✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

121. My Anticipation

I was singing along with the radio on the way home from work. Today was a good day, and I knew it was going to get even better. Tonight would be my opportunity to show Ffrances how much I loved her; and that I was learning to listen.

It was only when I turned my head, or raised my left arm, that I had to remember my encounter with Mr Torrance. I knew now that I shouldn't have reached out to him; but I wasn't going to beat myself up over things that I only knew about him in hindsight. I could try to pretend it hadn't happened, and once the bruises faded there would be nothing to tell me otherwise. In the circumstances, it was good that my Mistress wouldn't be caning me this evening. Even a little roughness would have made me wince or recoil, and then Ffrances would want to know how I'd gotten hurt. But tonight, we had something else in mind.

The music quieted momentarily so that I could hear my phone ringing. It surprised me briefly, and then drew a yelp as I reached out to swipe the screen and momentarily forgot the state of my shoulder. I winced and took a little breath before swiping across the screen and making sure that it was on speaker.

"Hey!" I said, and then realised that after being distracted by my injuries, I hadn't thought to look who was calling me.

"Hey, Gabby," the voice didn't give me any further clues. It seemed to be a man, and I was sure that the accent should have been familiar but I just couldn't place it. "Just heard from my supplier, your order should be here for Friday. I'm not supposed to notify people until it actually arrives, especially given the number of times certain publishers change delivery schedules at the last second. But in the circumstances..."

I hesitated for a second, trying to work out what all the subtleties in that explanation could add up to, before I realised what I had missed.

"Isaac!" I answered, after a delay long enough that I might have felt a little embarrassed. "You got Golden Ring for me?"

"I will have. Hopefully. Sorry I didn't come right out and say it, but well... I didn't know if Ffrances might be somewhere to overhear. Don't want to spoil the surprise, you know?"

"Thanks. I wasn't expecting it for another week; I guess that's what they mean by unpredictable releases. Well, I think it's going to be perfect. I've already got something big planned this week to show her how much I care. Things are just coming together to make this week perfect, you know? Thank you so much."

"I hope she appreciates it. They'll probably be at the bottom of the delivery boxes. So I'll call my regulars and let them know when I've actually seen the books. You'll get maybe a day while the online communities go from having rumours that something has been released, to knowing that it's out there. So if you're lucky, you might be able to give it to her before she knows it's out. I'll tell the regulars, too, that there's something supposed to be a surprise for a friend, and not to spoil the moment. Because they'll probably read it the instant they get here, can't even wait to get home. But still..."

"Yeah, I'll give it to her as soon as I got it. I'll book somewhere nice for lunch Friday, make some little excuse, then pick up the comic from you in the morning. Okay?"

"You sound nervous," he said. "You should do something to relax."

"Don't worry, I will."

I yelped in pain again as I reached up to end the call. That was just one bad note in the symphony of today, and I was sure it wouldn't last long. But I really hoped that it wouldn't last long enough to impair my movements when it came to the actual proposal. I wanted every single thing to be perfect, and I told myself that maybe I'd even resort to affirmations and the power of positive thinking, for any slight difference it might make to my healing.