Page 80 of Surprisingly Us

It’s cool. It’s casual. It makes no mention of vibrators or self-induced orgasms.

He hasn’t responded.

Why hasn’t he responded?

What is he thinking?

Why did he just leave this morning?

As my thoughts start to spiral out, I remind myself that Rhys and I are fake dating. He needs my help, and I doubt he’s going to abandon his effort to gain control of his parents’ foundation just because he found my vibrator and was slightly freaked out that I had just used it. Because as he had suggested, that’s what soap is for. Right now, I’d like to wash the memory from my brain.

I drop my phone into my cross-body bag and vow not to keep checking it.

To forget it even happened.

That’s not likely, but I’m going to try.

Since today’s to-do list was cleared by Rhys, I’ve decided to use my free time before I have to be at the practice studio to visit my parents. They’ve canceled the last two weeks of family dinner nights due to conflicts in their schedules, so even while we’ve talked briefly on the phone, it’s unusual that we’ve gone this long without getting together, and I miss them.

Their apartment is only a few blocks away. That’s how ridiculous it is that I haven’t seen them recently. It shouldn’t be that hard to get together, but with my busy schedule and their work, it has gotten more challenging. Even more so over the last few months.

On my way through the lobby, I say hi to Micah at reception. He’s on a phone call, but he waves as I enter the elevator.

We moved into this apartment when I was twelve. Once my dad had gotten tenure at NYU and my mom started taking on more clients at her interior design business. While Central Park West was an upgrade from our home in Brooklyn and it made my commute to the academy easier, I’d still been devastated by the move. My mom tried to cheer me up by making decorating my new room a fun event, but even pink walls, a canopy bed with sheer overlay and my own phone line was a hard sell.

Maybe it was my stubbornness, my resistance to change, or simply raging teenage hormones, but eventually, I grew to love the new place and it became home.

I knock but no one answers, so I use my key to let myself in.

I turn down the hallway and run straight into my dad and the box he’s carrying.

“Colette, sweetie,” he startles before shifting the box to one arm to embrace me. The familiar smell of his aftershave comforts me. It’s like a hit of nostalgia I didn’t know I needed so badly.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I was in the neighborhood.” I lift my arms up like it’s a coincidence.

“You live in the neighborhood.”

“Exactly. I haven’t seen you since Hannah and James’s wedding and that was for like five seconds, so I thought I’d stop by.” I glance down at the box. “What’s in the box?”

He makes a waving motion of dismissal. “Oh, just some old stuff.”

My eyes snag on a framed photo of me from a dance recital when I was ten. Another of me and him when we did a father/daughter trip to San Diego over spring break one year.

“Aren’t those the photos from your office?” I ask.

He looks down into the box, then back at me.

“Pam was helping me clean out the office and she must have put some things in here by accident. I’ll go through those later.” He sets the box down, then wraps his arm around me and walks me toward the living room.

My eyes scan the space, cataloging the walls and furniture to see what might have changed since I was here last.

As an interior designer, my mom loves to constantly change their furnishings. She changes her wallpaper like other people swap out seasonal dish towels.

It used to bother me as a child, especially when I got attached to a certain pillow or figurine and thenpoof!it would be gone to usher in the latest trend in home décor.

My mom used to tell meit’s not change, it’s progressbecause even at an early age I craved routine and order. Seasonal menus are all fine and good, but give me a restaurant where the menu doesn’t change so I know my favorite dish will still be on it. And don’t get me started on the stress of finding out the ballet tights company I ordered from for fifteen years went out of business.

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