“Of course not.”
“You wound me. You really do. There wasn’t even one time today when you thought about me and wondered what I was up to?”
She could tell from his tone that this entire line of questioning was superfluous and he couldn’t care less about whether she had, in fact, “missed” him at all during the fourteen hours they’d been separated. Why would he? The man was more confident than an entire team of Super Bowl defending champs at the onset of a new football season. He made CEOs look downright hesitant with his bold ways and assertive temperament. And language.
“Okay, fine. You caught me. I thought of you every second of every minute of every hour that we’ve been apart. I don’t even know what to do with myself when you’re not around sexing me into submission.”
His deep chuckle reverberated through the phone line. “I like that. Sexing you into submission. It’s hot.”
She laughed. Typical man. “What are you doing?”
“That’s why I called. Something’s come up with my mom and I need to fly home tomorrow.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope?”
“We’ll see. She’s been having chest pain, evidently for a few weeks, but failed to tell anyone about it until tonight when my brother was over. He and my dad took her to the emergency room and at this point, she’s undergoing stress tests. As far as they can tell, she hasn’t suffered a heart attack or anything like that, all of which is good news.”
“Oh, David. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“No, but thanks for the offer. I’m on the first flight out tomorrow morning, which happens to be about six hours from now and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I’ll definitely be back by the end of the week, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to turn around tomorrow night or if I’ll need to stay a little longer to make sure she’s alright and settled back at home. I mean, I’m sure my brother and dad can and will take care of her, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t go back. Besides, tomorrow’s game isn’t critical.”
She’d momentarily forgotten that every Sunday was the focal point of any professional football team, including the Tide. Here he was rushing to return home to see his mother with his own eyes, assure himself she was going to be alright, and she’d walked out on her own mother earlier in the evening. Complete opposites of a pair they were.
“Well, since you’re going to be with your family and in the hospital, I won’t call to interrupt you. Let me know if you need anything,” she offered.
“If you called, you wouldn’t be interrupting. I’ll give you a call tomorrow once I know something. Or even if I don’t.”
She smiled. It was nice to know that she figured into his plans. Both that he called her tonight to let her know about his mom and that he planned on letting her know his mom’s status while he was there. Being someone’s plus one felt good. Really, really great actually.
“How was the rest of your day? You do anything tonight?”
“Oh yeah. I had a hot date,” she answered.
The silence lasted so long, she was prompted to ask, “David?”
“Sorry. I was checking to make sure my phone still worked. For a minute there, I thought you said you had a date tonight. Which, I thought after our discussion last night, was not in the plan for either of us.”
“Don’t you want to know who the date was with?”
“Only if you’re planning to provide a detailed physical description and current address so I can have a little chat with him,” he said tightly.
“
Her
name is Lauren.”
“I had no clue you were bi. But, that’s still not okay. I don’t share. Ever.”
“You’re such a perv, David. She’s my mother,” she answered, laughing.
He audibly exhaled. “I just tell you my mother is in the hospital, with chest pains, and you toy with my emotions like that, Stuart? Brutal. And heartless.”
“I learned from the best. You.”
He laughed in open relief. “How’s your mom? What’d you do?”
Despite everything they’d shared, she was reluctant to disclose the nature of her strained relationship with her only parent. She also had a strange urge to protect her mother from David thinking poorly of her, an inevitable result given his personality.
She
thought poorly of her mother, even knowing that in many ways, Lauren did everything that she did, made every rude comment and criticized Calleigh at every turn because it stemmed from a good place. A place where Lauren only wanted the best for her daughter and only considered certain habits to represent the best.
“It was alright. We had dinner than I came home.”
“You don’t sound alright. You sound upset. Did something happen?”
His perception continually surprised her.
“Let’s just say that my mother and I aren’t exactly close and don’t see eye to eye on virtually anything.”
“Ahhh. Got it. You wanna talk about it?”
She wanted to spill her guts in the safety of her bedroom while David was miles away in his own house, but decided against it. Repeating the actions and the words from hours past would only heighten her anxiety again and for what?
“That’s alright. It was a tense dinner.”
“If I didn’t have to be at the airport in such a short amount of time, I’d offer to come over and help you work off your tension.”
“You’re a giver,” she teased.
“You know it. I could pack my bag right now and come over and take off for the airport from your place?” he suggested hopefully.
“If you come over, we both know neither one of us will get any sleep tonight. I can’t have you seeing your sick mother exhausted from my sexual appetite.”
“Sounds like a helluva way to greet any day if you ask me.”
“I’m tired and crabby tonight, so I’ll see you when you return?”
“Yeah. Definitely. Sleep well.”
“You too.”
Chapter 11
Monday and Tuesday flew by. It was a big test week for all of her students at all levels, and soccer games filled both nights. No word from Lauren, but the lack of any response was as expected as missing homework from freshmen for the first three weeks of every school year. She couldn’t recall a single instance in which Lauren ever uttered any words approaching an apology. As in an actual, sincere statement of regret and remorse. Not her mother. Not even for non-controversial actions, like kicking the seat in front of you on an airplane. While they weren’t close, the distance exposed by their fight Saturday night revealed a deep and fundamental divide, as wide and deep as a gulf. Her mother was one of the first things she thought about every morning and one of the last things she thought every night before sleep consumed her.
Before she knew it, Wednesday night arrived in its rainy glory delivering a very handsome, dominant male to her doorstep.
“Hello, Gorgeous,” she greeted him while taking note of the overnight bag in his hand. He didn’t even bother responding before he promptly dropped the bag and pulled her to him in an embrace that was distinctly him. He smelled the way he always did, like clean soap with a hint of underlying sin. His lips found hers as he wrapped his hands all around her, seeking out her most sensitive spots, molding her to his hard, angular body.
