All of this was awesome, but the best part was it was an incredibly lovely gesture from Dair.
Outside of our squabbling (that I still enjoyed), the day was just…easy.
Conversation flowed. We had history. We knew some of the same people. From afar, we even ran in the same circles. Thus, we had a myriad of connections and connected interests.
Not to mention, Dair was physical, demonstrative, and before him, I didn’t think I liked that. And then he did it, and I realized I liked it very much.
To put it plainly, I was proud to be on his arm.
He was so handsome, he got his fair share of looks from the female population, and I felt like preening at his side, because he chose me.
This man chose me.
When we arrived home, we discovered that Kenna had indeed commandeered the kitchen. She made a hearty stew that wasn’t my idea of summer fare, but it was delicious. And unsurprisingly, considering Dair had known her all his life and he said this would be so, she seemed much more settled after making dinner, having had something to do, and doing it for people she cared about.
We didn’t play a game or watch a movie after dinner.
We all sat on the deck, talking and reminiscing and enjoying each other’s company.
That was easy too.
It was marvelous.
And scary as all hell.
But now, they were leaving.
And I wasn’t conflicted about that.
I was coming to the realization no man I’d ever dated, no man I’d ever been with, was a man I picked.
They were men I thought my mother would approve of. And if not her, then Dad.
Some of them were men in my set I didn’t even like.
For the first time, I was with a man I chose. A man I wanted to be with. A man I really, really liked being with.
And he was leaving.
On this thought, and a heavy sigh, I got up to head back down to the kitchen to rummage around and see what to make everyone for breakfast. Their plane didn’t leave until the evening from Sky Harbor in Phoenix, but they had to check in two hours early, and it was a two-hour drive, so they had to leave right after lunch.
This brought something else to mind.
I’d always been very late to bed, very late to rise. Hell, in my mean girl heyday, it was rare I was out of bed before noon.
Now, it was the exact opposite.
If I wasn’t in bed with a book by nine thirty, I considered it “up late.”
But if I wasn’t out of bed by six thirty, I thought I’d wasted the day (I was usually up, latest, by six).
It didn’t occur to me, until Dair shoved up in my face, how much I’d changed.
But I’d changed.
A lot.
It didn’t only make me happy, realizing I had, it made me happy that Dair had held that mirror up to my face and forced me to see the woman who had become me.
