SADIE
The sun was shining brightlythrough the tall buildings as I walked out from the underground BART station. People around me hustled by, going about their day, and I couldn’t help but wonder if any of them had felt the kind of love that I was experiencing.
I’d tried to keep my feet firmly on the ground when it came to Alex, but he had not made that easy for me. We’d been officially “dating” for a month and he’d sent me flowers over a dozen times.
Sixteen to be exact.
They would show up at different times of the day. Some came in the morning wishing me a great day. Others arrived in the afternoon with notes telling me that he was thinking of me. And a few had come in the evening wishing me a good night.
That wasjustthe flowers, there were also texts, surprise stop-bys, and impromptu dinners. The weekends were always fun. The Sunday before last we’d spent the afternoon at the Academy of Science with Lexi. And last Friday the three of us had gone to see the newest Pixar movie. And Saturday we’d gone down to Pier 39 and acted like tourists on Saturday before we dropped Lexi off at Nick’s for her weekly sleepover and then went back to my place and made love four times.
Four. Times.
The morning after our four-peat, he’d taken me to a diner that he’d been going to since he was a kid with Nick and Maddox. He introduced me to Gloria who was so entertaining she honestly deserved her own reality show. She gave him a hard time about it taking so long to bring me in, and I could feel how close the two of them were. It sort of felt like meeting his older sister.
We’d gone to visit Mrs. G a few times a week together. She’d had to stay at the rehab facility due to complications from her blood clot, but she was now very much on the mend. Charli said her PT was going well and she should be able to come home in the next couple of days.
To think that this all started when she collapsed on the floor of the bakery. It was sort of mind-blowing. So many negatives happened to get us to this place. Mrs. G’s stroke, the fire at the bakery, and before that Alex losing Ash and AJ. It was difficult to accept that so much tragedy had to occur for this to happen.
I was doing my absolute best to try not to let myself be swept away with the power of what I was feeling, but I feared I wasn’t doing that great of a job. Despite telling myself to take this day by day, which is what I’d promised myself and Alex, I found myself thinking of the future. My mind easily slipped into fantasizing about marrying Alex and living in the Victorian house with him and Lexi.
Some of my dreams were daydreams, those were the ones I had control over. The ones that I couldn’t wrangle were the dreams I had when I was sleeping. One was recurring. It was of me sitting in a rocking chair, rocking a newborn baby in a nursery in the Victorian house wearing a diamond rock on my hand.
I’d had that same dream at least ten times over the past month. I’d never remembered my dreams before now. As much as I loved the dream, and as real as it felt, I had to continually remind myself that it was not reality.
“Hello, beautiful!” Monica smiled brightly as I walked into the retirement home.
“Hi!” I smiled back.
“Can I just say you are absolutely glowing!”
“Thanks.”
She wasn’t the only person who had made a similar comment. Charli insisted that all the sex I was having was doing wonders for my skin and my hair. She said that my complexion had never looked better and that my hair was so shiny and healthy I looked like a walking Pantene commercial. She should know, she wasactually ina Pantene commercial.
“Mr. Harris has been asking about you.”
“Oh,” I looked down at my watch. Although I was running a little late, surprise surprise, I still had an hour and a half before Alex was picking me up for Lexi’s ballet recital. That was plenty of time to drop off the goodies, visit with the residents and get back in time for Alex to come pick me up.
I’d wanted to shower and change, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t get to. If Mr. Harris wanted to see me, that was more important than whether or not I had time to blow out my hair. Plus, I hadn’t seen Mrs. Flores in a week and I’d promised to say hi.
“Do you have the time to go back?” Monica asked hopefully.
“Sure,” I smiled.
Monica and I stepped into the hallway and I saw that it was a legitimate construction zone. There was new flooring going down, paint on the walls, and light fixtures being installed.
“Here, let’s go this way.” We cut down a hall I’d never been through before. “And you can just leave through the kitchen after you’re done with your visit.”
“Okay.” I’d only been to the kitchen once, but I thought I remembered the way. “The place looks great!” I commented as we passed by what appeared to be a new music room.
“You can thank your boyfriend for that.”
“My boyfriend?”
“You’re dating Alex Vaughn, right? I saw a picture of you two online.”
“Alex did this?”
