Rider’s Block

30. Chapter Thirty

Chapter thirty

"Light On In The Kitchen," Ashley McBryde

T he bittersweet feeling of packing up my bungalow hangs heavy as I empty out the dresser that’s become so familiar to me the past few months. Penny comes over to help me pack, but I don’t know if she intended to help me or if it’s a covert attempt to distract me into not actually packing up my stuff.

“I’m excited to see Chester again…” I try to justify. I miss my little cat buddy, but the sentiment falls flat when I see Penny’s somber face in front of me.

“Cats live out here too, you know. Lots of ’em. I’ve had so many cats in my lifetime it’s hard to count.”

“Do you have a cat now?” I ask, wondering how this hasn’t come up in the three months I’ve been here.

“Well…no…”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I’ve only had outdoor cats and they, um, well…they sort of have a short lifespan or they run away.”

“Not very helpful there, Penny.”

“It was a weak argument, I know.”

“As long as you realize it.”

“You think you’ll wear your red boots in California?”

“Of course I will. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you they’re my new personality.”

“They’d fit better here…” she mumbles under her breath. “Also. I just wanted to tell you in person, so you don’t berate me for it later. But I said yes to Dean taking me out on a da—” She doesn’t even get the full word out before I’m jumping up and down screaming like a madwoman. “See, if I’d told you over the phone, I would have had impaired hearing by now…”

“I need to know every detail! How did he ask? What are you guys doing? What are you going to wear?”

I completely abandon packing for the next two hours while we talk over every detail of what she does and doesn’t know about the upcoming date with Dean. Penny seems equal parts shy and excited, and the combination couldn’t be any more endearing. The conversation eventually flows into Eric and me, and even though we’ve already hashed through the date Eric, and I went on, there are always small details to nitpick and think through.

“He said he wanted me to leave though. I’m not entirely sure how to take that,” I finally admit out loud. Eric has been nothing but a true gentleman since our date, and much to my delight nothing changed or got weird with our situation after he kissed me like I was the last person on earth. I mean, internally I freak out every time I see him, but the see-to-my-saw almost seems calmer, more grounded. And I would have said he was already calm. But now that he’s made his intentions clear and said his piece, it’s like a whole other layer of confidence has settled in.

Meanwhile I internally hyperventilate every time he kisses me goodnight. And man, does he kiss me goodnight.

He’ll also occasionally hold my hand, even if we’re walking around in public. Actually, now that I think about it, especially when we’re walking around in public. I’ve never been with a guy who so openly wants to show public affection, and I don’t know what to do about it.

“Don’t you think that if he really wanted something with me that he’d seize it now?” I ask when Penny just answers my original question with a blank stare.

“Mia. You sweet, naive human being. He’s giving you more control than I, as your friend, personally think you deserve. He’s being respectful and while I applaud that, I sort of wish he’d just go ahead and tie you down so you don’t leave me, but I digress.”

“But that’s what I mean! It’s like he wants me to go back to California.”

Penny takes a moment before replying, “Have you ever heard the Barbie doll vs. puppy dog analogy? Like, when it comes to free will?”

“Can’t say that I have, no, is this a common theory?”

“It’s from my mother so you can never be sure. But basically, the idea is that the reason it’s immensely more satisfying and rewarding for a puppy to walk up to play with you than for you to play with a Barbie is because one selects you, and the other is simply a byproduct of your choosing. The difference in the depth of connection is when both parties choose. When a puppy plays with you, it spikes your endorphins because it chooses you. When you play with a Barbie, it’s just that. Flat.”

“I’m following about sixty percent of what you’re saying.”

“All I’m saying is that Eric needs you to choose him, too.”

***

Nancy goes over the top to plan my “Goodbye and congratulations on finishing your book!” party that got moved to the day before leaving, and everything about the meal is a little bittersweet.

She makes a lasagna that makes my cowgirl-tight jeans feel like they can explode any minute with ingredients I’m dying to know, but she wouldn’t let me help with anything, claiming that the person of honor can’t cook her own celebration meal. I mourn the loss of getting to use that Wolf stove one more time, but I can still admire it from afar.

I’m feeling pretty somber the whole day leading up to the meal, but I give myself quite the pep talk to whip myself into shape so I don’t give anyone any ammo. I’m expecting long faces, sly comments about how country life is better than city life, subtle guilt trips, and side-eyes to make me consider staying.

But that’s not how it goes. That’s not how it goes at all.

