Page 20 of Your Pace Or Mine

You aren’t out wining and dining some lucky lady?

Not tonight. Had a wild night yesterday and I’m exhausted.

Of course he did. I hesitate because it’s late, but dial his number anyway. Then I lean back on the pillows and tell him all about Alec and his poor, long-suffering parents. Or should I say his long-suffering future girlfriend? Sebastian laughs way too hard at my misery, and we stay up past our bedtime.

When I arrive at Laurel’s early with a package of gourmet cookies, she’s chopping up tomatoes for a salad while quiche bakes in the oven. I’m not sure she’s ever made a quiche in her life considering she’s never been much of a cook. Usually, her cookbooks are for display purposes only, so I’m curious about this domestic turn.

“Can I help?”

“Oh, thanks, if you can cut up the cucumbers, that would be great,” she says, putting the tomatoes aside and moving to clear the table, which is covered in a stack of papers. “I was going to chop some veggies last night to prep, but I got distracted.” She bites her lip, and her sheepish expression makes me snicker. I’m sure I know what kind of distraction was involved if Cal was over.

“No worries, I’m early.” I wash my hands and grab the knife, glancing around the kitchen. “So, Cal’s not here?”

“No, I wanted a ladies’ lunch. It’s so hard to find time for just the group of us to hang out these days.” She sounds almost wistful, and I bite back my first thought that she’s the one who’s busy with Cal all the time. “Oh, I invited Tess too. We were chatting after the run today.”

“Of course.” I’m relieved it’s just the girls. I miss our regular evenings together. “Tess will get to grill me some more about my date.”

Laurel snickers. “Jason and Victor sure had fun with that.”

That’s putting it mildly. I thought Victor would break a rib laughing, while Jason shook his head and muttered, “‘I never have to clean’ is not what you tell a woman you want to sleep with. He said the quiet part out loud.”

“I think we scarred Mark,” I admit. He and his wife have teenagers, and he’s been out of the dating pool for two decades.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Laurel isn’t wrong. He should be used to our frank conversations by now.

“Did you find a time to meet with Sebastian?” Laurel asks once we’ve stopped giggling.

“He’s coming over tomorrow afternoon to talk about the unsolicited photo situation. You saw my email.”

I blind copied her; she was very impressed but declined to look at the attachments.

Laurel turns and gives me a penetrating look, and I can read her thoughts clearly. I can’t say why I thought it was a good idea to invite him over only a few weeks after we hooked up, but we can be professional, can’t we?

I shrug. “I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t want to always be meeting in restaurants. With all this extra dating, I need more time at home.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I could see it on your face!”

We both laugh, then Stevie and Tess arrive as the oven timer goes off, so the conversation is left hanging.

“So what’s your news?” Tess asks as we tuck into our quiche, which ends up being delicious. Laurel is in her homemaking era.

“You’re for sure not knocked up?” Stevie pipes in. I roll my eyes.

“God, no.” Laurel shakes her head. “We are definitely not ready to talk about kids right now.”

Stevie catches my eye, and we share a look at the fact that she said both “we” and “right now.” She’s never been sure about having children, while I’ve always wanted a boy and a girl, and maybe a dog thrown into the mix. I guess she’s at least thinking about having children with Cal. I can picture a mini Laurel, with dark hair in pigtails. She’d be adorable and probably an absolute handful.

Laurel clears her throat. “So, the news is that Cal is moving into my apartment!” She pauses while we all squeal, then goes on. “I’m sure it’s not a huge surprise. We’ve been talking about it for a while, but we just finalized things this week. His lease is up for renewal, and the condo owners want to sell the place, so it makes sense for him to move in. This way we can split the rent and save to buy a bigger place in a year or two.”

She looks radiantly happy. I know I should be overjoyed for her, but there’s a small rock in the pit of my stomach, a voice in the back of my mind that says she won’t need me anymore if she has Cal around all the time. It also stings that she’s been making plans, running budgets, and looking ahead years into the future but hasn’t talked about any of this with me. I’m the numbers girl. We’ve always talked about these things, dreamed together.

“That’s awesome,” I say, smiling even larger and hoping she can’t see that my mind is spinning. “When is he moving, then?”

“Cal has almost nothing since he rents his place fully furnished, so as soon as we can move all his stuff. The new bed is coming next week. We’ll go up to North Bay in early March to get some stuff that’s been stored at his parents’ house. He didn’t know how long he’d be in the city, but now I guess it’s a permanent decision.”