Looking Forward to Friday

Libby

It was Wednesday evening and Libby had taken off work a couple of hours early and gone into Coffs Harbour. The next day would be six weeks since her car accident. She had an appointment with Marie at the clinic early Friday morning, when she expected that she'd be told everything was okay with her and that it was all right for her to be having sex again.

When he'd brought their dinner the night before, she had reminded Richie about her appointment and asked if he'd save Friday night for her. He'd told her he'd remember that. So she'd been making plans.

Plans for dinner and plans for afterward. She hoped he was okay with them. It had come to Libby in mid-afternoon on Wednesday that she hadn't really been out anywhere since meeting Richie. Oh, they'd been out for dinner a couple of times, but things had been very casual. She'd been wearing her jeans.

So, she'd decided that, since she was making dinner plans, maybe she'd buy a new dress. She hadn't been out shopping for anything except jeans and work clothes in ages, so she'd made an afternoon of it. Didn't have any idea how many things she'd tried on, but the dress she'd finally decided on was a burgundy with spaghetti straps and a softly draped front. It went well with her coloring.

As she drove home, Libby thought about everything that had gone on since that accident. A large amount of her time had been spent in grief. Losing the baby had hit her hard. She still grieved over it, but she'd spent a lot of this time evaluating things in her life and making plans. The past couple of days, she'd put together a list of houses for sale in and around the Glen that she wanted to go and look at.

That was mainly due to Richie. When she'd talked to him about wanting to have another baby, he'd told her that, to be on the right track, she should be looking at establishing a home first. The more she'd thought about it, the more Libby decided he'd been right. This apartment was great just for her, but for a family, as a place to raise a child, it would not be good. She needed a quieter place, with a yard and some more square footage to it. She'd made other plans besides just a house, but that had to be the first step.

Parking and going up to her apartment, she hung the dress up in her closet, admiring it. She hadn't realized she'd been looking forward to Friday so much. It wasn't that she hadn't seen a lot of Richie lately. He'd been coming over and bringing dinner a lot. Always checking up on her and seeing if she needed anything. She couldn't have asked for a better friend.

They hadn't been able to have sex, though, and she wouldn't have believed she would ever miss that so much. Sex had been a part of her life that had been very infrequent and not something she thought about very often. Richie, though, had turned it into something very different for her. Something comfortable and fun. He was good at it--even with her limited experience, Libby could tell that--but there was something more.

He didn't make it into a big emotional thing. There didn't have to be any discussion about a relationship or about where they went from here or anything like that. Since her accident, they had spent whole evenings without that even coming up and they'd still talked and had fun. She was getting a whole new perspective on men from Richie. Being friends with them could be very enjoyable. Or, at least, being friends with Richie was enjoyable.

Shaking her head, Libby had to laugh. She liked laughing, she realized. She was beginning to enjoy life again, after the painful things she'd been through with Dan and March. After the accident and losing the baby.

And most of that was due to Richie, his friendship, and his caring about her. She owed him. She hoped this evening she had planned would be something he'd enjoy.