Another Door Opens

18 - What I wouldn't give even to be a wet dog in her lap right now.

“Life is good, Dad. I have no complaints,” I said, watching my mother question my claim curiously.

“What’s her name?” Mum asked confidently after a minute, clarifying for my father when he seemed a little lost while I remained stunned by the accuracy of her guess. “It’s clearly a girl, Adam. So, who is she, and will we finally get to meet this one?”

I haven’t often introduced my previous girlfriends to my parents. I don’t know why exactly. I guess perhaps there was always an element of doubt in my mind about things working out and so didn’t think it was worth the anxiety of introducing everyone to each other. My parents are the most important people in the world to me, and I still crave their approval even now, despite knowing I will always have it, regardless of what it is they’re having to approve. They’ve supported every major decision I’ve ever made in life thus far, and I doubt that would ever change.

“There are simply hopes for a girl, but no girl just yet,” I replied honestly, though they weren’t buying it. “But life is good, and I have awesome friends that I’m incredibly grateful for, and things are looking good for me. That’s all.”

“Translation: She’s a friend of friends, and he’s already jumping ahead to when they’re all hanging out together and can laugh about how he’d been crushing on her for however long it takes him to grow a spine and speak with her,” my mother offered my father, with a smirk on her face.

I narrowed my eyes on her, feeling rather emotionally naked now she’s laid my thoughts and feelings bare in front of me. I don’t know how she did that, but I’m as impressed as I am terrified that she can read me so well.

“Well, well,” Dad said mockingly, fueled by my facial expression no doubt. “Interesting times ahead for us, Violette.”

- - -

Dogs aren’t allowed at the nursing home, so Echo was overdue a very long run by the time I got home in the late afternoon, only my stomach is still well overfull given how much food my parents and I cooked and I consumed while hanging with my nan, and the most I could offer him was a leisurely walk down to the beach and swim in the ocean, and even that was a stretch.

It was made wholly worthwhile, however, when I got there and saw Eden set up picnic-style with her dog sitting in her lap, encouraging the little thing to tear open the wrapping on what looks very much to be a new ball she bought him for Christmas.

I surely would have died from the cuteness of it if she wasn't wearing only a bikini, shocking me back to life like one of those defibrillator machines in the hospital with every square centimetre of bare skin my eyes raked over from afar.

She is something else. Hot as fiery coals, obviously, but also undeniably gentle and tender. The way she is speaking and playing with her dog is perhaps the most sweet thing I've ever witnessed in my whole life. She loves him with her whole being. That much is clearly evident. She's so wrapped up in him that she hasn't noticed me walking as if on autopilot ever closer to her, unable to help myself.

What I wouldn't give even to be a wet dog in her lap right now.

Echo is a sucker for a ball game. Any ball, any game. He goes nuts. So trying to keep him from bolting over to play with Eden’s dog when she got up and kicked the ball for him to chase would have been a challenge to say the least if it weren’t for the unexpected arrival of my friend Tate, similarly decked out in a hot bikini and familiar enough with Echo by now to have captured his divided attention.

“Who’s a good boy?” she said, giving him the rough scratches behind his ear that he loves so much.

“I’ll have you know we’re both good boys here,” I joked without thinking first, realising too late that a comment such as that could and probably did come across as flirting.

“I mean, I can itch a scratch for you too if you’d like?” Tate suggested coyly, standing up and confirming my fears that my previous comment had the potential to be misconstrued when she reached out to touch my chest. “You have plans tonight?” she asked in a tone I’ve heard whispered into my ear a fair few times now since we made the misguided decision to transition our long-standing friendship into a FWB, no-strings-type scenario instead, the memory of which challenging my resolve to end things with Tate when my dick started to remember how fun it was to sleep with my friend on the odd occasion.

I looked over Tate’s head and all her long, red hair at Eden instinctively, and could have sworn I saw her head turn in the opposite direction to us when I did, like she had been watching us.

“I'm actually pretty wiped from Christmas,” I said, turning back to Tate and effectively lying to one of my closest friends. I’m not wiped at all. Seeing Eden practically naked has well and truly woken me up and given me a new burst of life this evening.

“You were heading with your parents to see your nan, right?” Tate said, removing her hand from my chest and taking a disappointed half-step back. I am an asshole.

“Yeah. We cooked lunch this morning and carted it over. I don’t think I’ll be eating for another couple days now,” I said, jutting out my bare stomach buddha-style and rubbing it, not intentionally for luck, but I’d accept it if any came my way to miraculously make easier the conversation I should be having with Tate instead of the one I am.

Eden’s laugh, which I appear to be fatefully attuned to hear now after that first time, came ringing into my body. Again I looked up at her, and again she turned away, redirecting her attention down to her puppy, picking up the ball and throwing it in the opposite direction to where Tate and I were standing so her back was to me.

“Miles?” Tate said, trying to draw my attention back from Eden behind her. She turned her head in the direction of my line of sight, glued unnaturally on Eden. “So, are you sure I can’t tempt you to come around tonight?” she asked, looking back at me with a determination I’ve not seen on her face before, like seeing me distracted by Eden has somehow fuelled her.

Eden’s laugh and my less feeble judgement were both screaming at me in the back of my mind to finally have this conversation I've been meaning to have with Tate since I first started sensing there might be more to this arrangement in Tate's mind than there will ever be in mine; but the resoluteness of her face, still retaining what looked like hopeful desire, drowned out all that sound and left me deaf to good reason.

“Not tonight, Tatey,” I said, kicking myself for misplacing my spine. “I just want to head home and have a quiet one.”

“I can be quiet…” she teased, chuckling to herself. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. Tate isn’t at all quiet when having sex. “Well, I can try at least.”

“Not tonight,” I repeated again once she had stopped giggling at herself. “I’m going get going. Echo needs a feed before it gets too late. Merry Christmas, Tatey.”

I felt so shit to see the energetic gleam in her eye fade, and to watch as her who body seemed instantly crestfallen. If I didn’t love her and wanted to keep our friendship, this conversation would be so much easier.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas, Miles,” she said, standing taller and reaching to kiss me on the cheek before walking past me in the direction of her place.

Kicking myself, both for being a coward with Tate and for the time it took to deflect her advances, I looked around in search of Eden only to find her gone, which disappointed me more than I’m proud of.

“Not a word, Echo,” I said, imagining him mocking me as much as he and everyone else has every right to as we started our trek back home.