It’d been close to three weeks since I’d talked to Marcus. When he came to pick up Zana and Finley for their move he’d only given me a courteous hello. We talked a little about getting them settled. We’d decided that only one of us would go this time since it’d be a drive instead of flying in order to get their stuff cross country. When he got back, I’d expected him to come pick up the quads for his visit, but he sent me a text asking if I was okay to keep them for another week. I didn’t know what to make of things. I’d thought that night we’d made some headway, that we’d gotten over that wall and could be on the path to working things out finally, but now I didn’t have any clue where things stood.
As I rounded the
corner of his street, I wondered if we’d finally have some sort of conversation
about us or if he would just take them then ask me to leave. He’d moved clear
across town in his attempt to get as far away from me as possible. The townhouse he rented was in a nice area. There was a park across the street which
was good since he had virtually no yard. I didn’t know what his long term plans
were, for a short while the fact that he didn’t go and buy a place was my
comfort during the lonely nights right after he’d moved.
I didn’t want to
acknowledge the real reason; he was eager to go and renting was a hell of a lot
faster than buying. In the months following, we’d not discussed his long term
plans, so for all I knew he could be house hunting now, looking to put down
permanent roots in a home he wasn’t going to share with me.
Pulling into his
driveway sent my nerves into overdrive. Taking a deep breath, I steadied my
nerves before sending him a text so he’d know I was here, then got out to start
unbuckling carseats. Marcus used to be the person that would make all these
feelings of uncertainty and fear go away. Now he caused them any time I was
faced with being around him.
“You’re early,”
I heard him say from behind. He walked around to the other side of the car and
started getting Graham free from his seat.
He was freshly
showered. The faint scent of his soap lingered in the air. I could see droplets
of water still on his skin as if he’d dressed in a hurry.
“Oh, sorry. It’s
not that early and you haven’t seen them in weeks, so…”
“No, it’s fine.”
