CINDY
Levin laughs, pressing a kiss to my cheek as he stands up. "Okay, you're very good at distracting me, but I have to go."
I frown.
Why do jobs exist? Particularly his job. Why can't he stay with me all day long, forever? He's so warm. He's smells so good, looks so good. He's funny and kind and mine. And he has to go to work? BLEH.
But I'm super cool and not clingy, so I let him get up without another word. I stare at his butt until he closes the bathroom door behind him before flopping down on the bed.
My son doesn't seem to like that because he starts kicking me. Even when I stand up, he's kicking me. When I go to sit down at the couch, he's still kicking me.
I tap my belly a few times, matching the rhythm of his kicks out of boredom.
See, I have a few options. One: I could make breakfast. Two: I could read because I am seriously not in a cooking mood. Three: I could go back to sleep, then make breakfast, then read in my dreams.
Sounds pretty great to me. Who wouldn't—
My procrastination is interrupted by three knocks at my front door.
When I open it, the last person I expect to see on the other side of the door is Tommy.
It's like our kid was trying to warn me. That's why he was beating me up.
I narrow my eyes at Tommy.
We haven't spoken a word to each other in weeks. Not over the phone, not over text, and definitely not in person. What is he even doing here?
"Hey," he says. "Can I come in?"
Is he kidding me right now? Can he come in? Fuck no, he can't come in. Not after how he treated me, not after how he made me feel.
There's no way in hell I'm going to put on my big-girl pants and be mature about this. If he would have asked to "come in" several weeks ago, I would have let him in. But he's a coward and it's been over a month, and honestly? I'm over it. I'm over putting up with him.
Not that I say any of that to his face.
"Not really." I shrug my shoulders a little too high.
He makes a face. Like, "how could she say no to me?" NO!! That's how Thomas.
"Then, can you come out? I want to talk to you."
Well, I don't want to talk to you.
I cross my arms. "I'm busy, Thomas."
His shoulders fall and he tries to reach out to put a hand on my elbow, but I step away from him.
When he makes that face—his brows furrowed and his frown deep, I almost feel bad. Why, though? I didn't do anything wrong.
He sighs. "Come on, Cin. Don't be like that."
"Like what?" I don't look at him. I look at Levin's shoes by the door. "I'm just busy at the moment."
"What could you possibly be doing at this hour? You're never awake this early." He sound like he's accusing me, like I'm doing something wrong.
I narrow my eyes. "Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?" He mocks.
"All right, I have to get ready. Bye, Thomas."
I try to close the door as I walk away, but he sticks his foot in before I can. Turning back around, I just stare at him. Is he being serious?
"Tommy, go home. I'm not talking to you right now."
"Will you, though? Eventually?"
"I don't know, okay? Just leave me alone."
"Cindy, I—"
"Cindy, can you check if my clothes are dry yet?" Levin calls from my room.
I look over my shoulder as he opens the door.
"Can it wait?"
"It's okay. I'll get them."
He pauses when he sees whos at the door.
Levin is fully naked, just in a towel.
Something possessive washes over me when I notice the look my ex-fiancé is giving to my current boyfriend.
"Is that my towel?" He tries.
I roll my eyes. "Grow up, dude. That towel is new."
"Yeah, yours was a little small on me." Levin smirks.
Jesus Christ, not him too.
Tommy scoffs. "Wow. Maybe Mom wasn't so wrong."
And there it is again. Him doing something stupid to hurt me just because he can. Just because he doesn't know what else to do. Just because he can't be mature.
I can be immature, yeah. I can refuse to talk to him, I can keep him out of my house and be a bit of a bitch, but I'd never call him a slut. And if I ever did, I'd have the decency to not try to be cryptic about it.
Levin steps forward. "Excuse me?"
"Fuck off, man." Tommy mumbles, walking down the steps of my porch.
I watch him walk all the way to his car, I watch him slam his car door shut, I watch him speed down the street even though there are kids playing down by the park—which just makes him a whole new type of evil.
I leave Levin there, naked in front of my front door so I can go shower and reflect.
Maybe if I were even a little bit smarter, I'd be able to invent a time machine to go back and decide to have stayed broken up with Tommy in college. That way I never get pregnant and never get permanently tied to him because of it.
❄︎❄︎❄︎
I'm drying my hair when Levin decides he has permission to come into my bathroom.
"What if I was naked?" I say quietly, all my energy gone after than conversations with What's-His-Name.
He smiles. "I think I would have survived."
"Maybe."
He watches me through the mirror, trying to read me and what I'm feeling. Apparently, he doesn't get anything useful from that, so he asks:
"Are you okay?"
I'm not really sure yet, so I don't answer him.
I shrug.
Before Tommy was my boyfriend or my fiancé or my significant other, he was my friend. One of my best friends.
