Page 66 of Hiding from Hope

“But you love love. What’s the problem?”

“I think he is going to pull back. I just feel like he is going to slip through my fingers and I don’t know how to make him stay.” Rosie assesses my whole face, like she can read every thought, and I nervously sip my wine, trying to shrink from her gaze.

“Addison said, even if he did fall for me, he likely wouldn’t let himself and would let go or push me away. I just… everything is amazing when we’re together, but then as soon as we have some space, it’s like he has regrets, or he doesn’t want to go down the path I think we’re already on, and I don’t know how to tell myself to stop. To make him fall first so I know he’ll catch me.” Rosie’s face shifts to something like sympathy and she rubs my shoulder.

“Okay. What do you want from him?”

“Well… I don’t know.”

“Then what do you like about spending time with him? You guys are literally joined at the hip lately, so what is it?”

Everything.

“I feel at peace. I… feel taken care of. Like I don’t have to anticipate his feelings or what he needs from me. I don’t have to worry about what topics to talk about or whether he is bored of my company. I like that we can be in the same room and not speak for hours. I really like when he quotes classic literature, like it’s his way of telling me what he wants to say without knowing what words to use. I like that he makes me feel not so lonely, even when I am.”

When my eyes make contact with Rosie again, a gentle smile sits on her face and she tilts her head.

“Awh,” she says, then her face slowly morphs into disgust. “That was gross. But I think you might be in love, Case.” She rubs my arm and pats me gently before getting up from the couch. “I knew I’d lose you both to that disease,” she jokes as she heads for the kitchen with her wine glass. But I’m still frozen in my spot on the couch. When she starts making noise in the kitchen, I have to shake myself from my frozen thoughts–because I am most certainly not in love with Jessie Jenkins–and I follow Rosie.

“Excuse me, I am not.”

“Mmhmm, kay,” she muses as her head searches the fridge. I stand behind her, trying to get her attention.

“Hello! I am not.”

“Casey, it’s okay.” She chuckles. “I know you weren’t ready for that… But you are.” Her lips pull into a pitying smile, and she turns back to the fridge searching.

“I am… What on earth are you looking for?”

“Well, you just realized you are feeling an emotion you have no control over, and it only benefits you and not someone else, so you’re about to spiral. I figured you’d need to bake,” she declares then pulls out the block of baking chocolate from the fridge, and I have to blink a number of times so my brain catches up.

“But… but you can’t bake.”

“No, but you can, and I’m an excellent learner.”

“You’re terrible at following instructions, Rosie.” She rolls her eyes as she hands me the chocolate and walks around to the kitchen island, pulling out a bar stool and plopping her ass onto it.

“You’re right, I’m better at side-line support and the cleanup. So you bake, get your control back, then we can get drunk and I can tell you about how Vibey-Viv has changed my life.”

A laugh bursts out of me and I flick my best friend a grateful smile as I pull out everything I need for a cookies and cream slice. Rosie sends me over a wink and connects her phone to the speakers.

The music fills the kitchen, Rosie tells me about her self-care adventures, and the apartment fills with the smell of a baking biscuit base and light laughter.

Jessie

The chorus of Burning by Maggie Rogers fills the girls’ apartment as I twist the key and let myself in. Addison will still be in Chicago with Noah for another week, coming back just in time for Thanksgiving, and I am beginning to abuse the apartment key privileges. I’m not ready to admit that the last three weeks of letting myself into Casey’s apartment, kissing her hello, and making myself comfortable on her couch has been the best part of my days. Because admitting that would mean labeling us, and doing that feels like tainting something pure. How we are is perfect. It is easy comfort, and I am not ready to complicate anything.

I also wasn’t ready to analyze how these last three weeks haven’t felt like my life at all. The regular catch ups with the guys at Pucks, seeing Casey almost daily and walking around the cafe with a goddamned smile on my face. None of it felt real. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Either they were all going to work out I wasn’t worth it, or I was going to fuck it up somehow.

The further I head into the apartment, the louder Casey’s gentle singing becomes as I hear her sing select lyrics, ‘I’m in love, I’m alive, oh I’m burning.’ I pause at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning on the wall and admiring her from where she stands at the stove. With her back to me, hips swaying to the beat of the song, a light hum of the lyrics and gentle giggles when she realizes she doesn’t know the words. In only her tight as fuck yoga leggings–these light purple ones are my favorite–with a white crop top, her auburn hair in a topknot on her head, the lazy strands falling to the back of her delicate neck in invitation. She is delectable. Lord, bring me patience.

The music is loud enough that she wouldn’t have heard the door open, which is possibly a measure of safety I’m really going to have to talk to her about. And the incredible smell of whatever she is cooking fills the room. I just take in the sweet sound of her voice, the chuckle that follows, and the way the lyrics wash over me, because I think…

No. I can’t.

I shake my head just as she turns toward the counter, but noticing me in the corner of her eye, she snaps her head in my direction, a little squeal and almost slipping, she catches herself on the counter.

“Jesus Christ, Jessie!” I laugh gently, reaching for the speaker volume and turning it down as I make my way to her.

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