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I didn’t talk to Mom again until I could speak to her without wanting to spill everything about Theo. Granted, I didn’t want to tell my mom about my sex life, but she still knew something was up.
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” I told her, shaking my head.
“Not even to me?” she asked.
“I just need to process. I promise I’ll talk to you when I’m ready.” I could tell she was a little pouty about me not sharing everything with her, but she nodded and said that she loved and supported me no matter what.
“I know, Mom. I love you, too.” I blew her a kiss and she laughed.
My romantic life might have been a disaster, but everything else was going great. So why was I still totally and completely miserable?
A message came through on my phone on Thursday while I was going through the family photos and picking which ones I wanted to get framed.
Your dining table and chairs are done. When is a good time for delivery? The message was from Theo, and my heart raced as I read it.
I’m home all day today, if that works. Or I could do tomorrow, I sent. My heart sunk a little that she’d only contacted me to deal with the furniture, but it was something. Maybe she planned on talking to me in person.
How’s 3 p.m. today? Theo asked.
That’s perfect. See you then, I responded, and then waited for her to say more, but nothing came through. Was she just going to pretend that nothing had happened?
I tried to go back to my pictures, but I was too distracted, so I made sure I had some bottles of water ready for Theo and Clint, and I made up a little plate of snacks and stuck it in the fridge in case they were hungry when they got here.
The time ticked slowly down, and I went through all the possible scenarios in my head, trying to figure out how I was going to handle this.
I didn’t want to appear like I’d been sitting around all day waiting for her, so I pulled some fruit out of the fridge to slice so I could act like I had forgotten she was even coming over.
The van pulled in as I was slicing a Granny Smith apple into paper-thin slices. I set down the knife, so I didn’t cut myself and wiped my hands before I went to answer the door.
Theo was there with Clint, who looked a little more awake than the last time they’d done a delivery.
“Hi,” I breathed.
“Hey, can you remind me where you want it?” Theo said, not looking directly at my face.
“Sure,” I said, leading her and Clint in and showing them the empty space for the table and chairs.
Theo nodded and then they went to grab the table first. I stood back and let them do their thing and before I knew it, my beautiful table was in and the chairs were waiting to be sat in. Clint grunted and gave me a nod before going to the van and hopping in the passenger seat, putting a baseball cap over his face and his feet on the dash.
Guess he was giving us some privacy.
“So, if you’ll just sign this,” Theo said, shoving the delivery form at me. I used the table to sign the form and couldn’t stop myself from running my hand along the surface. Perfect. I was so glad to have it here finally.
Theo’s fingers didn’t brush mine as she took the form from me and folded it up.
“Okay, well, if that’s it?” she said, still not looking directly at me.
“I guess that’s it,” I said slowly, waiting for her to ask me if we could talk.
She never did. I swallowed hard and stood there with her in silence.
“Well, I should get going. I’ll be in touch about the coffee table. That should be done next week,” she said, heading for the door as if she needed to get out of my presence as quickly as possible.
Theo didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye before she was in the van and practically peeling out of my driveaway.
I didn’t even get a chance to offer her some water.
“If you need some help, I’m happy to go with you,” Paige said on Friday when I was having lunch with her, Sasha, Hollis, Hayden, and Alessi, who was finally working on her writing full time.
“Road trip!” Sasha said. “That would be so fun. You should take someone with you so you don’t get screwed.”
I’d told them that I wanted to scout a few potential bookstore places and they’d greeted that news with enthusiasm.
“That would honestly be great. I feel like I’m so out of my depth with this real estate stuff,” I said.
“We’ve got your back,” Hollis said.