So, when he didn't stand up to his mom, I was upset because he didn't stand up for me a friend. I thought about it so much, and now I know that if we were together when that happened, he would've told his mom to cut it out.
It's starting to make sense to me that if we aren't in a romantic relationship, I'm not anything to him. And when he showed up earlier, he was treating me like a nobody and proved that.
I'm passed the "we're exs" thing. Things ended on good terms, we talked and everything was okay. Then, suddenly it's not because I'm a whore for moving on?
He's not a mean person, and I know that. Not ever has he talked about me like that in the past. But he knows it's really over now and that I'm with someone, and he's mad about it.
He knew about Levin and me. The whole fucking world knows about Levin and me at this point. He doesn't get to be a dick to me just because I love someone other than him.
Oh, my God.
I turn to look at Levin, this overwhelming urge to tell him that I do. That I love him.
You can't, you can't.
So, I wrap my arms around his waist tightly.
"Promise that you'll never treat me like that?"
"Are you kidding me? Of course. I'd never talk to you like that, you know that."
I do know that. I just needed to hear him say it.
He lets me hug him for a couple of minutes, rubbing my back gently as he asks me what I want for breakfast.
It makes me feel lucky that I can have someone who treats me like Levin does. We just started doing this thing—us, and he isn't making a mistake at every turn like Tommy did.
He knows what's right and wrong and he doesn't treat me like I'm dumb.
"You make me feel special," I say into his shirt. It's my way of telling him I love him. Because I think I do. I really, really think I love him.
"Good. You're so special, you have no idea. You make me feel like the luckiest person alive."
I smile. "Good."
After a few more moments, he presses his lips to my hair and tells me:
"I gotta get going."
Reluctantly, I pull away from him. He doesn't take his hands off of me, though. He rubs them up and down my arms as we just watch each other.
I finally decide to say what we're both thinking. And I wear a big frown to make him feel bad because it's fun.
"I don't want you to go."
He groans, bringing his arms back around me and rocking us side to side.
"Me neither. I wish I could just carry you around with me in my pocket."
"Leviiiin, don't leave meeee," I say in a tiny, squeaky voice that makes him laugh.
"Dork."
I let go of him, about to get on his ass because he really is going to be late if he doesn't keep falling for my tricks to make him stay. He speaks before I can, though.
"Do you want to come with me? I mean, you're free, right?"
I pretend like I'm thinking about it before I start nodding like the eager idiot I very much am. Duh, I want to go with him.
My smile widens.
"Of course, are you kidding?"
"Are you sure? It's gonna be a long day. You're just gonna be watching me workout and sitting alone during meetings. I don't want you to be bored"
I shrug. That doesn't matter as long as I get to be with him. Just seeing him is enough.
"I'll have my phone. And I'll even bring a book."
"You're gonna be waiting a while for breakfast." He informs me, his smile turning evil. "Unless you want some of my smoothie?"
The smoothie is green and ugly, and kinda chunky. It stunk up my kitchen, too. Hell no, I don't want his smoothie.
I make a face. "Haha. So funny, Levin."
❄︎❄︎❄︎
I didn't think I'd ever be able to say that I'm sitting in a row of woman, watching men weightlifting. But here I am. Sitting in a row of women watching their men weightlifting.
Some of them are married to the men, some are just dating, and I think one or two of the couples are engaged.
No ones really tried to engage in conversation with me, and I'm in the middle of reading to distract myself from how awkward this is, so I haven't attempted anything either.
Levin's come to check on me a couple of times, asking me if I'm bored. My answers been "no" each time as I gave him a bottle of water—more like bottles of water because this guy's a monster—we're sharing.
Phoebe, Saul's fiancé, is stuck at home with the flu, and Alexa is nowhere in sight. And I don't know anyone else, so...
Oh. I take that back.
Alexa pushes open the doors to the room, eyes scanning and searching it before they land on me.
"Cindy!" She gasps softly, smiling all big at me from across the room.
It's nice how excited she is to me, and I feel the exact same way. Thank God she's here. My savior.
She practically skips over to me, beaming and smiling all stupid. It sorta makes me feel special. I wish everyone was always that excited to see me.
I think my friends and family are used to seeing me so often that it's not even a surprise when I randomly pop up in their houses. That's fine, though. I secretly hate them all.
Kidding, kidding.
Kinda.
When she's finally in front of me, she pulls me up and wraps her arms around me, squeezing tight.
"Hey. How are you?" I ask, pulling away just slightly.
"Good, good," she answers, looking me up and down. "I'd ask you how you are, but obviously you're doing great. You're literally glowing."
God, I'm blushing. She's so sweet.
I chuckle. "I thought I looked like a demon when I left the house this morning."
She shakes her head, eyes wide like she thinks I just might be losing my mind.
"Don't even worry, you look so good. It's unreal."
"Thank you, thank you. So do you."
Now she's blushing, thanking me and asking if I'm sure.
