Snoqualmie was a perfect compromise. I had a mountain to keep me busy, and I’d be less than thirty miles away from Claire.
Closer was definitely better.
I couldn’t believe how much I missed her during the week when we were apart. I wanted to be able to grab lunch with her on a Tuesday. Or stop by to take a nap with her on a Thursday. See a movie on a Monday because we both had the day open.
Date things.
Boyfriend and girlfriend things.
Because as it turned out, Claire was right about one thing. I was fucking boyfriend material. I loved doing all that sappy shit for her that I never could have imagined doing before.
Make her breakfast in bed.
Wash her hair for her when we shared the shower at her apartment.
Buy her flowers from the market simply because the color reminded me of her eyes.
And I loved the girlfriend stuff she did for me.
Call me just to see how my day was.
Rub my back and shoulders when I was sore.
Make sure I was eating right since I was training so hard leading up to the upcoming season. Every point I earned at the different competitions got me one step closer to my first Olympic team spot, and she knew it.
Because she cared enough to know.
I was starting to realize, as I began to think about our relationship in terms of the months we’d been together instead of weeks, that the reason I was boyfriend material was because of who my girlfriend was.
Anything good in me that started growing through the cracks, it was because of her.
“What are we seeing today?” she asked as I steered the Jeep onto the highway.
“The two-bedroom by the park.” Handing her my phone, I watched her type in the passcode. “It’s bookmarked.”
“Oh yeah, I liked that this one was on a cul-de-sac.”
I nodded. “Closer to the highway too.”
Sliding my hand over her thigh as we drove, I did what I always did when Claire and I were on our way to check out a place for me. It was our fourth possibility, and before I even walked in the door, I thought about how we might use that space.
Because even if she wasn’t living with me, I wanted her to feel at home where I laid my head. I already knew the second bedroom would be used as an office/study space for her, though I was willing to concede a fold-out couch in case Scotty crashed at my place.
Or Finn.
Very, very slowly, he and I had been trying to repair years of what our status quo had been. I wasn’t ready to pretend Adele and my dad were my new BFFs, but she’d been surprisingly happy for me and Claire. She even hired Claire on as an intern to help build curriculum for certain community programs.
This was what it felt like, I thought, with her hand entwined in my own as we drove to a place I’d imagine for both of us to start building a life with someone.
My fingers tightened over hers, and I caught the edges of her smile as her face captured the sun coming in the open windows.
“I love you,” I told her. Simply because I couldn’t not tell her. The words just … refused to stay inside me, now that I knew what they meant.
Claire glanced over at me with a soft smile on her lips. “I love you too.”
Most days, I didn’t know whether fate or destiny or God or just a bunch of random shit were what brought me to Claire. What brought Claire to me.
No matter what it was, she had me. And she always would.
* * *
LIA
London
The rain came out of nowhere, and like a rookie, I’d left my little umbrella back at my flat.
My flat, not my apartment, because I was in London, and we called it a flat, thank you very much.
Even though I pulled the hood of my jacket up, it didn’t do much to protect me from the sudden downpour, so when I looked up and caught sight of a dark wood sign for a pub on the corner, I quickly jogged around a group of tourists on a sightseeing walk and ducked through the heavy wooden door.
It was quiet inside, still hours before the post-work rush would have a place like this packed to the brim with men wearing perfectly tailored suits in want of a pint.
God bless London, because really, British men knew how to wear suits. Sure, I’d only been here for two weeks, just long enough to fully recover from my jet lag, learn how to ride the Tube, but it did not take long to recognize how far superior they were to American men in that regard.
An old man wiping down the gleaming wood bar nodded to me as I slid up to a stool. “What can I get for ya?”
I glanced behind him at what was on tap. “I’ll have a Stella, please.”
He nodded, deftly pulling a glass under the correct tap. “Be wanting anything to eat, dear?”
I smiled. Would the accents and the casual endearments ever get old? “No thanks. Just the beer for now.”
He set it in front of me. “Cheers.”
After my first sip, I glanced around the pub. It was quiet with only a couple of tables occupied by other patrons. I was by myself at the bar.
Alone.
My first two weeks here had been a whirlwind, yes, but I’d still spent a lot of my time alone. Which was … weird for me. The busy-ness and exhaustion of getting used to the time zone change had kept that loneliness from swamping me.
But sitting alone at the bar, I felt a visceral pain in my heart, missing Claire. The rest of my family. I started pulling my phone out when I heard his voice behind me.
“Can you put the match on for me, Carl?”
The bartender nodded, giving a quick smile to whoever belonged to that deep, glorious, accented voice.
As Carl flipped on the mounted TV facing the bar, I kept my eyes on my beer, careful not to turn and gawk. Because he sounded hot. Really, really, grade A level ten hot, and I didn’t want to pout if he turned out not to be grade A level hot.
Leaving a seat open between us, he slid his tall, broad frame onto a stool and folded his large hands together in front of him on the bar. Ink crawled up his forearms, as did ropey muscles and strong veins.
Have you ever tried to check out a man without him noticing? It takes skill, people.
His attention never once wavered from the soccer game that appeared on the screen, on the emerald green grass and brightly colored jerseys of the players passing the ball back and forth before the start of the game.
Match.
Whatever.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.