assumption.
Yes, I missed my best friend. It would have been nice to have her there to talk to and spend time with. Yet, she was really the only thing I found myself actively missing. I would never mention that to Landon, of course. He was a good guy, and we maintained a good friendship. But I was happy in Oregon. I was enjoying the change of scenery and the different pace of life.
I really liked Ava and could see myself forming a close friendship with her. It was even nice being around Tom’s brothers and mother. I never had a big family to spend time with that way, and they made sure I felt welcome and comfortable.
Of course, how my relationship with Tom was developing didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the situation. I was definitely happy to keep that going.
I was just getting ready to settle in to respond to a long list of emails when my phone rang. It was the partners in Paris wanting to set up another meeting. I got it all arranged and added it to the calendar. Doing that gave me a strange little dip in my mood. It was like a sharp reminder of the reality that was still outside of the Astoria bubble we were living in.
At some point, we were going to have to go back. Everything here in Astoria would be taken care of, and it would be time for Tom and me to go back to California and resume our normal lives again. Only, I didn’t know what that meant. Would it be a normal life like the one we left to come here? Or would there be something different now?
I force myself to push those thoughts out of my mind and focus only on my tasks for the day. I responded to a couple dozen emails, then set up a few more meetings. Several of them had been rescheduled a couple of times already, so they couldn’t be held off any longer. What I was finished with that, I called Tom.
“They’re all willing to do them over video,” I told him after rattling off the list of meetings I scheduled. “They were just getting impatient, and they needed to get on the books.”
“No problem,” he said. “Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s my job,” I said cheerfully. “Literally. That’s my job.”
Tom laughed. “Well, I appreciate it anyway. We’re going to have dinner over at my mom’s house tonight, so I’ll be over at the hotel around five-thirty to pick you up.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
I had a little while before he was going to be there to finish up the rest of my work. When I was done, I took a shower and got dressed. I might have used to working in my lounge clothes, but I still wanted to look my best for Tom. And definitely for his family. As welcoming as I had been, part of me still felt like I was trying to impress them.
I didn’t know how I felt about that. There was still the question in the back of my mind of whether I needed to impress them at all. Tom and I still hadn’t gotten around to having any sort of conversation that would define our relationship. Maybe I was putting too much effort into all of this. But maybe not.
When we got to Susan’s house, the rest of the brothers, Ava, and Robert were already there. Dinner smelled absolutely amazing. We sat down around the huge dining table and passed around platters of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and fresh homemade yeast rolls. Everyone was laughing and talking. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have Thanksgiving with this family.
After dinner, the guys clear the table. After putting the dishes in the sink, they all went out onto the back porch with beer while Ava and I helped Susan finish cleaning up. I stood at the sink washing the dishes Ava scraped off and handed to me. Susan dried them and put them away.
“Thank you so much for your help, girls,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m happy to help.”
“It’s so nice to have all my boys home with me,” she said. “There were times there when I thought it would never happen again. The only thing that brought Tom back was his father’s death. And even that only gave me a couple of days.”
“How have you been doing with that?” I asked.
I didn’t even mean