Me:Don’t let them double-team you.
Connor:Remind me again how to make that happen.
I smiled as I read his message.Me:Okay, fine, you guyslooked really good. Does it drive you crazy when you can’t get open?
Connor:Hell, yes, it makes me fucking nuts.
I started typing out a reply, but my phone rang. Connor was calling me.
Which he didn’t usually do.
I’d only talked to him a few times on the phone; the first was via the house phone back when he first asked me out. That felt like forever ago now.
“Hello?” I said, raising the phone to my ear as I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
“Okay, so you don’t consider me unhinged, do you?”
“Ooh, this feels like a trap,” I said as I opened the meat drawer.
“Not a trap, but if I throw something that’s a little…out thereat you, you know I’m sane, right? That it’s just an unconventional idea and not—”
“Spit it out, Cunningham,” I interrupted, dying to know where this was going. “What’s up?”
“So I just found out we have tomorrow off, and since I’m not far from my hometown, I think I’m going to spend the day with my grandpa and fly back tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” I said. “Does this have to do with your car? Do you need me to go pick it up and drive it—”
“I will never let you drive my car, for the record, and no, it has to do with you,” he said, cutting me off. “This is the part that might sound unhinged. I know we still haven’t had a propersecond date and I promise this isn’t a big thing, but I was wondering if you might want to fly out and hang here with me for a few hours tomorrow.”
My hand froze on the package of bologna I’d been reaching for.
He wanted me to fly out to see him?
What was I missing?
“Wow, is this your attempt at the second date? Flying me somewhere—thatisa bit over the top,” I said lightly in an effort to sound calm and amused and not frazzled at all.
“But it’s not, I promise. I just kind of want my grandpa to meet you,” he said, his voice carrying a different tone than usual—Was he…nervous?
And he wanted me to meet his grandfather? I knew how much he meant to Connor.
“Even if we never have a second date and just stay friends, I feel like he’d like you and I don’t know why, but I like the idea of him meeting you before he can’t. Maybe Iamunhinged, I don’t know, but…shit, I guess that’s it. I like him and I like you and…hell, now I sound like a moron, don’t I? I think I just said ‘like’ at least five times.”
“No,” I said, unsure of what else to say because I was reeling. This felt huge and meaningful and not unhinged, because every time he was around my family, I was aware that it felt right that he knew them.
Even though we’d never been on a second date and I truly didn’t know where we actually stood, I liked that he knew my family. We definitely had some strange connection, even if it wasjust at a friend level (please, God, don’t be just at a friend level), that was deeper and more comfortable than most I’d had.
“I guess I just wanted to throw it out there that if for some reason you feel like flying to California tomorrow morning to spend a couple hours in a nursing home for no good reason, I’ll give you the hookup. Then I’ll buy you a meal and upgrade your seat so you’re not sandwiched in between two pool salesmen from Wisconsin on the way back.”
“You had me at nursing home,” I said, clueless as to why this sounded like a good idea. I didn’t need to miss work, I didn’t need to leave my dad alone, and there was no reason I needed to be meeting Connor Cunningham’s ailing grandfather at a nursing home in California.
Dropping everything to spend a few hours with him was definitely not “elusive” or “coy.”
But in spite of all of that, it was the only thing I wanted to do at the moment.
“If you can handle the logistics and the reality that your grandfather might actually hate me, I am down for this adventure.”
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