After I took Nina home from dinner at my Dad’s, I got a text from my Dad that said: Dear God please don’t fuck things up with this one.

Nice vote of confidence for her, not so much for me.

From my brother: If you don’t marry her, I will. Fuck you.

That’s a first from Gabe, who literally hasn’t dated anyone for longer than two months in his entire horndog life.

Eve hasn’t shut up about her since her birthday party.

Charlie’s already asking when she’s coming over again. That doesn’t surprise me. She was so great with him, especially when he fell down. Seeing her with all her baggies full of mom purse stuff spread out over the sidewalk, I had this weird urge to impregnate her. That was a first for me.

I probably shouldn’t have taken her to the garden so soon after dinner with my family. I’ve felt weird since then, but it’s definitely not Nina’s fault. Nothing’s Nina’s fault. She’s perfect. For the first time in my life, I’m wondering if I’m even good enough for someone. It one hundred percent blows.

I know I’m moving too fast, but I don’t know how else to move. Especially when it comes to her. What we have is still so new and there are still things she doesn’t know about me, but I’m starting to feel like I could lose her any day now. I thought I could win her over in a summer, but each day that passes just feels like a death march towards September. It’s how I always felt about going back to school, but this is so much more than losing my freedom when school starts. I could lose her. She’ll realize how different we are and our schedules won’t mesh and she’ll be seeing the fucking principal every day, and she’ll remember this is just a rebound. Fuck. This is why Dr. Glass wanted me to keep up with the sessions.

Whatever.

I’m being an idiot.

I still have another month.

A lot can happen in a month. A lot has already happened. Like, a lot.

She doesn’t answer until the third ring, which is weird.

“Hi,” she says, her voice soft.

“Did I wake you up or something?”

“No, not at all.”

“I hate to bother you with this, but Charlie’s at day camp and his new part-time nanny has some family emergency all of a sudden so she can’t pick him up. Are you busy now? I know you said you have work to do, so you can say no, I can call someone else.”

“I can get him, of course. Do you want me to take him somewhere or bring him back to my place?”

“That’s great, thank you. Yeah take him to your place, I’ll pick you guys up after work and then we’ll drop him off at Gabe’s and you and I can go to dinner.”

“Uh huh.”

“You still want to go to dinner?”

“Yeah, of course. Listen, don’t hesitate to call me if you need someone to pick Charlie up or drop him off at the day camp. It’s so close to me, it’s no trouble.

I feel my jaw tensing up. I don’t want to turn her into another nanny here. She’s just being sweet, I know. “Okay yeah thanks, hopefully it won’t be necessary.”

Silence on the other end.

“Sooo, text me when you’ve got Charlie and I’ll call when I’m leaving the office, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, thanks again. Bye.”

“Bye.”

What the fuck was that? Our first not-great phone call. Actually, I’ve been trying to avoid phone calls to her lately, because it’s so hard to end them. I keep wanting to say “love you bye” like a total pussy. Or maybe I just never want to say goodbye to her.

I look around to make sure no one’s looking through the glass walls of my office, before putting my hand on my crotch to make sure I still have balls.

When I see Charlie bounding down the steps with Nina, he looks like a happy puppy and I get that bittersweet feeling that’s becoming so familiar to me.

“Hey, Punk. What’s that around your mouth?” I wipe a bit of crusty beige stuff from the corner of his lips and he tries to push my hand away.

“Oh, that’s probably hummus.”

“You got him to eat hummus?!”

Nina grins.

“I liked it with the celery and carrot sticks.”

“You got him to eat celery and carrots?!”

“We started with a ranch dressing dip and then I ran out of ranch dressing, so we switched to hummus.” She mouths to me: “I didn’t run out of ranch dressing.”

“You got a lot of tricks up your sleeve, Miss Parks.”

“They pretty much all involve ranch dressing.”

“Oh no, you’ve got a few other tricks as I recall.” I put my arm around her waist and pull her to me. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She rubs my back. I kiss her, but she keeps her eyes on Charlie.

“Gross,” he says. “Can Nina come to dinner?”

We walk back to my double-parked car.

“Not tonight Buddy, I’m dropping you off at Gabe’s and then I get Nina to myself.”

“For boning?”

“What’d I say?!”

“Sorry Nina,” he says, sheepishly.

She doesn’t laugh like she did yesterday, or every other day I’ve known her.

Something’s up.

“What’d you guys do this afternoon?”

“We just read and watched Netflix.”

“Oh yeah? You Netflix and chilled with my little brother?”

“He’s reading Matilda,” she says in a sing-song voice.

“The girl book?”

“SHE. IS. NOT. MY. GIRLFRIEND!” Charlie stomps on the pavement with each screamed word.

“Alright alright settle down.”

She doesn’t look at me when I get back to the car after taking Charlie to Gabe’s door. She’s not cold or anything, just distant.

