Page 46 of Hurricane Love

“Fuck my life,” he muttered as he pulled out of the parking lot.

One thing was for certain, he and Nancy were going to have a talk about boundaries, pronto.

Wylie foundNancy outside her trailer, misting her newly planted pentas with a garden hose while humming to herself. Wylie stood there until she noticed him and turned off the sprayer.

“Oh, Christ, what’d I do this time?” she asked after taking one look at his face. Wylie had never been good at hiding his emotions and generally tended to broadcast loudly whatever he happened to be feeling in the moment. It was probably what made him such a good actor and a lousy card player.

He gestured to her patio dining set, indicating that they should take this conversation to the shade, and pulled out a chair for Nancy to sit before taking the seat across from her. He took a few puffs from his vape as a warm up, then launched into it. “Listen, Nance, I know you mean well, but you gotta stop scaring off these men by reminding them how smart and ambitious I am. I was working on something with Diego, and you totally screwed it up. The plan is completely derailed.” Maybe not derailed, but definitely delayed.

Eyebrows raised, she asked, “And what plan is that?”

“Wifing the man.”

She dropped her chin and gave him one of those appraising, teacherly looks. “Isn’t it a little too soon to be talking about marriage?”

“Yes, which is why I was trying to get him to commit to being my boyfriend, but you totally spooked him.”

“Maybe he’s not ready for that,” she said, taking zero accountability for her actions.

“Or maybe he just needed a little nudge in the right direction without you interfering.”

She fished a cigarette from her pack, tapped it against the glass table a couple times, then lit it and took a deep drag. Wylie knew what was coming next. They’d sparred enough times for him to recognize when Nancy was getting her game face on, building her case. She was the one person he knew who might be better than him at debating due to her very sound logic. “And what happens when you get accepted to law school?” she asked.

“If,” Wylie corrected.

“Why haven’t you applied to any other places yet?” She cocked her head and waited for an answer that wasn’t forthcoming. It was true that he’d been procrastinating on his applications. Maybe, just maybe, he’d been waiting to see where this thing with Diego went. Was that a crime?

“Maybe I just needed a little break from school,” Wylie said. That couldalsobe part of the reason for the delay.

“You can defer your start date, but you still need to get in somewhere.”

“You know that UF is my first choice. I don’t want to be too far from home.”

“But maybe that’s the best thing for you, to get out and spread your wings. See what all else is out there.”

Wylie slouched back in his chair and crossed his arms, feeling like a petulant teen. Why was everyone trying to be rid of him? He needed his family, his community. He’d come to rely on Nancyand Hannah and now Diego. Why did it feel like everyone was trying to push him out of the nest, presumably for his own good? It was insulting and it pissed him off.

Wylie recalled the early days of their relationship when he’d first moved in with Nancy and he’d done more crying than anything else, the week when he didn’t want to get out of bed at all, and Nancy’s particular brand of tough love, which had included spraying him with a Super Soaker to get him to take a shower, then confiscating his vape until he agreed to eat something. They’d been through the trenches together, both of them fiercely independent while relying on each other at the same time.

“Seems like everyone else knows what’s best for me these days,” Wylie remarked.

“Hmph,” was her response, but there was a crack in her demeanor. She sighed out a big plume of cigarette smoke and said, diplomatically, “I’m sorry for interfering in your relationship.” Wylie waited for the “but,” and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t come.

“Anything else?” Wylie asked.

“I won’t do it again,” she said with a question mark in her tone.

“Because,” Wylie prompted.

“Because you’re a grown man who can take care of himself.” She opened her mouth and looked as if she wanted to say more but thought better of it.

Wylie nodded at the confirmation. “Thank you.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket. A text from Diego.Call me,it said, which was unusual for him because they mostly texted. Maybe the man was having second thoughts and had decided that he did want to marry him after all.

While looking at his phone, he noticed a notification from his email, one that he only used for school stuff, a message from the University of Florida. Putting aside Diego’s text for now, he opened it and started reading.

“Dear Mr. Sommers, we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted…”