Meet Cute

Chapter 6

The time between when we started dating and when Chris had to leave to start filming again went by painfully fast. We made the most of every minute we had before he left, but it still didn't feel like enough time. He called almost every day and I hung onto those brief conversations between his shoots as tight as I could. But it still wasn't the same.

"Hey, sorry I couldn't call you earlier they held me on for longer than I thought they would." I could hear how tired he was but something shone through in his voice and I could tell he was happy to talk to me. We were on the same page there. 

"No worries. You're a busy man saving the world and all that." I joked.

"I'd rather be in your world than saving a fake one if I'm being honest." 

I smiled. He somehow always knew what to say to put me at ease. "This one's pretty boring I've got to say. I do have a little bit of news though."

"Let me guess. Estelle finally let you pick the bar Friday night?"

"Oh if only, that would probably be the single greatest accomplishment of my life." I laughed. "Maybe not quite as exciting, but an online magazine picked up one of my short stories."

"Laurel, oh my god! That's incredible, woah." His excitement made me smile. I hadn't been with someone who had been so supportive of my writing, even though I never let him read any of it. "Who's publishing it?" I hesitated for a second and he sensed it immediately. "Are you ever gonna let me read anything you write?" He laughed, but I could tell he was a little frustrated. Every time he asked to see something I'd written I was adamant about keeping it to myself. He knew writing was something I'd cared about so much my entire life, and he just wanted to see the part of me that I let spill out onto those pages. And yet, I had chosen to keep it all a secret from him. 

"I was going to-" I stopped when I heard people talking in the background of Chris' call. He muttered a few words of acknowledgment to whoever had just come into the room then turned his attention back to our phone call. 

"Laurel, I'm sorry, they're calling me back now. I thought I'd have a little more time to talk but I'll call you later, okay."

"Yeah of course." He quickly apologized again before hanging up. I sighed. Our conversations were getting progressively shorter and shorter. I knew it wasn't because he didn't want to talk to me, he was just busy being a hero. It just came in the job description. I just still wasn't entirely sure where I fell in all of that. 

Estelle could tell immediately that I was in less than a perfect mood after that phone call. "How's it going, kid?" She asked as gently as possible as I walked out of my room and into the kitchen. 

I sighed and sat down at the counter. "We got any wine left?"

She laughed and got up to look through our liquor cabinet. "I guess that answers that question. What happened?"

"I mean, nothing really happened we just." I stopped. I didn't know how to spit it out without feeling like a whiny baby. 

"Stop clamming up and just spill it." Estelle said, placing a glass of wine in front of me. "You're allowed to have feelings, it's normal. And I'm the last person on earth to judge you for it after seeing me when Andrew and I broke up."

"Oh god. I think that was the worst week of my life."

"You and me both. Now, tell me what happened with Chris." I hesitated again. "I'm a lot cheaper than a therapist."

I rolled my eyes at her but couldn't help to laugh a little. "Okay, okay. I just, I don't know. Ever since he left it just feels like we've slowly been drifting apart. And I know it's cause he's crazy busy but still. I'd like to be able to have an actual conversation with him without being interrupted by someone calling him back to set." Getting the words out there made me feel better, but it was still hard to acknowledge the truth. "Who was I kidding. We've barely been dating a month and I thought we'd be able to go 4 without seeing each other."