He’ll probably mellow once the novelty wears off—especially if nothing exciting ever happens out there.
@NicoleandCocoa25:
Thank you! I just want to make sure I’m not missing something obvious.
CHAPTER 33
LANEY
The game went into extra innings, so it was late by the time I pulled up to my grandparents’ home. I texted Grammie earlier so it wouldn’t be a scary surprise that I was trying to get in. Not that they would hear me, because they take out their hearing aids at night.
After a blissful eight hours of sleep in my childhood bed, I change clothes and wander downstairs. Both grandparents aren’t sitting at the table for breakfast, but then again, they eat closer to seven in the morning, and it’s after eight.
I walk out to the backyard,looking for Pearl. She bleats loudly when she sees me and comes bounding over to the fence. I go inside it and sit down on the ground, pulling Pearl into my arms.
“How are you, girl? I haven’t seen you in what feels like forever. Are you keeping the rest of the group in line?”
She bleats again in response.
I rub behind her ears and watch the other goats move around the large pen.
“There you are,” Grammie says after coming around the side of the house. “I should’ve figured you’d be out here with Pearl.”
“I had to check on her,” I say with a laugh.
Grammie walks over to the Adirondack chair next to the back porch and sits down. “What brings you out here on a weekday, Laney?”
She raises her eyebrows, and I know she’s going to keep asking me until I give her something.
“The hockey season ended, and I’m working with the baseball team now. It’s a lot, and I figured I’d come out and visit you on my day off. I can’t get enough Pearl snuggles either.”
“Are you sure there isn’t something more that’s making you feel this way?”
I don’t want to tell her everything, because I still don’t know how I feel.
“What happened to that guy we took to dinner?” she asks with a mischievous glint in her eye.
I blow out a breath. Leave it to Grammie to get right to the heart of things.
“He’s busy with lacrosse and work. To be honest, I don’t know what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
I shake my head. “We had this really great weekend. We kissed under the fireworks. I went to his games and loved learning about lacrosse. There’s so much that goes into it besides just throwing the ball into the net. Anyway, game three he gets hurt. I wait for him to come out of the locker rooms after, and things are normal. But I haven’t heard from him since.”
“So nothing happened in between there?”
“Not on my end. I texted him on Monday morning because I woke up late and didn’t make it to our walking session. Then he sent me some lame text message about being busy with therapy. That’s not like him. To be honest, this is fizzling faster than what happened between me and Tim.”
Grammie leans forward, looking curious. “You never told me what happened with him.”
Pearl jumps out of my arms and bounds over to headbutt one of the other goats twice her size. I shake my head and stand up, brushing off my behind before walking out of the gate. Taking a seat on the chair next to Grandma, I stare out at the landscape.
“Tim said he was going to move out to Seattleafter I got the job there. I’d ask him repeatedly when he was planning to come out and what I could do to help him find an apartment or something. And then he stopped talking to me, a lot like this situation.” Yes, Burton finally messaged me back, but it was a vague and overly-polite message. Very different in the tone he usually has when texting me.
“Did you find out what happened?”
I nod. “Yeah, he was engaged to some other woman and talking to several others.”
