or ten days or more. If you’ll have me. I’ve told my producer I’m doing very little publicity, and what I am doing, will be done remotely.”
“Okay.” My one-word response didn’t betray how excited I was that he was coming. Would he share my bed or stay in the spare room? That was a question for another time or we’d decide when he arrived. Or maybe it wasn’t a question and we’d fall into bed together.
“But I have to warn you.” His smirk told me he was up to something.
“Your feet stink? You fart under the covers? You’re secretly in love with a character on your favorite TV show? Hit me with it now so I can prepare.”
He beckoned me closer, and I placed my face against the screen. Chet glanced over his shoulder and then whispered, “There will be dancing!”
Eighteen
Chet
“Glenn, I told you I’m not dealing with any of this.” I sighed into the phone. I hadn’t even gotten to Stan’s, and Glenn already broke his promise to handle everything and only call me in an emergency. Going to the launch of some fancy cookware was not an emergency.
“But it could potentially lead to your own line.”
“Attending things I hate on a good day when I have something more important to do so that I maybe might get an opportunity to have my name slapped on some crappy kitchen gadgets doesn’t sound like an emergency.” The driver turned the corner. We would be at Stan’s in only a few minutes. This was really happening. “I have to go.”
“Reconsider?”
“No.”
“Just think on it and call me back.” Glenn was persistent, I’d give him that.
“No, and Glenn, if you call me about another thing that I don’t need to be bothered with, I’m shutting down my phone. I never take time off. I need this.” And if I’d told him what was happening he’d probably agree to everything I said, but this wasn’t only my story to share, and fuck it if I was going to throw away Stan’s trust to make things easier for Glenn to understand.
Stan hadn’t told me everything about his past, but what little he did tell me made it crystal clear his trust was to be treasured.
“Fine,” he conceded, and we said our good-byes just as the driver pulled up to Café Om.
“You want help with your luggage?” he asked, not moving to do so. I didn’t blame him. He had gone on a huge drive knowing there would be no return fare. He didn’t know I was going to tip him well. Shit, for all he knew I was going to stiff him by rounding the fare up to the nearest dollar.
“I’m good. Thanks.” I slid out of the car and pulled my suitcase out with me. This was it. I was going to see Stan for the first time since discovering we were going to have a baby. I will not make this weird. I will not make this weird.
I was in the door thirty seconds and I made it weird, standing there staring at his belly like a freak.
“Umm, you're early. I still have to work another hour.” He held a dish cloth in his hand and kept looking down at it as if it held answers to a question he’d not yet asked.
“That’s okay. I’ll just grab a coffee and relax.” I rolled my suitcase to the counter, wanting to take him in my arms as I brushed past him but terrified of ruining everything.
I ordered a coffee and sat at a back table, pretending to scroll through my phone as I watched Stan work. He didn’t look any different, not really. I don’t know what I’d expected, but he just looked like Stan only tired. So tired. I wanted to offer to help clean or something, but I knew him well enough to know that would only result in me pissing him off, and I very much didn’t want to do that.
Just over an hour later, he came over and gave me a head tilt to follow him. Was he hiding me? No. That didn’t make sense. And even if he was, I wasn’t going to complain about it. This was his place of work, not mine.
I picked up my cup and grabbed my suitcase handle and followed him around the corner and up the stairs to his place. He opened the door, still not saying a word. As I followed him inside and shut the door behind me, something changed—it was