Chapter 15 Be Normal
BE NORMAL
In the week that Saylor had been home, she’d barely been able to sit her ass down to watch TV let alone make a phone call to her grandmother.
She’d gotten in from her flight around six, ran to the store to get food for the week. Not a ton as she’d be moving in two weeks, but she needed some things.
Then she’d unpacked, started her laundry, and sat at her laptop to update her resume.
The next morning, she got up early, looked for jobs and applied for several in Long Beach. She wouldn’t look outside that area unless she had to. Best to stay close to Rowan’s house.
She worked six days and today was her first day off. It was time to fill her grandmother in on her next move, like she always did.
“Hi, Saylor,” her grandmother said when she answered. Her grandmother retired last year, but at sixty-eight was healthy and active and not always home.
She’d scheduled the time of this call to have a long conversation.
“Grandma,” she said. “I miss you.”
“You could have seen me and chose not to.”
She heard the laughter over that. She still struggled with giving up that visit.
She only had a week to go before she had to move, not that it was long of a flight from Long Beach to Phoenix.
Nonstop was ninety minutes. She could take a quick trip and was considering it before she started a new job.
But she didn’t want Rowan to get upset if she moved there and then left right away.
And if he got upset, then would he be the guy for her?
Stupid question when she got home yesterday and had a delivery.
She had no clue who sent her anything, but she opened it and saw the big gift box of candy. Not just chocolate but gummies. Lots of her treatment foods, protein bars, and nuts with it.
A note from Rowan saying: Road trip food. Carbs and protein to get you through.
She wasn’t looking forward to the twenty-hour drive from Des Moines to Long Beach. But she couldn’t get a moving company scheduled in time to make the trip and she could fit everything in her SUV anyway.
It’s not like she was taking furniture with her. Her apartment had been furnished and what she might have bought was cheap and she’d leave it behind.
“I’m sorry. There is so much going on I’ve got to fill you in on.”
“Oh no. That doesn’t sound good. Let me get comfortable.”
“It’s not bad. I promise. It’s actually good, but you might not be happy with it.”
Her grandmother sighed. “Where are you transferring to this time?”
“California.”
There was a pause on the other end. “That’s not part of the NLC, is it?”
Her grandmother was a sharp one. “No. I applied for my endorsement license and sent my resume out last week for positions.”
“You always went through an agency before.”
“Not this time.” It was time to confess what she’d been hiding for the past two weeks. “Remember the person I stayed with in Denver?”
“Yes,” her grandmother said. “A friend of a friend.”
“I lied. It was a guy who helped me get my supply bag off the plane when we had to exit quickly. I was panicking and couldn’t get back on to get it and you know how that is.
It’s a good thing too because I would have been stuck in the airport stressed out for days with a week’s supply rather than a month’s worth for emergencies. ”
“I know exactly how frantic you get over that. You’re terrified of ending up in the hospital again.”
“Funny, considering I work there now.”
“It’s different when it’s for your care. You’re carrying around a lot of PTSD over your childhood and how poorly you dealt with your diabetes. Through no fault of your own.”
The fast food she’d lived off of and didn’t give herself enough insulin for. Ignoring the warnings and settings on her pump when she needed to treat or make changes.
Just wanting to fit in and be normal like everyone else.
But she wasn’t like everyone else and finally realized it before it was too late.
She stopped beating herself up over that. Even being mad at her parents. She couldn’t change them or what they’d done, but she’d made the change for herself.
“It wasn’t,” she said. “But the guy who helped me, his name is Rowan. I went to his cabin to stay.”
“Saylor! You went to a stranger’s house in the mountains alone? Did I not raise you well?”
“You raised me perfectly. I have good judgment. Grandma, he’s such a nice guy. He had a friend in college who was a diabetic. He understood everything I was going through. He asked questions. Insightful, thoughtful questions if he had them. He wanted to know what I would tell him.”
“Hmmm. Okay. Even so, he was a stranger.”
“He was, but it didn’t feel that way. I can’t explain it. Just the three days we were stuck there, I decided I wasn’t ready to leave. I spent the entire week with him. He extended his vacation longer and we left together.”
“He could do that? And wait? He doesn’t live there?”
“No. It was his brother’s cabin. Not really a cabin, more like a massive house, but it doesn’t matter. He lives in Long Beach.” There was silence. “Grandma?”
“Yeah. You’re moving closer to him. Got it.”