I don't remember the last time I met someone like this, someone I instantly loved and felt so compatible with. We both love reading, we both... um. Well, actually that's all I really know about her. But I'm sure we have plenty more things in common!
I hope.
She looks over her shoulder at the other women sitting on the benches, pretending to not be listening, scrolling mindlessly through their phones.
More than half of them are in heels and fancy clothing, but the rest of them are in jeans and t-shirts. And "the rest of them" would include me if I could still fit into any of my jeans.
"Let's go hang out in the lounge?"
I nod eagerly, glad to get away from these very intimidating women. With crisp, wrinkle-free, expensive clothes and probably even more expensive, musky perfume. And I've been using the same Bath & Body Works body mist since middle school.
Ahem. Anyway...
I move toward Levin, catching his attention almost immediately.
His expression goes from hard and focused to happy and loving and focused, but on me this time.
"Hi, my love," he smiles, putting up the weights to wrap his arms around me.
I thought maybe this would be super quick. I'd tell him I'm going to hang out with Alexa in the lounge, and then he'd kiss me goodbye and I'd go. But I like this more.
"Hey. How are doing?" I ask him.
He swipes his shirt across his forehead, collecting sweat. Gross, but pretty hot.
"I'm good. We should be done soon. Or I should be, anyway."
Nodding, I wrap my arms around his neck. "Don't rush. Take your time."
Except I want him to hurry the hell up because I'm minutes away from being hangry and annoying and loud.
"I thought we'd be here for a good chunk of the day, but I guess not." He shrugs. "Marcus has to get his arm checked out, and it's one of the guys' kids' birthday or something."
Can't say I'm complaining. I'm starving right now. I hope Marcus is okay, though.
"Oh, okay. Well, I just came to tell you Alexa got here, and we're running away together."
He frowns playfully. "And eloping?"
"Yep." I bite back a smile.
"What about me?"
I pat his shoulder. "Don't worry, you're still invited to the wedding."
"But you're eloping."
"Exactly."
I try to do my best evil laugh, but it sounds disgusting. He snorts, shaking his head at me.
His pulls away a little, hands on my waist. He has to pull me down a little to kiss him, and obviously his kisses are dizzying, so I lose balance and drop my ass on his thigh.
He brings me even closer, massaging my lips with his. I bite his lip, trying to get him to let me go now, but he likes it. Fortunately, he just growls softly and kisses me harder. I mean, unfortunately.
It hasn't escaped me that we're not the only people in the room, but he doesn't seem to care as much as I do.
With my hands on his shoulders, I pry him and his ridiculously soft lips off of me.
"Okay, I'm going now. I l—" I tilt my head, heart beating out of my chest. Oh shit, oh shit. I reach to smooth my hand over his hair. "I love when your hairs messy, but you look silly."
He puts a hand over mine—the one in his hair. He squeezes it three times before pulling it down to his lips and kissing me once on the wrist.
"Go." And he's beaming. Why's he smiling like that? "I'll go get you when I'm done."
So, I do go. I walk as fast as I can since being impregnated and shut the door to the lounge behind me.
Alexa notices how hard I'm breathing and is at my side in an instant, grabbing my face to make me look at her.
"Are you okay?" she ask, obviously concerned.
I shove my face into my hands because, no. No, I'm not okay. THAT IS NOW THE SECOND TIME I'VE DONE THIS. Oh, my God. Just kill me now.
"I almost just told him I love him! In the gym! While he's sweaty and gross, and it's so weird because it's way early for that, right?"
Her shoulders relax. She dips her head to catch my eyes, smiling at me in an almost proud kind of way. But also in a way that makes me think she can't take me serious.
"Well, I feel like you guys have been together a while now. It's only natural to eventually get to a point where you're like, 'Wow! I really love this person.'" She rubs a hand up and down my arm. "It's okay, Cindy. Guys are oblivious; I'm sure he didn't even notice."
Except I think that maybe he did because of that smile he had on his face. Just by the way he was looking at me, I could tell. He completely knew what I was going to say. What I accidentally said in front of way too many people for my comfort.
Don't get me wrong, I've never thought that saying "I love you" for the first time is that special. It's just something you say to express adoration, and I use it in my everyday life. It's just one of those things you say. Obviously, to the people you love.
But when I think about saying it Levin, it doesn't feel like that. Maybe because I don't think that there is even a single word to describe how I feel about him, let alone love.
All I know is that, with him, it wouldn't be just one of the things you say. I would mean it too much and feel it harder than I do now, and I can't be sure if I'm ready to let him know I feel that way.
God, I wish I could just talk to Hope, call her and tell her the whole story from the beginning to now, but—
I look at Alexa.
"Alexa, how long have you known Levin?"
"A pretty long time. We were really close before me and Chris got together." She shrugs. "Why do you ask?"
"Can I tell you something?"