Page 90 of Stoker's Serenity

“Not hardly,” she retorted. “This has been a long time coming for you, babe, and I really, really hope you throw a little caution to the wind here, and you go for it.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. I’d fully expected Linny to be the voice of reason here. Unless... what Stoker had proposed was legitimately totally reasonable.

‘Is that you talking, or your insecurities?’ he’d asked me at one point over the weekend, or at least something akin to that, and I’d paused then and thought about it. Just as I paused now and thought about it again.

Why did I honestly do anything that I did?

In order to be safe. In order to feel safe.

It was my first thought, so it must be true, and what else was true is that I never in my whole life had ever felt safer than when I was in Stoker’s arms.

“Okay, I know that look,” Linny said, interrupting my thoughts.

“What look?”

“The one that says you’ve totally just made up your mind. Need me to scrounge my store’s backroom for some boxes?”

I looked at my best friend over our salads and sighed. “I think I should probably double-check with Stoker and make sure he’s sure, don’t you?”

She rolled her eyes.

“He’s sure. That boy is totally sprung where you’re concerned, and who could blame him? You’re a treasure, my love. I’ll bring you what I can find tonight. What’s for dinner, anyway?”

I laughed and shook my head and asked, “What do you want?”

* * *

Linny and I had dinner,talked in depth about our weekends, and spoke more about the idea of my moving, which became less of an idea and more of a plan, the more we talked.

Now that she’d gone, I wiped my sweating palms on my comfortable black cotton skirt and stared down at my phone charging on my bedside table.

I’d never been nervous about calling Stoker before, but I was now.

I had picked it up and poised my finger to unlock it when the screen lit up with his smiling face and it started buzzing in my hand.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I mumbled, and answered the phone.

“You have impeccable timing,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

“I literally had the phone in my hand and was about to call you when the screen lit up and it’s you.”

“It’s me, alright. You doing okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Haven’t heard from you all day, it’s not like you.”

“Oh, um, I just had a lot to think about, and Linny came over – she just left, actually.”

“Oh, yeah?” He sounded cautious.

“Yeah.” I sank into my reading chair.

“What’d you guys talk about?”

“Our weekends, and the move,” I said carefully.

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