Homesick

Tatum wants to kiss everything and anything around her when she gets dropped off at her house on Sunday evening. Spending the weekend in a foreign bed, in a foreign place, trying to act all proper around Nick’s family, was really killing her, and now she can return to lazy days in her room, playing with unlit cigarettes and wishing she has the courage to light one up for once.

Wyatt helps carry her mini-suitcases into the house while Mrs. Morgan steps back from the door and watches. “I’m so glad you guys are back,” she sighs, eyes sad. “I’ve actually had nothing to do the entire weekend and the house was so empty with your father gone.”

“I’m glad to be back, ma.” Tatum lets out a deep exhale, following close behind her brother as he hauls the luggage down the foyer room and towards the stairs. She turns to give her mom a hug and her mom holds her so tightly it’s like she’s been gone a couple of months, or something. “How have you been holding up for the past four days?”

Mrs. Morgan pulls back to smooth down her daughter’s frazzled hair. “Oh — just catching up on the new romance novel the girls and I have been reading.” Her entire face immediately lights up as she softens her voice in confidentiality. “The attractive new man in Alice’s firm took her to his favorite vintage diner last chapter.”

Tatum tries at a smile. “Ooo, mom; maybe next chapter he’ll take her to his house.”

“Too late,” Mrs. Morgan quips, and they both burst into giggles, glancing at Wyatt’s retreating back as if it’s too secretive for him to hear.

Tatum then gives her mom’s back a pat and goes towards the staircase. “I’m gonna go unpack and take a shower,” she explains while she looks back at Mrs. Morgan. “The ride was long and left me so exhausted.”

“Tell Wyatt to stop being grumpy and come downstairs to greet his mother, okay?” Mrs. Morgan says playfully, although her eyes are serious. Tatum nods and accepts the task before heading up to the second floor and down the carpeted hallway to her room.

Wyatt is just leaving her bedroom, dropping her things off, when she gets there, and they awkwardly run into each other, Wyatt squeezing his way past her and into the hallway as she squeezes her way in. “Thanks,” Tatum says bashfully to Wyatt, and he nods before wiping his hands nervously on his dark wash jeans and walking away, to his own room.

Tatum closes her bedroom door behind her, turning to face her bags full of both clean and dirty clothes. Not thinking it’s worth the time or struggle, she opens all the luggage and tosses every single article of clothing into the hamper, deciding a good wash of even the fresh clothes would do it some good and take the musky smell of the hotel out of the fabric. So she gets to work, carrying the hamper to the laundry room and sorting everything out until the colors are turning in the washing machine. She lets the other clothes sit in the corner of the small room as she leaves and heads back to hers.

-
Tatum has just finished taking a shower and is dressed in her favorite blue, plush robe when her phone vibrates loudly on her white bedside table. She lets the bathroom door bounce on its hinges, steam and a humid, flowery smell crawling from the cracks, as she rushes to her phone when the vibrating doesn’t stop, realizing somebody is calling her. NICHOLAS MARSHALL flashes on the screen; she, confused, carefully picks up the phone with her flushed, damp hands and taps answer before pressing it to her ear and whispering, hesitant, “hello?”

There’s a short crackling in the receiver before his gruff voice replies, “Tate?”

She pauses, lowering herself down onto the edge of her bed and crossing her legs. She absentmindedly picks at a loose string in the sheets. “Yeah?”

“Hey,” he breathes. “I just - I, um. Did you . . . get home alright?”

Now Tatum is suspicious. He’s never, in the entirety of their relationship, called her to ever check up on her. Nick, frankly, never cares enough to do so. After she’s gone and out of sight, he can relax and do who the fuck knows what. “Okay,” she grumbles. “What d’you want, Nicholas?”

“Nick,” he grumbles back. “And I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. Damn, girl; you’re always on edge, eh?”

Tatum falls back onto the bed, eyes still narrowed. She stares up at her baby blue roof, wondering if this is how a real relationship is supposed to feel like: guy takes girl home, girl takes a nice shower and sprawls out on bed, guy calls girl one last time to make sure everything’s cool. If so, and if Nick really is trying to be a better guy for her, then she isn’t complaining.

“Fine,” she huffs, but without mean intent. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just took a shower.”

“Ooh,” coos Nick, reverting to his old self. “Are you naked right now?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs, deep and low. “Sorry. Have a nice night, Tate.”

Tate smiles softly. “Thanks. You too.”

She hangs up before he does and realizes, a few seconds too late, that Nick was actually lingering on the line to make sure she pressed end first.

A foolish grin spreads across her face, and she can’t stop it from following her to sleep.