While staying with me, Mom had been touring some of Portland and had met up with Chloe and Hannah for lunch at one point while Jordan and I were working. It was nice having Mom around, much to my surprise, since she didn’t bug me anymore about settling down, and there was always food sitting in the fridge. Little things that she knew were my favorite, like her lemon bars and a giant bowl of her pesto sauce.
When it was time to see her off, I was actually kind of sad about it. I sometimes forgot how much I missed Astoria and being home. I greatly enjoyed Portland and had no intention of leaving, but it was nice to get a taste of the home I’d grown up in. As she drove away, I still had a little bit of time left before my evening shift and decided to go get a cup of coffee.
I wasn’t the biggest coffee drinker in the world, but occasionally the desire would strike for something full of cream and sugar and heavily caffeinated. There was a coffee shop down the street from the bar that Hannah liked a lot, so I decided to head there and bring back a couple of cups for everyone. As I made my way across the street to where the doors were, they opened, and a familiar pair of eyes met mine.
“Lauren?” I asked in somewhat disbelief.
“Oh my God, Matt, how are you?” Lauren asked, reaching over to give me a friendly hug. She was flanked by two suspicious-looking women who I vaguely recognized as friends of hers that never liked me.
“I’m good,” I said, “just grabbing some coffee before my shift. You?”
“Wedding planning date, actually,” she said, beaming.
I forced out a smile. “Oh wow, congratulations,” I said, hoping I was exuding enough enthusiasm. The two women on either side of her seemed satisfied and grinned.
Lauren and I had dated for just a few months before we both called it off. There was no animosity or bad feelings. No fights or disagreements. Just two people who clicked enough to have fun, but not enough to become a couple. After two or three months of seeing each other rather regularly, we kind of petered out, and one day I awoke to a text message that was almost word for- word what I would have typed to her. I hadn’t seen her since.
“Thank you,” she said. “I have to run, though. It’s been great seeing you.”
“You too,” I said as she waved and walked away toward the parking lot.
When she was out of view, I opened the door of the coffee shop and went inside, battling with myself on how I felt about it all.
As I sat down at one of the tiny tables, waiting for the coffees to be made, I thought about Lauren and her upcoming wedding. My feelings weren’t hurt, I knew that. I didn’t have some long-pining love for her or anything. There were no worries about what we could have had or what we’d missed out on. I was genuinely happy for her. She was a good person, and she deserved to be happy.
But there was a nagging sensation I couldn’t get rid of. Part of it was loneliness, I guessed. As much as I professed otherwise, it was there, always somewhere in the back of my mind. I was always a little lonely, especially now that Jordan had Hannah. Also, she had found her partner right after dating me, and here I was still playing the field. Or at least, theoretically playing the field. It had been a while since I had been on what I would refer to as a date.
As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even really been looking. Chloe had been the first girl I’d really noticed since Lauren and I split up. I shook that thought off. Chloe wasn’t an option, so there was no need to bring her into all that. We had a perfectly fine, friendly time, and that was that.
Still, I was alone, and everyone else was with someone, and I wondered how long I could keep that life up for. My apartment being my place of solitude was one thing. My life being full of solitude was something completely different.
The barista called my name, and I grabbed the coffees, heading back to the bar with them in one of the little cardboard containers. When I got in, Hannah’s eyes lit up, and she came around the bar to greet me and take hers out of the box.
“You have no idea,” she said. “I have been craving their coffee for days.”
“Well, why didn’t you get any?” I asked.
“Trying to limit her caffeine intake,” Jordan said, coming up to grab his. “Otherwise, it passes on to the baby.”
“She’s up enough as it is,” Hannah said.