EPILOGUE
“Babe, you left your towel on the floor,” Gabi said.
“Shit. Sorry,” she replied. “I had to run out this morning after my shower.”
Sarai walked into the bedroom, picked up her wet towel off the floor, and threw it into the hamper in the corner.
“I know. I had to run out with you. But I at least threw my dirty towel into the hamper before I did.”
Sarai glared playfully at her and asked, “We have to talk about it, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do. It’s time, Sarai.”
Gabi sat down next to her.
“I know,” she said on a sigh.
“Do you really not want to? Because that’s a different thing.”
“No, I do.” Sarai turned toward her girlfriend, crossing her legs on the bed. “I do. I want us to live together.”
“We already do,” Gabi replied, looking around Sarai’s bedroom. “It’s just too small.”
“I know. It hasn’t been working for a long time.”
“Most of my stuff is in another room because there’s not enough space in here for all of it, and it’s weird, Sarai. I never know what I have in your closet or mine. I love living here, I do, but…”
Gabi turned and mimicked Sarai’s posture.
“But we’ve been together for a year, and your lease is technically up.”
“I don’t know that Violet is going to harass me about re-signing since you and I are dating, and she knows I’m not going anywhere, but I should either re-sign the lease, or we should–”
“Move out,” she finished.
“And in together. I want us to do that, babe.” Gabi took Sarai’s hands in her own.
“Have our own place. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but with a bedroom that’s actually meant for a couple, our own bathroom, a kitchen that only has our food in it, and no pesky roommates who sometimes steal it. ”
“I want that, too.”
“Okay. So, it’s your call. Where do we go from here?”
“We should find a place first,” she suggested.
“Really? You don’t want to give them a heads-up?”
Sarai looked up at the ceiling and said, “I don’t know. What’s the right thing to do? Should I tell them now or later?”
“I would let them know now, babe. They need to decide what to do with our rooms. They’re not just losing one roommate but two this time. They might need to find two more to replace us, so they could use the time while we’re looking for a place to do it.”
“I don’t know that they even want other roommates.”
“Can they afford to live here on their own?”
“I think so, yeah. It’s not how it was when we were all living here before we got the investment dollars and all four of us were barely scraping by.
Things are going well now. We all actually make real paychecks for one, and they’re nice paychecks, too.
None of us is rich, but we’ve kept our overhead really low for so long that we’re about to be profitable, actually profitable for the first time ever.
I don’t know that they need new roommates. ”
“I can say that if I were Arlowe and Enya, I’d want to know as soon as possible that my friends were moving out. You saw how they were with Violet. It was hard for them because she kind of told them one night and never really lived here after that.”
“Different situation, though. We knew she’d eventually move in with Stella and into Stella’s house. You live here, so I’m not leaving until we find a place we like and move there.”
“I’ll follow your lead. Whatever you want, we’ll do, but this room is really small with both of us living in it, and it’s bigger than mine, so mine wouldn’t even help.
I want a basic apartment with my girlfriend, and I’d like it soon, too.
I’ve been looking online already, and I have a few options that I can show you, but you know how fast apartments go around here.
We should look into them soon, or they’re going to be gone. ”
“You were looking already?”
“Sarai, I started looking at apartments for us about six months ago,” Gabi said with a smile.
“I wasn’t thinking we’d move out then, but I wanted options in case we decided that we wanted to.
Now, we’re both at the office pretty much every day or working in the garage because there’s no space in here, and my room has my furniture, so there’s not much space there, either.
If we’re going to work from home, we can do it in a two-bedroom apartment of our own. ”
“Two bedrooms?”
“One for us. One for our desks,” Gabi replied. “I think we can share an office, but if not, I’ll just put my desk in the living room.”
“I don’t know if we can share. You didn’t want to share an office with me at work,” she joked.
“I did, but you needed that space for your team and your dry-erase wall, babe. I wanted you to have that.”
“You’re the best girlfriend,” Sarai replied.
“Hold that thought.”
Gabi held up her finger.
“What? Why?”
