Page 78 of Isolated
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but I got myself all hyped up over this guy, thinking I’d finally met a great one, and out of nowhere, he drops that on me.”
“Well, it is kind of important for him to share that,” Steph reasoned.
Kasey nodded. “I know. I mean, I’m glad he did so he didn’t waste my time. It’s awful, because everything else was perfect about him.”
Steph and I exchanged glances.
“What does that mean?” Kasey asked.
I returned my attention to her. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just that, well, are you giving up on a guy who might be great because he has a kid? It is one kid, right?”
“Just one,” she confirmed. “There’s not necessarily anything wrong with it. I’m not angry with him or anything like that. It’s more about me. I don’t think I’m in a place where I want to be a mom. Not yet, anyway.”
“You’d just be dating.”
“Steph’s right,” I chimed in. “You’re not becoming a mom overnight.”
Kasey chomped down on more chips. “I know. But what if I continue to date him, and I wind up liking him a lot?”
I smiled at her. “That’s a good thing.”
She sighed. “Yeah, but what if he has baby mama drama? What if… What if I’m awful at being a stepparent? I just wanted to find a guy. I didn’t want a kid thrown into the mix. And I just don’t think it’d be fair to him or his daughter.”
I couldn’t say I didn’t understand her logic. The reality is that I don’t know what I’d do if I wound up in her situation. Landen was a great guy. The best ever. And if he continued to treat me the way he was treating me now, I couldn’t see myself ever wanting to give him up. But I wondered how I’d feel about being with him if I learned he already had a child. It’s not that I didn’t like kids or want some of my own one day. It was just that dating was difficultenough. A child added another element, and I couldn’t begin to speculate about how I’d react if I’d been in Kasey’s shoes.
“You have to do what you think is best for you, Kasey. If this leaves you with concerns, you can’t ignore them.”
“Thanks, Iris. That makes me feel better.”
“So, what about you?” Steph asked. “How are things with your guy?”
Beaming, I declared, “He’s coming over for dinner tonight. I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning at the gym, and I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I remember it being like that with Sam when we first got together. Actually, it’s still kind of that way now.”
“Okay, I’m going to cry in my chips,” Kasey pouted.
I sent an apologetic look her way and figured it was best to just shift the conversation to a different topic. “So, my sister hates me.”
That did the trick.
I spent the rest of lunchtime talking to my closest friends about the situation with Eleni. They were just as dumbfounded as I was about it. Nothing that I’d shared with them stuck out as a possible explanation for why my sister had stopped talking to me. But where Flora had relayed Eleni’s message that she didn’t want me to continue to contact her, Steph and Kasey urged me to keep reaching out. Even if she didn’t answer, at least my sister wouldn’t be able to say I didn’t care.
And I agreed with them.
In fact, once I finished at work and was on my way home for the day, I called her. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t answer. But, like always, I left her a voicemail. “I talked to Flora, and I know you don’t want me to call you right now,but I don’t care. I’m going to do it. You’re my sister, Eleni. If you don’t want to speak to me, you need to have the guts to at least tell me why. So, I’m going to keep calling until I hear from you.”
After disconnecting the call, I shifted my focus to the one thing I knew was going to make me happy—my night ahead with Landen.
Except for the text he’d sent me around three o’clock this afternoon confirming that we were still on for tonight, I hadn’t spoken to him since yesterday. I couldn’t wait to see him.
That probably explained why I made it home, rushed inside, and dashed up the stairs to shower and get myself ready for a night in with him. Once I’d accomplished that task, I got started on preparing dinner. Since I didn’t want to be standing over the stove when he arrived, I decided on something that I could pop into the oven that would be ready not long after he showed up. I decided on lasagna.
Once it was in the oven, I went about setting the table, but something was missing. Something that would set the mood.
Even if I was aware that we wouldn’t be taking things past a certain point tonight, I still wanted it to feel romantic. So, I lit some candles before marching outside to pluck some flowers from the garden. They’d be perfect in a vase on the table, and I had about ten minutes before Landen would be here.
I’d gotten a few stems trimmed when I heard Walter’s voice. “You’re doing yard work on a weeknight?”
