Page 5 of Yanked (Frenched 1.50)
“I’m not on an abstinence kick.” She sounded almost offended. “I’m just waiting for someone worthy of all this.” She spanked her hip twice. “Now keep talking. And don’t skip the sexy parts.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. No toy.” Lucas had sent me my first vibrator for my birthday last fall. (Don’t ask how I went twenty-eight years without one.) It was called the Gigi 2, but I preferred to call it the Lucas 10.
He says I flatter him—I say I know what I feel.
“But the important part of this story is not the sex,” I insisted as we drove through Brush Park, the historic neighborhood in Detroit where our office was located. “It’s what he said afterward.”
She glanced at me. “What did he say?”
“He said he wants to make me happy every day.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know exactly, he didn’t explain it. But I wonder if it means he’s ready to make a more serious commitment.” I toyed with the strap of my computer bag. “Like maybe living together.”
“Has he mentioned that before?” I could hear the surprise in her voice.
“No,” I admitted. “But it’s been eight months. Don’t you think he might be ready to at least talk about it?”
Coco shrugged as she pulled into the small parking lot beside the restored Victorian home that housed the Devine Events office. “Maybe. But it could also mean that he wants to make you happy every day with you here and him there.”
I groaned. “You’re killing my buzz, Coco.”
She turned off the engine. “Sorry. I just don’t want you to pin your hopes on something if it’s not gonna happen. I know how you get about these things.”
That annoyed me a little. Would I forever be judged for my mistake with Tucker? Or criticized for wanting to find someone I could spend forever with? “I’m not…getting how I get, Coco. I’m not picking out china patterns or anything—but I love him, and I want to know if we have any kind of future together. A future that’s more than phone sex and occasional weekends.” My voice had risen in frustration, and Coco patted my leg.
“OK, OK. Don’t get upset. I’m on your side here. And I like Lucas. If you want to talk to him about moving in together, then do it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Um, he could freak the fuck out and run the other direction.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. And that’s a risk you’ll have to take. But he could surprise you. Maybe he is ready to talk about it. It’s all in how you approach it, I think.” We gathered our things and Coco took my elbow as we made our way through the lot and down the icy sidewalk. “But I do have a question for you. Let’s say he agrees to move in with you. Let’s say it’s amazing and you fall even more madly in love. Then what? Is that going to be
enough for you? Or will you want that next commitment too?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, honestly. I just know that I want more. And I feel like…if we move in together and it’s amazing, maybe he’d consider the other things.”
“Just be careful you don’t approach it like you want him to change for you,” she said. “Men hate that. You have to make him think it was his idea, if you can.”
“Right.” I nodded. I didn’t really want to change Lucas—I was crazy about him. I just wanted him to change his mind about spending forever with someone, namely me. That wasn’t the same thing, was it? “What’s the best way to bring it up, in your opinion?”
“Hmmm.” She considered it as we climbed the cement steps to the front porch. “Tell me exactly how you left things the last time you talked about it.”
I opened one of the glass-paned double doors and motioned for her to go in first. “We haven’t really talked about it at all since Paris. At that point we kind of just agreed to take things day by day and see where they went. But he did say anything was possible.”
“Can you tell him you’re unhappy?” She looked at me over her shoulder as we ascended the wide, creaky staircase up to the second floor of the house, where we had a suite of rooms—an office for each of us and a meeting space between them.
“Well, I’m not unhappy, exactly.” I stopped on the landing and considered the question. “But I could be happier. I think I could make him happier. But I also think he’ll be scared to even consider it because he’s been so anti-marriage for so long.”
“Well, my first piece of advice is to avoid using the M word,” Coco said wryly as she opened the door to her office. “But you could say you’re unhappy about living so far apart, and the stuff about wanting more.”
My stomach jumped, and I put a hand over it. “I think I have to, or it’ll drive me crazy. Are you OK if I take off this weekend? We have that wedding at the Yacht Club.”
“You’re thinking this weekend?” Her eyes widened. “Wow. You mean business.”
“Yeah, I know it’s a little sudden. But I feel like something is unresolved, like I need to know. I’ve gone eight months without making demands or asking questions about the future, and I guess at this point I’d like to ask him to think ahead a little. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
Coco nodded. “I think it’s fair. Go for it.”
