32. Brynn
brYNN
I heard my cell phone buzzing and I dashed through the house. “I’m coming, Dani! Give me a second!”
Even though I knew my best friend was states away and couldn’t hear me, every time she rang my phone on Friday afternoons at four, it felt like she just walked into the house. I rushed around, grabbing my favorite blanket from the back of the couch as I steadied my Dr. Pepper in my hand.
I flounced to my bedroom, picking up the phone call from my bestie, and put her on speakerphone.
“Tell me you didn’t spill your Dr. Pepper this time,” Dani’s voice said, echoing across my room.
I placed my glass down and leapt into bed. “Didn’t spill a drop this time.”
“Oh, good, good. Because I got us in the spill department today.”
I barked as I reached for my drink. “Oh, nooooo! What happened?!”
“I swear to hell on high, that damned coffee shop up the road needs hand grippers for their to-go cups. What do they do, put fucking Vaseline on them sons of bitches or something?”
I cackled as I reached for my drink. “What did you get?”
“A fucking dirty iced chai.”
“Missing Christmas already?”
“Missing Christmas always,” she said with a snort. “Now, fill me in on everything. The season’s about to kick off, right? How’s that new coach working out for the team?”
It had been a few weeks since Dani and I had properly talked.
I mean, we still talked during our regular weekly scheduled times, but only for a few minutes at a time.
With Dani being a big-wig editor now with a big box publishing company, sometimes her weeks were eaten up with books and manuscripts and authors searching for feedback before publication.
She had also never fully forgiven me for not calling her back after the lunch date the way I promised I would, which she had brought up exactly twice per conversation since, with the precision of a woman who kept score and was not shy about it.
It felt good to have her attention now that she was on a little break.
“Funny you talk about the coach,” I said as I took a sip of my Dr. Pepper.
Dani snickered. “Please tell me that’s code for ‘the man is hot as fuck.’”
I grinned. “Actually, it’s code for ‘we’re dating and I lost my virginity to him.’”
Silence filled the other end of the line, and I paused.
“Dani?”
I heard her gasp a bit. “Did you just say… you lost your virginity?”
My smile was bright. “Yes. I did.”
And then, the biggest whoop I’d ever heard came through my phone. “WAAAAAA-HOOOOO! She did it! She’s a woman!” I cackled with delight as Dani danced on the other end of the line, her voice going wild. “My bestie is a woooooman. She finally gaaaaaave in. And now she geeeets it. She is a wooooooman.”
I shook my head and sipped my drink. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“Okay, we are so not changing the subject,” she said as I heard her shuffling around. “All right, you have my undivided attention. Now, ready for the important questions?”
“Oh boy.”
“How big is he?”
“Dani!”
“What!? Now come on, girl. This is you and me we’re talkin’ about. You can’t drop a life-changing bomb on me like that after the weeks I spent in hell trying to get books edited, published, and out onto bookshelves. So, tell me all the deets. No holding back.”
I leaned back in my bed and sighed. “He’s wonderful, Dani.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said dreamily before I took another gulp of my Dr. Pepper. “I mean, it’s still new news, so to speak. We’ve only been out a handful of times over the past couple of weeks.”
“He’s got your number?”
“Duh?”
“And you two talk regularly, even when he’s not drilling you into the mattress?”
I gasped. “Dani!”
“What!? Don’t tell me he’s not good at what he does, now. That would be so disappointing.”
I giggled. “Now, I didn’t say any of that.”
She scoffed playfully. “Okay, now you have to tell me. Are you a size queen right now? Or, are you all about that motion in the ocean?”
“Dani.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”
“Dani!”
“Bry!” she exclaimed, mocking my tone of voice. “See? I can do it, too.”
I shook my head and smiled. “You’re relentless.”
“And you sound very happy.”
I paused. “I am happy.”
“Good, because I never did agree with your move to head home and take care of your mother. She’s a grown ass adult.”
“You and Colton would get along in that department.”
“What? He thinks you’re a crutch for your mother, too? Oh, goodie! I like him already.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is this the part of the conversation where I try to get you to talk about your life, but you always divert back to mine?”
“Girl, I haven’t been laid in almost a year. Let me live vicariously through you. Is he a good kisser?”
“Yep.”
“Is he tall?”
I smiled softly. “Oh yeah. Built like a brick shithouse, too. Big, burly, a bit of softness where it counts.”
“Dad bod!”
