“Happy wife is a happy life, Quinn,” she’d said. She had just come back from her cousin’s wedding when she’d learned that phrase. So I had to acquiesce to her wishes, and we’d brought Buddy back.
“You were a bossy wife,” I said.
She feigned shock. “You never cleaned the dishes.”
“Because I spent all day swimming, and then you made me walk Buddy.”
Her shocked expression quickly morphed into an impish grin. “What are your thoughts on a real Buddy?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down.
“No way, not right now.”
“But in the future?”
“When I’m a retired swimmer, and we have a yard big enough for Buddy to roam.”
“Are the suburbs in our future? The California suburbs?”
“Do you want them to be in our future?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I always pictured raising a family somewhere in New York. Like, outside the city, so we had a house and a yard, but then my partner and I could have a date night in the city, away from the kids.”
“Kids?”
She nodded. “You want them, don’t you?”
“I think so but, like, kids in the far future. I can’t even think about having kids until I’m retired and have a house in the burbs after I’ve spent my twenties living in the city.”
“Oh, man, I totally agree. I want my whole twenties to live life, travel, nail down a good job.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God.”
“You were really that worried?”
“Yes! We’ve never talked about kids before, and if you had an inkling of baby fever soon, I don’t know—”
“God, no. We’re twenty-three. Way too young to be having kids.”
“Well, I feel like a fourth of our class already has kids.”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page in the baby department. Like, we’re still another era away from that happening.” After my sigh of relief, she jumped onto my lap and pinned me to her bed. My heart rushed at the surprise. As she leaned forward, her hair pooled over my face, enveloping us in a secluded world within the secluded bedroom.
“You’re bringing me home with you,” she said softly. “You can’t run away from the idea now.”
I shook my head. “I’m never running from you.”
The rest of our time in Aspen Grove was everything I wanted it to be. Kennedy and I spent almost the whole time together, mingling with our families, secluding ourselves in one of our bedrooms to binge Netflix while cuddling. We even went out with Liam and our good friend Gabriel to the new brewery to spend the night catching up and reminiscing about childhood. I spent Christmas Eve with her family, including her brother Jacob and his wife Ava. I hadn’t seen Jacob since I was thirteen. Christmas Day, Kennedy spent the day with my family. We went out to the brewery again with Liam, Gabriel, and Gabriel’s girlfriend of two years to celebrate New Year’s. The holidays back home were wonderful and humbling.
As much as I wanted to start my life with Kennedy in a brand-new condo, in a brand-new city for her, I was getting used to the quiet life in Aspen Grove. I couldn’t believe I never fully took advantage of everything my town offered back when I lived in it. I was born and raised there, lived in the same house since I was born, and I couldn’t wait to move across the country when I had the chance. Home was so comforting, reliable, and my family had a huge part in that feeling. But it was also quiet and laid back. Life moved much slower than in a bustling city. It really helped ground me, helped me focus on the most important things in life. It wasn’t a stupid time on a scoreboard or a medal. It was having loved ones by my side, caring for other people and myself, and belonging somewhere. I was so excited that I didn’t have to fly home by myself, that Kennedy was coming with me with her life stuffed in multiple bags. We were going to find a place to belong…together.
But as much as I was looking forward to that, I was terrified about picking up my life where I’d left it back in San Francisco: lost in the dark.
* * *
I stood on my new balcony, bundled in the blanket my parents gave me for Christmas. Kennedy and I had just moved into the condo. It was the first week of January, and darkness had fallen over San Francisco, but the city was one of the few things that looked even more beautiful through the darkness. Life still carried on. Music still played from various restaurants and bars down the street. People still walked around the neighborhood with their dogs, on the phone, breathing in the water coming off the bay. Lights still twinkled and illuminated the city.
Two hands slipped in front of my stomach and pulled me into a tight embrace. I smiled when the smell of Kennedy’s shampoo kissed me before her lips landed on my cheek. We had spent the whole day unpacking, got our bed set up and most of our bedroom, but still had to tackle the coffee table and entertainment system, but we were so exhausted.
“What are you doing, my little cocoon,” she said and then kissed the back of my neck, forcing the hairs to stand up and beg for more.
“Hiding,” I said. “From you and our mess of a living room.”
She laughed. “You know a lot of that was your fault with all those Christmas presents you gave me.”
“Those weren’t Christmas presents. Those were move-in presents. Big difference.”
She’d unwrapped the gifts when we moved in the day before. Thank God for Talia and Lillian. I bribed them with fifty dollars each to wrap all the presents I had delivered to our condo and place them inside with the spare key, so when Kennedy and I walked in, she saw all her move-in presents in their designated room for her to unwrap. People who got a six-month paid internship on a documentary about LGBTQ+ history in San Francisco deserved a bunch of gifts.
“But all I gave you was that medal display frame,” she said. “You weren’t supposed to buy me anything.”
We’d agreed before Christmas that we weren’t going to go crazy on presents because I’d just bought a condo and Kennedy was moving cross country. But…I lied and got her stuff anyway. A lot of things. The tone in her voice indicated guilt, but I loved what she got me. It was a glass display case with six separate frames for each of my Olympic medals. The icing on the cake was a wooden sign that said “World’s Okayest Swimmer” to hang right above the frame. It hung in our bedroom, the first thing I’d nailed to the wall because I loved it so much.
I’d bought her something new for every room. For the kitchen, I got her a French press since the one she’d used in Brooklyn had been her roommate’s. Turned out, she needed a lot of coffee in the morning to function. In the living room, I’d bought her a rustic pallet bookshelf filled with all her favorite classics: The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, 1984, A Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five, Lord of the Flies, The Outsiders. And no bookshelf was complete without all seven Harry Potter books. I left plenty of room for her to decorate and add books as she pleased. For the balcony, I’d bought her all the things she needed to have her garden: lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, peas, green beans, and of course, spinach to feed me. In our bathroom, I’d gotten her a whole basket of Lush bath bombs and salts so she could have her Sunday bubble baths. Maybe I could join her a few times in the tub that was definitely big enough to share. And then in the bedroom, of course, I was the present. Wink. Wink. Because I could be adorably cheesy sometimes.