He hadn’t come up with the gym idea for any reason other than wanting to work out, or so he thought. Gavin was right, though. He usually went for restaurants over the gym, so maybe he did have some stuff to work through.
Sounds good.
An hour later, they met up in the locker room of their usual gym. It wasn’t a pretty place, by any means, but it had the basic workout stuff, didn’t have exorbitant fees and nobody was trying to sell them vegetable smoothies on their way out.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you want to hit the heavy bag today,” Gavin said as they tied their sneakers and stowed their street clothes in lockers.
“I could go for that.”
“How bad is it?”
Grant grinned at his best friend. “It’s not bad. It’s good. In fact, it’s so good it’s got me on edge because I don’t know if I’m rushing things, and I need something physical to do while I sort it out.”
“Yeah, you definitely need to hit the bag for that.”
Luckily, nobody had beat them to it and after putting his gloves on, he squared up in front of it.
Gavin stood behind the bag to steady it. “Talk while you hit, dude.”
He took a few shots at it first, warming up. The thoughts were such a jumble in his head, he wasn’t sure he could get them out of his mouth in a way that made sense.
“I want Wren to move in with me,” he said finally, because that seemed to be the loudest thought in his mind lately.
“Have you asked her?”
He punched the bag hard enough to feel it in his shoulder. “No.”
Gavin let him hit the bag a few more times before he prompted him. “Is there a reason you haven’t asked her, if that’s what you want? I assume you’re not sure if it’s what she wants?”
“She can be hard to read,” he admitted. “I know that’s what she wants, but I’m not sure if she wants it now.”
“It’s not like it’s a yes or no question and if she says no, that’s it.” Grant paused to give his friend a look, and Gavin rolled his eyes. “Okay, so living together was a messy issue for Cait and me, but it was a totally different situation. There’s no reason you and Wren can’t have a conversation about it.”
“We had a great time up at my parents’ house. Then we came home and went to bed and it was great. And then she got up this morning and left to, and I quote, go home so she could get ready for work. It sucked.”
“It’s not a mystery why you want her to move in with you.” He grunted when Grant hit the bag a little harder than he had been. “The question is why you haven’t brought it up yet. And it can’t really be that you don’t know if it’s what she wants because you can’t know unless you actually ask her. Something’s holding you back.”
“I don’t know what it is.” He dropped his arms to his side and shook them out. “I know we were going to take it slow and moving in with me already wouldn’t be slow. It’d be pretty damn fast if we were actually dating for the first time. But we’re not dating for the first time, and it’s hard to separate the first time from this time.”
“Obviously. I mean, yeah, you try not to think about the five months she was gone and you want to start fresh, but the time you were together before she left still happened. You guys were together a long time. Like, what, almost a year?”
“Less than that, but a long time, yeah.” He’d been building a friendship and then a romantic relationship with Wren for months before he’d told anybody, but once he’d let himself fall in love with her, he’d fallen fast and hard. “You can see why it’s so fucked up.”
“I don’t think it matters how long it has or hasn’t been. All that matters is what makes the two of you happy.”
Grant raised his gloves again, but then he just rested them on the bag and looked at Gavin. “If she moves in with me—if we take that step and officially have a home together—it would hurt so much more if she took off again.”
Gavin looked back at him for a long moment and then gave a sad shake of his head. “You’re the one who told me she has no reason to do that again.”
“And you’re the one who pointed out she really didn’t have a good reason to do it the first time.”
“We’ve been friends a long time and I know two things about you without a doubt. One, you’re rarely led astray when you follow your gut, but you overthink things to death. And two, you are absolutely and completely in love with Wren Everett.”
“So you think I’m overthinking this?”
“I don’t know. All I can do is make observations because I can’t see the future. But I think if your gut instinct was that she might take off again, you wouldn’t have gotten involved with her a second time at all, never mind be thinking about living with her.”
“I feel like telling her I want her to move in with me is the right move,” he said.
