“No, not a date.” Harlow chuckled as she grabbed her keys. “It’s one in the afternoon.”
“It could be a lunch date or a coffee date.”
“It’s not a date, Larissa.”
“Okay,” she replied and waited.
“Fine. It’s an apartment.”
“You’re going to check out an apartment?”
“Yeah, I made an appointment for two.”
“It’s one.”
“I know.”
“It takes an hour to get there? Where are you thinking about moving, Harlow?”
“It’s forty-five minutes away. I’m planning to get there early.”
“Forty-five minutes?!”
“It’s closer to my office,” Harlow said and crossed her arms over her chest. “I should be back around four. If you want to grab dinner or something, text me.”
“I could go with you,” she offered.
“You want to check out this apartment with me?”
“I could be a second set of eyes, yes.”
“For a one-bedroom apartment with one bathroom?”
“Never mind. You’re right.”
She shook her head and looked down at her computer.
“I didn’t think you’d have the time. That’s why I didn’t ask. I know you’re busy. And they had a slot open today, so I was able to book the appointment this morning after they had a cancellation.”
“Where are you moving that they can only squeeze you in if there’s a cancellation?”
“It’s a new building about ten minutes from my work. I drive by it to get here, and I saw signs up that they had units. I looked them up, but they do viewings by appointment only. They look really nice from the outside and in the pictures. I know you’re letting me crash here, but I need my own place.”
“Have I been giving you the impression that I need you to move out?” she asked and closed her computer.
“You haven’t. You never do.” Harlow shook her head and slipped her keys into her pocket. “You always tell me I can stay as long as I want, but I still need my own place. I’m ready. I’ve got stuff in storage that I’d like to see again, and like I said, they could fit me in today.”
“Do you want me to go? If you don’t, that’s fine. I only want to go if you want me to.”
Harlow hesitated but nodded and said, “Sure. Let’s go. We can check it out and maybe look up another place nearby to see if they’ll let me look around without an appointment. Then, we can just grab dinner and bring it here. Sound good?”
“Okay. Yeah. Let me put my shoes on, and we’ll go.”
???
It took forty-five minutes, like Harlow had said it would, but that was in no traffic at all, which meant that on the weekdays, it would easily take over an hour to see one another. Considering she had gotten so used to Harlow being around already, Larissa hated the idea of her not being in the next room or even about fifteen minutes away, which was how long it had taken her to get to Harlow’s place or vice versa before the breakup. It had also been twenty-six minutes in traffic, usually, but this would be harder and would give them less time together. This would be the farthest apart they had lived from one another since meeting each other, outside of Harlow’s trip in college. Larissa chewed on that thought and why it was bothering her so much as they went inside.
They’d both grown up around the university they would later attend, so trips back home during college had been less than an hour, and Harlow had moved closer to Larissa once shehad gotten back from her yearlong trip. That trip hadn’t stopped being at the forefront of Larissa’s mind since it had come up again the other day after their last interview with Maia and Winter. Larissa had never cared that Harlow hadn’t graduated. That had been Harlow’s choice, and she’d always respected it, but it had still been strange to her. Harlow had been one year away from graduating with a degree in political science when her girlfriend of not-all-that-long, who’d been about to graduate herself, had asked Harlow to travel with her.
