CHAPTER 23
Gabi was exhausted from work. It had been a long day just in terms of the actual work, but then, there had been an all-company meeting that had been a nightmare because only some of the company was in the office.
The rest was remote, and trying to set up the technology so that everyone could see and hear took fifteen minutes.
Then, of course, the meeting had gone over, and after that, there had been a birthday party.
She had put in a quick appearance, but she’d been too tired to stay long.
When she finally got home, it was after seven.
She felt like taking a long bath and not a quick shower, so she hoped that neither Sarai nor Enya would be in the bathroom.
“Hey,” she said to Arlowe, who was sitting on the sofa, eating something.
“Hey. You’re home late. Want some ice cream? I picked up a whole thing earlier. In the freezer.”
Arlowe hooked her thumb toward the kitchen.
“I’m good. I just had a piece of ice cream cake, actually. Office birthday party.” She sighed and sat down next to her. “I tried to get out of there before the cake was passed around, but someone caught me on my way out, handing me a piece, so I had to stand around and finish it.”
“Ice cream cake is bomb. Why are you complaining? It’s ice cream and cake in one bite.”
Gabi chuckled and thought about how if she moved out, she’d end up missing moments like this one.
Roommates saying funny things had become something she really liked, and soon, she would be alone in an apartment, have to go furniture shopping again because she’d gotten rid of pretty much everything, and she would spend most of her nights alone.
The only hope was that she would be dating Sarai then, and they would have a place to go where it could be just them, and she’d still see Arlowe and Enya because of Sarai and the work, but it wouldn’t be the same.
She knew that for a fact because Violet still ended up hanging around and missing her friends, despite seeing them for work, too.
“I like ice cream cake. I just hate office parties.”
“Our office parties are pretty good.”
“I bet they are.” Gabi chuckled. “Is Enya around?”
“Nope. She went out to eat. One of her language adventures. I had a frozen pizza for dinner, but there’s a slice left if you’re hungry.”
“I’m good. What about Sarai?”
“I think she’s out back. Why?”
“I wanted to take a bath and soak for, like, an hour, so I wanted to make sure that was okay.”
“They can always pee in my bathroom, you know?”
“Wait. Did you say that she’s out back?”
“Yup,” Arlowe replied.
“It’s dark,” she noted.
“Yes, nighttime often means darkness. I say often because of the Arctic Circle.”
“Of course.” Gabi laughed a little. “Well, I’ll just go… take that bath, then.”
“Just go outside and talk to her. You two are worse than Violet and Stella when they were trying to pretend like they didn’t like each other.”
“Is she okay?” Gabi asked.
“She’s fine. She’s just Sarai. We were talking about this big idea she has for the upcoming launch earlier today, so the doubt has kicked in, I’m sure. I think she’s working on that, but I don’t see it going away instantly.”
“You guys say that a lot, you know?”
“What?” Arlowe asked.
“That she’s just Sarai. You say that, but do you try to help her out of whatever mood she’s in that causes her to doubt herself?”
“We did that this morning, actually.”
“Oh,” she said, not expecting that.
“But I get what you’re saying. I don’t think we’ve done it enough. We let her go be alone, thinking that was the help she needed, but she came up with a great idea today after we talked to her, and honestly, I think you were the biggest help.”
“Me?”
“She told us you helped her with the whole influencer thing, and she’s also been speaking up with her ideas more recently. I think that’s because of you.”
“No, it’s because of her.”
“Yeah, you like her. I get it. Go talk to her,” Arlowe replied with a little laugh.
“Does she even want to talk to me? Violet suggested I give her some time.”
“Vi told us that you asked her to move out.”
“She did?”
“Yes. You should’ve asked her for vault status. That’s how it works around here. You want something in the vault, you say that, and we don’t tell anyone else.”
“No one told me that rule.”
“Now you know. Anyway, you don’t have to move out.
If you want to, we won’t stop you, of course.
We’ll be fine, just the three of us. But we like having you here, Gabi.
I don’t want to say that there was a void when Violet moved out, but there was, and you’ve helped fill that.
I don’t mean that you’re Violet’s replacement.
You’re you. But we like you, and you fit here.
So, I think you should figure this thing out with Sarai before you make any big decisions like moving out if you like living here, too. ”
“I do. I love living here,” Gabi shared. “I wasn’t sure it would work at first because I haven’t had roommates in forever, but I love it.”
“Yeah, I figured. Go talk to her. My ice cream is melting.”
Gabi rolled her eyes and stood up, leaving her bag on the floor by the sofa.
When she looked through the back window, she saw the most beautiful woman in the world sitting on the swing, staring off into space, not actually swinging.
Sarai was lit by the moon and those walkway lights, but there was also a back porch light that either she or someone else had turned on for her, so Gabi could see her clearly, and it reminded her of their last night together when they had once again gone out with Sarai’s friends.
They’d been standing outside of the bar on the street, and the lights all around them had landed on Sarai’s face.
Gabi could still remember Enya snapping her out of her stare and telling her that they were going inside.
“Did you eat dinner yet?” Gabi asked when she walked out to meet her.
“I stole some of Arlowe’s frozen pizza. You?”
“I had ice cream cake.”
Sarai chuckled and said, “That’s your dinner?”
“I’m an adult. The best part about that is that I can eat whatever I want whenever I want, and no one can stop me.”
Sarai smiled over at her and said, “That’s the best part?”
“Well, there’s sex.”
Sarai coughed, and Gabi laughed silently at her reaction.
“Technically, you don’t have to be an adult to have it, but then, you’re worrying about your parents walking in or getting caught by the cops if you’re in a car at some secluded spot,” she added.
“Please tell me that’s not something you’ve experienced yourself.”
