Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
I had dinner at Dane and Aja’s, then at Dylan and Chris’s, and with Aaron and Duncan before they left for Japan. Aaron had business there, and Duncan had time off, so he went with him. I went out and had Italian with Sam’s folks at a place Regina liked where she was certain there were mobsters. We met several of their friends, and it was fun to be the youngest person at the table for a change. I felt positively nineteen again.
My projects got done early, I deep cleaned all the rugs, and I did laundry at two in the morning. There’s something about doing household chores at the times that normally you’d be keeping other people up that made it sort of fun. I had Law & Order on while I redid the kitchen, donated old stuff to Goodwill, and bought new things to organize drawers, counters, and the cupboards. When I got calls on Thursday from members of my family, I honestly wasn’t upset. They would all be home at some point, so a low-key evening with Benson and Stabler didn’t seem like a bad New Year’s Eve at all.
Sam was stuck in the clusterfuck from hell, Kola and Harper were going to do the eve with friends because they were having so much fun, and Hannah and Jake were stuck because of delayed flights out of LAX and were just going to go back to his mom’s house. They would, Jake assured Hannah, be able to reschedule their flight without issue.
“Don’t be sad, okay?” Hannah told me.
“Bunny,” I said gently. “Really, I’m okay. You should see this place. I’ve done so much, and you know how much I enjoy midnight laundry.”
“It’s true, you do,” she said with a sigh.
“I promise I’m fine. Get home when you can. I’m all right, love.”
On autopilot, I went to the store the next day and bought all the traditional New Year’s things we ate, thinking I could still make it all and put it away so they’d have it when they got home. I had fun dancing around the house, and the only judgement was from a confused Chihuahua and an annoyed cat, so that was all right.
I was honestly surprised that I enjoyed the alone time as much as I did. I had a realization that I’d been sort of out of touch with myself through the pandemic, all my focus outward and not a drop inward. There was no time to ask if I was all right when I was so caught up worrying about my household getting sick, everyone getting along, and most of all, staying positive. The solitude was truly a lovely gift to end the year. And yet…hearing a key in the back door, which I’d locked since I was the only one home, early Friday night, made my heart swell.
I was thrilled to see Kola.
“Hi,” I said, beaming at him.
He inhaled deeply. “Did you make chicken, and pork, tamales even though you were the only one home?”
I shrugged. “I figured you’d eat them when you got home.”
A friend in college had taught me, her and her mother, and I’d been refining my craft ever since.
As Kola turned his head away from me, I realized he was overwhelmed for some reason.
“What’s wrong?”
He shed clothes until he was down to a T-shirt, jeans, and socks and trudged over to me, leaning over and hugging me tight.
“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked, trying to concentrate on what he needed and not the fact that he reeked. I had to wonder how many showers had happened at his friend’s house.
“I feel bad sometimes because we spend all our time over here, and it’s not that I don’t like Harper’s family, but I like my house better, and I wanted to be thoughtful.”
Ah. Rambling. Someone was upset. “What does Harper’s family have to do with your friend’s house?” I asked to get some clarity.
He whimpered and pulled back to look at me. “I wanted to come home four days ago, but I was trying to do what Harper wanted to do instead of always what I want to do.”
“Lot of want in that sentence.”
Kola whined.
“So you stayed there because you thought that was what Harper preferred instead of just asking him. Am I right?”
He nodded.
“And I’m thinking a couple hours ago, you finally blurted out that you wanted to go home and Harper said hell yeah, me too.”
The second whine was even more pitiful than the first.
“Maybe,” I teased him, “next time you could just have a conversation, since he is one of your best friends.”
He nodded again.
“Now, would you please go shower, because really,” I said adamantly, “as much as I love you, you do not smell good.”
He grabbed his stuff, and half an hour later, he came back downstairs and passed me on the way out to the laundry room as I pulled the monkey bread out of the oven. When he was back beside me, hovering, he explained that he was starving.