“Well, I can’t wait for you to meet Tonks, and Moxie, and Abigail and her family?—”
“And Hutch.”
“And Hutch,” I said, the warmth fading because…
Would he still be in my life next spring?
He would.
But how would he be?
“I’ll get with Mona, and we’ll start seriously planning.Now, bedtime for bad girls.Love you to my bones and ciao for now.”
“Ciao, sister.”
We hung up, and I threw my phone on the coffee table as I stared at my merrily dancing fire.
I had Moxie in my lap, Tonks on the floor beside me, and a rare night after a day I had all to myself because Hutch was having a bro day with his buds Jaeger and Stormy (neither of them I’d met, both of them Hutch said he’d invite up to The Link so we could chat over a drink before he played).
They’d started the day with a trail run, then were off to go fishing in Misted Pines big misty lake, then they were going to Jaeger’s to eat their catch, and Hutch said he expected to be back in the evening but, “Wiped, babe.I’ll probably fall asleep in the boat.That trail run will shatter me.”He’d then patted his perfectly flat belly.“I’m getting out of shape.”
As if.
For my part, I’d scored a box of used and abused designer bags in an online auction (Louis Vuitton, Prada, GucciandChanel) that I was determined to breathe new life into, so Tonks and I’d spent the day in the workshop (PS: I had chops, only one Gucci evaded my talents).
I was going to Hutch’s mid-morning the next day to help him do some puppy training, then to hang, and finally, to spend the night.
We still had our Tuesdays and Thursdays off.
And I had my life, my work.Abigail and I had started the yoga class at the Art Center Tuesday evenings, and we were thinking about trying meditation too.So I had my girl times as well.
But as much as I didn’t want to think about it, or, if I was honest, wouldn’t allow myself to go there, we needed this break.Because I needed some time to think.
And I wondered if Hutch organized his bro day to give it to us.
I also feared what he might be thinking, even if he gave no indication he was thinking anything but that he enjoyed being with me.
Gah!
I was seeing what Abigail was saying, tardily.
We were boyfriend/girlfriend.
Bottom line.
That was what we were.
I could try to convince myself that it was something else, but it just wasn’t.
I could pick his soft snore out of a hundred of them.I knew what he ate for breakfast.How he took his coffee.That his favorite color was green and he didn’t enjoy bell peppers in anything.I didn’t hesitate to call him to do me favors.We connected regularly when we were apart.We checked in, so pretty much at all times, one knew where the other was, and vice versa.
Abigail was a friend.We talked a lot.We were getting really close.
But I didn’t know where she was at all times.
So now I was in that terrifying place where I had two choices.
The first, tell him I cared for him a lot more than just a friend, so we needed to take a step back so I could recalibrate, and then return to each other without us having the stuff that would mess with my head…or our relationship.
