Dishing Up Love

Well she’s got another think coming, because there’s no way I’m leaving until I get to assure her she has nothing to worry about. I won’t let anything bad come about from photos of us being all over social media. I’ll protect her from anything that could possibly happen. I just hope her skin is thick enough to withstand the snide comments from keyboard warriors who know nothing about the amazing person she is.

I need to call my assistant to tell her to change my flight. I’ll stay here all day and night and wait for her to come home if I have to. If I had Erin’s phone number, I’d call over and over until she picks up and demand she come back right now, but alas, we never got around to that last night.

“Curtis! Have you seen all the—” Rachel starts, but I cut her off.

“I’m not worried about that right now. Can you change my flight from today to tomorrow evening sometime? I know I have appointments on Monday, but I need to stay in New Orleans as long as I can before then.” My knee bounces in anticipation. This was not how I envisioned my day would go after falling asleep next to the woman of my dreams.

I hear her typing, and then anger fills me when she says, “I’m sorry, Curt. Everything is all booked up out of NOLA until Monday evening. There’s nothing to switch your flight to.”

I slam my fist down on the kitchen counter, closing my eyes before lowering my head. I try to calm the unfamiliar feeling of panic as I think about being forced to leave without seeing Erin first, and then I tell Rachel, “Okay, no worries. I’ll be on my original flight.” I hang up without hearing any type of response.

All I can do now is hope that Erin shows up before I have to leave for the airport. But as the minutes tick by, and a half-hour turns into an hour and then two, I realize she’s not coming back. While I wonder where she’s gone, where she could be staying on a Saturday to keep away from me, and exactly the reasons why she’s not here, why she ran, I also don’t blame her. Especially the more I check all of my social media outlets. Living a quiet life as a psychologist, a single woman in New Orleans, then all of a sudden having your face known worldwide and linked to one of America’s most “eligible bachelors,” as they call me, would make anyone want to hide.

After going back upstairs and getting all the way dressed, I leave a note for her on the nightstand before locking her front door from the inside and pulling it shut. I take out my phone and snap a picture of her house number and then the street name then use my app to secure a Lyft. She had to put all her information down in the paperwork she filled out yesterday while filming the show, but I don’t want to risk anyone at the network telling me no if I asked for her address, since it’s private information. This way, they also can’t ask questions. I already feel like a complete idiot for not getting her number at any point during the night. Of course, I had expected to spend all of today and part of tomorrow with the woman who stole my heart in such an obscenely short period of time.

But you know what they say when you assume anything.

You make an ass out of u and me.

I leave with enough time to go back to my hotel, grab my few things scattered around the room, and then book another Lyft to the airport. I sit there in the seat feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt before, waking up and not seeing Erin’s beautiful face. Normally, I await my flights with excitement, looking forward and anticipating the meal I’m meant to prepare for the event I’m heading to. But this time, all I can do is look back, thinking about the woman I’m leaving behind.

Everything inside me screams not to go, to wait her out and once she comes back home assure her everything will be okay. But I can’t, and it kills me, making me think about what the thoughts going through her head will be once she returns to her house. She’ll probably think I gave up easily, that I found her missing, got my ass dressed, and hightailed it out of there, trying to get out before she came back in order to avoid an awkward walk of shame situation. But she couldn’t be further from the truth.

And I hope the note I left is fair warning enough to prepare her for what I have planned for us.