“I don’t know what I feel yet, Mom. We’ve stayed in touch and talked, but I haven’t seen her. I know I really care about her and want to see her again, though.”
“You better go after her then, son. Don’t let her go,” Pops tells me boldly.
“Brett, would you be quiet for a second,” Mom scolds. “Easton, honey, look at me.” My eyes lift to Mom’s, and I know she sees the conflict in mine, but also hopefully the change in me, too. “Just like we’ve told you before, you’ve always put everyone else in your life before yourself. I love that about you. But I can’t say in all your adult life that I’ve ever seen you smile like you just did when Sydney called you. Or when Sydney walked into a room. And that’s nothing on her. She knows how much we love her and she’s family to us. But loving someone wildly and without conditions is much different than a friendly kind of love. If this woman isspecial to you, then I agree with your father. Don’t let her go.”
I don’t plan to.
“I don’t want to. I just don’t want to push her, you know? She has a lot of shit to work out back home. And her sister is getting married next month. I don’t want to add to the stress.”
“Well, hasn’t she had the last month to do that? To work everything out?”
“Well, yeah. But I still don’t know what that looks like yet.”
“Have you asked her, honey? One thing about us women is that we love being pursued. We want a man to work for our love and affection.” Fuck. I feel like a child. I don’t know how to do this. To want her so badly I can’t sleep. But also to pursue her when I have a whole-ass life here and she’s on the other side of the country.
“No, but I need to,” I tell her.
“You probably should start there. Ask her the hard questions. See where her head is at. Does she miss you like you miss her? All of those things are important. The beauty of this is that you have nothing holding you back, Easton. Your job can take you anywhere. You don’t own a home anymore. The opportunities for you to be happy are endless, my love. Use that to your advantage.”
Is my mom actually suggesting I go to Collie? I could do that…
She’s told me she misses me. I at least know that.
I’ve done little things to show her I’m thinking of her this past month, something I’ve never done before. I sent flowers two weeks ago just because. I even had food delivered to her apartment one night when she claimed she had no groceries but was too tired to go out and grab something. That night,we talked on the phone until her heavy breathing told me she was asleep.
Made me miss our nights under the stars in Yellowstone.
All of this is new to me. These feelings and actuallywantingto make another woman feel special. I never mistreated Sydney. Never. But everything was always just…shallow with us. On both ends, with her just as much as me.
It’s as if everything starts making sense the more I talk about it. “I need to call her back.”
No one says anything, just ushers me away. I take in the three megawatt smiles coming from the most important people in my life and appreciate that I have a family who supports me the way they do.
A family that genuinely wants me to be happy.
Excusing myself from the table, I move past the sliding door, shutting it behind me on my parents’ back porch. I click Collie’s name and bring it to my ear as I wait for her to answer.
“What up, Ranger?”
Her sweet voice.Fuck, it soothes me.
“Still feelin’ lost, lost girl?’ I tease her.
“Not so much today,” she exhales, but there’s a hint of excitement in her voice I can’t miss.
“You seem extra happy. Finally find the extra sour Gushers in stock?”
“Ugh. I wish. But…I actually signed a lease today! I’m gonna have my own studio, Easton. Can you believe it?”
My chest thunders proudly for her, thinking back on all the days she felt absent in her own life and without a vision after losing her job. “Collie, that’s incredible. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“Thanks!” she shouts, and I can feel her thrill from the other side of the country. She deserves this. “It’s gonna takeme a while to get it up and running, but I’m excited to make it mine. God, I have so many ideas. Paint colors, design, wallpaper. I love fun wallpaper. It’s going to bethefitness studio of Timber Heights. I just know it.”
“You’re gonna kill it. Let me know if you ever need help getting it ready. I can take some time off to come be your little bitch.”
This is the first time I’ve ever offered or suggested that we see each other again. I think it’s something we avoided just to be safe.
Although her text about missing my cock the other day didn’t help build my defense. If anything, it made me want to shift the states around between us just to be closer to her.
