Page 59 of Meant For Love
“I’m your only daughter,” I point out. “You should have answered ‘if it isn’t my favorite child.’ That would have been better.”
“I’ll know for next time. How are you doing?”
“I’m good.” I look around the office and see Nash is sitting in the conference room on a video call with his brother. “I’m calling because I’ll be in New York next week,” I tell her of the plans I made less than five minutes ago when one of my clients reached out to me. “Are you going to be home?”
“I will be.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “We should do a dinner.”
“I’ll probably be home for a week, so we can do all the dinners.”
“So living in LA is agreeing with you?” she asks, and I take a deep inhale.
“So far, so good,” I answer her honestly.
“What’s that sigh about?” Of course she picked up on that.
“The weather is amazing.” I start with that. “Work is thriving. I’ve even gotten a couple more clients since I started here because of the show I went to in Vegas.”
“Um, Zoey…” She trails off. “How is Nash?”
I look down at my yellow pad in front of me. “He’s,” I start strong, and then my voice dips a bit, “amazing. He’s funny and smart and”—I smile—“thoughtful.”
“Why does it sound like you’re going to say but?” She laughs, and I lean back in my chair, my stomach flipping over back and forth, and my hands starting to get clammy.
“There is no but, that’s the thing.” I look over at Nash, seeing him laugh at something his brother says. “Like, I can’t pinpoint one thing that he has wrong with him.”
My mother bursts out laughing. “That’s a good thing,” she tries to tell me. “It’s more than good. It’s a great thing.”
“It’s weird, Mom,” I finally huff. “Like nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me about him. Even if I want it to. He doesn’t leave his stuff lying around. He makes me matcha every single morning even though he fucking hates it. He’s considerate of me and always asks me what I want to do before telling me what he wants to do.” I hear how silly I sound.
“What is really bothering you?” she asks me the million-dollar question.
“He asked me to give him ninety days to fall in love with him.” My mother gasps at my confession. “I know, I know, but we had just gotten married.” I close my eyes and even I groan for how it sounds.
“And you’ve fallen in love with him in less than a month,” she points out.
“Well, no,” I counter, “but the fact is, when the ninety days is over, then what?” My stomach gets tight. “He hasn’t even brought it up. Like, what if I fall in love with him, and then he decides he’s not in love with me after the ninety days? Then what?”
“Zoey,” she says softly, “think about what you just said. Do you really think he would be doing all of this if he wasn’t in love with you already?”
“I don’t know,” I answer her honestly. “I know he must like me, and the sex is?—”
“Too much,” she quickly says. “I don’t need to know that part.” I laugh because I’m in my thirties, so she knows I have sex. Now that I’m married, I’m more than allowed to have all the sex, and trust me, I do.
“Mom, what happens after ninety days?” I ask her what I’ve been wanting to ask Nash for the past week. Ever since it dawned on me that I’ve fallen in love with him. Which makes no sense. Who falls in love with someone after a month?
“Why are you even putting a time limit on it if he’s not brought it up again?” she asks. “If in ninety days he doesn’t say anything, you don’t either.”
“So it’ll be the big elephant in the room no one talks about,” I say, shocked. “Immediately fucking no, Mom.”
“Then ask him where he is?” I gasp even more.
“And be the one who is like, so do you like me?” I shake my head. “That’s not an option either.”
“Heaven forbid your generation learns how to communicate without blowing everything out of proportion.”
I laugh loudly. “Oh, like my mother who tweeted my father to crash her ex’s wedding?”
“That wasn’t blowing anything out of proportion,” she fights back. “Anyway, I married him, so what does it matter how it started?”