!” I said. “You have to serenade me one day. What’s your favorite song to say?”

“Silver Wings.” he said. “It’s a country song, one I learned to love when I lived in Texas.”

“You’ll have to sing that one, then.” I said, smiling. “What’s your favorite holiday?”

“Halloween.” he said, smiling.

“That would explain why you were so excited about it, then.” I said. “Next year, I choose my costume. I refuse to go to a club shirtless ever again. I’ve never been looked at like a piece of meat before that.”

“You looked fucking hot as a pirate, with the eyeliner…”

“Well, get ready. Next year, you’re going as Dr. Frank-N-Furter.”

“You just wanna see me in lingerie.”

“Damn straight.” I said.

I went on quizzing Nick about where he’d lived and his parents and what he was like in high school and I told him all about my mom, and how my dad died in a car accident, and my childhood dream to go to Hogwarts, and by the time we were done talking, it was dark out and well passed closing time, but I felt closer to Nick than ever before. We knew about each other’s past, all of it, and we still loved each other more than anything.

We walked home, as we’d taken to doing every once in a while, hand-in-hand, still talking about anything and everything we wanted to know about each other. The air was cold and the Christmas lights already hung up in the down center flickered like starlight and lit our way home.

Nothing could stop us now. Something about today made the bond between us stronger than ever before. It was going to take something huge to break us apart. Even so, I don’t think anything could break us apart.