She went into the kitchen and pulled down plates from her cabinet and set them out neatly on the counter. She glanced at the clock on the wall. He would be there in fifteen minutes. Anxiety spiked through her and she clutched the edge of the counter. Her stomach twisted itself into knots.
"Get a grip," she mumbled out loud to herself. She squeezed her eyes shut as panic threatened to consume her. She opened her eyes and spotted her prescription bottle a few feet away and moved down the counter toward them. She reached out to grab them, then stopped herself and pulled her hand back. She was becoming too reliant on the medication. Her therapist in New York had given her a number of ways to calm herself down, cautioning her that the medication should be used as a last resort if the relaxation techniques failed to work. Somewhere over the last year, she'd skipped the techniques and gone straight for the meds. She realized she didn't want to be dependent on them to "save" her anymore.
She thought back to what he'd taught her and she shut her eyes again and took some deep breaths, using her entire diaphragm to coax air in and out of her lungs deeply. She held her breath at the peak of her inhale for a few seconds and blew the breath slowly out between her lips. At the same time, she began to count backward from ten. She repeated the process two more times, and when she finally opened her eyes, she found that for the moment, she did feel a little bit more relaxed.
Then the buzzer next to her door went off, signaling that someone was at the main entrance to see her, and her stomach tightened again as her heart rate picked up speed and panic climbed back up into her chest.
"Fuck," she murmured, then went to the small box in the wall next to the door. She pressed a button. "Who is it?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. She knew who it was.
"It's Heath," came the reply, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Okay," she called back, then realized she hadn't pressed the button. She growled in annoyance and pushed her finger against it. "Okay," she repeated, and hit the button to unlock the main entrance. She heard the electronic lock give and knew that he'd be upstairs in moments.
Frantically, she tried her techniques again, but all she succeeded in doing was making herself lightheaded as she couldn't control the speed at which she was breathing. She heard a light knock on her door and she chewed her lip.
"Get it together," she whispered to herself, then reached for the knob with a shaking hand. She let it rest on the doorknob for a moment, steadying herself, then opened the door slowly, practically cowering behind it. Her stomach dropped when she saw him. He was wearing jeans and a long sleeved light blue shirt. He wore clean tennis shoes and she could smell his spicy, clean cologne from the hallway. She felt like a slob next to him.
He peered at her curiously. "Hi," he said.
She shook herself, realizing she'd been staring like an idiot. "Hi," she replied, feeling shy and horribly inadequate. She stepped back, still mostly behind the door, to let him in. She shut the door behind him and leaned her forehead against it for a moment before triple-locking it automatically. She turned slowly to face him.
He stood in the middle of her living room with his hands shoved in his pockets, looking around at her décor and the various pictures of her family she had in frames on the various shelves of the large mahogany entertainment center against the wall.
"You got a nice place," he said finally. "Are they all your family?"
"Yep, all of them," she replied, wrapping her arms around herself. "Some of them are extended family, but mostly it's my immediate family. That you'll be meeting soon enough," she added wryly.
He glanced at her over his shoulder and half-smiled. "I'm looking forward to that."
"You don't know what you've gotten yourself into," she said, shaking her head and pulling a laugh out of him.
"It sounds like fun," he replied.
Drew realized they were both still standing and she gestured to her cream colored, microfiber sectional couch. "Have a seat," she offered and stepped around it to join him. He settled into a corner and she sat a few feet away and hugged a cushion to the front of her body.
"You look nice," she commented. "I thought you'd be in your regular gym clothes. I feel like a slob now."
"You look great," he replied automatically, then shifted his eyes from her. "I mean, you don't need to change."
Her smoke-gray, green-eyed cat sauntered into the room then, pausing in his journey to his water bowl in the kitchen to look at Heath curiously.
"I didn't know you had any pets," Heath said. He flicked his head at the cat. "What's his name? Her name?"