Whirlwind

55

[Riley]

"Sorry I'm late," Quentin announced faintly, rushing through the doorway with the hood of his sweatshirt concealing his face. 

Our session's time was clearly on his conscious and winding down every second as he quickly paced toward the couch to the far left of the studio and discarded his leather jacket from his shoulders. "I ran into traffic coming from the interview with YouTube, one of the few you set up for me. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome and you're fine." I cleared my throat and reached forward onto the soundboard, lowering the volume of his rough EP.

His existence was making me a bit anxious, but not the usual kind. This was oddly a calmer form, preferred so to speak. I could actually stand to be around Quentin unlike our other occurrences. I didn't desire to curse him, fight him or even run to the nearest exit. His aura wasn't setting my mood ablaze. Instead there was a lump forming in my throat, blocking all the things I wanted to say or more so how I wanted to formulate them. I simply didn't know what to say to him.

The lapse of time since our last unfriendly encounter was solely the reason, and even though I had crawled to the highest mountain top in L.A. in effort to open myself up to forgiveness, I still hadn't tested the waters yet. I was unaware if the energy between us was still as heavy, dark and awkward as it was before. In all honesty, I was afraid to be otherwise. Mainly because even with my optimism there was a spec of doubt within me that always figured no matter how hard I tried or how much I've grown, Quentin would remain the same. Our issues would never become resolved and we'd never be able to survive this contract stint with each other - I could never deny that. So not being around him period seemed easier, but wasn't realistic.

"Oh. Well okay," he said, seeming shocked as he finally plopped down beside me. Quentin placed his backpack down onto the floor between the two of us and pulled his MacBook out as I watched him closely.

One thing that I noted now that I did since he came in was that not once had he made eye contact with me and maintaining it no matter the case was always his forte. To tell the truth, everything about his demeanor was different than usual. Quentin was in a rush, sure, but he was quiet, placid and maybe even nervous like I was. That strangely shattered the ounce of doubt I carried.

"Yeah, I was only waiting for twenty minutes and that left me enough time to listen to the music you sent to me."

"Cool, cool." he mumbled with his concentration still on his laptop. "How is everything? I didn't get a chance to speak to you at my show a while back."

Maybe because I had purposely ignored you.

"I'm good, just busy trying to get our website for the label up and running. I'm searching for more artists and dabbling in some more songwriting with Kirby," I shrugged, pressing my lips together. "That's about it."

"That's dope. It's great to hear that this new project is working out for you, but I meant how is everything going?" he repeated, nodding his head toward my stomach that was making a debut for him from my fitted t-shirt.

It was almost Wednesday, fourteen weeks in, and on top of that I had gained nearly five more pounds to my frame since Thanksgiving. This pregnancy was now real for Quentin and it softened his eyes as they trailed up to my face for the first time.

"Oh," I chuckled as my palm unconsciously rubbed over my bump. "We're healthy, always hungry, hungrier than before. We're not as tired anymore, in fact I feel like I could race a cheetah these days. We're happy. So, so damn happy," I exhaled with a smile.

There was something encouraging me to open myself up to him so easily. Something assuring me that the organic route this conversation was taking and his sincere concern was the start of a new Quentin and I. I knew now, for sure, that everything I'd done prior to today on that mountain top wasn't pointless. Besides, I couldn't contain myself. If anyone had asked me the same question I would've responded just alike, so this was the best of both worlds for me.