I need to speak to you, I type into my phone. Can I call you a little later?
I put down my phone as a now familiar refrain floats into my head. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Except everything means something, doesn’t it? Everything from sex to a phone call. And while that particular something might amount to less for one party than the other, it still means something. But after six days of almost constant pondering, I’m just not sure exactly what.
Maybe that men are wired very different biologically?
Maybe I’m the only one who feels they’ve gone cold turkey.
Saturday night was . . . I don’t know what it was. Inevitable on some level? I guess you can’t spend eight years of your life thinking about that one night and resist a repeat. Or maybe that’s just me. Me and him. But I’ve had a few days to un-freak myself out. To reason logically. To try not to reminisce. I’ve decided it was an interlude in my life. A gift I gave to myself. And if it didn’t mean anything to Roman, then that has to be a positive thing.
I knew when he leaned in what his kiss would do to me. Because he kissed me like he needed me, like he was dying, and I was the only remedy. There was no refusing that.
Then afterwards, right before awkwardness had an opportunity to build, he’d jumped up, slipped on his jeans, and flopped back onto the couch with a happy sigh. Before I knew what was happening, he’d gathered me onto his knee, all tight hugs and smothered whispers. He’d moved me back to the cushions, his hands shaping my face. He told me he’d missed me so much, kissing me to prevent me from forming a reply. Then he stood, gathered up my clothes, and laid the afghan over me, tucking me in like I was already in bed. He’d pressed a kiss to my head, then he left without looking back.
I was so tempted to call after him, to ask him to stay. But he was right. It didn’t have to mean anything. In fact, it couldn’t. Not ever.
I find myself groaning quietly. Why couldn’t he have been cold or said something horrible? It might’ve made things easier for me if he had—if he hadn’t taken the blame of our estrangement all to himself. He didn’t once ask what I’d done to find him or demanded I recount my part in screwing things up. If he’d been just a little less lovely, I might not have been so eager.
It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Except it does. It means I’m a mess.
I viciously jab the spacebar on my keyboard, forcing my attention back to next week’s dairy order on the screen. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing out here in the kitchen. Between the departure of the lunch rush and the arrival of the afternoon pick-me-up coffee crowd, I can usually get a little admin in.
“You good?”
“Huh?” I look up from my laptop, surprised I hadn’t heard Jenner come in.
“What’s this?” His pointer finger waggles in the general vicinity of my nose. “What am I looking at here?”
“That would be my face, and there’s nothing wrong with it.” Nothing a little more sleep wouldn’t help. “If you don’t stop doing that,” I snap as he leans in, “I’ll bite the sucker off.”
“I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Just the annoying ones.”
Ignoring the hint, Jenner props his tush on the corner of the table I’m working from. “Something’s changed. It’s like Monday was your Friday.”
“That makes no sense.” Eyes on the screen, I keep on tapping the keys.
“You’re tellin’ me. No one is happy on Monday. Friday, now that’s where the joy is at.”
“Except we both work weekends.” I only work some weekends. Jenner is usually in charge of the place and works with Grace, Annie’s daughter, who is a high school senior, my occasional babysitter, and a High Grounds weekend server.
“Monday blues are a thing, yet you were all full of the joys of something.” Jenner quirks one high and provocative brow. “It set my mind to wondering.”
“I live to entertain you,” I mutter.
“Wondering if the men in your life are like buses. Or if inviting Drew for dinner was the straight equivalent of using a beard.”
I raise my eyes from my laptop screen and send him a withering look. I consider asking him what facial hair has got to do with anything, but I can’t face his explanation.
“Drew is a friend, not a beard.” A fake love interest, I guess he means. And Drew isn’t, even if that might’ve been my original plan.
“Something bothering you?”
“Apart from you, you mean?”
“You love me.” He waves his hand as though my words are annoying smoke. “But you do have the Monday blues. On a Friday.”