Chapter 18 Met My Wife
MET MY WIFE
“When do I get to meet this woman of yours?” Logan asked him the next day.
Rowan and Logan had been best friends since college. When his business was up and running, he needed someone he trusted to run the operations end of it. Who understood his vision and wanted to see it grow.
It’d been a no-brainer to call and offer Logan the job at Sixth Surf. The guy who introduced him to the board one day after exams.
“She’s coming over this afternoon,” he said. “She’s running errands and getting a feel for the area.”
“How does it feel living with someone?” Logan asked. “You never have before.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “We were together nonstop in Colorado. No issues there.”
Logan laughed. “The honeymoon phase. Trapped in the mountains in that gorgeous house and not much to do other than have sex.”
“Dude,” he said. “Three days we were trapped and not even that.” Though it was a lie. It would have been dangerous to leave. “Then we were out and about doing things.”
“You’re really serious about her, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have asked her to move in with me if I wasn’t,” he said. He got up and closed his office door. “I think I met my wife.”
Logan’s jaw dropped. “Get out.”
“I’m telling you. I’ve never felt this before.”
Not from the moment he saw her plight in the airport, stepped in to help, and then convinced her to join him in the cabin.
For the past few weeks he’d thought to himself what he might have done if she’d said no. That she didn’t want to go with him.
He wasn’t willing to let her go and might have just stayed right at the airport by her side.
“You’ve dated before. Been in relationships too.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But not like this. I can’t explain it.”
“Did you tell her about Ava?” Logan asked.
“No,” he said, frowning. “Why would I? It’s not like we’ve talked about all the people we’ve dated and very few know about me and Ava. You know that.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Because this isn’t just an ex but a business partner.”
He sighed. “She’s not a business partner. We sponsor her on the tour and have a line of boards with her name on them.”
Ava got a percentage of the sales, but that didn’t make her a partner.
“You work with her still,” Logan said. “Don’t nitpick.”
“It’s still not a big deal.”
“It will be if you’re not honest. But we know, you can’t stand controversy.”
“That’s not true in the least,” he said, his jaw dropping.
“You’ve been like this since I met you. You barely go home because you want your space.”
“That is a far cry from controversy. That is wanting to be my own person.”
“Fine,” Logan said. “But you still don’t. You give in all the time or let women have their way.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s never been worth fighting about or for before.”
His best friend’s head went side to side. “Maybe. You said Saylor had two interviews yesterday. Did she hear anything?”
“She got offers for both jobs yesterday. We talked it over last night.”
“Enlighten me. You advised her to take any job she wanted instead of one better suited to your relationship.”
He didn’t want to admit that he felt that way. “She already picked up her life to come here. I’m not about to tell her what job she has to work. I told her she didn’t even have to decide right away.”
“What did she say to that?”
“She doesn’t want to not contribute.”
Logan burst out laughing. “She knows who you are and related to, right?”
He held his snarl in place. Barely. “Yes.”
Logan put his hand up. “If anyone knows how much you hate people bringing up West, it’s me. I only wanted to make sure she knows those things. She’s really worried about living off of you?”
“Yes. She’s very independent. I won’t take that away from her. But she decided on a job.”
“The one you would have picked?” Logan asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Yes.” Thankfully.
He told her to list pros and cons and in the end, suggested she do what worked the best for her health.
She’d been stunned he’d said that. She never once brought it up, but he wondered if one would have been more taxing on her.
In the two weeks they’d been apart, he’d read as much about type 1 diabetes as he could and knew that stress could affect her blood sugar. Pretty much everything could and he hadn’t realized the extent of it.
She never complained about it. She’d been low a few times, eating candy or other treatments he’d stocked in the house prior to her arrival. Then they went grocery shopping together on Sunday and he resisted the urge to pay when she jumped ahead of him.
He wouldn’t be embarrassed over it.
They didn’t know who he was there.
Lots of women paid at the store when they went in as a couple. Could just be they had shared accounts in people’s minds and she was the first to pull her card out.
“Did you sway her at all?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“So where is she going to be working? Does it give you two time to get to know each other, or space to get used to living together?”
He didn’t want the space, but since he worked long days, this was actually perfect. He rarely had a full day off.
Which wasn’t true. His office was closed on the weekend, production closed on Sundays.
That was what sucked the most. It was Saylor’s first day in.
But Logan dealt with most production and operations anyway and just kept him in the loop.
His job was running the rest and being creative because he refused to give that up.
He was networking and designing boards. It was how he got into this.
“Both,” he said. “She’s working three thirteen-hour shifts. Twenty minutes from the house. She’ll leave at seven.”
“You’re here around then,” Logan said.
“Yes. So we’ve got mornings together.” Which he was looking forward to like they’d had in the cabin. Breakfast and conversation together before they started their day. “She’ll get home between eight thirty and nine, depending on when patients are gone.”