Pulling his lips away while keeping his hands locked on her waist, he stroked his thumbs against her stomach as he looked down at her, concern clouding his perceptive gaze. “You’re upset,” he said unequivocally. “What’s wrong? You’ve been bothered by something all week.”
Truth time. She could let him in, thereby divulging the strained nature of her relationship with her mother as well as her history with her father, or blow him off and insist he was imagining things, or fabricate some other reasonable explanation. Maybe the mid-week blues were bringing her down or maybe her defenses were otherwise occupied, but at that moment, she had no desire and even less energy to tell him anything less than the full, unvarnished truth.
“I don’t want to talk about me. I want to hear about your mother,” she said instead.
“Whether or not you like it, we will discuss what’s on your mind. If you prefer telling me later, that’s alright.” He deftly maneuvered her through her front door and into the loft.
“You planning on staying awhile?” she asked, motioning to his overnight bag.
“Someone needs to protect you from yourself,” he responded, shrugging off his jacket.
“So generous.”
“I told you I was a giver,” he said as he moved into her kitchen, opened up the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer.
“Nice of you to notice my brand,” he said, taking a long pull from the amber bottle while a gentle smile played across his lips.
She shrugged, still uncomfortable with his insight and the fact that he knew she’d purchased it for him.
“You want one?” he offered.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Yeah. Why not.”
Twisting the cap, he gave it her, took her hand in his and walked them both towards her couch as they settled in.
“You play tonight?” he asked.
“Yeah. I wasn’t planning on it, but at the last minute, I decided some fresh air and some well-kicked balls would do me good.”
“Give me your feet.”
“Why?”
“Why are you so suspicious?”
“I want to prepare myself in case you’re intending to subject my little piggies to the same treatment you gave my nipples last week,” she tartly replied.
His grin crinkled the lines around his eyes, simultaneously aging him and making him appear half his age.
“You should be so lucky.”
Tentatively, she lifted both of her legs over his so they rested in his lap. He removed her socks and immediately began rubbing her feet, giving much needed attention to the arches and balls of her feet. She should have been embarrassed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a pedicure or performed any beauty treatments on her feet. But his touch made her feel too good to even contemplate removing them. Digging into her arches, he hit pressure points that released tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying.
Allowing him to do his thing, she took a sip of her beer, closed her eyes and savored the moment.
After a few heartbeats of not unpleasant silence, he said, “Mom will be fine. The doctors determined the problem was a very slight blockage that they were able to fix.”
“That’s what you called the heart catherization?”
“Exactly. The doctors were kind of surprised because she’s fairly healthy all the way around. I mean her diet and exercise habits would make any nutritionist proud.”
“Do they have any idea what else, if anything, caused it?”
“Mainly heredity.”
“Does that mean the next time we’re doing it, you’re going to pass out from a heart attack?” she teased, trying to lighten the mood.
He laughed. She’d succeeded. “Maybe.”
“What’s she got to do now?”
“The good news is she was able to avoid riskier surgery. The bad news is that she’s now on a boatload of medication that she’ll be on for the rest of her life.”
“Better than the alternative.”
“That it is. Now, are you ready to tell me what’s been on your mind this week?” he asked as he finished her foot rub.
“It’s my mother. We don’t have what one might consider a close relationship.”
“And by that you mean?”
“I mean, we pretty much don’t get along on any level. She doesn’t get me and I don’t understand her. Sometimes, I’m not even sure how she raised me.”
“You don’t mention anything about your dad,” he said, gently as though afraid of spooking her.
She let out a harsh breath and concentrated on the fascinating label on her beer bottle.
“He’s not really in the picture,” she finally responded.
“As in, you don’t call him on Christmas and don’t expect to be mentioned in his will or as in you have no memory of him?” he asked, now stroking her legs in easy comfort.
She frowned while her stomach churned for reasons completely unrelated to the man who usually made her stomach jump in the best ways.
“All of the above. I have no recollection of him. As far as I know, all of which is from my mother, who’s her own special brand of crazy, is that they were married and he split around the time I turned two.”
“That’s it?”
She nodded and took a long pull on her bottle to fortify herself as much as anything else. “I’ve never heard from him. I don’t know the first thing about him other than his first and last name.”
“You’ve never tried to Google him?”
She shook her head. “No. When I was growing up, I thought about him a lot, but my mother didn’t really discuss him with me. My mother’s the only child in her family and my grandparents never talked about him. She moved out here with me from Connecticut. By the time I was old enough to do something on my own to locate him, I was pissed off. Violently angry. I mean, I know that my mother’s a handful and I can’t imagine whatever compelled him to marry her and have a child with her, but I’m not her and I was outraged that not once did he even try and reach out to me.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“What?”
“That he never tried to contact you? What if he did, but your mother blocked him or otherwise prevented him from getting to know you?”
“I guess it’s possible, but as controlling as Lauren Stuart is, even I don’t think she’d intentionally keep us separated if he initiated communication. She’s a fairly straight shooter, even when poorly intentioned.”
“Lauren. You both have rich girl names,” he said with a smile.
“Yeah, well, as you know, I’m limited to a public school teacher’s salary, so the ‘rich’ aspect is purely limited to my name.”
“So, what’d you ask your mother about him? About why he left and didn’t contact you?”
“I asked her the obvious. Why, when, how, and if he was ever coming back. According to her, he shouldn’t have settled down in the first place and had no desire to bring up a child, which took him approximately twenty-four months to figure out. When he did, he hit the road.”
“She have any idea where he ended up?”
“I don’t think so. She wouldn’t have kept tabs on him and as I said, by the time I realized I could try and hunt him down, I was over it. Fuck him. If I wasn’t important enough to him for the first twenty years of my life, he has no right to share in the rest of it with me.”