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“Are you driving to pick up Libby today?” I asked when I caught her glancing toward my computer once again. It seemed like the politest way to ask her what she was doing without coming right out and asking her.
“I was thinking I’d walk, and I would like for you to come with me today,” she said.
“Me?” I asked. “Why?”
“It’s a surprise,” she said. “Trust me, it’s worth you coming with me.”
I looked back at the computer. I was getting really close to finishing with the content. Then it would come down to editing and the rewrites. Of course, I had to talk to Jason about where we were with the contract and how we were navigating the launch, but I was getting more and more in the mode of just getting the work done.
“It’s not a surprise that can wait?”
“No,” she said. “Come on, it’s been a long time since you came with me to pick up Libby, and I know you’ll be happy if you do. Please?”
I sighed.
It was impossible for me to tell her no, and she knew that, too. Especially when it came to spending time with Libby. Libby was still the number one thing in my world, so when Erin asked if I could spend time with the two of them, I felt crazy turning it down. So, I reluctantly agreed.
“But I do want to get this done, okay?” I asked. “So, while I do want to come with you and see what this surprise is, I want you to know I can’t spend a lot of time there.”
“I don’t think it’s going to take long,” she said. “But it’s the kind of thing that you have to see with your own eyes for you to get the full effect.”
“Oh dear, one of those ‘you have to be there’ things?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said with a giggle.
“Well, if you and I are going together, we better get going in that direction. I don’t want Libby to feel like we forgot about her,” I said. “I really hate it when I pull up in the Jeep when she’s already waiting for me. I know that just screams that I forgot to come get her on time, and while she doesn’t say so, I know she’s thinking about it.”
“Except today she would have to lump me in with that judging,” Erin laughed. “Because I’m the one who took the time to convince you to come with me.”
I was slipping into my shoes, and I gave her a look.
“You know, I’m wondering why you waited until the very last second to tell me about this. It would have been a lot better planning if you had told me about this, I don’t know, this morning?”
Erin laughed again. “No. If you knew about it before now, you would have gone early to be able to see the surprise yourself. I know you well enough to know you can’t handle it when there is something you want to see so close and you have to wait.”
“You know me too well,” I admitted. “But you do have me thoroughly intrigued with what you’re going to show me. You’re not one to have surprises, you know that?”
“I know,” she said, a smirk on her face. “But I’ve been working on this one for quite a while now, and I think you’ll be happy with the results, and the fact that I waited this long before I told you about it. I knew if I even hinted about it before now, there’s no way I would have made it this far. Even now I’m dying to say something, but I’m forcing myself to wait until you get to be there to see it yourself. And I don’t want you to expect shit either, so I’m not even going to hint at it.”
“You’re already driving me crazy,” I told her. “Bent over like that with your shoes. But you’re going to drive me even crazier if you keep talking about this and you don’t give me some clue about what it is.”
“No,” she giggled. “You’re just going to have to wait until you see it with your own eyes. Come on, if you and I walk fast enough, we can still get there before she gets out of class. Which is what I normally try to do.”
“Which is why I asked you about it fifteen minutes ago,” I told her. “I thought you normally left before now.”
“I do, but I don’t walk as fast as when I’m with you, so I figured we’d make up for lost time.”
“Let’s not have that much lost time to make up for and leave,” I told her as I opened the door. “Come on, see if you can keep up with these strides.”
“I’ve been able to keep up with everything else so far,” she said. “Everything you have been throwing my way.”
She winked at me, and I had to control myself with all that I had in me not to take her in my arms and make out with her right there in the middle of the street. But I wasn’t going to do something so bold with her when we hadn’t gone public with our relationship. Even if it was just the neighbors around, that was still a group of people I didn’t want to know what was going on in my life until I was ready for it.
It didn’t take long for Erin to change the subject back to the book, and I soon forgot all about this surprise she said she had for me, and I was quickly engrossed in the subject at hand.
“I have to talk with the publisher and make sure that we are still on track for the launch,” I said. “I don’t know how much he’s going to want for rewrites, and I’m not sure how many beta readers he’s having go over it, either. I left a lot up to him, so I still have a fair amount to figure out before I know those things myself.”
“That’s so weird with you being the one who is writing the book. I mean, I would think that you being the one writing the book and not being a ghostwriter, that you would be in more control over when it comes out and everything,” she said.
