Mikey and the Chickadee Ch. 19

She hugged me more tightly. "Stop. Just take the time you need. It's yours to take. He'll handle himself. Wyatt, I'm telling you that if you do change your mind, he won't resent you for the number of days it required."

I let her go and lay back against the cushion. "Fuck me, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I want to know about someone else's life. What do you have for me?"

She searched her mind. "Hmmm, not too much. I suppose I'm really starting to think I need someone. I don't like being alone at all." She laughed. "That's probably another way I'm biased when you ask for my advice."

"Do you have any prospects?"

"Plenty. Or no, not really. Depends on my expectations, which pretty much rise and fall with the tide."

"Who's number one right now for you? Pick one."

"It's me, Wyatt," she said, smiling. "I thought we already discussed this." She paused. "No, but really, it's so hard to imagine any of them. Dating has been a true horror. Fuck, I don't know. Maybe I'll just date Sloan. Who the fuck knows?"

I gasped. "Is Sloan really on the table?"

Her eyes narrowed as she attempted to read my face. "What would be your response if he was?"

"I don't know," I said. I was smiling, I sure. "I'm still in shock, Marie. Since when has this been a possibility?"

She hesitated, intensely thoughtful. Looking past me she said, "You only need a man to take care of you once...to help you walk home after you've embarrassed yourself with alcohol...to hold his coat over you when it starts to rain. He looked right into my eyes, Wyatt. He said if I needed anything at all, to call him right away. There's no question in my mind that he wanted to kiss me then. I can tell those things. But he didn't do it, because I wasn't in a good state."

"Sloan's a complete gentleman," I said.

She sighed. "I know. It's taken me a long time to notice him, Wyatt. Oh, it had nothing to do with what he looks like with his clothes off--I got over that a long time ago. In fact, I don't think it ever would have mattered. I think it's that we're primarily good friends, Sloan and I. You don't always notice people like that."

"Follow your dreams, Marie."

She crossed her arms. "Well, who the hell knows if it'll go anywhere? No one, that's who. We'll just have to wait and see."

"We will," I said.

Marie stayed with me long into the evening. The intensity of our discussion diminished; we put on a movie and she helped me with what little packing I had left. I thought back to what my mom had said, about how people can change, no matter their age. I believed she was right, but I also believed that some aspects of a person never change, which was why that evening with Marie flooded with the same warming light as our evenings spent together years earlier. In fact, nothing of substance had been lost from that first day when, in the middle of the commons lawn, before the weather turned cold, she appeared out of nowhere--complimenting my shirt, of all things--and asked me if I was looking for a friend.