Kind of.
“Nothing like a little chest-thumping to make a gal feel special,” Babs said in a sing-song voice.
“Unless it’s Ed,” I pointed out.
“True.” Babs just grinned even wider.
“Babs,” I huffed. “I’m not interested in Noah Grady,”
Babs scoffed at me—scoffed—and then rolled her eyes. The attitude on this woman. “Could’ve fooled me. And whyever not? He seems like a decent guy, has a good job, and he’s handsome as sin! I mean, you’ve seen the shoulders on that man, haven’t you?”
I had, in fact, seen those shoulders…
“And his backside?” She pretended to wipe sweat off her forehead.
“Babs,” I huffed again. But… I had also seen aforementioned backside. “Okay, fine, there’s nothing wrong with him—” Babs raised her eyebrows in exaggerated disbelief. “There’s nothing wrong with him,” I repeated. “I just…I’m not particularly fond of men right now. Or dating, you know, in general.”
Babs simply stared at me.
“I’m…coming off a bad breakup,” I admitted in a half-whisper.
She nodded. “Hmm. You know, I thought that might be the case.” Her eyes turned soft behind her almost cartoonish glasses. “ Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said, then I bit my lip, reconsidering. “Maybe. But why did you think…?”
She shrugged. “Ever since I saw you at the meet and greet back in Denver… You seemed a little sad. But also…a little free. Like you’ve come on this trip with a blank canvas, ready to start fresh.”
Was that what I was?
Her words struck me in a way I wasn’t prepared for, and I shook my head. “Me and Leo…” It felt odd to say his name out loud…here.
Our townhouse back in Newport suddenly felt like it was way more than a few thousand miles away. More like it was from a different life.
Babs tilted her head, curious and open. And oddly enough, I felt like I’d known her forever, like I could tell her anything. Maybe it was because all of this was just temporary.
“I was with Leo for six years—got engaged, even, almost a year ago.” My mind flashed back to the day he’d proposed, and a feeling of loss hit me unexpectedly. “I thought everything was perfect.”
“No relationship is perfect,” Babs said, matter-of fact like. “If it ended, there must have been things that weren’t working. The farther you get away from it, the more you’ll come to see that. Sometimes it just takes a little distance.”
Half a continent should have been enough. “But we were engaged,” I said, my voice catching slightly. “I thought we were happy.”
Deep creases appeared around Babs’ eyes. “Were you, really?”
I was!
Wasn’t I?
What was I saying? Of course, I was.
But…there was something strangely freeing about this, just like Babs had said. I was a little unmoored, yes—but there was also a quiet kind of relief in it. Like I could finally breathe.
Which made me wonder—if I was this relieved now, had I been more stifled than I realized?
Being with Leo had been comfortable. Familiar. Like home.
But maybe comfortable and stifled weren’t all that different. And maybe there had been signs. Signs I’d ignored or dismissed, thinking that, overall, we were good together. In love.
Happy.
