Page 8 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Sheriff

Me: Absolutely not. You are eight months pregnant and have more important things to do than babysit me. Like grow an actual human.

Me: I've got it. I always have it. That's kind of my whole thing.

Jules: Nobody said you didn't, babe.

Me: I know. I know. Ignore me.

Cora: Never.

Jules: But she has her sheriff at her beck and call.

Beck and call. I set the phone down for a second.

Here's what they don't get—what I can't figure out how to say without sounding like I need a therapist I can't afford. It isn't the him part that bothers me. It's the being-rescued part.

Me: Soooo… today he carried a forty-dollar armoire up my porch steps like it was a loaf of bread.

Me: But then he took a whole bag of snickerdoodles and said, and I quote, “they’re for my deputies”

Jules: They were not for his deputies.

Me: Exactly. He said it like a hostage reading a statement.

Cora: Is this what they call a situationship?

Jules: I think a situationship includes more orgasms.

Me: It is not a situationship. He is doing his job. Repeatedly. Because my watch is possessed.

Me: He doesn’t even like me. He asked me if I had any friends.

Jules: How many times has your sheriff been out there now?

Me: He’s not MY sheriff.

Jules: How many times, Hope?

Me: It’s only been the two times I’ve told you about.

Three days later and he’s been out to my house a total of four times now. Four times a man has driven all the way out here because something told him I couldn't manage my own life. And the worst part, the part I would genuinely rather die in that yard than admit to Jules, is that some small, tired, traitor corner of me liked it.

Liked being checked on. Liked that someone came.

I have worked so hard, for so long, to not be a person who likes that.

I pick the phone back up before let’s be honest, this is probably the first time in our nearly two-decades-long friendship that I’ve had this much personal drama to report. Normally it’s Jules and then most recently Cora when her one-night stand became her forever.

Me: Okay, he’s been here two more times now.

Jules: That’s a total of four, right?

Me: The watch is broken!! It thinks sanding is dying! Granted,my arms did feel like they were dying.

Jules: What the hell were you sanding?

Me: My cabinet doors. Have to sand them before I paint them.

Cora: Sorry. I’m here. Had to pee. Again.