Oh. We’re doing the character growth thing still.
“Okay,” I say, hooking my finger in the trail mix bowl and sliding it in front of me: a truce. “Go ahead.”
He puffs, shoulders relaxing. “Okay,” he says. “What I’m getting at here is that you need a break. You’re running yourself ragged to the point where your usual sunshine personality is looking a lot more cloudy these days. I know that Ruby has been more busy with Will since they’ve been married, so you haven’t had as much time to spend with the people you love, especially since that Christmas in July thing at work last month took up a lot of their time. Then your family is so far away, too.” He picks up a piece of paper from the table, sliding it toward me. “I have a solution.”
I take the paper, skimming it.
“What is this?” I ask.
“It’s a plan,” he answers. “For a road trip we could take to see your family in two weeks, if you agree. We’d have to take two days off work, but if we go Saturday through Tuesday, we’ll be back in plenty of time for work on Wednesday. It would be a long weekend, essentially.”
Uh. “This is a little high-handed, don’t you think? For a man who claims to be chilling out on telling me what to do?”
“No,” he says. “Because I’m nottelling. I’moffering. I haven’t talked to Cordelia. I haven’t booked anything. I haven’t done anything more than what you have in your hand. Planning. Making sure it was feasible before I asked you about it, because if you said yes and then we couldn’t do it?” He winces. “I’d feel awful. I wanted to make sure I gave you a real, tangible option.”
“An option?” I slide my finger down the page, pausing at Sol’s name. “To see my brother.”
“And your cousin,” he says, pointing a little further down the page. “Your family. I tried to make it work as a visit to your parents, but they’re a little farther than a weekend could afford to give us.”
Yeah, that makes sense. My parents raised us in Kentucky, but the minute Sol and I left home, they became wanderers, traveling the country in an RV and landing wherever they may, whenever they may. Last I heard from them, they’d wandered all the way to Alaska “to see the trees!” A visit with them is always either impossibly far or right around the corner, with very little in between. And though I miss them, I can’t deny that it’s a significantly bigger morale boost to see my cousin and my brother. Parents are parents, always there when you need them, but they’ll havecommentsabout it when they are, similarly to Roman on Bus Night. Brothers, on the other hand, could be anywhere, leaving their sisters in the dust. If you want to see them, you’ve got to chase.
“You didn’t do anything besides this?” I confirm, poking at the carefully detailed itinerary depicting four days of driving, visiting, and Elodie morale boosting. “It’s my choice? You’re not bossing?”
“I didn’t do anything more than that,” he repeats. “It’s your choice. I’m not bossing.”
Hmm. Well. That’s… something.
“Your character growth is making me itchy,” I tell him.
“I’ll get you some Benadryl.” He snorts, then, gentle, he says, “You can take a few days to think on it. I’ve mapped out a weekend where historically we’ve been less busy at the shop, but if we have to push it another week or two, it’s not a big deal. I think that if we do it, though, that it should be soon.” His eyebrows pull low over his eyes, worry creasing between them. “I’d love to see you resting, Sweet. In whatever way we can make that happen, even if it isn’t this.”
Well. That iscertainlysomething.
“Character growth looks great on you,” I sniff, snatching the paper up as I rise. “I’ll think about it.”
And probably nothing else, I fear.
Chapter Seventeen
The girls are back together!
Elodie
“And I only whacked himoncethis week for the whistling,” Ruby says, self-control queen. “I’m practically a saint these days.”
“You were always a saint,” I assure her, refilling her personal popcorn bowl from the large tub on the coffee table in front of Ruby and Will’s huge, soft, baby-blue couch. “Personally, I think the whistling deserves a whack or two. Maybe not the flirting, though. Are you still whacking him for flirting?”
She blushes, so cute, and shakes her head. “No. I do… other things. For the flirting.”
Ooooo. “Do tell!” I grin. “I’dloveto hear. Don’t skimp on the details.”
Ruby, as ever, skimps on every last one of the details, caring not for my curiosity. “My point,” she says, “is that things are going well. I’m learning to be more patient. He’s learning to be less annoying. Together, we’re learning how best to love one another and, most importantly, how best toshowthat love so that neither of us feels unsure of the other or frustrated and stifled either. We’re finding a balance.”
She looks so proud of herself and her silly little husband, I haven’t the heart to tell her that those are things they maybe should have figured outbeforegetting married. It’s good enough that they’re figuring them out now, before either of them has a chance to let anything fester, becoming bigger and bigger until, eventually, one of them justcracks.
That’s how people end up on those documentaries online, you know, and I wouldn’t look good dabbing my eyes with a tissue while I lie through my teeth talking about how I “never would have expected this of her."
“How are you and Roman doing?” she asks. “Finding your own balance?”
