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Yoga is no match for Gage Collier.
After I’m dressed, I retrieve my phone off the charger in my own bedroom, feeling guilty for not having brought it into Gage’s room last night. What if there’d been an emergency at home and I’d been so busy having sex that I missed it?
My mom has sent pictures of the kids having pancakes this morning.
Thankfully, everyone looks happy, and I didn’t miss anything important.
I respond to thank her for the pictures and ask her to tell the kids I miss them, but that’s a lie. I don’t miss them. I spend every waking moment with them or caring for them or thinking of them or doing something for one of them. I’ll be right back to that when I get home tomorrow night. Today and tomorrow is all about me, my friends, my needs and my wants. I plan to enjoy every second of it.
Before I venture out to see the others, I take a quick look at Instagram.
Gage’s inspirational posts are usually my first stop every morning.
He’s posted a photo of the sunrise at Bethany Beach, which means he’s been up for hours.
Even after tremendous loss, life can still be beautiful,he wrote.You never know what’s coming right around the next bend, and anything is still possible, even after the worst has happened. It’s important that we be open to these experiences when they present themselves to us as a reminder that life goes on, even when you think it won’t.
He included the usual widow hashtags and already has more than a hundred likes and twenty-five comments on his post. He’s become required reading in widow circles as he documents his journey and shares insights that resonate with so many.
Today’s post is particularly poignant, as I’m certain he’s speaking directly to me. At least I’d like to think so.
I need to play this cool and not act like last night was the start of some big romance. It was sex. It was two people who needed a release. Or four of them. That’s all it was, and I vow to not make it into something it’s not and to keep my promise to him to not let it screw up a friendship we both rely on.
I walk out of the bedroom into the kitchen, where Hallie is overseeing something on the stove, and Adrian is starting another pot of coffee.
“Morning,” Hallie says. She’s sporting a purple streak in the front of her short blonde hair and looks rested and refreshed. “Coffee?”
“Please, God,” I respond.
She laughs and pours me a cup, gesturing to the cream, oat milk, almond milk and every type of real and fake sugar.
“Thanks.” I stir in almond milk and Stevia. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a dead woman. I haven’t slept like that in a long time. Since before…”
She means before she lost her wife, Gwen, to suicide.
“I’m so glad you had a restful night.”
“How about you?” Hallie asks.
I wonder if my face turns bright red, telling everyone I didn’t sleep a wink because I was too busy having sex with Gage. And where is he anyway?
“I slept great. What’s for breakfast?”
Hallie insisted on cooking for us this weekend, because, as she said, she used to love to cook and hasn’t done it in ages. “French toast casserole with Vermont maple syrup, sausage, bacon and fruit salad.”
“Am I drooling?”
Hallie leans in for a closer look. “Not quite, but close.”
“Thank you so much for cooking for us.”
“I’m so happy to do it. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.”
“You look happy. It’s nice to see.”
“It’s nice to feel. Been a while for that, too.”
