Callie rolled her eyes. “Which means what exactly? Are you dating other people? Has he met your family? Come on, Lauren, I want details here.”
Lauren swallowed the tiny bit of heaven in her mouth. “He’ll meet them this weekend. He was supposed to come to Jenny’s birthday party with me but didn’t make it. Some emergency at work.” It still bothered her a little that he had to work during her niece’s birthday party after promising he’d come. “And I haven’t been out with anyone else since our first date back in January.”
Callie took a forkful of cake and then put her plate down. “I still cannot believe Jenny’s three.”
“Tell me about it.” Lauren reached for her steaming mug of coffee. “It seems like she was just born yesterday.”
“So, will Kevin be at your mom’s retirement party tomorrow?”
“He promised he’d be there.”
“I’m still surprised she’s retiring. I thought she’d be there forever.”
“It surprised everyone. She’s worked in the school library for more than twenty years. The principal tried to change her mind, but Mom refused. She wants to be around when Kelly has the baby next month. When Kelly’s maternity leave ends, Mom is going to watch the baby during the day.” Lauren dug her fork into the cake again. “So, do you still love it at the academy?” After her marriage, Callie had decided to remain a teacher. A decision that had shocked the media and much of the country.
Callie raised another forkful of cake toward her mouth. “Most days. You know how it is. But I’m tossing around the idea of leaving at the end of the school year. Maybe taking on some charitable work instead. It’ll be something different, and when Dylan travels I can go with him.”
“How is he really? Has he been traveling a lot again?” Lauren had never met a worse workaholic than Callie’s husband. While Callie said he was not as bad as when they’d first met, he still put in an obscene number of hours.
Callie rolled her eyes. “Busy as usual. You know him, but most weekends he leaves work at the office. He hasn’t traveled since the end of January, but he’ll be away for five days in April. I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Yeah, but just think how happy he’ll be to see you when he gets home,” Lauren said in a suggestive tone.
Callie laughed and nodded. “He always is, but enough about him. What do you want to do tonight? It’s your birthday; we should do something special. Something we haven’t done together in a while.”
The next several minutes they tossed around ideas before deciding on a movie followed by a late dinner. For a moment it felt like old times. That whole part of her life seemed like ages ago. While she loved seeing how happy Callie was with Dylan, she missed having her best friend just fifteen minutes away. Since freshman year in high school they’d been friends. They’d even taught at the same elementary school after college. Now she saw Callie perhaps once every six weeks or so. They talked on the phone frequently, but even their conversations had changed. They were not only in different places in their lives, but now their lives were rooted in different worlds. Even with all the differences between them, she still thought of Callie as a sister. And she knew Callie felt the same way. Sometimes, though, she wished they could go back to the way life was before Callie met Dylan, not that she would ever tell Callie that. Some things were best kept to oneself.
***
“Looks like Dylan has a new best friend,” Lauren said dryly. She and Callie sat together at a corner table in the banquet room of The Davenport on Saturday night. Callie’s husband had arrived late that afternoon to accompany Callie to Mrs. McDonald’s retirement party.
“I don’t think Kevin has left him alone all night.” Across the room, the two gentlemen in question stood at the bar getting drinks. Even from this distance she could see that Kevin was still talking while Dylan nodded in agreement.
“It does look that way. They’re probably talking about debt to income ratios or some other business topic.” Callie took a sip of her water. “Sometimes men like Kevin and Dylan need a little reminder that work is over.”
“I guess. But I still can’t believe Kevin got here so late tonight.” She’d been prepared to drive herself to the party and leave a note for him on the door, when he finally pulled into her driveway. He’d lost track of time working on a project and then hit heavy traffic on the drive up from Rhode Island.
Callie leaned closer to her. “Then you just have to make sure he forgets about work sometimes. That’s what I do.” Callie gave her a devious smile.