She could let her grandmother believe it was that, but she wouldn’t. “I’m moving in with him.”
“Saylor!”
“Grandma,” she said sarcastically. “Hear me out. We spent a week together. A lot of time. More time than if I was dating someone for months. I know so much about him. And trust me when I tell you, there are a lot of family secrets that many don’t know.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Are you going to tell me those secrets?”
“Once I tell you who he is, you’ll understand. But you have to promise me you won’t tell Mom and Dad. And especially not Sandy.”
Her grandmother snorted. “I don’t talk to them much. Definitely not your sister unless she needs me to watch her bratty kids.”
She laughed. “Those are your great-grandchildren.”
“They are still brats. Your sister raises them just as she was raised. Not sure how you turned out so well.”
“Because I had you and it’s not my personality to be that loud and in your face.”
“You’re right, it’s not. Tell me about this man and why I shouldn’t be worried.”
“You’ll still be worried because that is in your nature. But you don’t need to be.” She looked at the gift box on the table and pulled out the candy bar. She could use a little snack while she talked about her boyfriend. That is what he was to her. “His name is Rowan Carlisle.”
“Okay. How old is he and what does he do?”
“He’s twenty-eight. He owns a surfboard company. Sixth Surf. You can look him up. You’ll see a picture of him too.”
“Let me get my iPad,” her grandmother said. She waited and bit into the peanut butter cup. “He’s very handsome. Looks like he belongs on the beach.”
Saylor grinned. She’d looked at that picture a lot to get a better idea of how he might live his life.
It wasn’t just the portrait of him in a T-shirt with his logo on the front, but pictures on the website of him surfing on his products, employees that he’d talked about. His close friend Logan who was also the Vice President of Operations.
A pro woman surfer that he sponsored and together they had a line of boards. Ava Leigh.
She was young and beautiful. Maybe the type of woman she’d see Rowan with if she hadn’t spent a week with him in the mountains.
But it was a working relationship from what she could see, along with many pictures of him and other pros.
“Yeah, he does.”
She liked the pictures of him on her phone more. The selfies of them playing pool, having a snowball fight, cooking. Even in bed, but covered by the sheets.
No doubt they clicked when they were naked.
He’d been true to his word and made sure he proved their compatibility, going through every condom in the place. He’d had some in his bag that she didn’t want to know about. If he didn’t have hookups and was single, why did he need them?
Then he found more condoms in the cabin, which he’d explained had been left over from his brothers. He’d bought more and replaced them. Probably the responsible thing to do and she wouldn’t worry that he’d sneak away there and use them with someone else.
She had to get those thoughts out of her head.
She never worried about those things in the past with another man, but Rowan wasn’t like any other man she’d ever dated.
“He seems very young to be so successful,” her grandmother said.
This was where things got interesting. She had to be honest because she knew her grandmother would look into Rowan and find out as much as she could about the guy her granddaughter was living with.
“His brother is West Carlisle and helped him get the business started.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
It wasn’t one said around that she was aware of. “Billionaire West Carlisle. He lives in Manhattan but is from North Carolina. That’s where Rowan is from. There are eight kids. You can find them all online, but few have much about them other than their jobs, except his one sister Laken.”
“Ohhhh, Jamie Wilde. That’s how I know,” her grandmother said, her voice rising.
Her grandmother was a big football fan. It’d been news that Jamie had married Laken, then a little side note about who Laken’s brother was.
“There you go. Now you know why I don’t want Mom or Sandy to find out.”
“I’ll keep my lips sealed. Your mother won’t ask much anyway. If you tell her where you are next, she won’t even know California isn’t part of NLC. She likes to know you’re settled and in a good spot, then doesn’t stress.”
“Nope. And that is how I’m playing it for now.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“Why not? I needed to move anyway. I normally only have six-month contracts and this last one was a year. They don’t like you there longer. I’ll be closer to you and can fly in for a visit. I think I’ll try to do that before I start, if it works out.”
“I’d like that,” her grandmother said. “I’d like it more if Rowan came with you.”
She didn’t know if that would happen. “Maybe you can come see me? How about that?”
“You should clear it with your boyfriend first. At least I hope that is what he is now.”
“He is,” she said confidently. “And I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“You better prepare him for it,” her grandmother said, laughing. “Because I’ll be coming with guns a blazing.”
“I’d expect no differently.”