“I'll always love her.”
He poured the egg mixture into the sizzling pan.
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. Part of me wanted to rip off the borrowed T-shirt and storm out of there in a huff. Another part of me wanted to stay, eat the omelet, and take Trevor back to bed and make love to him.
And then, Trevor said something that shocked me.
He pulled out a spatula, looked me right in the eyes, and said, “I have a lot of love to give. There's plenty more for you.”
My armpits prickled once more with sweat. He hadn't said he loved me, but he'd hinted at it. Or something. I was so confused.
Being the cool chick I am, I changed the subject. “What kind of omelet is that?”
He grinned and turned back to the stove to flip it. “There are different kinds of omelet? It's just egg with a bit of milk and salt and pepper. But we have lots of toppings to put on it, like salsa, and sour cream, and bacon bits.”
I laughed. “Bacon bits? You mean like for baked potatoes?”
He winked at me. “Try something new. You might like it.”
I agreed to try the omelet with bacon bits. Maybe I would like it. I hadn't wanted to go out on a blind date with Trevor in the first place, but now I was hanging out at his house, wearing his clothes, even meeting his wife over a casual breakfast. Who knew what the future would hold?
Part 3: Office Christmas Parties Are the Worst/Best
A week after Halloween, Roxie moved back out of Trevor's house. I hadn't bumped into her there again (thanks to careful planning on my part), but I was so relieved.
Trevor and I saw each other all through November. We went for walks together, saw movies, and he even came to the Farmer's Market with me and my parents one Saturday. He and my father talked each other's ears off about landscaping and local plants. My mother kept her hands off him, but she did gaze up at him in adoration a few times, which I found really sweet. I definitely didn't get the vibe she was after him, but I still teased her a bit about her “crush” anyway, just to get back at her for all the teasing she'd given me over the years.
I enjoyed dating Trevor, though he did frustrate me at times. He really did find the idea of talking about his feelings excruciating.
Aside from relating the story of how he'd met Roxie, he didn't breathe another word about their life together. From the one-word answers he gave, I learned that they'd dated for a year before getting engaged, then had a one-year engagement, and got married on the second anniversary of their first date. The wedding was two years earlier, and they'd split in February after a year and a half of marriage.
I was relieved that Trevor didn't count the separation time into his account of how long they'd been married. It was just a small detail, but it really helped me feel more comfortable that it was truly over between them.
By December, we'd fallen into a routine. We'd spend the whole weekend together, and alternate weekdays. More and more of my clothes and things migrated over to his house. He had two large closets in his bedroom, and he gave me one all to myself.
My mother commented that we were living together, based on how few days I spent at home, but I denied it. “I don't have a key,” I said.
She just twisted her lips and said, “Don't accept a key. Get a ring.”
I laughed and teased her for being old-fashioned, but she did make a point. There was no need for me to take a key anyway, so I decided not to worry about it. After two months, there was certainly no rush.
And how did I feel? Oh, I loved him.
I hadn't told him this, but the feeling had snuck up on me, getting stronger each time I saw him. I'd considered telling him a thousand times, especially since he always asked me what I was thinking, often when I was thinking about how I loved him. He hadn't said it, though—hadn't mentioned anything about love since that morning over the omelet. I was not going to be the person who said it first. Not this time. I'd been first with other boyfriends, and those had never worked out. Maybe I was being superstitious. Maybe I was just being stupid.
My feelings for Trevor were so strong and pure, I felt like those times I'd said it to other boys had been lies. I hadn't actually loved them so much as I'd wanted to be loved. Those other guys had been mistakes, but Trevor didn't feel like a mistake at all.
One Sunday dinner, one of the ones Trevor didn't join us for, I actually gave my sister heck for not setting us up sooner.
She thought this was hysterical, but there was a glint of disbelief in her eyes. She still wasn't convinced this wasn't just a transitional relationship, a rebound for him.
December came, and things at my job got crazy. My accounting work and collection calls were under control, but we were doing a production of The Nutcracker, and somebody must have named the Scottish Play in the green room, because we were cursed with problems.
We had a small fire in our off-site storage warehouse, destroying props and costumes and even parts of the set. Everyone from the office upstairs was pressed into helping out downstairs, and yours truly spent three days hand-painting snowflakes onto backdrops. I didn't mind, because it was a nice change from my regular desk-work, and I love the theater. I'd actually been a back-up dancer for the same production a few years earlier, which was how I'd made some contacts for my office job.
Eight days before The Nutcracker opened, calamity hit once more. The lead dancer broke her arm and some ribs pulling a daredevil stunt, skateboarding behind a car for a YouTube video, of all the stupid things.
The understudy was bumped up, and then, two days before opening night, the Mono hit. Six dancers down with Mono, just like that.
I was touching up some snowflakes when the director approached me.
He looked me up and down and asked me what size leotard I wore.
“You're kidding,” I said.
“Naomi, you know the routine. You're a great dancer. Come on, it'll be fun.”
“Let's pretend we both don't know damn well I'll do it, and you keep giving me compliments.”
“You're so beautiful,” he said, grinning. The director was a small man, barely taller than me, with a bulbous nose that made him look like a Christmas elf, and he was utterly irresistible when he smiled. “You have the loveliest legs I've ever seen. Your knees are utter perfection.”
“Keep going.” I laughed and kept painting snowflakes as the butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I did know the routine, but I'd need to work hard to get ready, and I'd be the out-of-breath dancer hiding in the back row, but the idea of being on stage thrilled me.
That afternoon, they fitted me with my costume. I got in trouble from the hair and makeup people for having my hair in a chin-length bob. They had to use a ton of bobby pins to press up the short bits, and an extension to give me a proper bun.