Em
My head felt like it was going to explode. After I’d disappointed Lucas by not accepting on the spot, he’d insisted that I take time to think about his proposal. Which was an actual proposal. Why did things never happen when they were supposed to? Two years ago, I would have been over-the-moon happy if Lucas had popped the question.
But now?
Once I got home, I flopped onto the sofa. A snuffling noise beside me reminded me that Isaiah needed feeding. I let him out to explore and prepared his cat food dinner. The little hedgehog waddled over. I worried that I overfed him, but eating was one of his favourite activities. I put his dish down. “Here you go, bud.”
God, I’d just called him bud. Bud was Ian’s nickname for everyone male: friends, kids, and pets. Was I turning into Ian?
I sent out an SOS call to Abby and Sophia. Both of them had plans, but they generously agreed to come over right away.
I got out frozen cheese straws and put them in to bake. My hostess instinct was automatic. I’d prepare food for my own funeral if I knew it was coming. But every action was avoidance. I could not wrap my head around what was happening.
“Are you okay?” were Sophia’s first words to me when she arrived.
“Physically, yes,” I said. Although my current state of mind meant I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a minute. The timer on the oven beeped and I ran to take the cheese straws out. I made green tea for Sophia, since that was her favourite.
“You baked these on such short notice? Wow,” Sophia said.
“No, I make them up ahead of time and freeze them. Then if Ian—” I choked on the word Ian. We’d only been together for three months, but he came to mind automatically. I tried hard to be a considerate girlfriend, something that Lucas had finally realized.
“Oh my gosh. Em, you’re crying.” Sophia always found my tears shocking even after seeing me lose it so many times. She put an arm around me and led me to the living room couch.
“Did you and Ian break up?” she asked.
I shook my head. But before I could answer, Abby buzzed. Sophia jumped up to let her in.
“Holy Hannah. I was so worried about you that I broke several speed limits getting over here,” Abby collapsed into the armchair. “Okay, spill.”
“Well, it all started as I left work...” I took them through every step of my evening, beginning at my building then going to the trendy bar.
“Em, if you say another word about the charcuterie platter, I’m going to strangle you,” Abby said. “Get to the point. What did Lucas want?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. If I went to the punch line, I’d end up having to go back and explain more. “Well, he wants to get back together. And if that works out—which he expects it to—he’s ready. Ready to get married.”
Both my girlfriends were shocked into silence.
Sophia recovered first. “What do you think about all this?”
“I don’t know. If this had happened right after we broke up, I would have been ecstatic. But now, after I’ve worked so hard to get over Lucas? And honestly, I think I am over him. Remember our last hockey game? I’d totally forgotten that it was Lucas’s team. And I used to care so much if we beat them.”
Ian’s words echoed in my brain. “That ain’t healthy.” Another case where his relentless honesty made me try to improve myself.
In a way, that hockey game had been a catalyst for what happened next. Lucas finding out I was going out with Ian had triggered something in him. Was it jealousy? Or the realization that I wouldn’t wait forever?
Abby nodded. “So, did you tell Lucas no?”
“He asked me to take time to really think things through before I gave him an answer.”
“Do you want to get back with him?” Sophia asked.
“Well, I know what the two of you will say, but it’s my chance to achieve my personal goals.”
Abby made a horrible face. “Not that married and kids by the time you’re 30 b.s.”
“Too late for that, but I could make 32,” I said. A body memory of holding that adorable toddler at Christmas dinner came back to me. I’d been cuddling a kid and leaning against Ian.
“So anyone will do?” Abby asked.
“It’s not just anyone—it’s Lucas. I know him so well, and we have so much in common.”
“But you’re not in love with him, are you?” Sophia asked.
“Not now. But I could be.”
“That’s not really a romantic endorsement,” she said.
“I’m a realist. Lucas ticks off every quality I’ve ever wanted in a husband. And I used to love him.” How hard could it be to fall back in love with someone I’d loved most of my adult life? It would be easy to start dating Lucas again. We could bond over our love of good food and trivia nights and... for some reason nothing else was occurring to me.
“Can you trust him? Can you be sure he won’t leave again?” Sophia asked.
“I think so. He said that being apart was a phase he had to go through to really appreciate me. He’d never dated anyone else, so he had to be sure.”
Abby had been steadily eating cheese straws and drinking green tea. Now she brushed the crumbs off her blouse and sat up straight. “I guess it’s up to me to mention the elephant in the room: Ian Reid.”
I parroted our original definition. “Ian and I aren’t really in a relationship. We’re just having fun.”
Abby waggled a finger at me. “That’s what you both say. But that’s not what it looks like.”
I waited for her pronouncement, because it was something I wanted to know too. What did our relationship look like to other people?
“I see two people who are crazy-attracted. Who are considerate of each other’s needs. Who complement each other perfectly. Yes, you’re having fun because he’s the right match for you—someone who doesn’t let you get caught up in all your anxieties. But for some reason, neither of you will admit it.”
“Why would I be different? You know Ian doesn’t do commitment.”
Abby snorted. “If that’s true, he must have taken too many hits to the head. Ian really cares about you, Em. How do you feel about him?”
I let out a whoosh of breath along with everything I’d been keeping inside. “It’s crazy. He’s not the person I’d ever imagined myself with... but I can’t imagine my life without him.”
I didn’t say the word love, but what I felt for Ian was a bubbling emotion that I’d been fighting for weeks. Every time we parted, I wanted to tell him how much I would miss him. Each time we slept together, tender words lay unspoken on my lips.
Sophia beamed. “I guess that settles the Lucas question then.”
“But what if I tell Ian how I feel and he breaks up with me? Then I’ve lost out on a chance to get married too,” I said.
“Em, I know that being married is important to you,” said Sophia, who was indifferent to marriage. “But you can’t marry someone just to have a family. You have a good career; you could have children and support them without a husband.”
I knew this already, but I liked hearing sensible Sophia say it out loud. At this moment, when the possibilities should have been limitless, instead it felt like the walls were closing in on me.
But maybe one thing could work out.
“Do you really think Ian is serious about me?” I asked Abby.
“Ian has issues. I assume they’re from his shitty childhood, but I’m sure you know more about that then I do. So, he’s a tough person to read. But Mason and I have talked about it, and we really think he’s changed since you guys started dating. He seems more genuine, more relaxed, and happier.”
But that wasn’t the same as being in love, was it?
“I guess I’ll have to take a chance and tell him how I feel.” I made a face. I had no idea how Ian would react.
“There’s a parallel between this situation and the one you were in with Lucas,” Sophia said. “Once you spoke your mind, Lucas had to take action. And now it’s ended up the way you thought it would. So you were right about you and Lucas—at the time.”
“Yeah, too bad it’s taken him so long. He snoozed and losed,” said Abby with questionable grammar. I remembered Ian’s remark about Abby never really liking Lucas.
I went back to Sophia’s point. “So, if I asked Lucas to marry me earlier, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time with him?”
“Who knows?” was Sophia’s lawyerly answer. “But a relationship where two people have different assumptions can’t succeed. If Ian doesn’t appreciate you, then he doesn’t deserve you.”