The Friendship List(31)
When Luka’s mother had driven away, Keith tucked her paperwork in the backpack. “That’s all of them. You ready for this?”
Ellen stared at the bus. “It’s an adventure. I need an adventure in my life, so let’s do it.” She smiled at him, before turning and climbing up the stairs.
As she did so, her pants tightened around her butt. Keith found himself staring at the curves, something he would swear he’d never done before. Not with Ellen. Worse, he imagined himself putting his hands on her—
He took a step back and shook his head. Back the truck up. He had to stay focused, he told himself. Whatever was going on with Ellen wasn’t his business, nor was her ass. They worked together and were friends. Nothing more. But as he climbed in behind her, he had the sudden thought this was going to be a very, very long journey.
Unity got home about three thirty after her last job was canceled. She restocked the van, confirmed her jobs for the next day and went through all the messages on the answering machine. Not sure what else to do with herself, she wandered through the house.
Stuart’s parents had bought the place when they’d first been married. The three bedroom, two bath house had originally been about fourteen hundred square feet. They’d added on a family room when Stuart had still been a kid, taking the house to eighteen hundred square feet.
Stuart’s dad had passed away when Stuart had still been in elementary school, leaving him and his mom devastated. Unity hadn’t met him until high school. She remembered he’d been quiet, responsible and goal-oriented. He knew what he wanted to do with his life.
When they’d started dating, Stuart’s mom had been excited to have Unity hang out. There had been countless dinners at the round table and lots of evenings with the three of them watching TV.
There were so many memories in the house, Unity thought, walking into the master bedroom his mother had used until she died four years before. The furniture was gone—sold after her death. The closet was empty. Unity had packed away the few treasures Stuart had wanted to keep and those boxes were stacked neatly in the corner of the large, bright room.
Family pictures lined the hallway. There were his parents’ wedding pictures, along with several photos from her wedding to Stuart. On the opposite wall were dozens of pictures of Stuart, marking his passage from adorable baby to handsome man, with blond hair and green eyes.
She touched his framed senior picture, wishing she could touch him instead. But he was gone and she was alone and no matter how she fought against that truth, she couldn’t change it.
She went into the garage and stared at the shelves she’d hung on the walls. She kept her tools there, along with basic supplies she needed for her business. There was an old washer and dryer in the back, a freezer she never used and a door to the backyard. All in all a good house, she thought. Too big for her, but she had no reason to move. This was her home. Even more important, it had been Stuart’s home and living here allowed her to still be close to him.
Only... Only... Maybe that wasn’t enough. Unity returned to the living room where she stared out the front window and wondered what she was supposed to do with herself. Ellen was gone, there was no pickleball league. She felt weird about her grief group and hadn’t gone on Saturday. She was sure there were other activities at Silver Pines, but she was beginning to wonder if she was really welcome there. She supposed she could call Dagmar and ask if she wanted to have dinner or something, only she hadn’t spoken to her friend since that disastrous dinner. Honestly, she was a little embarrassed to get in touch with her.
Which left her restless and more than a little lost. Maybe she should—
Her phone rang. She answered it, grateful for the interruption.
“Hello?”
“Unity? It’s Thaddeus.”
Her mind went totally blank for at least three seconds. Thaddeus, as in Thaddeus? He’d called? Her mouth opened and closed as she sank onto the living room sofa. “Oh. Um, hi.”
“Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Despite the wrinkle in our first meeting, I was wondering if you wanted to get together and do something. Maybe go to dinner or a movie.”
Wrinkle? Was that how he thought of her subpar ability to exist in a fairly normal social situation? While his word choice was polite, she knew that disaster was much closer to the truth.
Then the rest of what he’d said sank in and she found herself standing, then sitting again. Dinner? A movie?
“Are you asking me out?”
She heard a soft, low chuckle over the phone. “Yes.”
“Why? I wasn’t interesting or even coherent.” I don’t even remember what you look like. Although probably best not to say that.
“And yet here I am, calling and asking.”
She was too surprised to be freaked out, which was probably a good thing. Was it a date? No, he couldn’t want to date her. That was too strange to consider.
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, prepared to tell him no, only to remember the list. The list she’d created to help her friend, after which she’d realized that maybe getting out of her head and her rut wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “Can you hold on a second?”
“Of course.”
She put down the phone and raced into the small bedroom that had always been used as a study. She found the list on the desk, then ran back to the living room, only to stare at her cell phone and realize she could have brought it with her. Wow—she really was out of her element with pretty much everything.