“You don’t get home until seven half the time,” Logan said.
“Dude, I didn’t know you knew so much about me.”
Logan smirked. “It’s because I’m working the same hours as you.”
He laughed. “True. But she’ll be home at two thirty on Wednesday, then off Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
“Those are great hours for a nurse.”
“That’s what she said.”
But he knew she wasn’t making the same money. He didn’t want her worrying about that either and pointed out it wasn’t a concern.
She caught herself from growling at him. The last thing he wanted was her to not be herself but knew they’d butt heads on that part.
He wasn’t giving in regardless of his best friend telling him he hated controversy.
It wasn’t really true. He fought plenty with his siblings growing up.
But as his mother pointed out, he did it to be sent to his room and have some peace and quiet.
Guess he didn’t realize how much of a wuss he was.
“Then it’s working out,” Logan said.
“So far.”
He was thrilled she’d brought home a few items for the house. She’d been surprised by his lack of decor, but he had surfboards on the walls downstairs.
Upstairs he had some artwork, but not much.
He was simple and uncluttered because so much of his life was cluttered as a child.
Too many people in small spaces.
“Does she surf?” Logan asked.
“No. But she wants to learn.” He hadn’t shared information about Saylor’s health. She had her sensor on the back of her arm. If she came in a fitted T-shirt like he’d seen on her, it was going to be noticed anyway. Might as well give him a heads up. “She’s a type 1 diabetic.”
“How come I’m hearing this now?” Logan asked.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“You always had a soft spot for Damon in college.”
“No, I didn’t,” he argued. “We all got along with him.”
“We did,” Logan said. “But he could be a dick at times.”
“When his sugar was off. If he was high, which happened a lot because he didn’t always take care of himself, he was testy.”
He knew those things because he asked when others didn’t.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Is Saylor like that? You hate when people are annoyed, frustrated, or let’s be honest, just bitchy.”
“Don’t say it’s because I hate controversy. It has more to do with living with so many personalities growing up. And no, Saylor isn’t like that, but I haven’t seen her with her blood sugar high. Just low a few times and even then, not that low.”
“Considering her profession, I’d think she’d do a good job at that.”
“She does a great job. But being in the water for long periods of time, her devices might come off.”
“Like what Damon wore? Those two things. The one looked like a half egg on him.”
“The same things,” he said. “I’ve got some suggestions for her when the time is right.”
“A dry suit would work,” Logan said. “Not that comfortable but still works.”
“That’s one thing. There are several waterproof tapes she can put over the adhesive that holds her equipment on her. I grabbed a bunch for her to try.”
Logan laughed. “You really are head over heels if you’re doing everything you can to get her in the water. Do you need her to have the same loves as you?”
“No,” he said. Because he already saw how she felt about his home and the beach. If she wasn’t someone to be in the water all the time, but didn’t care if he was, who was he to complain?
His phone buzzed on his desk, it was a text from Saylor that she just pulled into the parking lot. He stood up and walked toward the door.
“Is she here?” Logan asked.
“She is,” he said. “I’m going to meet her downstairs. She’s nervous about coming in and saying who she is.”
“Who else knows about her?”
“Just you,” he said.
“Interesting,” Logan said.
He wouldn’t address that.
Rowan walked down the hall, to the front, and saw Saylor coming in the door.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t expect such a gigantic building.”
“Most of it is manufacturing,” he said. “Offices are on this side.”
She was looking around the reception area. There were surfboards on the walls. Framed portraits of the pros using his boards.
Plenty of pictures of him with those pros and friends alike.
Employees too.
He added pictures all the time.
“This is awesome,” she said, moving over to gaze at the gallery of photos.
“Thanks.”
“It looks like you are close to so many people. Like a family.”
“The surfing community could be considered that.”
“Ahhmen,” Logan said.
“Sorry. Saylor, this is my best friend, Logan Capana. Logan, Saylor Beach.”
“Nice to meet you,” Logan said, shaking hands with his girlfriend. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I can’t say the same,” she said, smiling. “I mean, I know your name, that you work with Rowan and went to college together. But looking at these pictures of the two of you, there is a crazy long history, huh?”
“There is,” Logan said. “I’m from California. I’m the one who got Rowan on his first board.”
Saylor gave Rowan a playful nudge with her hand. “You should have added that part.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think of it.”
“Because he doesn’t want you to know I’m better than him.”
“I don’t know enough about surfing to determine who is better than another. I guess to me, if you can stay on the board and ride a wave to the beach, you’re good.”
Logan’s appalled face had him bursting out in laughter. “A bit more than that. But you’ll learn if you want to.”
“I do,” she said. “To learn about you, I need to know about what you love in your life.”
Rowan cleared his throat and looked at Logan as if to say, “Told you!”