Page 102 of The Wrong Game
“And all that’s true,” I said. “But… it’s serious, right? Meeting his family? And Micah was saying some stuff about Zach, about how he’s been hurt and I need to be careful. And I just realized that we never set up any kind of rules when we started this whole…” I waved my hands. “Thing.”
“And so you’re freaking out.”
“Basically.”
Belle smiled, sliding herself around the desk until she was right beside me. “Okay, look. It’s going to be okay. Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to freak out.”
“We’ve just been having so much fun,” I said, exasperated. “I didn’t have time to think about what it all meant.”
“And now you do, and this is classic Gemma, okay? This is your anxiety and your need for control sparking and saying that you need to grab the reins again.”
“Maybe I should break up with him. Just save us both the hurt that will come later.”
Belle laughed, snatching my phone from my hands before I could slide to unlock it. “Oh, no you don’t. This is what I mean. When you feel out of control, you resort to the crazy. Just… pause for a second. Take a breath.”
I stared at her.
“Inhale, you bitch.”
At that, I laughed, but then I did as she said, and when I let the breath go, the grip around my chest loosened a bit.
“Now, call Zach, and tell him how you’re feeling. Say that it’s been a couple of weeks now, and you just would like to set up some boundaries and define what you guys are a little more. He will understand and he will definitely talk to you about it. And then, you’ll feel better, and you can get a little control back.” She looked around my office, uncharacteristically messy from my haphazard morning. “And maybe a little cleanliness, too, because this is just so not you.”
I chuckled, holding out my hand as a long sigh left my lips. Belle plopped my phone in my palm, tapping my cheek with her knuckle before she stood. “Okay, I’m going to go make a few calls before I do this consultation at one.”
“Wait!” I said, standing and filtering through a stack of files on the corner of my desk. I handed her the Marlow one, remembering I was entering information from it into our system before it crashed. “The Marlow file.”
Belle held it in one hand and smacked it against her other, smiling at me with a wink. “There’s my girl.”
“Thank you, Belle.”
“Always. Come talk to me after the call.”
She left my office, and I sat back down with my heart beating hard and fast in my ears. I dialed Zach’s number before I could change my mind, and when he answered, I couldn’t even find it in me to start with small talk.
“Hey there, beautiful,” he greeted.
“Zach, we need to talk. We nevertalked. We never said what we were, and what we weren’t, and what we both expect out of this… whateverthisis. And now I’m meeting your brother, and you’ve been hurt and I’ve been hurt and I love hanging out with you but like when does it start to get hard and messy? And when do you start telling your friends how annoying I am and how you don’t know how to tell me that you don’t want to do this anymore? And since we aren’t like, official, or whatever, do you even have to tell me? Can you just ghost me? And how do we decide when things happen, like when we meet certain people or open up about certain things. Like, are we moving too fast, is this all too soon? I just—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Zach said, and I took my first breath, cringing and dropping my face into my free hand. “Hey, it’s okay. Slow down. We can figure this out.”
“I’m a mess today, Zach. I just… I don’t know what happened but my anxiety is out of control.”
There was shuffling on the other end of the phone, and I realized it was late enough in the day now that Zach would be at the bar, getting ready for the Monday night football crowd. “It’s okay,” he said, voice softer now that the background noise was muted. “Look, you’re right. We never did talk about any of that. So, let’s talk about it.”
“Really?” I sat up, heart squeezing.
He chuckled. “Yeah, really. Look, in my eyes, you’re my girlfriend. I’m not seeing anyone else, and I don’t want you seeing anyone else. I care about you. I’m not just dating you to hook up or be entertained. I’m dating you because I potentially see a future with you.”
My stomach was somewhere in my throat instead of where it should have been anatomically, and I tried to swallow past it without success. “Okay. Yeah. I agree with that.” I sighed. “But, I don’t want to move too fast. Okay? I just… I need some guidelines here. Some rules.”
Zach laughed. “You and your rules. Okay. Tell me what would make you feel comfortable.”
“No promises we can’t keep.”
“That’s fair. What else?”
I thought about it, realizing that I hadn’t actually taken the time to figure out what guidelines I needed. “I don’t know,” I confessed, pulling my hair over one shoulder. “I guess I don’t really need guidelines, but…”