“Well, you and I have been together for a year now, and my mom…”
“Oh,” Sarai said. “She wants to meet me?”
“She’s coming to town next month.”
“Ah… You want to move out of here by then because your mom is coming to town. I see.”
“Not just that. I want a place for us. But, yeah, I guess I’m in a little bit of a rush. If we still live here, that’s fine, but she hasn’t been here since I moved, and I’ve only visited her once… without you.”
“I had to work.”
“She knows. She just wants to meet you, babe.”
“I want to meet her, too.”
“She’s pretty jealous that I’ve already met your parents.”
“They were in town, and you didn’t have to work.”
“I know,” Gabi said. “So, is it okay?”
“Gabs, of course, it’s okay. I do want to meet her. She’s your mom, and I love you.”
“But is it really okay to find an apartment on such short notice?”
“We can try. I don’t know how long it’ll take for us to actually move in.
We have to find something, apply, get accepted, fill out the paperwork, pick a move-in date, and then, actually move in.
I don’t want your mom to see us living out of boxes, so we’d have to unpack, put things together, too, and maybe decorate. ”
“We have close to six weeks. I believe in us,” Gabi said before she stood and walked over to the bedside table where she kept her tablet most of the time.
“I have five apartments that I think you’ll like, and tomorrow is Saturday. I can schedule appointments for all five of them, or, if you want, we can go through them now, and you tell me no on any of them so that we can narrow it down and look for more if we need.”
Sarai loved how excited Gabi was about this.
She was, too, but she also knew that telling her friends that they were leaving was going to hurt.
When Violet had moved out, it had been hard because she was the first to move, but Sarai would be moving out with Gabi, and Enya and Arlowe both loved Gabi as their friend and roommate.
They’d be losing both of them, and she wasn’t sure how they would handle it.
“Okay. Yeah, let’s look,” she replied because ultimately, Sarai had to do what was right for her relationship, and while them sharing this room hadn’t been all that bad, it had created some issues.
Not sharing a room when Gabi lived in the same house had felt strange to both of them, so outside of the time Gabi had gone to visit her mom, they hadn’t had a night apart yet, and Sarai wanted to keep it that way, but the house felt really crowded, even though it was still just the four of them.
“Yeah?” Gabi checked.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
They sat back against the pillows, and slowly, they went through the five apartments that Gabi had picked out.
Sarai liked four of them and said that the last one was a maybe, so Gabi made the appointments for them for the following day, which would make it a very long one, but Sarai wanted to give this to her.
Gabi had been so supportive of her not being able to leave the house when moving out together had first come up, and she’d been ready for them to have their own place for a while.
The following morning, they woke up before Enya and Arlowe and headed out to grab some breakfast together near the first apartment that they were checking out so that they could also explore the neighborhood a bit.
It was nice. Sarai liked it, but what she liked even more was how excited Gabi seemed to be about the prospect of them moving in together, decorating an apartment however they wanted, shopping for furniture, and cooking dinner together without being interrupted or having to worry if they were cooking for four instead of two.
“I love you,” Sarai said as Gabi pulled the car into the parking lot.
“I love you, too. What was that for?”
“I just wanted to say it.”
Gabi smiled over at her, and they went into the leasing office.
Thirty minutes later, they had the link to fill out the application, but they had to go to their next appointment first, and after five and a half hours, they had visited not five, but six apartments, and they had four links for online applications to fill out.
Gabi was still very excited. Sarai was, too, but finding possible apartments to live in had been the easy part for her.
The hard part would be telling her friends.
◆◆◆
“Hey, can I talk to you two?” she asked when she caught Arlowe and Enya in the kitchen three days later.
“Sure. What’s up? Where’s Gabi?”
“She went into the office already. I wanted to talk to you two alone.”
Hearing that, Enya leaned back in her chair.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” Arlowe asked, doing the same.
“Yeah,” Sarai replied, sitting down in her own chair.
“When?”
“We got accepted for an apartment last night. We have to put down the deposit today if we want it.”
“That’s fast,” Enya said.
