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“I think you need to take your own advice and try something new. Moving in with him would be new. Completely committing to him officially would be new. You’ve never backed down from doing what scares you, so why start now?”
She nodded along with my words, and I could see the decisions being made in her head. Her lips formed a wide smile. I knew she wouldn’t be here to see our food arrive.
“Go,” I egged her on. “Don’t leave him in suspense any longer than you already have.”
“He was asleep when I left the apartment. He’s probably still asleep.”
“Gabby, go. Wake him up. Tell him how much you love him.”
“I love you, Blake,” she hastily grabbed her stuff and hugged me tightly. “Thank you.”
I watched her run out of the restaurant as the confused waitress set down our plates. I asked for Gabby’s food to be boxed up, and I would take it home. They deserved to be happy, and I was more than excited to see them do this.
It had been a long time coming.
Chpater Twenty-Two
Friday night.
Twenty-nine days left.
Richard knocked on my door on Friday night. I stepped out to the elevator landing. His appearance shocked me as I looked him up and down.
Usually, when Richard and I went out, he always donned a wrinkle-free button-down with a jacket and perfectly tailored pants. He wore the same thing to work. His hair was perpetually gelled back, and his glasses perfectly sat on the bridge of his nose. Typically, I matched his aesthetic with a nice dress for whatever restaurant we were headed to.
Today, he looked…different. He had a tight-fitting t-shirt that highlighted his slim frame. It sat over the waistband of a pair of jeans and some nice sneakers. For a while, I doubted that he even owned a pair of jeans. He told me to dress casually, so I opted for shorts and a crop top.
I adjusted my purse as Richard smiled at me.
“You look so different!” I exclaimed.
“Is different good?” he fidgeted with the bag he held.
“Yes! You look relaxed. It’s a good look on you.”
He gave me a shy smile and offered me his hand instead of his arm as we walked out of the building. He wasn’t telling me where we were going, which was different from his usual carefully laid out schedule of events. But I recognized that we were walking toward The Boardwalk.
I told him about the movie Gabby and I had watched the other night and caught him up on what the last week at work had been like. There wasn’t much to report since everything was normal. Nothing interesting happened, and there was nothing for him to catch up on as far as our project was concerned.
He had been on vacation with his brother, so he had lots of stories from their campout. The bridge of his nose was slightly sunburnt, and he looked tanner than usual. For the first time in a while, our conversation wasn’t solely revolving around work, personal development, or books.
I was surprised that he had agreed to go camping. Richard’s version of the outdoors was sitting on the terrace of his building or outdoors at a restaurant. His brother was a park ranger and loved it, so he appeased him for their vacation. He had fun but complained plenty about the bugs.
“I tried to get a little bit more creative,” Richard started as we got closer. “But don’t hate me if you don’t like it.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fun!”
He led me to a small table on the patio of one of the closed coffee shops and started unloading the bag. He had picked up two sandwiches from the local deli down the street from the office. It was my favorite sub place. They had the best combinations.
“It’s not like our usual meals, but I figured this would be easy to carry out here. I know you love subs.”
“I do love subs.”
I unwrapped my sandwich and dug right into it. He almost nailed my order with turkey, roast beef, and cheese. It had plenty of meat, plus the olive oil and herb mix, which was my favorite thing to add. The only thing I picked out were the tomatoes. He got both of us lemon muffins on the side. I passed on it. Lemon muffins were not my thing.
Once we were done, he threw away our trash and walked us over to the rental booth at the edge of the pond. The teenager working the booth had us sign several waivers before bringing the kayak to us.
“You’re actually going to get in the water?” I teased Richard.
