A Love Like Ours

Chapter 23

Walking out into the warm Los Angeles evening, it was hard to reconcile the fact that there were Christmas decorations strung up around the neighborhood.

I was still used to cold, sometimes snowy winters despite the fact that I'd had a home here for nearly ten years. To see the sun shining, to only need a light jacket every time I went outside, even so close to Christmas, it was still a little disheartening. It never quite felt like the holiday season.

Julian and I had been working today, and finished earlier than planned. The recording for the album was done, now it was just a matter of picking twelve to fourteen songs out of the dozens and dozens we'd written and recorded. It should've been relatively easy, but there were too many I held close to my heart. Too many that were full of emotion, ranging from the sadness and pain of heartbreak to the joy and excitement of falling in love (again). I'd been through so much these last several months that I didn't know which way I wanted to take the album. Didn't know whether I wanted it to be a clear breakup album, a clear falling in love album, or an even mix of the two. And there were so many songs to choose from, narrowing them down would be difficult even with a clear concept in mind.

So I left Julian's house with all of them on my laptop, ready to listen to them in my spare time and hopefully determine which I'd like to be on the album, which I'd like to give to other artists, and which I'd like to put on the back-burner.

I was supposed to meet Jeff and Glenne for dinner at hers a bit later, and checked my phone once I was in my car to see whether either of them had texted to firm up a time. It was already nearly five. But I only had two messages. The first was from Mum.

There are only ten more shopping days and I still have no clue what to get you. Please help out your poor Mum.

I shook my head, smiled, and quickly typed out a message, eager to get to the other one waiting for me. The only thing I could use is a new set of under shirts. Other than that, I don't want anything.

I knew I was setting myself up for a well-meaning scolding, and I knew how she hated to have very few things for me on Christmas. But it didn't feel right—asking her for things. I had more than I could ever want. And she understood when I explained it to her, but she still seemed to feel it was her responsibility to get for me on Christmas. So, at least I'd thrown her a bone.

And my heart picked up it's pace, a smile formed on my lips, when I read the other message waiting for me: No word in the English language rhymes with month.

I pictured her then, wherever she'd been when she'd sent this twenty minutes ago—maybe at school, maybe on the train home, maybe in her bedroom—and imagined her drinking her Snapple and trying to prove this fact wrong. Trying out every consonant in front of the rest of the word and hoping that one of them was indeed a word in the English language. And I grinned.

I couldn't think of any either.

Lunch is close, but doesn't quite rhyme does it? I sent back.

And I started the drive over to Glenne's with a smile on my face, excited to think that in just a couple more weeks, I'd be able to smile with her.

I didn't regret it—saying that I wanted to see her. I was more and more excited with every day that passed, actually. It was something I was more than looking forward to. Sometimes when we were talking over the phone, it felt like I couldn't wait any longer. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous, too. Just the thought of being in the same room with her again, after all we'd been through, and all we were working toward, sent a small thrill through me, and I wasn't sure if that thrill was entirely excited or entirely nervous.