You Deserve Each Other

Naomi can do whatever job she wants, but Leon specifically wants her to help with decorating. Leon confesses Nicholas knew about the restaurant and nudged Naomi to come by so Leon could offer her the job. Naomi texts Brandy to come over, and Leon also offers her a job. The three spend the rest of the day making plans for the restaurant, and Naomi is amazed that “for the first time in a long time, [her] future unfolds before [her] bright with promise” (317).

At home, Naomi feels alone and hates it. She texts Nicholas to tell him she misses him and then curls up in his bed to fall asleep, knowing she’ll be gone before he gets back. Later, she wakes to find him lying beside her—he drove home because he got her text and missed her too. They curl around each other and make love, whispering promises and reassurances.

The first part of Chapter 20 is a flashback to the day Naomi and Nicholas met. Naomi was at a bowling alley for a retirement party for her dad, which her family was making miserable. Nicholas was there alone, so Naomi asked if she could hang out with him instead. The two have instant chemistry, and Nicholas asks her out, telling her he saw her at the store a few weeks ago and has been trying to find her again ever since. Naomi is speechless. She doesn’t know what to expect that night, but she knows she has to go out with him because “if I don’t, I think I’ll regret it” (331).

Back in the present, Naomi sneaks out of bed the next morning to grab breakfast. When she gets home, she finds the wedding invitations in the trash, which she takes as a sign Nicholas doesn’t want to be with her. She jumps in her car and speeds away, not stopping until she’s far out of town. After driving around all day, wondering why Nicholas threw away the invitations, she goes back into town and grabs dinner. Since she and Nicholas share a checking account, he gets a notification of the purchase, and she perches on the hood of her car to eat and wait for him. He arrives with a box of the wedding invitations. Naomi asks him to go away, but he pins her between himself and her car, looking deeply into her eyes with “need. Deep and burning” (338).

Nicholas pulls an invitation from the box and shows it to her. It’s a gaudy affair with ribbons and fake pearls that instructs guests to come to the union of Deborah’s son. Nicholas says he threw them away because they don’t match anything he or Naomi wants, and their wedding shouldn’t be about his mother: “It should be about us” (343). Naomi agrees, and they spend the next several minutes balling up invitations and lobbing them at a nearby dumpster, missing most of the shots. Holding the last one, Naomi says, if she makes the shot, Nicholas has to marry her right now. Before she can throw it, Nicholas takes it, walks to the dumpster, and drops it in.

Six days later, Naomi and Nicholas get their marriage license. Driving home, they debate places to elope, including Alaska. Suddenly, they realize they can just get married in their backyard overlooking the forest and have their honeymoon at the house—all of which will be less expensive and more meaningful than their other ideas. On the day of their wedding, they invite only Leon and Brandy in addition to Naomi’s former boss, who’s officiating. As Naomi walks across the backyard, she thinks that there will be challenges ahead but that she’s ready to overcome all of them because she loves Nicholas and “he’s worth it” (352).