Page 74 of The One

“No,” he said. “And if it’s too fast for you, then I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

He knew she was holding back and wasn’t sure why at times.

He hated to think it had to do with her ex and that she was guarded or afraid, but he figured it was. She’d have to reconcile that on her own though. There was only so much he could do and he was trying.

He just had to tell himself to let it play out as it would.

27

Gone From Her Mind

The first Saturday in February, Rick and Gillian were walking around Crossgates mall. There wasn’t much to do in the winter. She always got the blues before and hated to sit around the house.

She liked that Rick felt the same way, but at least they were together.

There was nothing either of them needed and she didn’t want him to buy her anything, so she wasn’t going to even look at something unless she planned on purchasing it herself.

For now she was just happy to be outside of the snow that had been falling for a few days.

“You know what you need?” she said to him.

“What?”

“Another set of sheets,” she said. “Let’s go pick them out. I’ll get them.”

“No,” he said. “I can buy my own sheets.”

“I know you can, but I’m there so much and I realized you didn’t have a second set when I washed them when you were in Lake Placid.”

“I’ve never had more than one set and have no idea why. Probably because my last place I had to go to the basement to do laundry and if I didn’t do them and remake the bed the same day, they’d sit dirty in a basket until I pulled the second set off.”

She bumped into him in the walkway while they dodged people moving from one store to the next. “I find that hard to believe since you are a pretty neat person.”

“It’s just me and George. Not much of a mess to be made. Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to grab a bottle of water over there.”

She did like that about him. She didn’t think she was much of a neat freak, but everything had its place and life was easier that way.

Mike wasn’t a slob; in fact he was too anal about everything. He’d clean and want it done his way when he did it. No way was good unless it was his. She got to the point she did it most times to not hear about it. He’d just maintain.

One other thing she had to stop thinking about. Her mother was right, Mike had to be gone from her mind since he was gone from her life.

That didn’t seem to be the case though when she noticed him on the other side of the walkway from where she moved out of the way to wait for Rick.

He wasn’t alone and she turned her head quick to not make eye contact, but he saw and grabbed the woman’s hand and moved toward her.

“Gillian,” Mike said. “Imagine running into you here.”

“Yeah, imagine that,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Great,” Mike said. “This is Brandy.”

“His fiancée,” Brandy said. “So nice to meet you.”

She knew her face paled. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

“I know you’re the ex,” Brandy said, giggling. “I didn’t want there to be any hard feelings or anything. Mike said you left him so I figured there wasn’t.”

Brandy looked younger than her, maybe early twenties. She was tiny, and Mike wasn’t that tall so it made sense. He didn’t like women that were taller than him. Sometimes he’d made comments about it too.