Chapter 12
As the days continued to pass I had to just give up on Chris. He was a nice guy and I did have feelings for him, but any guy who would disappear like this wasn’t right for me. I needed more than this.
I felt like an independent woman and waiting on a guy to show back up just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I was starting to feel desperate. I made the decision to stop thinking about Chris. Of course, that quickly turned into trying to stop thinking about him, then thinking about him a little and then all the way back to thinking about him all the time again.
I settled in with my preparations for my photography exhibit. Every time I thought I had my list of pictures complete, I kept changing my mind and looking through more and more pictures. This was my first big show and I didn’t want anything to mess it up. Not even a broken heart over a one night stand could distract me from my objective.
Then, at about midnight a week later; I was developing pictures in my garage again and I heard someone pull up outside. I ran to my garage window and looked to see who it was. Sure enough it was Chris.
He pulled his Jeep into the driveway and then got out and went into his house. He was dressed in black. I could hardly see him in the dark but he looked different. There was no smile and nothing about his demeanor seemed pleasant at all. He looked scary.
Even though I was mad as hell at him for disappearing and not calling me, my heart still raced as I watched him. He had some power over my body that I just couldn’t put my finger on.
After about thirty minutes, I went quietly back into my house. Surely now that he was home he would reach out to me again. Perhaps he would stop by in the morning and tell me some elaborate reason why he couldn’t call me?
Wait! What was I doing? I was already trying to give him excuses for why he wasn’t able to call me. How pitiful was I? I shook my head and tried to think about something else. When did I become this girl that cared so much about what a guy thought?
I was doing so well at building myself up to be more independent. But then I found myself sitting in the dark of my kitchen waiting to see if Chris would come over. Even though it was the middle of the night, my brain actually thought he might come running over to say hello and apologize. I sat for about twenty minutes before finally deciding sleep was more important than staring out my window in the middle of the night.
When morning came, the first thing I thought of when I opened my eyes was what Chris was doing. I hurried and got dressed and went outside to do yard work that I absolutely didn’t need to do. I’ll be honest; I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know what internal urge drove me to want Chris to come over; but I did. I desperately wanted him to come and find me and tell me a fabulous reason why he had been unable to talk to me. After about an hour working in my yard, I heard Chris leave his house and make his way over toward me.
“Have you been behaving yourself?” he said as he slapped my ass.
I slowly turned around and there he was in all of his handsome glory. His hard muscles tugged on the blue shirt he was wearing and his gray shorts hugged him in all the right places. I tried not to take in every piece of him, but I couldn’t stop myself. He smiled at me with that mischievous grin and my body reacted with excitement to every last nerve ending.
“Yep, you know it!”
I turned back to work on the weed pulling in my yard. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me ogle him.
“Well I’m going for a run, enjoy your day.”
With that, he was gone. Off and running down the street like the last two weeks had not even happened. But there was awkwardness between us. He had to have felt that, there was no way around it. I threw my gardening tools down and stormed back into my house. How dare he just pretend like nothing was off? What an arrogant ass! He seriously just slapped my ass like nothing was wrong. It was amazing to me that he could even have a conversation with me and not mention that he had been gone for almost two weeks. It didn’t matter how hot he was. Any guy who wouldn’t try to at least make up some sort of excuse was too full of himself for me to worry about him.
I went back into my house and tried to get rid of some of my anger. But the more I cleaned and organized the house, the angrier I got. In this day and age, how could any guy still be such a jerk? I just had to call Rebecca.
“Hey girl what are you up to?” Rebecca said when she answered.
“Guy trouble. I need you ASAP.”
It didn’t matter what day of the week it was or even what time of day. The fact that I had a guy and there was trouble was so exciting to Rebecca that she was over to my house in less than ten minutes. She was practically in a full blown sprint when I watched her get out of her car and make her way up to my door. We were long past knocking in our friendship and she thrust the door open with a force of excitement.
“Who is he? How long have you known him? Have you had sex?” Rebecca said breathlessly as she fell onto the couch.
“His name is Chris, it’s that neighbor who moved into the house next door, known him about three weeks, although he’s been gone for the last two…and yes we did…right where you are sitting.”
“Katelyn! Eww!” Rebecca said as she jumped up off the couch and moved over to a chair.
Chapter 13
“So let me get this straight. You fell down a mountain, he rescued you, you had sex, he disappeared, and now he’s back.”
“Yep.”
“So what’s the issue?”
“He left for two weeks without even a call. You don’t think that’s a bit weird?”
“I think the whole situation is weird. But I think you need to step back and stop worrying so much about it. Really what’s the worst thing that could happen here?”
I thought about it. There wasn’t really a bad result. I mean the worst that would happen would be that we didn’t have sex again. But I surely would still try to be friends with Chris. We were neighbors and all.
“I don’t mind being friends with him. My issue is that he is acting like it is perfectly normal for someone to sleep with a girl and then disappear for two weeks. It’s not like he told me ahead of time that he would be gone. And why couldn’t he have at least called and just told me he was on a business trip or something. That’s what is bothering me the most, He didn’t even call.”
Rebecca sat and pondered my dilemma for a moment.
“Rob. That’s what we will do. Rob.”
I sat there and looked at her with an obvious inquisitive look. I had no idea what she was talking about, but this wasn’t so unusual. Many of our conversations ended with me staring at her and trying to figure out just what she was trying to say.
“You know. Rob…the guy from my work that I told you would be perfect for you.”
Rebecca was constantly telling me she met someone who would be perfect for me. It wasn’t unusual that I couldn’t remember this particular man. She had such a big heart and was just trying to help me find the happiness like I use to have. She and Robert were so great together, and it did give me hope that someday I would find a man that was my equal. Someday I would be able to follow my dreams and have someone right by my side urging me on.