“Fuck no,” I snap. “If I do this, and apparently, I have to do this, I’m going to do it on my own time. I’m going to decide the date, not him.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” she cheers. “Figure out when it’s good for you, and then I’ll call them back.”
“Okay, let me check my calendar,” I tell her, “and I’ll text you dates tonight, and you see on your end if they work. Then we will send them the acceptable dates.”
“Sounds good,” she says. “Lexi, you’ve got this.”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “Yeah, I do.”
“A little bit more convincing next time.” She laughs. “Got to run,” she says and disconnects.
I sit at my desk for longer than I need to and then close up. I’m walking out to my car when the phone rings and I look down to see it’s Kirby. “Hello.”
“Hey,” he says softly. “Where are you?”
“Just leaving work,” I tell him, opening my SUV door and getting in.
“It’s after six. Is everything okay?” I sit in the seat and put my head back on the headrest. I’m literally twenty minutes late and he’s calling to check up on me.
“Yeah, just had a call with Ryleigh,” I huff out.
“Want me to come and get you?” he asks me and I can’t help but smile.
“No, I’ll be okay,” I assure him. “Have you decided what you want to eat?”
“Why don’t you come home and let me worry about that?” he suggests. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay.”
“Lexi,” he calls my name before I hang up, “drive safe, yeah?”
“I will.”
“Love you,” he replies, right before he hangs up and I pull out of the parking lot, headed over to his house.
I don’t know why I’m surprised that he’s outside waiting for me when I get there. He pulls open the driver’s side door. “I was tracking you like you were my food delivery.” He laughs, and when I step out, he takes me in his arms. “Hi, baby,” he says, right before his lips kiss mine. “Let’s get you inside.”
I nod at him as he grabs my bag with one hand while holding my hand with the other. It’s been two weeks since the big game. Since I introduced him as my boyfriend and since he asked me to move in with him. Two weeks since he beat Matty in the hockey game and two weeks of hurling insults back and forth about which team is better.
Living life with Kirby has been so blissful, it’s almost as if he was made for me. He has not once walked into the room when I was on the phone with whoever I was on the phone with and told me to end it. He would come in, kiss my head, say hello, and then walk out, giving me privacy. It made me fall deeper and deeper in love with him than I already was.
“So,” he starts when he sits next to me at dinner, “what has my baby frowning?” I fill him in with what Ryleigh said. “I want to be there.”
“I don’t think you can be there.”
“I don’t mean I want to be in the room, but I want to be there before and after,” he restates. “I can give you my schedule and we can work around it. We’ll fly in in the morning and out the same day.”
“I want to get this over with as soon as possible.”
“I agree. That way you can move in with me.” He winks at me as I roll my eyes. “Now eat, so we can go for a walk on the beach.”
It’s something we started doing after dinner, walking on the beach and talking about our day. Then it would change to what we wanted to do in the next week, then the next month. It is easy with Kirby and I have to wonder if this is what a relationship is really supposed to be like. Effortless. The answer is always yes.
Two weeks later, I’m sitting in the back seat of a car with Ryleigh next to me. She’s been texting since we got into the car. I’ve been back in Phoenix for a whole twenty-five minutes, and I feel like my skin is about to crawl off my bones. I swallow down the bile that is threatening to come up.
“Relax,” Ryleigh says from beside me, not even looking at me, “or at least get it all out now. I don’t want them to know how bothered you are by him.”
“I’m not bothered by him.” I look over at her. “I’m bothered by being here,” I say, annoyed that she saw right through me.
