I didn’t open the unopened doors because I didn’t want him to think I was snooping. Though I found it slightly odd, with the upstairs and the down, that Tate Jackson had such a huge house. Essentially six bedrooms, three full baths, living room, dining room, family room. It was long and it was also large. Too large for one man and a dainty cat.

Unable to find sheets, I called Wendy, swung by to pick her up and we headed to the mall in order to buy some.

This was where I thought that perhaps I was stepping over the line.

Because I didn’t only buy sheets, I bought Indian cotton, high thread count sheets and because Tate’s comforter had seen better days, I bought a down one, a comforter cover, six new down pillows and shams.

I thought nothing of this until the clerk returned my credit card and Wendy giggled. Her giggle started slow and then gained in volume and hilarity.

Finally she shouted, “Love this!”

I turned to her. “Love what?”

“You and Tate buying sheets together.” Then she laughed outright and grabbed me, giving me a big hug.

I hugged her back and looked over her shoulder at the clerk who was smiling at me like she knew what was going on. I didn’t smile at her because I didn’t.

“Tate and I aren’t buying sheets together,” I told Wendy, she let me go and leaned back.

“You so are!”

I looked around to see if Tate was hiding somewhere and about to saunter out and surprise me. When I saw no Tate, I looked back at Wendy.

“It’s just that he needs new sheets. His are old and he only has one set,” I explained.

“He need a new comforter?” she returned.

“Yes, that’s old too.”

“A comforter cover?” she went on.

“You have a down comforter, Wendy, you have to have a cover,” I explained patiently.

“Shams?” she asked.

Hmm. I could see her point on the shams. Tate wasn’t exactly a man who needed two extra pillows which were only there to sport decorative shams.

I bit my lip and looked at the huge plastic bags holding my purchases.

“And you’re gonna sleep on those sheets,” she reminded me. “You already are! And he isn’t even home!”

“Um…” I mumbled.

“Love this!” Wendy shouted again then turned to clerk and shared, “She’s got a new man, he’s a good man and he’s hot, he’s totally into her and they’ve known each other, like, two months and they’re already playing house!”

“We’re not playing house,” I whispered.

“You so are,” Wendy didn’t whisper, she spoke so loud other people were staring (and smiling).

“Girlfriend, let me just say,” the clerk butted in, “don’t look so scared. He’s a good man, he’s hot, he’s into you, go with the flow. He’s used to bad sheets and an old comforter, you go girl and you buy him good sheets. A man appreciates good sheets. He ain’t gonna say it but he’s gonna think it and every time he slides between those sheets he’s gonna be glad you gave that to him. We girls, we gotta look after our men. You tell him early on you’re the type of woman who finds all sorts of ways to look after her man, it’s gonna suck him in deep and he ain’t even gonna know it.”

“Unh-hunh,” a woman in line behind us muttered. “You got that right.”

I looked between the clerk and the nodding, smiling woman behind us in line and I wondered how a trip to the mall to purchase sheets had turned into a lecture from a clerk at a home wares store telling me how to suck Tate in deep. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Tate was such a badass he could probably sleep on a bed of nails. I didn’t think he would even notice new sheets.

Or, at that point, I was kind of hoping he didn’t.

Even though I thought what I thought, to be nice, I said to her, “Thanks for the advice.”

“My pleasure,” she said as Wendy shoved my purchases into the cart and started motoring toward the exit.

Even with my misgivings, I put the new sheets and the comforter (and the shams) on the bed. Standing at the foot surveying it, I had to admit, with the bedroom floor cleared and vacuumed, the dresser and nightstands cleaned off, the entire place dusted, it didn’t look bad. The room was painted a utilitarian cream. Considering Tate was a man and a biker, I bought a dark denim comforter cover and shams and sheets in what I thought was an awesome light clay that contrasted great with the indigo blue denim. They gave the room some color and made it look homier. Tate’s house wasn’t a bachelor pad, it was a crash pad. This meant it also wasn’t a home. Those sheets gave it a stamp of “home”, a little one but a definite one.

Studying my handiwork, I decided on the one hand it freaked me out; on the other hand, I liked it. Tate needed a home, everyone did.

Buster sashayed in, jumped up on the bed and stopped dead. She gave the bed a look then gave me a look over her shoulder then she delicately dropped to her side, curled into a ball and went to sleep.

Well, at least I had Buster’s approval.

I let the sun shine down on me and sipped my coffee thinking about the sheets and the amount of stuff I brought up from the hotel, in other words, all of it. I’d checked out mainly because it was stupid to pay for a hotel room I wasn’t using but also because Ned and Betty were at the height of the summer biker season and could use the room and lastly because I liked to have choice and variability of wardrobe and I didn’t know how long Tate would be gone. It would be annoying to have to keep carting stuff back and forth and it wasn’t like I had a houseful of stuff. I had a car full of stuff. I left my unused clothes in suitcases and my boxes in Tate’s garage, the rest of it I lugged to his walk-in closet. I didn’t go so far as unpacking (except bathroom stuff). I knew that was definitely crossing a line, a line I wasn’t ready for and a line I didn’t want to know if Tate didn’t want me to cross.

I sighed and tipped my head back to the sun.

Weirdly enough, outside of fretting about cleaning Tate’s house, buying him sheets and semi-moving in, life felt normal. I hadn’t felt normal, not in a long time. Not during my wandering, not during the separation and divorce from Brad, not even before that, when I knew something was not right.

But now I had work that I liked. I had friends I could trust who I could go to the mall with. I came home to a house ensconced in the quiet, wooded hills sandwiched amongst Colorado’s mountains. I ate home-cooked dinners if I was working days. I made lunch in Tate’s kitchen if I was working nights. Every morning, I made myself breakfast and a cup of coffee in a real coffeemaker that sat on a kitchen counter.