my bag for my phone to call Derrick and remembered it was on the dresser in Anderson’s bedroom charging. SHIT! A call would have to wait. My laptop would have to do. With one single goal in mind, I searched for a car rental while I tossed my remaining belongings into a second suitcase. I had packed my clothes so carefully only a month ago to come to this city. Now, I just threw and stuffed articles of clothing in every which way.
The bags were overstuffed. It occurred to me that the increase in clothes given to me by Anderson made it impossible to get everything to fit. As if Avery and Genevieve hadn’t done enough to help me, I would have to ask them to come and retrieve the items I couldn’t pack. Those were calls that would have to wait. I had to remove myself, and not having a cell phone wasn’t enough to delay my departure.
My capability to hold it all in was successful until I merged onto the Ohio turnpike. A flood of fragmented conversations between Anderson and I overtook my will to not think about anything. Every beginning conversation that was popping into my mind segued into ‘just having some fun’.
He was just having fun. He had a background check done on me. He was being careful.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have allowed myself to fall in love? Wait… I had fallen in love with Anderson. The fact that he came from an entirely different world than I did wasn’t difficult to understand. The fact that he played by entirely different rules was where I had made my mistake.
It was a little after three in the morning when I pulled into my driveway. I was home. I was where I belonged. I was where I wouldn’t be hurt. New York was not the fairytale I had imagined. It was a real city with real people, and I was not made of that cloth.
I had departed believing Graham would not be interested in my coffee shop idea. I had gone to experience a city I had been dreaming about since I read my very first romance novel. Returning to Michigan under cover of darkness wasn’t how I’d planned to return.
When does anything I plan ever work out as it’s supposed to?
40
Jurnee
The smell of coffee woke me up, only to have the events of the last twenty-four hours come crashing back down on me before I even opened my eyes. My mattress held me like I was a long-lost child returning from a trip around the world. Pushing my face into the pillow, I exhaled, trying to get my body to fall back asleep, so I would stop thinking. It didn’t work.
“Finally.” Derrick closed the book he was holding and tossed it on the table. “Get some coffee, and let’s talk about it.”
“Do we have to?” Standing in the kitchen doorway, the feelings of being home again weren’t as comforting as I had envisioned when I left New York the day before.
“Of course, we do.”
With a quick watch check, Derrick made his way to my coffee bar and prepared a fresh cup. “Would you rather head to Fidler’s on the Grand to talk over chicken and waffles?”
My stomach flopped at the mention of food. I hadn’t eaten anything since Anderson shared his Cheetos Puffs with day drunk me. “Coffee’s fine.”
“Sit. I’d like to understand why I woke up to find a new car in my neighbor’s driveway, who, I might add, is supposed to still be in New York City.”
I shrugged my shoulders as I cupped the warm mug of coffee in my hands and stared out my window at the fall colors descending on the trees. “It happened again.”
“Wait, what happened again?”
“I fell in love with a man that didn’t fall back.”
“Hold on. Did you just say you are in love with Anderson?”
The lift in his voice made me shake my head. “That wasn’t the key point of what I said. Yes, I am one hundred percent in love with a man that was just having a bit of fun.”
“What’s wrong with having fun? You used to be fun.”
“First, not having fun fun, but this-isn’t-serious having fun. Second, I am still a lot of fun.”
Why was my best friend in the world not connecting with me? What if we didn’t know how to be each other’s safe space? What if the distance had ruined our friendship on top of getting my