“I appreciate it, but I’m heading home.”
“Good, more turkey for me. After the holidays we’ll for sure have to link up.”
I sucked in air through my teeth. “I may have to get a raincheck on that.”
“Why?”
I pushed my half empty tray aside. “I’m heading to Los Angeles in January for work.”
“I’m jealous. You won’t have to deal with all this snow. I swear I shovel my drive and the next morning it’s all back like I’d didn’t do shit. How long are you gone for?”
“A couple months, maybe more.”
Sharing this information with Tyler was probably a mistake when I hadn’t discussed my impending business trip with Belen yet. I planned to tell her it just never felt like the right time.Hey chill, chill. I can sense you calling me everything but a child of God right now. Do you think I planned this? Falling for Belen was a total surprise … a pleasant surprise. What was I supposed to do, ignore the obvious attraction?
There was never really a right time to bring up LA and I never expected we’d get along this well. This was the twenty-first century, long-distance relationships were not as difficult with video chat, text messages, and frequent flier miles. My stint in California would be a blip in our relationship, something we’d look back at and laugh about in the near future.
The few times I’d tried to tell her, she’d do something to distract me like touch me or breathe and then my whole train of thought got derailed. First, I needed to get her to agree to Canada, then we could discuss California. I was tempted to encourage her to quit her job and just move with me, but I knew she would never agree to it. Maybe if we’d known each other for longer than twenty-three days, she’d be down. But Belen Goodwin was not going to uproot her life for anyone, especially a man.
This California trip was bad timing, but I made a commitment to build a youth center focused on STEM. My yearlong sabbatical was coming to an end, and I’d thought long and hard about what I wanted to do next. I landed on giving back and building a STEM center in Inglewood. I hoped it would be the first of many. But that meant securing a property we could renovate and gathering support from residents withmoney to invest in the community. A project of this magnitude would require in-person meetings with neighboring schools and educators.
My project manager projected a possible grand opening in a year’s time, but to accomplish that I needed to be hands on. That meant boots on the ground to ensure we didn’t get slowed down by red tape. The first few months of this project would be some of the most critical, I couldn’t back out. But it was only a few months and the way Belen had me feeling, I was willing to find ways to make this work. I just hope she wanted that too.
“Hey can you do me a favor and promise me you will not mention California to Belen?”
“What do I look like, a rookie? I am well versed in the code of brotherhood. Anything you tell me gets locked away in a steel vault.”
“Appreciate it.” We bumped fist.
“Why is it such a big secret?” Tyler asked as we collected our trash.
“It’s not. I just want to tell her in my own time.”
“When I have to break bad news to my old lady, I buy her something nice first. A little sugar to make the medicine go down. Belen, here’s a new designer handbag. Oh by the way I’m abandoning you to go to the City of Angels for the next few months. But the bag tho.” Tyler performed a poor imitation of my voice.
“I’m not abandoning her.”
“You practically begged her to be your girlfriend and now you’re jumping ship for an ocean view?”
“I’m not jumping ship. I enjoy the ship I’m on. It’s like a luxury yacht with all the amenities. And the view is spectacular. I never expected to meet the woman of my dreams at the local mall. Commitments were made prior to Belen being in my life and I have to see them through.”
“So when are you going to tell her?”
“Soon. I’m kind of running out of runway with the new year fast approaching. I just don’t want to spoil Christmas for her. She already hates the holiday season.”
Tyler’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Miss Deck the Halls hates Christmas?”
“Yep, she’s had some bad luck around the season of greetings and the last thing I want to do is give her another reason to cancel Christmas forever.”
“Word of advice, the longer you wait the worse it will be. You have to give her time to process the idea of a long distance relationship.”
“It’s not even long distance. I’d come home every Friday and some weekends she and her sister could take a flight to see me. This doesn’t have to be a relationship killer. It could actually be the start of a new adventure.” That last part was mostly for my benefit. I was a salesman and just needed to come at this temporary move from the right angle.
I sent Belen a text asking her and Celeste to come outside. A few moments later, Belen came bounding down the stairs of her third-floor apartment. Her face brightened when she caught sight of me.
“Where’s Celeste?” I asked.
“She went to the movies with a group from the center.”
