I left to do as Drew had instructed—pack an overnight bag and head back.
The entire trip to my place, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Drew was the kind of man who didn’t make it easy to get past his exterior, but when you did, it was worth the fight he’d put up to keep you out. Over the last week, it felt like our relationship had really turned a corner.
I even called my parents while I was packing my bag and decided to tell them about the new man in my life—something I rarely did. Of late—say, I don’t know, the last three years—it had been because there was no new man, but I also knew my mother would worry about me. She’d worry I was going to get hurt, or worry I’d unknowingly picked a serial killer to date—because, of course, everyone who lived in a big city had the potential to be a closet serial killer. So I was careful how much I divulged.
“That’s wonderful, honey. How did you meet?”
Uh…he broke into my office and then bailed me out of jail the next day. Best first date ever.
“He’s actually the landlord for my new office.”
“And he’s a nice young man?”
We didn’t fight…today.
“Yes, Mom. He’s very nice.”
“What does he do for a living?”
Well, he thrives on misogynistic tendencies he developed because of his lying, cheating ex-wife, and attempts to extricate men from their failed marriages by leaving women penniless.
“He’s an attorney. Family law.”
“An attorney. Very nice. And family law. That’s a noble profession. When do we get to meet this fellow?”
“I’m not sure, Mom. He’s so busy with work right now.”
And fighting for custody of his son…who isn’t technically his son because his bitch of an ex-wife saw him as her meal ticket when she got pregnant with another man’s baby.
She sighed. “Well, just make sure he has the right values. Money and a handsome face often cause temporary blindness.”
“Yes, Mom.”
We talked a little while longer and then, I have no idea where it came from, but I asked her a question that fell out of my mouth.
“How did you know Dad was the right one for you?”
“I stopped using the word I when I looked into the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before I met your father, all of my plans were just that—my plans. But after I met him, even after only a few weeks, I stopped seeing the future as mine and started seeing it as ours. I didn’t even notice it for a while, but when I talked about things that were coming up—Saturday nights, holidays, whatever—I eventually realized I’d started saying we, not I.”
I stopped at the grocery store on the way back to the office and picked up some things to make dinner. Drew was going to be living in a hotel in Atlanta and working long hours when he was here, so I figured he’d appreciate a home-cooked meal. He came in as I was taking the lasagna out of the oven.
“Smells good in here.”
“Hope you like lasagna.”
“It’s my second-favorite meal.”
“What’s your first?”
He came up behind me, brushed my hair to one side, and kissed my neck. His word vibrated against my skin. “You.”
“Control yourself. You need to enjoy a homemade meal when you can. Your next few weeks are going to be busy.”
I opened the drawer to the right of the stove to get a spatula and found two matchbox cars and an old flip phone in with the cooking implements.
“I wondered where you kept the toy cars.”
Drew chuckled. “When I tell Beck to clean up, he just shoves shit in drawers. Last year I found crayons in the spoon section of the utensil drawer. He’d taken the spoons and thrown them all in the garbage. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said we didn’t need them because we could scoop things better with our hands but nothing else made color on paper.”
I smiled. “He has a point.”
Drew reached into the drawer and took out the flip phone. “Remember when we first met, and I looked through the pictures on your phone?”
“Yes. You told me the best way to get to know someone is to look at their cell phone pictures when they least expect it. Then after I let you look through mine, I found out yours was empty.” I exaggerated a sigh. “Jackass.”
Drew opened the flip phone, pressed some buttons, and offered it to me. “I’m gonna go wash up and change before dinner. This is Beck’s cell. It doesn’t have service, but he likes to use it to take pictures. Every time I start to doubt whether I’m doing the right thing by staying in his life, if I’m confusing things by not backing off and letting his biological father step in, I scroll through those pics. Take a look.”