Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Forty-five minutes? You couldn’t even spare an hour?”
I chuckle. “You get an hour including changing time.”
“You’re too good to me.”
“I agree,” I say.
He nudges me with his elbow and we head to the bikes. Part of the reason I suggested combining my catch-ups with Ben and the gym is because going to the gym is a regular thing. It’s easy to cancel ad hoc plans, but if you know you’re going to the gym four times a week, then slotting someone into that time means there’s more room. It’s less likely we’ll stop these catch-ups because we’re doing something else that’s important at the same time.
“What’s going on?” I ask him, as I set up the right program on the bike.
He presses start and he’s off. “Not much. I just got permissions through for the refurb on that apartment block in Brooklyn.”
“That’s taken a while.”
“Everything takes a while. But I have to focus on the positive. It’s going to make a lot of money when it’s finally complete. What about you? How’s Willow?”
“Good. Aurora came over last night.” I’d told Ben a little about Aurora when we were last here.
His head whips sideways, and I can feel his gaze on me. “She met Willow?”
I know that on the face of it, Aurora meeting Willow is a big deal. But it felt really natural. It felt right.
“Yeah, at the townhouse.”
“Are you shitting me?” Ben asks. “You took a woman to the townhouse and had her meet your daughter? Was it the stepmom test? Have you picked out a ring?”
I keep my gaze focused on the screen in front of me. “We were all together for an hour and a half maximum before Willow went to bed. It’s not a big thing.” I can’t decide if it’s a big thing. I understand Ben’s shock. It’s not like I’ve ever introduced a woman to Willow before. But Aurora is heading back to the UK in a couple of months—the thought sends a sharp pain to my gut.
Ben scoffs, interrupting my introspection. “It’s a huge deal, unless you’ve turned into some super-chilled guy when it comes to Willow.”
“I told you, Aurora’s going back to the UK. There’s no ring.”
“So you invited her round because she’s leaving? I’m not following.”
“I’m saying, it’s never going to turn into anything big because she’s going to be an ocean away. I was due to have dinner with Aurora that evening, but Gabby had the stomach flu and needed me to stay with Willow. No big deal.”
“Sounds like it’s a very big deal,” he says.
I don’t respond, I keep pedaling, enjoying the burn in my thighs that’s come quicker than it normally does.
“What about work?” Ben says.
“It’s fine.”
“What about project alphabet?” he asks, referring to ABC Inc., but knowing he shouldn’t say the name out loud in a public place.
“I’m still talking to them. I’ve just…I’m just not prepared to fly out to the West Coast to shmooze them.”
“But you could fly out Sunday to Wednesday,” he says. “You wouldn’t miss any time with Willow then.”
He’s right, and I’d been planning to go to California, but I’d told Brian that I couldn’t make it at the last minute. I wanted to stay in New York and have dinner with Aurora instead.
Jesus, I can’t admit that to Ben. He’ll think I’m going soft. Or he’ll think things are serious with Aurora. But they’re not. At least they’re not as serious as he’ll assume they are.
When she told me yesterday that she couldn’t see me on her next day off, it was like a punch to the gut. Jealousy had surged in me at the thought that she might be seeing another guy. We haven’t had any kind of talk about being exclusive, but I absolutely don’t want anyone else when I can have Aurora. It makes no sense. But I don’t know if she feels the same, although we see each other every chance we get and text each other when we’re not together.
And how can I ask her? She’s leaving in just over a month. What can I say? “Hey, you wanna fuck just me while you’re in town?”
Even with Gabby, we never had that kind of conversation. We slept together for about three months before she got pregnant. After she was pregnant, most of our conversations were practical. We had to figure out where we were going to live and who was going to have time off when. We weren’t driven by our feelings. We were led by the fact we were bringing a human life into the world.
And what I felt for Gabby wasn’t anything in comparison to what I feel for Aurora. Part of me wants to ditch the birthday party I have to attend and ask if I can be her plus-one to her family thing on Saturday night. Or it wasn’t a family thing, it was a friend-of-the-family thing. There’s so much I don’t know about her. So much I want to know about her. But we’ll get timed out at some point.