Page 221 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

The next twenty-one days pass in a flurry and slog. The days are fast, filled with details and arrangements, but the nights are slow, marked by longing.

I count down the hours until I can spend them with her.

We talk and text and Skype, and the Skype sessions are both fantastic and completely unsatisfying, since I want to be the one giving her the orgasms, not her vibrator. But hey, at least it’s something.

I learn even more about Mia during those three weeks before she moves. One night on the phone, she warns me that she has a thing for blankets, and loves to snuggle under many soft, fleecy ones at bedtime. I tell her I’m all for a top sheet and leaving the windows open. She shudders and says brrr .

“I’ll change my habits for you,” I tell her.

“Or we’ll compromise.”

“That works, too.”

“But I might have bought a new adorable fleece blanket for the couch that I couldn’t resist. It should arrive in two days. I hope you don’t mind.”

I smile. “Mia, you can decorate your house however you want.”

“Great. I have some posters of Chris Hemsworth as Thor arriving the day after.”

“Except that way.”

I learn, too, that she likes to sleep in on weekends, but she also wants to go for runs and bike rides with me. I’m an early riser, so I tell her I’ll go solo on Saturdays and later in the day with her on Sundays.

“Or we can just have sex all morning on weekends,” she offers.

“That works for me. In fact, you can consider me a yes anytime you want to fuck.”

She laughs. “Good to know. Oh, and I think I feel the same way, too.”

“Think? You think?”

“Well, you’re kind of well-endowed, Patrick. A girl sometimes needs a break so she can walk straight.”

And that goes down as my favorite compliment ever, even more than the grilled cheese.

Obviously.

We make plans, too. Dates we want to go on in Manhattan. I tell her I’m taking her to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and to Governors Island, and to any bath and beauty shop she wants.

“Stop being so perfect. You’re making me look bad,” she teases.

I laugh. “I’m not perfect. Just normal.”

“As a thank you for being so normal, I’ll take you on a date to REI.”

“Don’t get me excited.”

“And we’ll go back to the trail in Cold Spring.”

“Now I’m even more excited.”

“And I’ll walk your cat with you any time you want.”

“Mia,” I chide. “He’s our cat now.”

The other plan we make is for me to help her move. She’s hired a company to transport some boxes and a few items of furniture, and I offer to join her in San Francisco to help handle that before we fly to New York together.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Mia, you’re moving your company and yourself across the country. I’ll take a few days off to help you move. It’s what any good god in bed would do.”

Soon, but not soon enough, I’ve crossed off twenty days on the calendar. On the twenty-first day, I wake up early, harness my cat, and take him to one of my favorite trails outside Manhattan. That’s when I realize how right Mia was about cats.