Everything in Between

Chapter 19

April 2020

When we pull up to Cece's parents' cabin, it's midday, and the sun pours brightly across the lake, bathing me in a hot rectangle of light. I pulled down my sunglasses and helped Tom unload our bags from the tailgate of his truck. 

We are celebrating our upcoming graduation. This will be our last hurrah before we go our separate ways. Cece and Reggie are moving to Detroit to pursue entry-level jobs in their field. Bridget was accepted into a post-graduate architecture program at the University of Michigan. Austin will return to North Dakota and work for his parent's business. I applied for grad school at multiple out-of-state colleges and was accepted into all of them, but I chose to stay in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan to be close to Mom. After her cancer scare, I decided that spending the summer months working in New York was enough distance between us. Tom was happy I'd be staying in Ann Arbor, too, as he was still working as an assistant coach for the university.  Zach had yet to decide on any plans post-graduation. He's hummed and hawed about whether to find a job in his field or pursue graduate studies.

I haven't seen him much these past few months. I haven't purposely created space between us; it's just that I've been preoccupied with Tom. Lately, I've spent the majority of my free time at Tom's place. We've fallen into a rhythm where I spend my days on campus attending classes, and then I retreat to his condo to spend the night. We make dinner, watch movies, and then finish the night with sex. It's been surprisingly easy to be in a relationship with him. Tom is fiercely intelligent, has a very dry sense of humour, and always respects my opinions and listens to what I say. He makes it effortless to be around him. Plus, I enjoy the perks of having constant access to sex and someone to snuggle with on Sunday mornings.

Tom walks toward the edge of the deck surrounding the cabin and stares off into the distance at the lake. "This place is incredible."

He places a kiss on the top of my head and lets out a deep, satisfying breath. Nothing could ruin this day, not even the warmest beer or the worst case of mosquitoes buzzing around my head.

"I should go unpack," I say. "And once I'm done, we need to take advantage of this gorgeous day."

"Sounds good." He pats my back and smiles. "I'm going to head down to the beach. Find me when you're done. This weekend is going to be epic."

He's right. This weekend is going to be one to remember. I am so excited to spend our time here with our closest friends. It was so generous of Cece's parents to allow us to spend the entire weekend at their cabin.

Cece, Reggie, Tom and I drove down early to get an extra few hours in. Austin, Bridget, and Zach are driving down later today. Austin had to work, and they offered to wait for him to drive down together.

As I unpack our belongings in one of the guest bedrooms, I'm entirely thrilled for what the day will bring and even more so for what the weekend will bring as our last hurrah as a group.

By the time I unpacked, Cece had already popped a bottle of Prosecco. We head down to the beach to find Reggie and Tom whipping around the lake on jet skis. We join them, and they take us for a trip around the lake, followed by a swim, and then we all have a quick bite to eat. After we cleaned up, Cece and I retreated to the deck and lay on nearby lounge chairs, each reading a book while the boys took Cece's parents' boat on the lake to do some fishing.

We sip Prosecco in silence as we bask in the evening sun and turn the pages of our respective novels until we hear tires slowly crunching along the gravel road leading its way toward the cabin.

We both look up in unison to see Austin's older, low-slung Impala coming to a halt in the driveway. I quickly turn my attention to my novel as the chapter comes to a cliff-hanging end while Cece gives them a wave.