“Thankfully, no. We didn’t get caught,” she joked.
“What? Gabi!”
“I’m kidding. I’ve never had sex in a car. Is it something I’m missing? I always thought it would be awkward and uncomfortable and not likely to be any good.”
“It’s not great, no,” Sarai said.
“Wait. You…”
“Once. College. We both had roommates who seemed to never leave the room. It wasn’t good.
Legs went places. Arms were kind of everywhere.
I think she faked it. I didn’t even bother pretending that she’d made me…
well, you know. We basically gave up, went back to my room, and she went down on me with my roommate right under us on the bunk beds. ”
“Checking car sex off my bucket list. Got it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.”
“So, you want me to go find someone to have car sex with?”
“What? No!” Sarai said loudly.
Gabi laughed. Then, she remembered that they were sitting on a swing, so she pressed her feet down into the ground and pushed them off.
“Whoa,” Sarai said.
“You don’t ever swing on this thing, do you?”
“No. I just sit here. I kind of forgot that it does this.”
“You forgot that a swing… swings?”
“I don’t come out here for the swing.”
“Why do you come out here then?” she asked, continuing to use her feet to keep them swaying slowly.
“That,” Sarai replied, pointing.
Gabi followed her finger but wasn’t sure what she was pointing at.
“The tree?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Is there something special about that tree?”
“It wasn’t here when we first moved in.”
“No?”
“The landlord had just bought this place, and he wanted to redo the landscaping. The work went on for a few months when we got here, and one day, they planted this tree. I don’t know why, but coming out here and staring at it helps me sometimes.
I’ve been watching it grow for years now.
The limbs used to snap in heavy winds, but now, they hold bird nests, squirrels, and I saw an owl in there one time, too. ”
“That’s nice,” Gabi said.
“At some point, I started to see its growth and not my own, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“It has a whole family of squirrels living there. Multiple birds have had nests there, too. It’s like its own apartment complex or something.”
Gabi laughed.
“The branches go over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard now, but I’m still here. I don’t have, I don’t know, more branches or a family, or even the super successful career that I thought I’d have by now.”
“Sarai…”
“It’s fine.”
“Why do you keep coming out here if it just makes you think those things? Which are not true, by the way.”
“They are, though. I’m… single. I still live here. I–”
“You have a family. You live with them. And you have a successful career. You’re about to move into a new office space.
It might not look how you thought it would back when you made your plan, but it never does.
And, honestly, you’re kind of single right now by choice.
” Gabi looked over at the tree. “Not because there’s no interest.”
“I had this vision for my life, Gabi.”
“We all do. Do you think I planned on moving back to the US after my dad died? Getting a job in software when I’d planned on hardware after school?
Hell, moving in here with the three of you?
I never even thought I’d see you again. I’m here now, though, and it feels like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. ”
“But you want to move out.”
“I don’t want to move out. I want to be with you.” She turned a little toward her but kept them swinging. “You said me living here made it complicated. If that’s true, I’ll move out.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, no. I would have to find a new place to live and break my lease here, but–”
“No, I meant that you’re willing to do that for the possibility of us?”
Gabi smiled and replied, “Sarai, I cried on the train.”
“What?”
“When I left Amsterdam to go back to Paris, I cried on the train. I had the rest of this amazing gap-year trip coming up, but all I could think about was how I’d just left you in Amsterdam. I had to lean against the window so that no one would see.”
“You cried?”
“Why are you smiling at that?” Gabi laughed.
“Sorry. I didn’t know that. I guess–”
“It gives you a nice ego boost to think about me crying after saying goodbye to you?”
“No?” Sarai asked more than said, which only made Gabi laugh more.
“Sarai, I really don’t see us living in the same house as a big deal, but if you do, I’ll move out. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to move. I like living here. But I like you more.”
“What if we go on a date and it goes horribly wrong?”
“How would that even happen? What could go so wrong that we can’t still be friends or roommates?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, probably nothing, then.”
“The only real risk I’ve ever taken in my life was on this company.”
“What?”
Sarai looked at her and said, “I had that plan, and I was going to follow it, but then, we had the idea for this thing, and it’s been so long…
I know things are happening now, but it’s hard, taking the risk and not going to work for another company, where I would be making serious money by now and have a solid 401(k) plan and good health benefits, along with at least an apartment or house of my own even if I was still renting it. ”
“So, because you took one risk when you were just out of college and it hasn’t worked out how you hoped, you can’t take another one now? How did you start other relationships, then?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“How is it not?”
“They didn’t feel like risks. This one does,” Sarai said. “It feels like a pretty big one, too.”
“I think that means something. Don’t you?”
“It means it’s scary.”
“For me, too, but I’m still willing to go for it.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t want to convince you to date me, Sarai. I feel like I’m back in Amsterdam, and–” She stopped. “Wait. Did you just say you, too?”
“Yes, I did.” Sarai chuckled. “I’ve been afraid of a lot of things in my life, and the truth is that, tonight, sitting out here, I realized that while I don’t have all the things I thought I’d have by now, I think I might have something better.”
“What?”
“I have that family you pointed out.” Sarai nodded toward the house.
“And our company might not be that successful yet, but there’s the possibility of that on the horizon now.
Besides, working with my best friends for all these years, while definitely frustrating at times, is still better than working anywhere else. ”
“Tell me about it. I had to go to an office party tonight for someone’s birthday. When they started singing and got to the name part, I didn’t know what name to say, so I just went silent and pretended to smile.”
Sarai smiled at her and said, “Will you go out with me?”
“Finally,” she replied.
Then, Gabi kicked them off again, and they sat in the swing as it swayed, but instead of staring at the tree, Sarai was looking over at her.