She answers on the second ring. “Hey, Chef.”
“Hey, you home?”
“Yeah, just said good night to Mom and Dad. I’m really glad they’re here.”
“It was a fun surprise.”
“I can’t believe you knew!”
“Not until this afternoon.” I pause. “Tonight felt all kinds of wrong.”
“What do you mean? The surprise wedding announcement?”
“Well, yeah. That. And it felt like we were magnets that could never connect.”
She doesn’t say anything.
It leaves me feeling unsettled.
“I really wanted to kiss you,” I say.
“I wanted to kiss you too.”
“Come to the Cities with me.”
“When?”
“Whenever you say? We could drive down in the afternoon, get a great dinner, spend the night, sleep in…and the next day we could go to one of Tully’s games.”
It’s quiet for a beat.
“That sounds fun. I’ve just never taken this much time off work before…and I’m not sure how long my parents are staying. Probably not long, but I want to be around while they’re in town.”
“Of course. You can see them. We’d be right there for the game.”
“Seems like it might wreck the kind of weekend you were thinking about, for me to go off for a few hours.”
“I could let you out of bed for a few hours,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, and I can hear her smirk. “Is that the kind of trip this is?”
“I want to wine and dine you a little bit too,” I tease. “Dinner, drinks, kissing you all night long…”
“Scandalous,” she gasps. And then in a normal voice, she says, “It sounds fun. Let’s do it.”
“Okay, keep me posted on a time that seems good for you.”
“I will.”
“Good night, beautiful.”
“Good night.”
I finish closing with the crew. I step inside the cooler for a minute and let the cold chill my face. When I turn out the lights and lock the doors behind me, I wish I were going home to Juju. What would that feel like? To have her smiling up at me from bed when I got home.
She’d probably be asleep most of the time with her early mornings. But I’d pull her back to my chest and hold her all night long.
It makes me wish for things I didn’t know were possible.
