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Chapter Twelve
“I have to show you something,”Linley said on Saturday when I went to her place to hang out. I loved my cottage, but her place was nice. Like, nice nice. Shiny and new and granite and stainless. She’d done what she could to make the space cozy with tons and tons of framed pictures and art and cute lamps.
“As long as it’s not, like, a bleeding wound, go ahead and show me,” I said, sipping from the late she’d made me from a fancy coffee machine her parents had gotten her for Christmas last year.
“It’s not a wound,” she said, and then presented me with…
“Oh my god, it is a pangolin.”
In my hands was the tiniest, most perfect little pangolin, standing on its legs and holding its paws? Feet? together. It even had a little worried look in its eyes.
“I may have mentioned them on our date and then he showed up with this in a box.”
I set the little creature down on the counter and shook my head.
“Unbelievable. He should make more and sell them online,” I said.
“I think he might.” Her smile was soft and dreamy and I could tell she was really in deep with this guy.
“When do I get to meet him? I know your mom is all over that, but I’d like to see the two of you together. Give my approval,” I said.
Linley sipped her coffee and looked at me over the rim of her cup. “Speaking of that, he’s actually coming over tomorrow for the first time. I talked Mom into letting me have Monday off, so he’s going to stay the night.”
“Ohhhhh, the first sleepover. When you find out if he snores or talks in his sleep. A pivotal moment in any relationship,” I said.
She looked down at the little carved pangolin. “Does Esme snore?”
I’d spent two nights with her at this point, and most of those nights had been taken up with sex and very little sleep.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“If she did, you’d remember.”
That was a good point.
“The other question is, do you snore?” she said.
“No,” I said defensively. Then I thought about it for a moment. “Well, no one has ever said anything. If I did snore, I’m pretty sure Wyatt would have bitched about it. Did I ever tell you he used to narrate his dreams?”
It had scared the shit out of me the first night I’d stayed with him and I’d awoken when he’d started talking. That dream was a Lord of the Rings style quest sort of thing. Turned out to be a reoccurring dream of his and I actually considered writing some of it down and maybe making a book out of it. I might still do that.
I helped Linley plan her strategy, including wardrobe (down to her underwear) for the upcoming date.
“I know I want to have him to myself for just a little while longer and get through this first overnight, but after this weekend, I will definitely ask him if he wants to make a plan to have a group thing with you and Em. I’m still holding my mom off, so don’t say anything in case she might find out.”
She looked around nervously, as if her mother was going to pop out from one of the cabinets. I wouldn’t put it past her.
“I won’t say a word,” I said, pretending to zip my lips and throw away the key.
“I’m serious. She can never find out that Gray met my friends before he met her. My dad doesn’t care, but my mom sure does.” Linley gripped my arm so had I was afraid she was going to leave marks.
“It’s fine. She’s not going to find out. And even if she does, just say something about marriage or rings and she’ll get distracted.” Finally, Linley let go of me and nodded.
“Yeah, that’s a good plan. It’s a good plan for anything, really.” That was true. Maybe I’d use that one on my mom.
“So, things are good with Esme?” she asked.
“Good. Really good.” My face hurt from smiling, honestly. In random moments, I’d just think about something Esme had said, or the way she smiled, or I’d see something that would make her laugh and I’d completely forget about what I was supposed to be doing. I’d already started keeping even better spreadsheets of my deadlines so I didn’t fuck too much up. It was all well and good to get distracted when I was doing the dishes, but it was another thing to mess up and piss off a client that was paying me a lot of money to do a job.
