“But we’ll be married in a few months. September, remember?”
“Did we agree on that?” she asked.
She gave me this innocent little look, but it felt like she was sidestepping.
“I thought we had, yes,” I said.
“Well, I want to make sure we take our time. You know, so we don’t rush into anything. Maybe we could make it September of next year?”
She started brushing her teeth like she hadn’t just pushed our wedding date back an entire year.
“Abby?”
“Yeah?”
“You know if you don’t want this, all you have to do is say so.”
Abby’s motions stopped as she turned her head towards me. Foaming toothpaste was dripping down her chin as her eyes slowly grew wide. She looked like a rabid dog in heat about to pounce on the first thing that pissed her off.
I’d seen many sides of Abby, but this one I had yet to witness.
“I just want to make sure we do this right. What’s wrong with that?” she asked.
Accepting her explanation for now, I tried to diffuse the exchange before she went back to cleaning herself up.
“Well, I don’t want you to take the subway or walk to work. I don’t want you getting hurt or lost until you can get your bearings,” I said.
“I have that SUV you bought me, remember? I can get around in that.”
“Just let me send a car for you for a couple of weeks. Just until you familiarize yourself with the city.”
“You forget I lived in California,” she said, grinning.
“But not Los Angeles.”
“Fine,” she said, before she spit. “You can send me a car or whatever. But don’t make it too flashy. I don’t want people staring at me.”
“Beautiful, I’m sorry to tell you this. We are engaged. And you’re my public relations representative. People are going to stare at you no matter what you do.”
I smiled at her in playful jest, but I saw her shoulders tense up. Was that the issue? Was she concerned about the man that popped out of the bushes? I’d kept my eyes on the media to see if any of those pictures surfaced, but nothing came of the encounter and no pictures of us surfaced.
But still, I could see how that type of situation could rattle someone unaccustomed to it.
“Look, I know you’re not used to this kind of attention yet. But it’ll grow on you. And we’ll always have our privacy, no matter what. You have my word on that,” I said.
“But what about my privacy?” she asked.
“That’s what I just said.
“No. You said ‘our’ privacy. But what about mine?”
I started spreading shaving cream around on my face before I wet my razor and went to work.
“You’ve been splitting hairs on that type of stuff these past few days. How come words like ‘ours’ and ‘us’ make you so uncomfortable?”
“They don’t,” she said.
“Could have fooled me.”
“I just don’t want to lose my identity, Colin. I did that with my ex. I lost everything to him, metaphorically and literally.”
“Okay, that’s all you had to say. Abby, I promise you that I can ensure our privacy as well as your own,” I said.
I knew that I needed to respect her decisions and I was trying my best. I was relenting to the apartment situation and I was trying not to interfere too much with how she worked her schedule. She would have to fall into her own natural rhythm with her job that was completely separate from mine. Even though I wanted to help her, I also needed to step back and give room to adjust and find her way. Like any employee, she was in a new atmosphere. She was going to be surrounded by new co-workers and have a new office setting. She would be traveling new streets, and hopefully finding new places for us to eat lunch.
Or for her to eat lunch.
“Are you free for lunch today?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, grinning. “Where were you thinking?”
“I figured we could try this new restaurant. I want to try and find us a regular spot. You know, for when we need fast lunches with one another or something.”
“Lunch out, huh? I don’t know if my boss would approve of that.”
She gave me a wink in the mirror and it temporarily settled my nerves.
“I’m sure I could get him to come around to the idea,” I said.
“You better, because if I lose my job over you, I’m screwed.”
I would miss this. Getting ready with her in the mornings was nice. I’d settled into a routine that would suit me for the rest of my life. My alarm went off at six in the morning, and Abby would groan and curse underneath the covers. I’d slip out to get her coffee and watch as she lazily drank it on the edge of the bed, then the two of us would get into the shower together. I’d have a front row seat to watch the way the water dripped down the nipples of her wonderful bosom.
I was going to really miss the witty banter that occurred as we got ready to go to work.
“What’s your schedule like today?” Abby asked. “Anything I need to assist with?”
“Nope. Just more meetings. Since I fired the main project manager, now I’m taking his place until I can find one that’s worth a damn, or until we can get the kinks with this shit ironed out.”
“Cursing so early in the morning? Things must be rough,” she said.
“I never would have thought that busting into the European marketplace with a formal podcast platform would’ve been such a hell of a job. Hurdles everywhere, and I haven’t even started the team on the question-and-answer forum. There’s no formal sign-up page for them yet and I’ve got investors breathing down my neck. It’s just a lot.”
“Well, if you need me, you know where
