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“Good,” I said through a yawn. Lark and I had turned Valentine’s Day into Valentine’s weekend and had done exactly what I’d hoped we would, and more. I was tired and sore and so completely in love that it felt like I was floating most of the time.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night in bed with Lark and be so overwhelmed with it that I had to wipe a few tears before I got up to pee. Love was…a lot.
“Did she like the present?” she asked as we waited for customers to walk in.
“She did. Hers was better, though,” I said. “She wrote me a song.”
Everly’s eyes went wide. “Wow. That’s amazing.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “She’s amazing. I can’t even believe that she’s mine.”
“You look happy,” Everly observed.
“Thanks,” I said. “I am happy. It’s a weird feeling. I always rolled my eyes at my friends when they talked about their partners and now I know exactly what they were talking about. They’re so smug about it.”
The group chat had been quiet over the weekend, but it had lit up this morning with me gushing about Lark and then my two best friends mocking the shit out of me for everything I’d ever said to them about love.
It might have bothered me if I wasn’t so blissed out.
I miss you. Why do I miss you? I saw you this morning and I’m going to see you in a few hoursLark sent as I was heading to lunch with Joy.
I know. I miss you too. Send me a picture of your face, please. I want to stare at itI responded.
“I’ve become one of those people,” I announced to Joy as we got in line to order.
“What people?” she asked.
“The kind of people who are so disgustingly in love, that they annoy others with it.” Lark sent me a cute selfie from the coffee shop and I smiled.
“I told you that love was going to hit you hard,” Joy said. “But you never listen to me.”
“I do listen to you! I listen to you all the time,” I said.
Joy smirked at me and we ordered our food and sat down at our table.
“All teasing aside, I have to tell you how proud I am of you,” Joy said.
I wanted to make a joke, but her words actually made me emotional. “Thanks, Joy. Although I don’t really know what I did. I fell in love with an incredibly hot girl, I didn’t cure cancer.”
“Letting someone love you isn’t easy, and you were very resistant to it.”
That was an understatement. I couldn’t count how many times I’d said that love just wasn’t for me. I was both opposed and allergic to it.
“Lark wore me down,” I said. “But it’s not like I put up a ton of resistance.”
Maybe telling her that we could be roommates who fuck and go back to our regular lives after we’d done it wasn’t the best idea. But I was always a fan of bad ideas.
* * *
“Doyou always want to live in Arrowbridge?” Lark asked me later that night as we lounged together after dinner on the couch, feeding each other cookies and watching the lesbian baseball show. It was so mundane, but I was so fucking happy.
“I might like to go be somewhere else for a while. Just to see, you know? I mean, I went away for college, but that doesn’t really count. I didn’t have a reason to go anywhere else, and now with you and my best friends and my job here, I don’t have something taking me anywhere else.”
Lark nodded and twisted apart one of the cookies and licked at the cream inside. Fuck. What were we talking about?
“It’s not a bad place to live. I feel pretty settled here, but maybe we could go on a trip somewhere. I haven’t been on a trip in a long time,” she said.
“We can go on a trip.” One of the bonuses of Lark moving in had been her picking up half of the rent and utilities and groceries so I was back in the black in my bank account again. With Everly’s help, the pottery shop was doing better, and we were finally expanding our online business. If things kept up the way they were headed, I was going to hire Everly on full-time.
