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“MIND MATTERS AND THE BUM PEAS!”
“Cool band, bro,” I say, still trying not to laugh.
“What is wrong with you?” the woman hisses, and I see Laurie’s face fall.
“She has Tourette’s syndrome, she can’t help it,” I explain, a warning bite to my tone.
The woman, sensing my willingness to stick an ice cream in her face, looks at her friend with a roll of her eyes, but her friend is smiling kindly and mouths an apology our way.
“Fuck her husband while you’re on a roll too,” Laurie says way too loudly, pointing her thumb at the woman with a stick up her ass.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say, standing and now I’m definitely laughing.
“So…” Laurie hooks her arm through mine as we go. I can feel her constantly twitching and wonder if she forgot her meds this morning. “What’s he like?”
“I’m not talking about it.” My cheeks are heating when I think of how he had me on the kitchen worktop just this morning. I lose all inhibitions with him, but I suppose that’s what’s supposed to happen.
He has been so good to me since what happened with his mom. He yelled at her over the phone in Italian, I even heard him curse a couple of times. But whatever was said he didn’t bring it back to the bedroom, he just let it go and we cooked dinner together after going grocery shopping. Since he made the decision to tell his wife… ex-wife… whatever she is, he’s been more brazen with our outings.
They’re getting together after their first divorce hearing next week and he’s going to tell her then. After they’ve resolved childcare issues, he wouldn’t put it past her to use Maria as a weapon, something that absolutely cannot happen.
I’m scared but also excited because this is the end of all the sneaking. We can now be open about our feelings for each other. And true to his word, Ezra has funded a week break for us. I’m disappointed that we can’t take Maria but it’s understandable. It’s too soon for that and Ezra is spending the following week alone with her anyway. I’ll be going back to work that week and taking over his job too which means double pay, woohoo.
“So, you definitely don’t hate me?” I ask Laurie, just to confirm.
“No, I don’t hate you. You’re too nice to hate. You maybe shouldn’t have fucked a married man, but you don’t know the bitch, you don’t owe her anything and she was always a massive cunt to you anyway.”
I hug her arm and sigh. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Meh. Life hurts. Just guard your heart. I know he’s adamant he’s leaving but if I had a quarter for every time a married man actually leaves his wife for the mistress… I’d have less money than I have now.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“You probably should, if only a little, just to prepare in case.”
Maybe she’s right. But I feel like I stressed myself out enough over all of the worrying I did before.
“Stop it,” she admonishes, pulling me to a halt in the busy street. “I can see you panicking but you need to stop. You’re not a bad person. You’ve fallen in love and so did he. That’s a beautiful thing. Focus on that part of it, okay? You have a man that loves you enough to yell at his own mother to defend you. That’s fucking huge. ACHOOOOO!”
I pull her in for a hug because that’s exactly what I needed to hear from her. “I love you, Laurie. Family until we die.”
“Duh.” She leans back. “Are you on birth control?”
“I’m almost twenty-five. Of course, I’m on birth control.”
“Good. Me too.”
“That’s good to know.”
Her head twitches to the side and she startles a man passing us by shrieking, “STOP LOOKING AT MY CAR!”
“The fuck?” he whispers, eyes wide as he passes us sideways.
“Babe, you don’t have a car.”
“Shut up.”
I pull her along, giggling as I go.
“Happy birthday, handsome,” I say, kissing his cheek and then his ear.
He groans and stretches when I move away to grab the breakfast tray that I placed on the nightstand.
“It was my birthday two weeks ago,” he responds but is still smiling.
“Duh,” I reply, waiting for him to sit up and rub his eyes before I rest the tray on his lap. “But I didn’t get to see you, so I figured I’d surprise you when you least expected it.”
“You certainly have,” he murmurs, tilting his head back for a kiss.
He yawns and sips the coffee I made for him, yanking on a lock of my hair when I neaten the square plate on his tray, so it lines up perfectly with all the edges. “You’ve been anxious since what happened with my mom.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. But I hate to see you so clearly agitated all the time.”
