Chapter 13 #2
“I’ll say it again, you are the missing piece in my life,” I tell her more forcefully.
“I hated when you moved to NY even though we still saw each other often enough. Cut that out about polluting my life, you’re all I have.
You’ve never polluted my life, you’ve been one of the brightest spots in it, even when things were pretty dark.
” I feel my eyes stinging, dangerously close to tears that she thinks so little of herself. Her face softens when I finish talking.
“I have a ton to think about. There’s a lot of work I need to do on myself, and I need to figure out what I want my life to look like. Give me some time, ok? Maybe this Damian would be a good option, but I’m not sure what I want to do or if I want to go to trial again only for it to fail.”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry. Take some time, then, but I think you should eventually talk to Damian and see what he thinks. Please?”
“I’ll think about it. Moving on, did you say, “our cats,” as in they’re his now too?”
“There’s a joint custody agreement and everything in case he really pisses me off and drives me away. He can have them on weekends and one evening per week.” She snorts a laugh, and my god have I missed her laughing.
“Are you two together? Like officially? What about your not shitting where you eat rule?”
“Rules can bend, as you well know,” I sniff defensively. She laughs again before I go on a little more seriously. “I’m still not sure how I feel about our coworkers knowing, I don’t want them to look at us differently. They know I’m staying with him, and that we’re friends.”
“You’re not fooling anyone, sweetie,” she snickers. I glare at her playfully.
“I just don’t want another Scott situation. Carlo was quick to point out that this is different because there’s no power imbalance with him.”
“He has a point. Tell me everything, this is the tea I need today.”
I fill her in more about Carlo, how he’s kept my nightmares away and is insanely cute with the cats.
That we got through our first emergency vet visit together.
Finally, I tell her about the kissing, and she looks giddy for me.
Hopefully the guard isn’t listening too closely because she wants every detail.
“He sounds amazing, Nia, and like he worships you the way he should.”
“I’ve never had a serious boyfriend, Cece.
I don’t even know what to do with this man who calls me his dream, constantly wants to cuddle and kiss me, and is already talking about the cats like they’re his babies.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but having something this wonderful in my life is unnerving.
Like I’ll find out it’s been a mirage and will disappear any second. ”
She regards me seriously now. “It’s the blind leading the blind if you’re coming to me for relationship advice.
It sounds like you two already have it worked out, though.
Keep spending time together and learning about each other.
That’s all you can do, I’d imagine. It doesn’t seem like he’ll ever disappear on you.
Let yourself enjoy this, ok? If anyone deserves it, it’s you. ”
“I’m meeting his whole family and best friend this weekend. He has three sisters and a sister-in-law. Could you imagine what it would be like if we grew up having big, loud, family dinners?” She snorts again, this time a little more derisively.
“Jack and Beverly would never. They didn’t like having a ton of people over and they weren’t great cooks.
They tried, though. No one has ever tried with me more than them and you.
” I know the bare bones about her birth family and some of the places she was bounced around to.
Her parents had her when they were teenagers and thought they could handle it.
She had a brother come along 18 months later.
It all became too much for them after a while, and they just abandoned two small children.
She doesn’t really remember them very well but it was not the best start to life.
Her brother wasn’t placed with her, and she doesn’t know where to begin to see if he’s even still alive since she doesn’t even remember what his name is.
They were separated when she was 4 and he was 3.
“This guy is good for you, Nia. He’s already bringing you to meet his family and you’ll have all of these experiences we never had growing up.” Her face is the softest I’ve seen it since I walked in as she studies me closely.
“Want me to see if he’ll come with me to visit so you can meet him?”
“You better bring him soon. If you’re meeting his family he needs to meet yours.”
Our time is running out so I start to get ready to leave.
“I’ll visit again soon, Cece, hopefully with Carlo. Please, just think about meeting with Damian? See what he says? I know you don’t want to go through more legal hoops or get your hopes up, but it’s bullshit how this all went down and you deserve some justice.”
“I’ll think about it. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, I appreciate that you’re trying to look out for me. There is just a whole lot for me to work through right now.”
“Ok. Love you.” She blows me a little kiss as she’s led out.
“Love you, too”
When I get home in the late afternoon, I check the mail so Carlo doesn’t have to.
I never get much mail, I take care of almost everything online, and no one is sending me letters or cards except Celeste occasionally or maybe my foster parents on my birthday.
A couple of days after I moved in with Carlo, I did do an address change just because I didn’t want to have to deal with going back to my old complex to get it.
I’m astonished to pull out an envelope addressed to me, with the return address of the law firm that has been handling my parents’ estate.
There’s the forwarding sticker, doing its job.
Now I’m really glad I took care of that right away.
I go inside, greet the furballs, and open it up.
In the envelope I find a several pages long letter regarding the small house in Spain I inherited from my parents almost 2 months ago on my 25th birthday.
The law firm needs me to get in contact with them about getting the final paperwork done to transfer the deed to me since they’ve had no luck reaching me by phone.
That’s because I don’t answer unknown numbers and I get a million spam calls.
All of this is written in drawn out legal jargon that takes me a little time to decipher.
Once I settle in, I give them a call and set up an appointment for next week.
They’re located at the shore, so it’s about an hour drive that I can make during my day off on Tuesday, before I’m back at the tattoo shop.
I’m working all this weekend, but 4 days on before a day off is pretty sweet.
It’s gorgeously sunny and mild out today, so I decide to go for a run to clear my head about everything before making a quick pasta with sausage and peppers for us to have for dinner.
I time it perfectly so that I’m finishing making it when he walks in.
“Smells so good, I’m starving,” he groans. “Thanks for cooking.”
“Of course! I had off today so it wasn’t a problem at all.” He sees the letter I left on the coffee table and quickly scans it, his brows pinching in confusion. “What is this?”
“You can read it, it came in the mail today.” He takes a few minutes to read it thoroughly while I stir the drained pasta into the sauce, adding parmesan to finish it.
“Sweetheart, you have a house in Spain?” His question comes out tentative, like he’s not sure how I feel about it or how he should feel about it on my behalf.
“My parents left it to me, but didn’t want me to have it until I was 25 for some reason.
Probably hoping I’d be more established and better able to travel.
It’s technically not mine yet until I meet with the estate lawyer.
They’re contacting me because my birthday was almost 2 months ago and they want to finalize everything.
I made an appointment for my day off next Tuesday.
” He searches my face, trying to decipher whether I’m ok about all of this.
So I squeeze his arm reassuringly, because I think I am ok about it.
I’m ready to deal with this piece of my history.
“It’ll be a weight lifted to finally take care of this, I’ve been putting it off. I’d actually love to go to Spain with you at some point and finally see it but I’m not sure if we could both take off work and afford the airfare,” I tell him.
“Oh if you want to go, we are making this happen. We just have to plan a little with work, book a good deal for a flight, and get the cats taken care of. My mom would probably love to watch Gomez and Tish while we’re gone. Maybe we look at late May, Spain is supposed to have perfect weather then.”
“You really think we can pull it off? I can dip into my savings a little.”
“We can absolutely pull it off. I think I might even have enough miles to take care of our flights, I’ll check. This is going to be our first travel adventure, and I can’t wait.” He wraps his arm around my waist to bring me close so he can seal it with a kiss.