Chapter 19 #3
I roll my eyes. “Are you even listening to me? All of this is a mess! I just want to go home and hide under my duvet and go back to the way things were.”
“I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“For which part? Being unethical or sexually promiscuous?”
“Both, obviously. And for stepping outside your comfort zone for once.”
“Danny doesn’t even know the whole reason I took this job was to be with Casey in LA.”
“Do you still want to go?”
“Yes? No? I don’t know. I mean, yes. But instead of just following Casey and plotting to break up his relationship, now it’s just about building out the new Malibu team the right way.
Because”—I bite my lip, hesitating—“I actually think I’d be really good at it.
I’d never really let myself consider it before. ”
I close my eyes, preparing to divulge the next bit. What good is her advice if I don’t give her all the information?
“I haven’t mentioned it yet because I needed time to process,” I say. “But at the party, Casey … leaned in.”
Maya sets something down so hard I can hear it on my end of the call. “Leaned in how? Like, brush lint off your shoulder lean in? Or leaned in leaned in?”
“The latter. One second, we were talking, and the next, he was so close. But my dad’s neighbor called and my anxiety spiked, and suddenly Casey was whisking me away to South Seattle.”
Casey was amazing that night. Joking with my father, mutual respect radiating from them both. I couldn’t have done all that physical and emotional labor without him, and he knew it. Because he knows me.
“We’ve been doing life together for so long, I’m scared to give him up for something that may just be a fantasy.”
Maya slams her fist down on something. “For fuck’s sake—Casey is the fantasy!”
“No, you don’t get it. We take care of each other.”
Maya sighs. “Babes, how many years have you been dicking around with Casey?”
“Five or six.”
“And in all that time, have you even so much as kissed the man?”
“Not technically.”
“So maybe it’s time to consider the possibility that you never actually wanted to.”
I pause by a café and frown, then sit down heavily at one of their iron tables. “What are you talking about? Of course I wanted to. I’m obsessed with him. I literally took this job to follow him to a different state.”
“Or he’s just your human security blanket. Think about it, Lauren. In all this time, why haven’t you made your move?”
A waitress comes by with a menu, and I order a coffee I won’t drink and an ice water out of habit. Maya’s words aren’t settling well. It feels like she’s unwittingly honed in on a tender spot.
“I mean, there was Ally,” I argue. It’s weak even to my own ears.
“Sure, sure. Guilt over Ally will get you a pass for a couple years. But five or six? My Spidey senses are tingling. And so I posit, as has always been my position, that you were just too scared to see what else was out there. Because if you did, you might actually fall in love with someone for real. And that, my dear, is scary as hell. It’s much safer to stay in your little Casey purgatory. ”
My mouth goes dry. But that can’t be true. My coffee arrives, and I take a tentative sip, burning my mouth.
“I’m good, right?” Maya says. “Fucking nailed it.”
I hold an ice cube to my burned lips. Wait, are you supposed to ice burns? Or is that old medical advice, like blowing into people’s mouths during CPR?
“Are you sure I’m not just super inhibited? I did spend an awful lot of my weekends at Sunday School as a kid; Dad said it was cheaper than a babysitter,” I say. “Maybe I’m just repressed.”
“Are you repressed with Danny?”
“Oh my god, no. Maya, I’m like a whole different person when I’m with him. I’ve even stopped taking my beta blockers. It’s like he’s taken all my fears from me. And you wouldn’t believe what we’re up to in bed.”
“Try me.”
I laugh and bang my head on the table. “I’m such a fucking mess. Wasting six years of my life only to have my sexual awakening happen with a client.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. He’s literally a hedonist. Your uptight little ass didn’t have a prayer.
And as for Casey, you guys went through something traumatic together, and sometimes that forces humans to think they’re in love.
Like when Bachelor contestants go bungee-jumping and get engaged, only to break up before After the Final Rose. ”
“What scares me the most is, what if Casey doesn’t know how to do life without me either? What if I’ve stunted us both?”
“So, fix it. Sometimes the best way to take care of someone is knowing when to let them go, so they can grow on without you. That’s what the host of The Bachelor says, anyway. The new one. Not the problematic one.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Sure, you can. Just Marie Kondo his ass. Hug him to your chest, thank him for his service, then send him off to live his new life. And you can finally start living yours.”
“But what if Danny’s scary trainer is right? What if this whole thing with him only happened because I’m just a sad woman he’s trying to fix?”
“Then I’d say he’s doing a damn good job.”