“Thanks.”
Backing up slowly, she gives me a funny look, but I stay rooted to the spot, watching until she climbs the front steps and disappears inside the house.
Once the door closes behind her, I suck in a breath like I’ve barely been breathing for the last several minutes.
Climbing back into my car feels like something is ending. Like … I don’t know. Like this brief couple of days is all we’ll ever have, and I don’t like that at all.
Flight was uneventful. Made it home. It feels weird being alone in my condo
Hailey
Why??? I love when my roommate is gone and I have the whole place to myself
I got used to having people around. I’ll survive
What do you like to do when you have the place all to yourself?
Throw wild parties, obviously
You’re only young once, YOLO, and all that
Riiiiight
*Gasp* You don’t believe me? Are you calling me a liar???
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I said Right. Like, yes, sure, okay. Generally that’s considered agreement
Yeah, but it’s the WAY you said it. You said it like you don’t believe me
Should I believe you?
Of course!
Who do you invite to these wild parties?
Uhhhh … the TV usually. And my violin.
Wow. That sounds like a real rager. Do the neighbors ever call the cops on you? Do you yell, “SCATTER!” like in the movies?
Obviously. How else would everyone know to scatter?
How good are the TV and violin at running away?
They’re faster than you’d expect, actually. And they hide really well
Wow. That’s amazing. I’d never expect an appliance and a musical instrument to be masters of disguise
They’re really good at that hiding in plain sight thing
Ah, okay. I can see that. What kinds of parties do you have with the TV and violin?
Well, I don’t usually party with them at the same time. With the TV, it usually involves lots of snacks, preferably of the junk food type. And I get to watch whatever I want on the TV. With the violin, it’s playing for as long and as loud as I want. Whitney gets annoyed if I play for too long, and she prefers when I use the practice mute. But it’s heavy and dampens the sound so much that it’s difficult to really play well, especially for orchestral auditions. For working up pop tunes and things like that, it’s tolerable, but I prefer being able to use the full range of the instrument
Understandable. And yeah, I can totally see how you’d get the cops called on the regular doing things like that
Ha. You know it
I’m grinning at my phone, but I’m suddenly stumped on what else to say. This banter and back and forth is fun. I want to ask if she’s thought more about my offer, but I really don’t want to push. Not yet, at least. I feel like I’ll have to soon, but I’m going to wait. Until next week, at least.