Eric picks me up at his usual time. By now I’ve got an internal clock that gets me up and anticipating his knock within a two-minute spread. When I open the door, he’s all confident smiles. Nothing somber about it. If I didn’t know any better, it’d kind of seem like he’s excited to get rid of me. He dips down to kiss me in greeting like normal, even though it hasn’t quite normalized for me, pulls back, pushes a hair behind my ear, and then leads us to his truck. The pep in his step is almost insulting.

I’m still thinking it over when Nancy greets me at the front door of the main house, her smile matching that of her son’s leaving no room to doubt who’s hereditarily related here. I spot Penny and Dean talking in the kitchen, thankful that someone here might actually miss me, but the traitor smiles her trademark enthusiastic smile, practically beaming from ear to ear, and I’m just confused.

They do know I’m leaving tomorrow, right?

Second-guessing myself, I look back to the texts between me and Nancy, and it’s right there in the little blue bubble. We clearly went over the dates; she referred to this as my going away dinner.

It isn’t until forty-five minutes into eating that someone even mentions that I’m leaving tomorrow. And it’s Trevor, poor Trevor, talking about a rodeo in Utah and how I’ll only be a few hours’ drive from their location. But that’s it.

But I eventually catch on to their game. Instead of guilt-tripping me, it looks like they’re going with the route of showing me how much I’m going to miss what's coming up. Sly dogs.

They’re talking about how magical the aspen leaves are in the fall, how excited they are for Christmas. How the house looks magical with lights rimmed around the roof and a wreath on every window. They talk about how they can’t wait for the first snowfall of the season, because apparently that in and of itself is a holiday around here. The first snowfall of the season means that everyone meets up at the main house to gameplan over homemade chili and cinnamon rolls. No one knows where the tradition (or, quite frankly, the food pairing) started, and everyone was quick to clarify the chili does not, in fact, go on top of the cinnamon rolls, but it’s a big ordeal.

Those bastards are trying to give me the fear of missing out—a little FOMO—and it’s working. Dammit.

But little do they know (they do actually know) I’m a stubborn, stubborn woman who loves to engage in a little mental sparring. So, I keep my smile big and bright even though I’m dying a little inside. When they start talking about the annual Christmas Eve gingerbread competition, I think my smile slips ever so slightly and Eric catches it. He makes eye contact with a mischievous twinkle right on par with Dean’s as he chuckles to himself and squeezes my knee for the millionth time under the table.

Even George is in on the game. He goes all in about how he can’t wait for grandkids so he can start introducing Santa to the line-up, and he looks right at Trevor when he says it. Everyone knows at this point. Except Trevor doesn’t know everyone knows. Christine is fully aware but is letting him have his big reveal, and I couldn’t love them as a couple more.

As dinner wraps up and dessert rolls out, there’s the shift I’ve been waiting for all night. A short shift. Nancy breaks the ice to tell me how much she’s going to miss me. I swallow the lump in my throat when I tell her I will honestly miss being around, too. But Nancy, being who she is, doesn’t let the table get too somber before we’re going through rodeo dates and how many I can come to.

“How many are left for the season?” I ask the question now because I care about the people sitting around this table, not because I’m doing research. The sentiment sits well.

“Less than a dozen, but they’re going to be a bit closer together now,” Eric says from next to me. Like right next to me. Like somehow in the last thirty seconds, he managed to drape his arm along the back of my chair and scoot closer without me realizing it. This man and his need for close physical proximity. I’m swooning. Swooning! It’s embarrassing.

“Well, you’ve got the schedule, and you know we want to see you, but we’ll invite you every time anyways just so there’s no doubt,” Christine pipes in from across the table.

“And you’re coming to Vegas, right, Mia?” Dean phrased it like a question, but there is little to no room in his tone for me to answer anything but a “yes” with the way he’s looking at me currently.

“When is that again?” Answering a question with a question is the coward’s way out that I’m one hundred percent open to taking.

“December. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year, so you’re just going to go ahead and put that in your calendar. In pen,” Penny says, sitting next to Dean. Of all the things they talked about tonight to try and get me to feel sad about missing out, the thing I’m the most devastated by is getting my front row seat to their love story uprooted. By my own doing.

I know it’s my own doing. I know this family would welcome me with open arms and let me stay in the cottage as long as I want while I find a more permanent place here. I know the logistics of the situation are not the issue. I know a lot of things, but the thing I just can’t let go of is the feeling that I have to go back.

Back in grade school people would get sent off to summer camps all the time and come home claiming they met the love of their life, and very few of them were more than just a fling created by shared experience in close proximity outside of the scope of real life.

Do I think that’s what’s going on here? No, I can admit that and be honest with myself. The way Eric has been treating me these past few days—hell, the past few weeks!—it doesn’t seem fleeting.

But if I’m really being honest with myself, I think that’s what scares me the most.