“That son of a bitch. I was nice to him.”
“You’re nice to everyone, Bowie. You don’t have a mean bone in your body,” Graham pointed out.
“Still. He ate my food! Slept for free in our hotel! And this is the shit he does to our Rennie.” Bowie threw his hands up in the air. Brooklyn tried to comfort him.
“Graham.” Brystol’s voice rang out from the bar area. She held the phone up in the air. He went to her, and she handed him the receiver. “Aunt Rennie is on the phone for you.”
Another smile broke out. She had called.
“Hello,” he said into the phone.
“Hey, I wanted to let you know I’m back at my apartment, and I have a new cell number.”
“Decided to go with a new one, huh?”
“I think it was the best decision. Do you have a pen handy?” He did and told her to rattle off her number. He would put it in his phone once they hung up.
“Do you want me to give it to Brooklyn? She’s here right now.”
“Nah, I’ll text it to her. Her number and my parents’ are the only ones I had memorized. Although, I could probably download my contacts from a backup or something. If I had done that, though, I wouldn’t have had an excuse to hear your voice,” she said to him. “And Graham, I really wanted to hear your voice.”
His heart soared and pounded loudly. “I know you just left, but when can I see you again?”
“I’ll be up on Friday.”
He knew his next question might not give him the answer he wanted, but he asked anyway. “Do you want to stay on the houseboat? If you already have plans with Brooklyn, I’d understand.”
Rennie giggled. “I want to stay with you. I figure I can hang out with Brooklyn while you work. Whatever. I’m not picky.”
“Oh, I’m totally picky. I want to spend as much time with you as possible.”
“Me too,” she said. “We do need to talk, though—and I don’t want you to think it’s something bad—but we need to make sure this is right for us, because we have a friendship on the line to consider and our friends. I don’t want us to move hastily and regret our actions down the road.”
Graham looked out over the bar. His eyes went to Bowie and Brooklyn, in love and happy after all these years apart. It was what he wanted, and he wanted it with Rennie. “We’ll talk, and we’ll make the best decision for us,” he told her. “The bar is filling up. I’ll text you, and don’t feel like you can’t text me back because you think I’m busy. I’ll always have time for you, Ren.” He wanted to end the call by telling her he was falling in love with her but wanted to give them more time to grow. Instead, he said goodbye and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He pressed the app for his contacts and went right to his favorites. She was there, the first on his list. He changed her number and sent her a message. Almost instantly, the message bubbles appeared, and when her words showed on his screen, he was grinning from ear to ear. Thank you for the most amazing couple of days. I can’t wait to see you on Friday!
Graham smiled at the message. Amazing didn’t even begin to cover how he felt about the minivacation and Rennie. What started out as an escape for her turned into a life-changing experience for him. They were finally going to give this couple thing a shot.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Luck was on Rennie’s side when she pulled onto her street. There was a parking spot available not far from her front stoop. She parallel parked effortlessly, a skill she had mastered from living in the city for so many years; turned her car off; and grabbed her suitcase from the back seat. When she approached her front steps, she fully expected to find Theo there or a note, something he would’ve left behind to tell her he stopped by. Thankfully, there was nothing. She unlocked her door and, as she did, made a mental note to call the locksmith tomorrow to have her locks changed. She didn’t want Theo coming into her apartment, with or without her being there.
Rennie turned on the lights as she entered her place. She called out, “I’m home,” even though she lived alone. It was something her father told her to always do when she entered her house.
“Crap,” she said aloud. In her haste to throw her phone overboard, she’d forgotten about her parents. She rushed down the hall to her room, pulled her laptop from her bag, and booted it up. While she waited, she started to unpack. As soon as the zipper exposed the contents of her bag, she picked up Graham’s sweatshirt and held it to her nose. She missed him already and had a feeling her week was going to drag on until she could see him again. She unpacked and sent an email to her parents asking about their trip and telling them what she did over New Year’s. She also told them she broke things off with Theo, but not why, and how she planned to spend more time in Cape Harbor, figuring it was enough of a hint that her mother would get the underlying message, and closed her email with her new number. She thought about calling her parents but was a horrible daughter and couldn’t remember where in the world they were at the moment and wasn’t sure her mom would respond to an unknown number, regardless of what Rennie typed out.