“You okay?”

She smiles and nods.

“You still want to get dinner?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

I turn off the engine and twist around to face her. “What is it?”

She takes a deep breath before speaking, stares straight ahead. “So, I met someone you know. Or knew. At the coffee shop, after you left this morning.”

“Oh yeah?” This can’t be good.

“I’m not sure what her name is, actually, but she knew you. I guess you must have dated at some point.”

“Oh. She talked to you?”

“Yeah, you know, not a lot.”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing bad, exactly. I mean.”

“Nina.”

“It’s not a big deal, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“I want to talk about it. I can’t even guess who it was that talked to you, because—spoiler alert—I’ve been with a lot of women in my life. I’m not gonna sugar coat it and I’m not gonna make any excuses. I dated them for a little bit and then I moved on. I wasn’t mean to anyone, I just made my exit. I made it clear to all of them up front what to expect. But I’ve only been with two women in the past year and a half. Sadie and You. Before Sadie, I just never really committed to anyone.”

“So Sadie was special?”

Be very careful what you say here, buddy. “I wanted her to be. She was my little brother’s nanny. She came around at a time when we were all reeling from Clara leaving my dad and him. I wasn’t used to seeing a hot chick around my family. I figured it was time for me to try to be in a relationship. I gave it a shot. It didn’t work out so well. Not just the way it ended, but I probably wasn’t the greatest boyfriend to Sadie. But I want to be better for you. I want to be the best for you.”

She runs her hand down the side of my face and neck then rests her head against my shoulder and I’m dying inside.

“I’m yours now, remember? Those are the rules.”

She takes a really deep breath and looks up at me. She nods her head. “So…I know you’re busy. And I totally understand if you don’t have enough time to make plans, but a few months ago I booked a room at a luxury resort on Lake George, for next weekend.”

“For you and the principal?”

“Yeah. It would have been our three-year anniversary. I was going to surprise him, even though he hates surprises. Anyway. I didn’t cancel the reservation, because the librarian at our school was just raving about it, and this woman never raves about anything. Except JK Rowling and CrossFit. I was going to go by myself or ask Marnie or another girlfriend, but…”

I push the strands of hair out of her face and put my arms around her. “Yes.”

“Really? You’d go?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I mean, it’s a resort. On a lake. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’re into.”

“I’m into you. If you’re there, that’s where I want to be.”

I wish I could take a picture of her face, the way she’s looking up at me right now. “Good. I booked a regular hotel room with a king-size bed, but there’s no view, I hope that’s okay.”

“Trust me, the only view I’ll be looking at is your beautiful naked body.”

She blushes. Thank God I can still make her blush. “Well, that will be one of the amenities you can enjoy, along with free Wi-Fi. It’s for next weekend, three nights, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

“Okay. God I can’t even remember the last time I took a vacation. I need to rearrange some things, but I can probably swing it.”

“Okay. I’ve already rented a car.”

“Well, darlin’ you can just go ahead and cancel that reservation. You know I’ve got a car. You’re in it right now.”

“But what if you can’t swing it?”

“Hey. I’ll swing it. I’ll pay you for the room. This’ll be good. This may be just what we need.” I didn’t mean to make that sound so ominous, but she seems to agree.

I couldn’t keep my hands off of Nina all through dinner. When we got back to her place we had the fastest sex we’ve ever had and it wasn’t even humiliating because she needed it that fast too. I think even the anticipation of vacation sex has reignited something. I wish I could have stayed with her, but I’ve gotta get to work if I’m going to take three days off. I came to Gabe’s to figure things out with him, but I keep spacing out.

“Hello?”

“What?”

“You want scotch or not?”

“Naw I’m good.”

“Are you? Because you seem like a moody little teen girl to me.”

“I should call Dr. Glass,” I mumble, dropping my head to my hands.

“You still see her?”

“Not for a while.”

“You don’t need some shrink to tell you how you feel. I’ll tell you how you feel. You like Nina. A lot. Maybe even love her.”

He watches me for a reaction but I don’t give him one, because the words hit me in the gut, hearing them out loud.

“You’re mad at Sadie for leaving and you’re mad at the guy she left you for and you’re mad at Clara for leaving and you’re mad at the guy she left dad and Charlie for but that’s their problem. You’re mad that mom died. We all are. She didn’t want to leave us. We didn’t want her to leave us. We all did what we could but we couldn’t beat the cancer. It’s sad. Mom wanted us to be happy. Go be happy. I didn’t think there could be anything more annoying than how grumpy you were those last few months you were with Sadie, but then you got so fucking cheerful when you met Nina. That I get. This? This moping around when you’re with the best girl you’ve ever known?...Jesus.” He polishes off his scotch. “Maybe you should be seeing Dr. Glass, because you’re a fucking nut job.”