The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,68

mine. “Hey, what do you think about me using that empty bottom drawer in the dresser? Maybe unpack my backpack? Hang it in the closet?”

The request hit me like a bucket of ice water. My response was so knee-jerk I didn’t have time to rein it in. I bit my lip and shook my head. “No. I can’t.”

The light faded a little from his eyes, but he just smiled at me. “Okay.”

He gave me a quick kiss, got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and closed the door.

I sat up and put my hands to my face. Feelings pinged off me, firing in all directions.

Why was he doing this to me? Pretending this relationship was going to be able to progress like any other one? This wasn’t real life. This was just an in-between. He couldn’t put things in drawers.

He was leaving.

I was doing everything in my power to try and enjoy this time. We had so little of it left. The start date of his tour loomed in front of me like a tidal wave. It was coming, and it would be the end. So then why did he want to put me through this? Emptying out a dresser again? I’d already done it once this year and it had been hard enough.

I threw off the sheets, put on my robe, and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the guitar he’d propped on the chair and chewing my lip. The pipes knocked in the wall as Jason turned on the shower and I called Kristen. It was early, but Oliver always got her up at 6:00, and she answered on the second ring.

“Jason wants a drawer,” I whispered.

The baby fussed in the background.

“Uh, then give him a fucking drawer?”

“Kristen, he’s leaving. He should be living out of a backpack. That’s exactly the nature of this situation. This relationship isn’t a house. It’s a tent. Why keep things here and act like it isn’t all going to come to an end in two weeks?”

“Is it coming to an end in two weeks? I mean, have you guys even talked about it?”

I chewed my thumbnail. “No, not really. But it won’t change anything if we do. I’m not doing the long-distance thing for fourteen months.”

“What if he’s planning to ask you to go with him? Why would he make you his girlfriend and take you home to meet his parents if he wasn’t serious about this relationship?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me the tour was extended until we were in Ely, so maybe he just found out? He probably went into all this with the best intentions, but his circumstances have obviously changed. And I’m not going with him even if he does ask. I’ve been his girlfriend for a week. I’m not running off on tour with him, and talking about it is just going to make the bubble pop. I just wanted to be blissfully ignorant for a few more days and then he went and brought up drawers.”

I think Jason and I were both kind of pretending his tour wasn’t happening. Who wanted to be the one to throw a wet blanket on this?

“Well, bubble or no, you need to fucking talk about it. And give the man a damn drawer. He’s had his mouth on every inch of your body. He can’t put socks in a dresser?”

I put my forehead into my palm and pushed back my hair. “I don’t know if I can play house with him, Kristen. It’s going to be too hard when we break up.”

She snorted. “There’s no way you’re letting this dude go. You’re like half in love with him already.”

“Oh, I’m letting him go. I have to.”

She scoffed.

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t wait fourteen months for a man I’ve known three weeks.”

“Why? At three weeks with Josh, I would have tattooed his name across my boob. You’ll hang on to a car that’s barely running just because you had your first kiss in it, but you won’t stick out a long-distance relationship with a man who gives you multiple orgasms and makes you insanely happy?”

I shook my head. “Did you know that I kept a beer bottle in the garage for the last two years because Brandon drank out of it? Like, what kind of crazy is that? I am so tired of being more sentimental about everyone and everything in my life than I am about myself. For once I