Alarm

“Holy shit, Clo!” Mare bellowed on the other end of the phone. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know!” I blubbered. “I just…I just couldn’t take any more!”

“Well, damn, girl!” Mare let out a whistle. “I knew you weren’t telling me something, but I wasn’t expecting this. Does it have anything to do with that guy in Florida?”

“No…yes…I don’t know!”

“Hang in there,” she said. “I’ll be over with a bottle of wine before you know it. We’re going to get this sorted out.”

True to her word, about five minutes after I got home, Mare was at my door with a bottle of merlot gripped in her fist.

“I thought you were never going to tell me what was going on,” Mare said as she sat down on the couch and pulled a corkscrew from her enormous purse.

“Do you have glasses in there, too?”

“Of course not,” Mare said. “They’d break.”

I laughed and grabbed a couple of wine glasses from the cupboard.

“So, tell me everything,” Mare said. “You never avoid me on purpose, which you’ve obviously been doing. I couldn’t decide if it was work or what. Start at the beginning, although I’m pretty sure it’s the night you met this Aiden guy.”

“I think you are right,” I confirmed. “It does start with him.”

“So, out with it!” Mare poured the wine, and I started to tell her about meeting Aiden at the bar, waking up in his bed, and then agreeing to go to Florida with him.

Like a good friend does, Mare sat and listened to my story, filled my wine glass when it needed it, and didn’t interrupt unless she needed some clarification. She only stopped me once.

“Skydiving?”

“Yeah.”

“You went skydiving?”

“I did.” I couldn’t stop the smile on my face.

“Holy shit.”

“I know, right?” I giggled.

Mare narrowed her eyes at me.

“I know I’m getting ahead of myself here,” she said, “and normally I don’t like spoilers, but at the end of the day, this Aiden guy is really good for you, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” I agreed quietly, “he is.”

I continued, telling her about my time with Aiden and then the whole fiasco in the parking lot. Her eyes widened at that part, but she didn’t interrupt me again. Once I told her about going back to Miami and finding Aiden in the back bedroom of his house and the story about his son, there were tears in her eyes.

“All that time,” she said when I finally finished, “you didn’t really know what you were getting into. You didn’t know if your suspicions were correct, but you stuck it out. Then when push came to shove, you were there for him anyway even though you didn’t understand until the end.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s true.”

“Damn, Clo.” Mare tilted her head to look at me from another angle. “You’re in love with him.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come out. An image of Aiden’s laughing, boyish grin and twinkling eyes filled my head, causing my skin to warm. I missed him already, but beyond that? I just didn’t know.

Tears cascaded from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Mare said as she reached over and hugged me. “He’s in love with you, too.”