She laughs into the phone, makes a purring sort of noise, and then tells me good-bye. I stare at the phone for a moment after she disconnects, immediately feeling the loss of her.
Making a surreptitious adjustment on myself and mentally telling my cock to go back into hiding, I head back over to the group.
“Was that Andrea?” my mom asks in her sweet, southern accent. Glenna Banks is a beautiful woman at sixty-two. She wears her silvering, blonde hair in a sleek bob and her skin still looks as smooth as porcelain. She knows about Andrea because I told her one night when I stopped by her house after work. I just laid it all out to her, knowing that my mom would always be a good sounding board for me.
“Yeah… she just got back to Pittsburgh.”
“Where was she?” Aubrey asked, and while I have not talked to my sisters about Andrea, I also know that my mom dutifully filled them in.
“She had an interview with the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit of the FBI in Quantico. She’s hoping to get a position there.”
“Now that sounds impressive,” Jillian says.
“I don’t know,” Frank says. “A woman like that scares me a bit.”
Jillian smacks him on the arm. “Why? Because she carries a gun?”
“No, because she’s probably way smarter than I am.” Frank taps his finger against his temple. “I bet she could probably read minds. Isn’t that what they do in that Behavioral unit place?”
We all start laughing, and my father tells Frank he watches too much Criminal Minds on TV.
Dessert is served and I have a cup of coffee with mine. After the sun sets, the fireflies come out and the kids start winding down, I know it’s time to head back home. I have to get up early for work tomorrow.
My mom walks me out to my car, her arm looped through mine.
“So how are you really doing, sweetheart?” she asks, her voice worried. I know this is a direct question regarding Andrea, because while my mom will always worry over her youngest child and only son who is a police officer, she’s also come to accept that part of my life and keeps her worries hidden.
“I’m okay,” I tell her as we step through the gate. “Sucks she lives so far away, is all.”
“I bet,” she says with a squeeze to my arm. We round the front of my Suburban and she releases me so I can get my keys out of my pocket.
“Have you given any thought to maybe moving… to Pittsburgh?” she asks hesitantly.
My head snaps her way, surprise lighting through me. “No… why?”
“No special reason. It’s just… when two people love each other, it’s not good to be away. It causes hurt and loneliness.”
Love? Where did she get love from?
Before I can even ask her that, she goes on. “Wyatt… you’ve talked about Andrea to me. I watched you just a little bit ago while you were on the phone. This is something special you have with her. Now, I haven’t met this girl yet, and that is something you better rectify on her next visit here, but I do know you well, son. The look on your face… the happiness… the peace. All from just talking to her, or talking about her. I don’t know if you call it love at this point… that’s between you and her. But I know what I call it.”
She looks at me expectantly… as if I should know what to call this.
I’m not sure that I do, so I just tilt my head at her in question.
Standing on her tiptoes, she kisses my cheek. When her feet are planted solidly again, she pats my face with her hand. “I call it destiny, Wyatt.”
My mom’s words continue to ring inside my head.
Destiny.
It’s not a word I’m sure I’ve ever used in my vocabulary before. I certainly never paired that word with what I have with Andrea. But now when I think about how we met… the bond we forged while working together… about reconnecting and the way we seem to be growing closer every day… maybe my mom has it right. Maybe she is my destiny.
What necessarily follows that line of thinking is the concept of love.
If she’s my destiny and the future means our paths will merge permanently, that only happens with the added feature of love.
So now I have to consider… is Andrea really my destiny? Do I love her?
I want those answers to be “yes”. I don’t even have to think about that.
But never having felt love before, I’m just not sure if that’s the way to describe this deep, emotional pull I have toward this woman. Is it love when Andrea is the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think of when I go to sleep, which doesn’t include the million other times I think about her during the day? Is it love that my heart hurts when she’s sad, or that I’m fearful of not being able to protect her? When she laughs, I can’t help but laugh as well… so is that love? What about that when I’m sunk deep inside of her, and she’s staring up at me… completely fulfilled, and my heart squeezes in pleasure. Is that love? Or how about that I ache from loneliness… missing her desperately? Love or not?
I think back to what Hunter told me. About the reason why he gave up his surfing career to be near Gabby.
He said it could have worked… because if you love someone, you make it work. But he said ultimately he just didn’t want to deal with the hurt of being away from her.
It was just that simple.
He loved Gabby and being away from her hurt him.