Page 39 of I'm Your Guy
I’ll make it memorable. I like a challenge.
“Check it out,” Rigo says, and I look up from my phone.
We’re both seated at the little dining table in his kitchen. I helped him find this table, and every other stick of furniture in this place. It wasn’t easy, because the apartment is tiny.
Luckily, I’m a shopping genius. This table seats two but expands to seat six for dinner parties. I even found him some stackable chairs that are hiding in the closet somewhere.
He offers me his phone, and I take it. “What am I looking at?”
“There’s a picture of DiCosta on Instagram at a furniture store. And I think you’re in it. Isn’t this your arm?”
I squint at the photo. And, yup, I recognize that sofa we’re sitting on.
Seems like the woman in the sweatpants—the one who’d asked for DiCosta’s autograph—snapped a pic before she approached us. Or maybe it had been another shopper entirely.
Whoever it was, she cropped me out of the shot, of course. And gave it a caption:
Omigod, my future husband is shopping for a sofa! I’ll pick one for you, baby! We’ll break it in together! #hottommaso #cougarshockey #gocolorado
“People are weird,” I say slowly. “It’s like they take ownership of him, you know? My future husband.”
“Yeah,” Rigo agrees. “I’ve heard people say that before, and it always sounded cute. But it’s less cute when you remember that’s a real person. It’s just creepy.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. “Hey, Rigo? Can you come to a store with me after work today?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I need to take some video of beds, and it would help to have an extra set of hands.”
“Beds, huh?” He laughs. “I’d love to help hashtag hot tommaso find a bed. In a totally non-creepy way.”
* * *
I spend the morning working on Tommaso’s house. I repaint the cabinet in the downstairs bathroom. It had been black, which I’d found too harsh. But when I’m done, it’s a soothing slate-green color, a couple shades darker than the one on the fireplace wall.
Then I paint the mirror frame the same color.
This room is also getting a fluffy rug and a canvas shower curtain with a subtle botanical print on it. His mother will be very comfortable in here. But it’s not too girly for a single-man athlete’s house, either.
After lunch, I call my own mother and break the news that I won’t be coming home for Christmas. “Mom, I’m so sorry. But my bank account hates me right now, and I just can’t swing it.”
“Oh, baby,” she says with a sigh. “I’m sorry you’re struggling. What if I bought the ticket?”
“You can’t!” I squawk. “You’re saving for that cruise with your girls.”
She sighs. “But I love you more than the girls.”
“And I love you. But tickets for the holidays are seriously pricey. I already checked. If I come and see you during January, when my life is a little more stable, we’ll save a pile.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Okay, there’s a lot to unpack there. In the first place, I was going to suggest that we skip the church service this year, anyway.”
“Oh.” It takes me a second to realize why she’d say that.
Last year we’d run into Cal at the Christmas service. He was my high school ex. The one who disavowed me entirely after someone saw us making out in the back of his truck.
That was years ago, and I’m totally over him, if not the trauma of trusting a cowboy.
But there he’d been—with his wife and their two little girls—at last year’s Christmas Eve service. It had been awkward for me, and probably for him.