I scoffed. “It’s not a dad bod. He’s not even a dad.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t have a dad bod. And hey, I’m not complaining. That softness is primo market meat, if you catch my drift.”
“Dani!”
She giggled with delight. “Hey, that’s the hot thing now, even in books. You’d be astounded at the kinds of main male characters I get nowadays.”
I sank back into my pillows as the straw in my drink started bubbling air with my sips. “How’s work going, by the way?”
“Meh,” she said as I heard her flop down onto something, “it’s going. Same old schedule, same old routine.”
“You sound like it’s not doing it for you any longer.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the routine. Much better than the shit we dealt with in college with our schedules. Remember our last senior semester? How you had to rework your schedule four fucking times?”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Don’t remind me. I swear, the student center was tired of seeing my face after all was said and done.”
“Exactly. This place runs a tight ship, and it’s a tight ship that I can jive with. So, no complaining, even though sometimes it gets monotonous.”
I rolled over onto my stomach. “Which is why you should take a trip down here so that I can take you to a game. Help get you out of your rut.”
She giggled. “Maybe you could set me up with one of those hockey players of yours that you and this coach man of yours are hoarding over there.”
“Come on down and I’ll introduce you to all of them.”
“Man,” she said, “who are you and what have you done with Bry?”
I blew air through my lips. “Pshhhh. The hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“I’m serious now,” she said as the playfulness left her voice. “I haven’t heard you like this, well, ever. Whoever this coach guy is, he’s clearly doing you some good. I’m happy for you.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Dani.”
“I should leave you to your devices more often, to be honest,” she muttered. “Maybe you’ll try pursuing your professorship career if I do.”
I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Hah. Hah. Hah.”
“What!? I leave you be for a few busy weeks, and you go and get a boyfriend and lose the big V?”
“It’s not that big of a deal, Dani.”
“It really is, Bry.” But then, she paused. “How does your mother feel about you dating the coach, though?”
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. “She’s not necessarily a fan of how old Colton is.”
Dani paused. “Yooooou… gonna fill me in on that answer or something so I’ve got context?”
“He’s 40.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
Dani snickered. “I don’t know, just pictured Santa Claus with a walker or some shit.”
“Dani!”
She giggled. “Forty isn’t that bad. I mean, that’s, what? A fourteen-year difference? That’s pretty typical in this day and age.”
I sighed with relief. “I’m glad you think so, because Mom would have you believe that I’d just throw my life away and set that shit on fire.”
“I mean, I can’t blame her, after losing your father the way she did at such a young age.”
I paused. “What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“I mean, what do you mean about losing my father? What does that have to do with Colton?”
She paused for a while before she spoke. “Don’t tell me you’re that dense.”
I blinked. “I’d be offended, but you just sound confused.”
“You mean to tell me you moved back home to take care of your mother after college and you don’t even know what powers her brain and her faculties most of the time?”
I took the last pathetic sip of my watered-down Dr. Pepper. “Love you, but get to the point.”
“You sure? Because I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
I sighed heavily. I still had yet to apologize to my mother for the blowup before my date with Colton a couple of days ago.
But if there was one thing I loved Dani for, it was giving me the hard truths that sometimes I simply didn’t see.
I swear to hell on high, sometimes she knew people better than she knew books.
Some days, I wonder if she missed her call to be a profiler for the FBI, or some shit.
“I want to hear it,” I said softly. “If it’s about Mom, and it will help with this situation—”
“You’ve already fought about it once?”
I nodded slowly. “And I may have said some things that I regret.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “No. I just want to know what you have to say. Maybe it’ll help.”
“If it doesn’t, will you tell me what happened?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Sure, yeah. So, what’s on your mind that you’re not telling me?”
“Just cut your mom a little bit of slack, okay?” Dani asked.
“She went through a horrible thing, losing your father like she did. I mean, yeah, you lost your father, but she lost her best friend. Her soulmate. Her life partner. How would you feel if someone called you right now and told you this coach guy died in a car accident somewhere? How would that make you feel?”
Just the idea made my heart clench. “Not good.”
“Now, add years of marriage and a child onto that, and that’s what your mother went through.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. But she doesn’t know what you’re going through, either. It’s two people, experiencing very different perspectives of the same circumstance.”
She made a lot of sense, but I still didn’t see how it pertained to Colton. And she must’ve read my mind, because before I could question her, Dani continued.