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She pressed her lips together and gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. But I smiled. I had a date with Cindy Lawless. And I was damned if I wasn’t going to use this date to convince her that she should stick around for more.
Later that night,I looked online for apartments. I didn’t need much space. I didn’t care about amenities. It just had to be mine.
Between finally being able to move out of my mother’s house and quitting working for my father’s company, I was finally my own man. I’d taken care of my family as long as I needed to, but my mother’s well-being and my father’s legacy were both in capable hands now.
I was free.
I could live life on my terms. I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I could ask a woman on a date and take her back to my apartment without an inquisition. I could askCindyto move in. Someday.
I sat back in my desk chair and ordered several dozen shipping boxes and other moving supplies before sending inquiries on a few viable apartment options. One of them even had a hot tub.
Then my phone buzzed with a text message.
Emmeline: Can we talk?
I looked at the calendar. Right.Thatday was coming up.
I felt a little sick to my stomach. I closed all of the open tabs on my browser. I couldn’t look at apartments right now. I couldn’t plan for a future. What was I thinking? I didn’t deserve this. My life was always going to be… this. Blue Creek. Mom’s house. Alone. And stuck.
Twenty-One
Cindy
“Big date tonight,” Stephanie said in an obnoxious singsong voice as she threw open my closet doors and started poking around.
I shrugged. I guessed so.
It was Valentine’s Day and Luke and I were having dinner at the Village Square and I had no idea what to wear, what to do with my hair, or whether or not to wear makeup. So I called in reinforcements.
Watching her rifle through my wardrobe as I nervously prepared to meet Luke was oddly familiar.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“I don’t know. On one hand, it’s just dinner with Luke. But, on the other, he made this whole deal about it being a date.”
“Don’t you want to go on a date with Luke?”
“I don’t know. Yes? We’re still kind of figuring each other out.”
“I get that.”
“It’s awkward. I don’t know what he’s expecting tonight.”
“Well, what are you expecting?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He sprang this on me kind of quickly.”
“Maybe it just felt right in the moment.”
“Maybe.”
I thought about Luke’s seemingly instant one-eighty in the bar the other night. I had no idea what made him do it. I got the feeling he felt like there was a time crunch.
“Something’s bothering you, Cindy,” Steph said. “This is the thing you’ve wanted since you were fifteen, and now you have it. You’re going on a date with Luke Kane and you look like you’re about to have your teeth drilled.”
“I know.” I sighed. “I just thought that finally, after all this, that having Luke ask me on a date would feel bigger. More significant.”
“Interesting.”
