“Well, he wasn’t exactly available before,” she said, little snips of scissors punctuating her words. “Or not that you knew, anyway. How’s that going? Your cousins still being assholes? I’m surprised Olive hasn’t called you, she seems less entrenched in the drama than the rest of them.”
“No.” I sighed. “But I haven’t really been available anyway.”
It had been over a week since I went with Bas to Portland and ended up in a car accident that night. I’d been emailing with old coworkers and college friends, and I’d gotten a couple more job offers—but nothing that I wasn’t willing to give up. The longer Istayed in Eugene, the surer I became that I didn’t want to leave again. I didn’t want to travel, not even once a month.
I wanted to work and then come home to Bas.
Of course, I hadn’t told him that. We’d spent every night together, but it was always packaged as a date that didn’t end until the next morning. I hadn’t even left a toothbrush at his house, and from what I could tell he wasn’t in any hurry to give me a drawer. Which made sense, we’d only been seeing each other for two weeks, and I wasn’t crazy. But with each passing day, it became more apparent that we justfit. We never ran out of things to talk about. Sex was mind-blowing. He was funny and charming, and he looked at me like he couldn’t get enough of me.
The feeling was mutual. I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of looking into his warm brown eyes or watching his ass flex as he walked naked across the room. But it was more than that. I wanted to hear about his day. I wanted to know what shows he was watching, what books he’d read, what his favorite foods were. I wanted to know where he saw himself in five years or ten—and I wanted to be wherever he was.
I was all in. Hopelessly and happily falling.
“Well, if I see them, I’ll give ’em hell,” Gram said with a scoff.
“Please don’t say anything,” I pleaded. “I think once they see us together, they’ll realize it’s a good thing.”
“You’ll have to crawl out of his bed in order for that to happen,” Gram teased.
“Ariel’s birthday dinner is tonight,” I reminded her. “So, we’ll see them all then.”
“Is that why you asked me to trim your hair?” she asked. “You gonna wear makeup too?”
“No, that’s not why,” I argued.
“Nothing wrong with it,” she said, running a comb through the wet strands, parting it in the back. “Getting gussied up is as armor as old as time. Gives you a little boost.”
“I just wanted to hang with you.”
“Well,” she said. “I’ll take it. I never see you enough.”
“I think I’m going to be around a lot more now,” I confided.
“Is that right?”
“I’m done traveling, at least for work.”
“Does that have anything to do with a big, dark, pierced fella?”
“Maybe a little.”
She hummed.
“It’s early still,” I said with a sigh, looking at the photos hung on the wall across the kitchen. They reminded me of the photos in Bas’s childhood home that I hadn’t gotten a good look at.
“When you know, you know,” Gram replied. “Sometimes it happens that way. You know someone for years, and then suddenly you realize they’re your perfect match. They see all your warts and broken parts and love you anyway.”
“Is that what happened with you and Grandpa?”
“Something like that,” she confirmed. “I was best friends with your Aunt Callie first. He was just her smarter-than-was-good-for-him brother.”
“Then, suddenly, he wasn’t?”
“Oh, he’s still smarter than is good for him,” she said with a chuckle. “But at some point I realized that was good for me. I’ve never had to do taxes.”
I snorted.
“If Bas is the one, he’s the one. Who cares how long it’s been?”
