Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
So I do now what I did then. I hide.
I know what route he’d expect me to take and I take the opposite. I exit the building through a side door that bypasses the lobby that you can’t enter from the outside. I make it the two blocks to the Starbucks I saw him in all those weeks ago and lock myself in the bathroom.
I lean against the door and wrap my arms around myself, focusing on the hand dryer on the opposite wall. You’re not gonna die, Chloe. Just breathe. It’ll pass in a few minutes.
I hope.
Twenty-Six
Chloe
“I feel like an idiot.”
I’m at Everly’s condo, tucked on her sofa under a blanket while she talks me off the proverbial ledge. I came straight here after I managed to calm down enough to leave the Starbucks bathroom.
“You’re the least idiotic person I know,” Everly says, her face earnest.
I’m in love with Boyd.
It’s sort of terrifying.
It’s sort of exhilarating.
“Was it as scary for you as it is for me? Falling for Sawyer?”
“Not really, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure I had some of the same worries, everyone does. But I’m a leaper. You’re a thinker. We process things differently.”
“You didn’t have a panic attack and run away?” I ask sarcastically.
“No,” she muses. “Not even that time he refused to have sex with me.”
“That was your first date, Everly. And you did have sex,” I remind her. I know, because I heard about it for a week.
“Whew.” She blows out a breath. “It was a tough few hours though. How is Boyd’s POD by the way? Can we talk about that?” She leans forward on the couch, looking at me expectantly.
“Um, no. I don’t think so.”
She shrugs good-naturedly then changes the subject back to me. “Chloe, why didn’t you tell me you were struggling with your anxiety? You know I’m never too busy for you, no matter how many husbands or children I have.”
“You have one husband, babe,” Sawyer says, walking into the room at that moment.
“You’re still the one, baby.”
“We’ve been married for three months, Everly. I sure as hell better still be the one.”
“Sawyer,” she sighs. “I was trying to have a moment, okay? Work with me.”
“Next time, try waiting more than a day after downloading Shania Twain’s greatest hits to your iPod. You do realize the receipts come to my email, don’t you?”
“Um.” Everly looks away and scrunches her nose. “No?”
“You’ve been on quite the 90’s love ballads kick this week. Which is weird, because you’re not old enough to have owned the CD’s those songs were originally released on.” He looks at her with amused interest.
“What’s a CD?” She blinks at Sawyer dramatically.
“Cute. Keep it up.”
“Nineties music is all the rage with the millennials,” she tells him with a shrug. “I saw a blog post about it.”
“Don’t worry, sweets. We’ll beat the odds together.” He winks and she scowls. “You’re still the only one I dream of,” he calls as he walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water.
“See! I don’t even care that you lifted that from a song. It still gave me all the feels!”
I tune out Everly and Sawyer and think back to the day that Boyd walked into Starbucks and crashed my date. What would I have done if he’d simply asked me to go to that wedding with him? If he hadn’t told me that it was a favor?
I’d have gone. I would have, I think. Maybe? I’d have wanted to. Absolutely I’d have wanted to. But I’d have been intimidated and anxious. A basket case. A nervous wreck of joke-telling from beginning to end. I would not have been myself. I mean, the basket-case joke-telling is me, but it’s not my best me.
Or would I have said no? Deflected his interest just to avoid the anxiety of a date with Boyd? I’d absolutely have said no if I’d known it was a two-night trip. If I’d had time to think about that? Ahead of time? No way. I’d have worried about it for two weeks. I’d have imagined ten different ways I could have embarrassed myself. Gotten myself worked up about situations that might or might not even take place. The anxiety would have suffocated me.
And he knew that. He saw my awkward joke-telling disaster of a date for what it was—social anxiety. And he figured out a way for us to get to know each other in a way that would work for me. He catered this entire courtship around me. And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
And it hits me like a ton of bricks. Which is a stupid analogy because if a ton of bricks hit you, it’d hurt. Hmm, maybe the analogy does work, because the idea of spending another second without telling Boyd that I love him does hurt. Whatever could go wrong with us, it’s better than being without him. All the fears, all of them—I’ll figure them out. Boyd is the one. My one. And none of the rest of it matters.