“We only started looking on Saturday, thinking it would take a while to get a place we can afford around here, but we found a few that we liked, applied, and the one we liked the most has actually accepted our application. We have to pick a move-in date that’s within twelve days because that’s how long they can keep the apartment open for us before we have to start paying the rent, and Gabi’s mom is coming to town in about five weeks, so she’d like us to be all moved in by the time her mom gets here. ”
“She doesn’t want her mom to see you two sharing one small bedroom and sharing a house with two other women, huh?” Arlowe joked.
“Not really, no, but it’s more than that.”
“You two are ready to live together,” Enya said. “That’s amazing. I’m really happy for you, Sarai. Arlowe is, too.”
“Arlowe can speak for herself,” Arlowe said and looked from Enya to Sarai. “And I am very happy for you, Sarai. For both of you. I want you two to have this. I know what it’s like not to have it, you know?”
Sarai nodded and said, “It’s been another year, Arlowe.”
“I know,” she replied. “I’m still working on it.”
“I won’t push you, but…”
“She’s thirty-four now, Sarai. And she’s amazing. You know she’s married. We all do.”
“We don’t until you actually look her up, Arlowe,” Sarai reasoned. “But like I said, I’m done pushing. I need to talk to Violet because the lease is in her name, but she’s only going to ask you two, so…”
“Of course, you can move out,” Enya said. “I’m moving into your room.”
“And I don’t want another roommate this time. I could use an at-home office that has air-conditioning. You cool with that?” Arlowe asked Enya.
“I’ll keep my now-old room as my office, and you take Gabi’s old room?”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Arlowe replied.
“Wow. Just like that? It’s already Gabi’s old room, huh? She still lives here.”
“Please, it’s been her old room since you two got together,” Arlowe said.
“It’s going to be weird for a while again, isn’t it?” Enya asked as she looked over at Arlowe. “Just the two of us now.”
“I think we’ll be okay,” Arlowe replied. “It’s time. We made it through Vi moving, and we’ll make it through Sarai leaving us, too.”
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just leaving the house. And trust me, it’s going to be hard for me, too. This place has been my home for twelve years.”
“But now, Gabi is your home.”
Arlowe gave her a soft smile.
Sarai nodded and said, “She is. She’s the one. Took me forever to get back to her, but now that we’re together, and we know it works and it’s forever, we want a place of our own.”
“Tell the apartment place that you’re taking it,” Arlowe told her. “And pick a moving date on a weekend so that we can all help.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. When I eventually move out of this place, I’ll want all of you to help me, so I’m just adding up some favors here.”
Sarai laughed and felt a little bit better.
When she got to the office, she found Violet first and shared the news with her, too.
Violet was, of course, fine with it, and she congratulated Sarai.
They worked out the details, and Sarai found Gabi in her office, staring down at some parts that she was probably trying to connect together, which was a common occurrence these days.
“Hey,” Gabi said when she noticed her. “How did it go? Please tell me you didn’t chicken out. I really love this place, babe. It has that bay window.”
“We’re good to go,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah?” Gabi asked, looking so happy.
“I also emailed the apartment place and told them that we’re taking it. We’re moving next Saturday so that Arlowe, Enya, Violet, and Stella can help us.”
“You’re serious?”
Gabi stood up quickly.
“I am. Can Chase and Mark help, too? They’ve got more muscles than all of us combined.”
Gabi leaned back against her desk and said, “Well, they are gym gays. I’ll ask. We’re really getting our own place?”
“Yes.” Sarai moved into her and took Gabi’s belt loops, pulling her closer. “You should know that I might cry when we pull away from the house that day, but it’s not about you.”
“I know,” Gabi replied. “It’ll be hard for a while, but I’m going to be there for you in our brand new, master bedroom that is big enough for both of us, and in that garden tub that–”
Sarai kissed her and laughed a little when Gabi tried to continue talking.
“You and me,” Sarai said after she finally pulled out of the kiss, cupping Gabi’s cheek. “Meant to be.”
Gabi smiled and replied, “Definitely.”