Page 483 of One More Kiss

“I would never,” she retorts.

I laugh, but we both know the truth. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a little busier than usual. When I get back, I’ll make sure he gets brushed every day, so he doesn’t shed as much, or you could brush him?”

She huffs into the phone. “Now you want me to spend quality time with him? Oliver loves to play hard to get when I try to catch him, probably learned it from his mama.”

I chuckle, shaking my head at her though she can’t see me. “If only I had a camera in my apartment. I bet you two are the best of pals.”

She grumbles.

“So how are things going? Where are you now?” she asks, changing the subject.

“Texas,” I reply. “It’s humid as fuck, too.”

“Yeah, us northerners can’t handle that kind of heat. Aren’t you glad you’ll be home in just a week? It’s starting to get chilly here finally.”

“Well, that’s what I kind of wanted to talk to you about.”

“You’re not leaving me with this damn cat,” she immediately blurts outs.

“No.” I laugh. “Ethan asked me to stay in Charleston with him,” I say the words aloud for the first time, which surprisingly doesn’t give me as much anxiety as I thought. I told her the story of seeing Ethan and how we were talking again but hadn’t gone into detail about the status of our relationship.

“Oh,” is all she offers.

“Yeah.”

“So, you’d be moving down there,” she says the words as if she’s ripping off a Band-Aid.

“I think so,” I say softly. “I mean, that’d be the only way to know if a relationship between us could really work. The long-distance would always cause problems, so—”

“Well about damn time,” she says, bluntly.

“What?” I ask, laughing. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been pining after that boy for a whole damn year, and now that you’ve reconnected, you’d be a fool to not see where it can go. There’s nothing up here for you, Vada,” she reminds me, though Chicago is all I’ve ever known.

“But the thought of just packing everything up and moving for him worries me because what if—”

“What if, what?” she cuts me off. “What if it doesn’t work out? But what if it does? Or what if you never take the risk and know for sure?” She fires out the questions as if she’s challenging me to really come up with a response.

“But—”

“Vada, dear. Don’t end up like me.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask, pulling my brows together.

“I missed out on the greatest love of my life, and now I’m in my sixties alone babysitting some ugly cat.”

I chuckle at her admission. “What happened?”

“Well, back before smart phones and sexting,” she begins, making me laugh even harder that she knows what sexting is. “I met a man in college who I fell in love with, and although we were madly in love with each other, once graduation rolled around, he deployed with the army. We wrote to each other as much as we could, but when he returned, he wasn’t the same man I’d fallen for. He changed; or rather, the army changed him. I was heartbroken because he turned to drinking and I couldn’t stand watching him self-destruct any longer. Fast forward to three years later, he had sobered up, got clean, and was starting his own business.”

“Wow…what an achievement.”

“Yeah, it was. I was so proud of him, but he had moved to Florida to start his business and begged me to move so we could be together again. I was hesitant because my family was all here, and I couldn’t fully trust that he wouldn’t slip up and start drinking again. I let those fears smother me to the point where I backed out from moving. Although he said he understood and would wait for me to decide, by the time I finally geared up the courage to do it, he had met someone else down there.” I hear her breathing softly on the other end, wondering how I never knew this about her. “What’s worse is, I flew down to surprise him when I saw them together. I knew she wasn’t a fling or some random girl because you could see the love they had for each other in their eyes, and that’s when I knew. I was too late.”

“Wow, Nora…” is all I can muster up to say.

“Fate handed me a second chance, and I didn’t take it, Vada. It’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life, but that doesn’t mean you do.”

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