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Another round of laughter makes me realize how badly I need to pee. I stand up.
“Excuse me a moment,” I say. “I just need to visit the bathroom.”
I leave the living room and realize I don’t know where the bathroom is. I look down the hallway and I decide that it’s going to be the door right at the end, the furthest from the main living area. I walk along to it but when I get there, I see that what I thought was the end of the hallway actually isn’t. It’s the back wall of another hallway that runs at a right angle to the one I’m in. The other hallway goes off to the left and to the right and there are so many doors. I don’t think it would be a good idea to get caught opening doors at random looking for the bathroom, so I head back to the living room to ask for directions.
I reach the living room door and put my hand on the handle ready to open it, but right at the last second, I hear Melanie say my name and as much as I don’t want to eavesdrop, I can’t help but stand and listen for a moment.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like him, Summer,” Melanie says. “I do like him for the record, but you have worked so hard to get to where you are in your career. I just don’t think you should be throwing all of that away to be in a relationship.”
“How am I throwing it all away?” I hear Summer ask. “You know it’s possible to have a boyfriend and a job, right?”
“Don’t take that tone with me Summer, you know what I mean,” Melanie says.
“Actually, no, I don’t,” Summer says. “I’ve spent so long single because I keep thinking of you saying I can’t have both. But I can and I am, and I don’t know why you are so sure it won’t work.”
“A job is one thing,” Jason puts in. “Of course, you can have a job and a boyfriend. But a job is the sort of thing where you clock in and clock out on time and outside of those hours, you don’t care about the place. A career is entirely different, and you know it. You stay until everything is done. And you take work calls on your day off and you don’t resent it.”
“I get all of that,” I say. “And I have no intention of not focusing on my career.”
“You say that now,” Jason says. “And I’m sure you mean it. And if you’ve talked to Tyler about it and he’s in agreement, I’m sure he means it too. But there will come a time when he gets sick of you being late or not being there at all, sick of the calls and the emails you have to deal with outside of work time. And at some point, you will have to choose between him and your career. I just think it would be easier to choose your career now rather than let yourself get too attached to this man and have it be a more difficult decision down the line is all I am saying.”
“It’s not like that with us though is it. Not only is Tyler an architect himself so he gets the hours and everything, but he bought the company I work for. Like literally if I blow work off, he loses out. He’s hardly going to encourage that is he?” Summer says.
It goes quiet for a moment, and I think the conversation is done but then Jason speaks up again.
“I guess that is slightly different,” he admits.
“Yeah,” Melanie says. I can imagine her smiling over at Jason. “I mean us both working shitty hours and understanding that the end of a shift doesn’t necessarily mean the shift will end worked for us.”
“See,” Summer says.
“Just keep your head in the game Summer, that’s all we’re asking,” Melanie says. “And if you can find a way to make this work, then good because Tyler seems like a good one.”
“He is,” Summer says, and I beam. “In fact, I might as well say it now. We’re going to have to find a way to make it work because I don’t want to give him up. I think I’m falling in love with him.”
I do walk away from the doorway then, my face aching because I’m smiling so widely. I still don’t know where the bathroom is and it’s far too late to go back and ask now so I start opening doors as I walk along the hallway. I find the bathroom and go inside and lock the door. Once the door is locked, I fist pump into the air.
Summer is falling in love with me. Summer is falling in love with me. Summer is fucking falling in love with me.
It’s all I can think about. When I heard her say it, I wanted to open the living room door and just go in there and grab her and kiss her, but of course I knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t just that she would know I’d been listening in at the door, and it wasn’t even the fact that her parents were there. It was more a case of me not wanting to embarrass Summer or push her into saying something she’s not ready to say to me yet. When she’s ready to tell me herself that she’s falling for me, then I am more than ready to hear it, and then I will kiss her like she’s never been kissed before, but until then, I will hold onto that memory like it is a precious stone and never mention it to Summer.
I finish in the toilet and wash my hands then I flush the toilet and leave the room and head back for the living room. I can hardly keep the smile off my face. What I have just heard has literally made me the happiest man alive. I go back into the living room and sit back down beside Summer. She looks at me in concern.
“Are you ok?” she asks me quietly.
“Never better,” I say. “Why?”
“You were gone ages,” she says.
“Oh,” I say. “That.” I decide to tell a half truth. It’s better than Summer and her parents thinking I had some sort of stomach issue which they clearly are. “So, I left the room and started along the hallway and then I realized I didn’t know where the bathroom was. I was a bit embarrassed to come back in and ask and I kind of just stood there, indecisive for a bit. By the time I decided I was being silly being too embarrassed to ask where it was, too long had gone by and I ended up just opening doors until I found it.”
“Oh Tyler, you don’t have to be embarrassed around us. Especially not about toilets or bodily functions. Doctors remember,” Melanie says with a laugh.
We all laugh, and the potentially awkward moment passes, and we go back to the easy chatter and laughter of before. I hold Summer’s hand in mine as we chat and I feel like I’m floating. I can’t believe this gorgeous, amazing, talented, funny woman is falling in love with me. I do know though that it’s past time that I stopped letting Chloe’s indiscretion ruin my life. I refuse to let the insecurities she gave me ruin my relationship with Summer.
10
TYLER
