Page 22 of Single-Minded
“She did. I’d already bought this house, kind of on a whim, but she made me realize my job was doing the same thing to me that my mom’s did to her. Before that, I had this idea that I was making the big bucks, so it was somehow different. I wasn’t working myself to the bone. I wasn’t on my feet all day, running around, waiting tables. I had to face up to the fact I was fooling myself.”
“So you quit.”
I shook my head. “I kept doing what I was doing. The only difference was I was sort of aware that I was doing it. When I stopped for thirty seconds and thought about it. Then one Friday afternoon, my boss was shitty to me yet again, and it hit me. Boom. I was done.”
“You quit on the spot, but it’d been building up,” he said, and I nodded.
“Exactly. I wasn’t the type to quit, let alone with no notice. But when he blew off my career goals again, I could practically feel my blood pressure going up, and I decided fuck this. This is crazy. I need to make some changes.”
“So you quit your job, sold your house, and moved to a small town. Those are pretty big changes.”
“But not enough, it turns out. Because last Sunday and Monday, once I moved in, I had nothing to do except relax, and I was climbing the walls before eight a.m.”
“And Tuesday you decided to open a coffee shop,” he said, sounding more than a little amused.
“I’m my own worst enemy.” I frowned as doubts flooded in. “Did I make a mistake?”
This wasn’t like me. I didn’t question myself. In my former career, there was no time to question myself. I’d always done my research and followed my gut. Trusted my instinct. Blazed forward with confidence.
“Sounds like maybe you need to find some balance,” West said. “What if you tried working eight-hour days instead of fourteen?”
It made sense but… “So if I start at eight o’clock, quit at four, then what?”
“Then you relax.”
I bit down on frustration. If I could relax, I would. “I don’t know how. I can’t sit around and do nothing.”
“What do you like to do that isn’t work?”
“What do you like to do that isn’t work?” I countered.
“I hike, kayak, fish, curl up with the girls on the couch and watch a Disney movie.”
Imagining this burly, gruff man curled up with three little girls under a fuzzy blanket, watching Frozen… I might pay a large sum of money to see that. Especially if he was shirtless.
“I’ve never done any of those things. I’m not sure I’m the nature type, and I know I’m not the movie type.”
“You could take up yoga, do a painting class, learn how to knit over at Fat Cat, rent a boat…”
“Boating’s relaxing?” I asked, intrigued. I didn’t know the first thing about boating or boats, but I did have a boathouse, a dock, and a lake out my back door.
“It’s like going for a peaceful Sunday afternoon drive in the country except better.”
I’d never found driving to be peaceful, but maybe I just hadn’t tried it in the country on a Sunday.
“I bet your girls take up a lot of your time,” I said.
“They do, and it’s not always relaxing.”
I laughed. “Is it ever relaxing?”
“On those rare occasions when they’re all three asleep before I drift off for the night.” A slow smile crept across his face, and I’m pretty sure my ovaries released an egg or two.
“I thought about trying yoga,” I said.
“It’d pass some time,” he said.
He stood abruptly, and I suddenly felt dumb for whining about my stupid problem when he had daughters waiting for him and a babysitter to relieve.
