Page 26 of Worlds Apart
“You need to drink more water.” She pushed her full glass of water with no ice and lemon across the table at the wine bar in Falls Church City. “Have you eaten anything today?”
Sunny blinked. “I had breakfast.”
“It’s seven o’clock, Sunny!” Lulu waved down a server and asked for a menu. “What is with you? It’s not like you to forget to eat.”
“I don’t know.” She did know. She was at the office and she was afraid to open her door lest a flood of coworkers come into her office and distract her from the project she was working on, so she’d worked through lunch. “I forgot to bring a lunch and I was in the office today.”
“You and the remote working thing.” Lulu shook her head. “It’s not healthy. You’re already an introvert and working from home just makes it worse.”
“I heartily disagree.”
“Can we get back to the Kenyan guy you’ve been texting for two months?”
“Almost three now.”
“It was a fun holiday romance, Sunny. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. I swear, you take everything too seriously.”
“I’m not taking it too seriously.” Which was a complete lie. She was half in love with Martin. Maybe more.
Definitely more.
“I mean, from what you told me, the man is handsome, rich, and fit. He might have girlfriends on every continent for all you know. He meets people from all over the world all the time.”
Her sister must have saw when the suspicion pierced Sunny’s heart.
“Oh sweetie, no.” Lulu reached across the table and took her hand. “You’re gorgeous and smart and have so much going for you. He could not find better anywhere in the world!”
Sunny sipped her water. “But…?”
“If you lived in the same place then it would probably be an amazing relationship.”
“People have long distance relationships, Lu. It’s not… You and Chaz were long distance for two years when he was in grad school.”
“But we didn’t start out that way. We had a relationship first, happened to have to go long distance for a while—three hours apart, by the way, not twenty-five or something.”
“Fifteen hours by air.”Not counting layovers.
“I’m just saying, no onestartsa relationship with someone on another continent.”
Sunny was silent, remembering the message from Martin that morning. It was the only thing that had brightened her day when she knew she’d had to go into the office. “What if…?” She swallowed the lump of doubt in her throat. “What if we do?”
Lulu felt sorry for her, and Sunny couldn’t stand it when her big sister looked at her with pity.
“Just because you didn’t do it doesn’t mean we can’t.” She remembered Martin’s laugh and brilliant smile when she saw him over the video chat the other night. He’d grown his beard out and it suited him. He looked even more like an adventurous explorer. He’d been teasing her about shaving it off when he came to visit so he didn’t scratch her face and she’d protested that he needed to keep it.
“Isn’t it possible?” Sunny blinked back the tears and sipped Lulu’s water. “I mean, why not? He’s going to come for a visit when the camp slows down. He’s not hitting the clubs in Nairobi every weekend, Lu. Alice says he works all the time and she said she’s never seen him date a guest before.”
“Okay, good.” Lulu shrugged. “Good. I’d love to meet him when he visits.” She was still skeptical, Sunny could tell. “When is he thinking about flying over?”
“Probably the beginning of November. That’s when things usually slow down.”
“Good. Cool. He sounds very sweet. You know me, I’m just protective. I don’t want this guy scamming you.”
“He’s not like that.”
“Okay.”
Sunny knew that Lulu thought she was naive and inexperienced. And… in a way she was. She hadn’t been like her sister in college with boyfriends and a huge social life. Sunny had only had a few friends; she believed in quality over quantity. And since many of her friends from school lived overseas, she didn’t hang out with them regularly.
