Page 78 of When In Doubt

“You sure?” She chuckles. “He seemed pretty smitten.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Harvey shuffles in the corner. “We went on a date?”

“Oh yeah?” she asks gently. “How was that?”

“Scary,” I grumble.

Elsie sighs. She saw me after I left Connecticut, the state I was in after Aaron. I didn’t tell her everything that happened, but she probably got the idea. “Well, that’s to be expected, but you did it anyway,” she says. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, it was… nice.”

She snorts a laugh. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s a confusing thing.”

“What’s confusing?”

“I just… I don’t know.” I flop an arm over my face. “We went out for one lunch, then he tried to kiss me and I panicked, but he was actually really nice about it, then I didn’t see him for a couple days, but then he showed up at my apartment asking me to watch his rabbit, and that time he did kiss me and it was kind of amazing, and now he’s off fighting a wildfire and what if he’s dead?”

“Freya, take a breath, sweetheart.”

I do as she says, feeling a little dizzy after my rant, and relax back into the couch as my head stops spinning.

“I just feel like it’s going really fast,” I mumble.

“It’s only one kiss.”

“But it was a really good kiss.”

She laughs. “That’s a good thing!”

“I guess…”

“Then, why do you sound so miserable about it?”

I chew the inside of my lip. “It’s all kind of a lot. It would be so much easier if I didn’t like him.”

“What would?”

I stare up at the ceiling, listening to Harvey as Elsie waits patiently. “Do you think he’s a good guy?”

She sighs. “Oh, Little Peach…”

Tears prick at the backs of my eyes. “I don’t know how to be sure,” I whisper.

“Nobody’s ever sure, that’s what makes it a risk.”

“But I’m not ready to take a risk.”

“Of course you are, look at yourself. You moved across the country, you’re living your own life. What’s that if it’s not the biggest risk possible? Going on a couple of dates with a sweet man will be a cake walk compared to that.”

“You like him, right?” I ask.

“I’ve always thought he was a wonderful young man, but it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Okay…” I glance down at the carpet, where Harvey is plodding around my living room. “But do you not think it’s a bit intense to ask me to take care of his rabbit?”

“Sounds to me that he was just in a bind, and you’re somebody he trusts to help him out.”