She kept thinking about everything between them and what they had talked about through dinner. She had come to realize the boy her sister had dated in high school had been a stranger to her, a fantasy she had entertained through her adolescence. He was so different from what she had expected and not in a bad way. He was independent, confident, and passionate about the things and people he loved. His work was very important to him, but what he wanted more than anything else, was to build his own home in the mountains and retire at an age early enough to still be able to enjoy life. He hadn’t said it directly but Noelle understood that to mean retired with a wife and children. He enjoyed literature and read in his free time, which pleased her to no end. He asked all the right questions and none of the hard ones like whether she would go back to college or not. In short, he was exactly the type of man she could fall head over heels for if she wasn’t careful. Precious had curled up in a sunbeam on the carpet in the living room as Noelle closed up the last of the boxes she’d filled.
