“You’ll be gorgeous and glowing,” I assure her. “I need to head to a meeting now. Give Mikey a hug for me.”
“I will. Go buy your plane ticket.” The demanding tone in her voice tells me she’s not kidding.
Hanging up, I just shake my head. How the hell did I get roped into that? That girl has gotten me into more trouble in my life than I can even remember.
But going home again. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.
1
Des
Picking up the phone again as soon as Rose and I hang up. “She’s coming.”
“Seriously? You are a master, Des. How’d you convince her?”
“I told her I couldn’t see Josh alone looking like a preggo whale.”
His chuckle is warm. “Is the Tech-Meister gracing us with his presence?”
“I have no clue, but I knew she wouldn’t let me down at being my wing-girl.” I am definitely feeling quite proud of myself. But if you don’t know how to manipulate the heck out of your oldest friend, then don’t bother calling yourself a BFF.
“Good job, lady.”
“Let me know if you need anything else,” I offer.
“I should be able to take it from here. You’re the best, Des.”
“You owe me,” I kid.
“I’ll think of something.”
The Reunion
Rose
The sea air smells different on the east coast than it does on the west coast. I think the humidity traps it and makes it heavier, more intense, fishier smelling. It’s kind of gross, but yet familiar and comforting. And with that acrid odor comes memories. But those don’t feel quite as soothing.
“When you get ba
ck from Thailand, we should take some time and travel.” I was trying my damnedest to stay upbeat, even though Connor would be gone for a year and I’d be bogged down in studies in my first year of graduate school.
“Not too much time,” he countered.
“Why is that”
“Because we don’t want to be old parents.” He was dead serious.
“Oh, so we’re having babies together?” I sputter my wine, starting to laugh.
“At least three.” He takes a sip from his wine before delivering his driving thought. “And we want to be young, hot parents.”
The next day I said goodbye to the guy I’d dated from senior year in high school all through college, when together we attended the same school in Michigan.
His sporadic emails that year he was in Thailand kept me alive, regaling me with tales of adventures up-country to Chiang Mai and into Laos to write about the L-Pop music scene for the media site where he was doing his internship.
I’m heading off on assignment, he wrote in an email when he’d been gone for over eleven long, lonely months. But I’ll be home soon and finally we’ll be in the same place. It’ll be really fun to start a life together in New York. We really haven’t been in the northeast together since high school. This is going to be amazing.
And then all went silent, but that in itself was not odd based on his travels.