“This was leading to a theory?” Sommer scooted to the back of her vehicle and slid her feet into her rubber clogs.
“Exactly.” Abbie was fully invested in her speculation while Sommer was barely listening. “You told Michael all about Brad and how it went down and how you felt. Perhaps Michael had never felt that he had permission to explore who he wanted to be. You told him the path that Brad took.”
“Handed him the template.” Sommer stood, then bent to touch her toes and wiggled her hips. She’d really like to be done for the day and heading home. She’d also like to be done with this conversation. She regretted getting lured in.
“Possibly Michael saw parallels and also saw that, while hurt, you have always wanted Brad to be happy. He knew that about you and had faith in you.”
“Okay, well, there’s a—It can’t be lost that it happened to me twice. Fool me once.”
“Were they trying to fool you?”
She pulled her keys from her pocket, picked up her phone from the deck, and pressed the fob to lower the hatch and lock the doors. “Twice.That means something.”
“So you already said. But does it really?” Abbie asked. “Truth be told, you do have a lot of yang energy.”
“What does that even mean, Abbie?” She started off across the parking lot.
“Yin is feminine and receiving, and Yang is the masculine and the doing.”
“I have yin energy. I have a flower-covered cottage in the woods and five cats. My bedroom is ballerina pink. Where’s this going?” Sommer asked, wishing that she were, in fact, at home, curled up in her front window where she could see the rose bush blooming, a cat in her lap, some good dragon smut on her reader.
“Just that someone who liked male energy and hadn’t yet explored liking that energy in a male body might be attracted to that can-do spirit.”
“I’m not rejecting the idea,” Sommer said, looking up to see if that drop of rain was going to be another downpour. “My job has taught me to be assertive, aggressive even. I’m not the big-boobed sexy nurse of triple X fame.”
“Your boobs are good.”
“Thank you.”
“And you’re cute,” Abbie said.
“Okay.” Sommer knew Abbie enough to know she was petting her before she salted the wound.
“But you’re also self-sufficient,” Abbie said.
“As an adult should be. Don’t you think?”
“Which might be more yang heavy than yin. So you’ll be attractive to men who find that level of—”
“Competence?” Sommer suggested, pausing to let a car pull out of their spot.
“Men who don’t find that level of skill to be threatening.”
“I’m sure there’s some wisdom in this – but can I set that on a shelf for later? The text you sent said you had two things. There was the sex on the desk gossip and what else?” Sommer stepped onto the sidewalk and watched the line of cars turning into the emergency lane. It was going to stay busy tonight.
“Forget it,” Abbie said quietly.
“No. Come on. You said you had two things, the gossip and something else.”
“Fine. There’s a new guy in the engineering department. And your type. He’s really cute with a good sense of style.”
“I’m busy. I have cats to tend to. And I’ve decided to take up watercolor. And just last week, I went back to singing opera.”
“Oh wow, opera. It’s been a while. College? How did you land back on opera?”
“I get that you hate it. I won’t sing around you.” An ambulance turned off the main road, flashing lights. That meant the person they were transporting was in dire straits. Sommer picked up her pace to a jog. “I read an article about how singing stimulates the vagus nerve. And mine could use some stimulating.”
Abbie laughed. “True for all of us, don’t you think?”
