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“Thanks for all your help.”
He shrugs. “You’ll be here next Friday, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
He grins and steps forward, throwing his arms around me. I hug him back, struggling to hold my tears in check, and glance up at Tanner, who’s leaning by the wall at the top of the stairs. He gives me a smile, and then Nash pulls back, and runs to his father.
“You okay?” Tanner calls, and I nod my head, watching as the two of them leave.
I’ll admit to feeling nervous about how Sabrina’s going to react to seeing Tanner… and how he’ll respond to seeing her, but I’m also thrilled by how well the weekend has gone. The nerves I felt on Friday seem so unfounded now, and I sit on the couch and lean back, letting out a long sigh.
It’s been good. So much better than I expected, and I can’t wait for next Friday…
I don’t know if I drifted off to sleep, but I startle when the door opens downstairs, hearing it slam shut, and wonder if that’s an omen. Did it go badly?
I sit up, waiting while Tanner’s footsteps echo around the apartment, my breath catching in my throat when he appears at the top of the stairs.
“Well?”
“Nothing happened,” he says, coming to sit beside me, dropping his keys on the table in front of us. “Dean answered the door, and there was no sign of Sabrina.”
“Do you think she was avoiding you?”
“It’s impossible to tell. I gave up analyzing her motives years ago.” He leans in a little closer. “Thanks for everything you did this weekend. Nash didn’t stop talking about you all the way home.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He wants to know if we can go to the creek again next weekend.”
“What did you say?”
“That I couldn’t see why not, as long as the weather’s okay.”
I nod my head. “We’ll try to organize a better picnic. And maybe Nash could invite Billie to come with us?”
Tanner turns toward me. “You think that’s a good idea?”
“They can hardly date like a conventional couple, can they?” I say, smiling up at him. “They’re eight years old.”
“Exactly,” he says. “That’s why I’m asking if it’s a good idea.”
“I don’t see it can do any harm. It’ll be good for them to spend some time together outside of school, and we’ll be there to make sure they behave.”
He nods his head. “I guess.”
“It’ll make him happy,” I say and he lets out a sigh, which sounds like agreement.
“It will… although I’m not sure even a picnic with Billie can compete with how happy he was when I told him I’d get you to call your mom to ask if there were still any puppies available.”
I lean in to him. “You mean that? You want me to call her?”
“Yeah, but not right now.” He sits forward, and then stands, holding his hand out and waiting until I take it. “Right now, I wanna take you to bed and hear you scream my name.” He pulls me into his arms, staring down into my face.
“Oh… yes, please.”
He leads me toward the stairs and before I know it, we’re running, giggling, so full of laughter and love that nothing else matters…
“I’ll speak to Evelyn this afternoon,” Mom says, once I’ve explained the reason for my call. She was more than surprised to hear from me on a Monday morning, and it took me a while to spell out everything that had happened since we last spoke.
