I was incredibly proud of myself. I had made it through the entire night without any contact with Cole at all. I’d walked the twenty paces or so between my bedroom and the bathroom five or six times, each time slower than the last, stretching out my pre-bed routine as long as I could in hopes we would pass each other or maybe even share the sink while we brushed our teeth, but the door to his bedroom was closed and the condo was quiet every time I went through the common areas. At about two thirty I heard rustling in the kitchen and peeked my head out my door, but it was only Sebastian on the hunt for antacids.
It was around that time that I had stared at our ongoing text thread on my phone, watching for bubbles to pop up that would indicate he was thinking about me, too, but eventually I fell asleep reading through a text discussion we’d had in 2018 in which he had attempted to explain the rules of hockey to me.
Apparently in the present day, as in 2018, I really was just not interested.
But the pride I felt as my eyes fluttered open in response to the filtered sunlight streaming into the opening of my bed tent was quickly replaced by other emotions. Well, all of them, pretty much. I was feeling all the emotions. My heart was racing from the feeling that I had woken up in the middle of an exhilarating dream. My stomach was a plasma ball of activity, reacting to each touch and thought and memory with jolts of static electricity. And I felt like there was so much weight on my shoulders as I wondered if the romantic us was just a one-hit wonder.
Like, were we destined to be Fountains of Wayne? Was the entirety of our lives together going to be defined by “Stacy’s Mom” blasting off right in the middle of it all, drawing in some serious big-time attraction before going back to our devoted but undeniably niche status quo and eventually fizzling out without fanfare and only reuniting for special occasions, like weddings and birthdays and to open for Soul Asylum or something?
Hopefully we weren’t Snow Patrol, who’d worked hard and created so much solid material before and after their big breakthrough. Would we and the world pretend we weren’t defined by that one thing, while secretly in the back of our minds we would always know that if we didn’t close our concerts with “Chasing Cars” everyone would demand their money back?
Or, worst of all, would we go the way of Gnarls Barkley? How long would it take for us to realize that after “Crazy” there really wasn’t any point in any of it anymore?
Only one way to find out.
Unlike a few hours prior, I eased my door open, careful not to make any noise, and darted to the bathroom as covertly as I could, with my clothes for the day tucked under my arm. I didn’t even look behind me to see if anyone was present. There was going to be a lot to deal with today, and there was no chance I was dealing with any of it before I looked somewhat presentable and had minty fresh breath.
I took a quick, piping-hot shower but chose not to wash my hair, instead settling on a messy milkmaid braid to make the most of all the volume and texture that had resulted from a day of wearing it loose and free. Once my contacts were in, my teeth were sparkling, my makeup was minimal but made me look like I had slept more than the six and a half hours that I had, and I was wearing my wide-legged Banana Republic khakis that I had found at the thrift store in Pagosa Springs about five years ago and that I wanted to be buried in (I loved them so much) with a ribbed short-sleeved white sweater tucked into them, I took a deep breath and stepped out to face the world.
Sebastian was sitting on the giant horseshoe couch, reading the paper. Murrow was beside him, settled in and clearly happy to be home (though I’d actually never seen Murrow look anything other than content as long as Seb was around). And Brynn was standing at the kitchen island, coffee cup in one hand and phone in the other. Her thumb-only scrolling stopped when she saw me.
“Hey, you. Good morning! You look cute.”
“Thanks. Is this okay . . . for brunch, I mean?”
“Perfect. You look great.” She took a sip of her coffee and then set her cup on the island. “It will literally only take three minutes to walk there, but we can go anytime.”
“Sounds good.” I looked around the room as casually as I could. “Cole didn’t oversleep, did he?”
Brynn shook her head. “Nah. He’s ready. Said to just let him know when we’re ready to go.” She looked at her watch. “Seb, do you think we should go on now?”
“Yes!” I answered on his behalf. “I mean, I’d love to have a few minutes just to stroll, if that’s okay with you.”
And if Cole isn’t coming out of his room until it’s time to leave, that’s a no-brainer. Don’t you think?