“What about self-care?” I asked him. “I know you work out in your gym a few times a week. Do you do other things to make sure you’re taking care of yourself?”
“Yeah, I do. Actually, I have a list somewhere…” He went into the control room and I waited, getting up to sit on the couch, while he returned and handed a single piece of paper to me. “This is a list of self-care stuff I’m supposed to do. I do most of it.”
I started skimming the printed list. “Coffee?!” I gaped at him. “You’re supposed to stop drinking coffee? It says here that caffeine can increase anxiety.”
“Your point?” he said dryly, settling in next to me.
“I’ve been supplying you with this shit.”
“And I love it.” He played with a lock of my hair, but I slapped his hand away lightly.
“That is it, Mr. Bossy. You can’t flirt your way out of this.”
“Hey, I showed you the list. I’m not hiding anything.”
“We’re switching to decaf tea,” I said, ignoring that.
“Sounds delicious,” he said sarcastically.
“We can try a million flavors if we have to, until we find something that you like to replace the coffee.”
“Gimme that.” He tried to take the paper from me, but I snatched it back.
“I am keeping this and I am going to memorize it. There’s yoga on here!!” I shouted, holding the paper out of his reach as I scanned the rest of it. “Why didn’t you say so? We’re totally doing yoga together.”
“As long as you don’t mind every session ending in sex.”
I gave him a look.
“You look so good in your yoga wear.”
“You’ve been watching me do yoga?”
“You do it in the backyard. How can I not look?”
“Okay, fine. If you do your yoga with me like a good boy, I’ll be so turned on, I’ll probably pounce on you afterwards anyway.”
“Yeah?” He slid a little closer to me, so his thigh pressed to mine. He slipped his hand over my knee, his fingers flirting with the hemline of my short dress. “How about right now?”
“I can’t right now.” I kissed him softly on the lips. “You’ll just have to wait ’til tomorrow to get bendy with me. I have a date with the girls, remember?”
“Right,” he said, sounding adorably disappointed.
I laughed. Then I slipped my hand over his and gave him a little squeeze. “Are you talking to someone these days, Cary? Like any of the therapists you’ve casually mentioned?”
He sighed and confessed, “It’s been a while.”
“Did I ever tell you I used to see a therapist on a regular basis? Pretty much from the time I was eighteen until a few years ago?”
“No. You didn’t mention that.”
“Well, I probably haven’t mentioned my family, either. They’re a little… difficult. My upbringing was… complicated. The short version is I basically grew up on the road.”
“Don’t tell me your parents were in a band.”
“I wish. I would’ve been happy if they could hold down any job, frankly. We lived out near Osoyoos, kind of in the middle of nowhere, just me and my parents and my older sister. We had this RV that wasn’t anything special but it was nicer than our house. My parents were kinda vagabonds. We travelled more than we lived at home. And then when I was thirteen, we came to Vancouver. My mom’s parents lived here. She’d had a falling out with them when she was nineteen and left, and never came back. Until they were basically dying. We moved into their house in Kitsilano. They had this big place blocks from the beach. It seemed like a mansion to me, but it was old and not all that nice. Still, nicer than anything I’d ever known. And my grandparents were great.”
I paused, feeling unexpectedly emotional at the memory.
Cary squeezed my hand.
“My grandpa died two weeks after we arrived. He was already on his deathbed when I met him.”
“I’m sorry, Taylor.”
“Me, too. My grandma lived for another three years and then she died, too. I was really sad about it. But I still loved living in that old house and being close to the beach. And I got to meet Danica when I was thirteen. We were in school together. I’d never gone to school before that. My parents home schooled me, in theory. Danica helped me get used to school. She helped me with so much. She was kinda my Gabe, I guess.”
Cary didn’t say anything.
“So, after my grandma died, we lasted about another