by Cee, DW
Rather than chastise me, as he would have normally done, he came onto the bed and carefully unbuttoned my shirt. Once the top was undone, he didn’t immediately undo my jeans. Instead, he started a heady make out session on the bed that made my head spin.
“What kind of Michael am I now?”
“The why-the-hell-aren’t-we-doing-it-already-Michael,” I answered with my eyes closed and my mind thinking through all the delicious possibilities.
“Are you ready, Chlo-No? I’ve been more than ready for you, but I’m wondering if you’re willing to take this major step with me. Once we go there, there’s no going back—at least not in my mind.”
Couldn’t he just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am me and be on his way? My body so needed this. Unlike teenage-Michael, he doused cold water on our hormones by asking me about my desire to commit to him.
Did I want to commit? Did I have feelings for Michael? At this late age, did I want to commit to him? If I committed now—then what? Would we get married? Would we just date the rest of our lives? Would there be kids involved? With his position, there had to be kids involved.
“Why couldn’t you just take advantage of my horny state and bring up this conversation while I’m in afterglow?”
“Because,” he answered between more kisses, “as you’ve stated, it’s been a long time since we’ve even held hands. As much as I’d like to strip you naked and spend the rest of this night finding ways to pleasure you—”
“Stop!” I interrupted. “Please stop uttering words that will arouse me further. As it is, I’m going to have to finish myself off.”
“So that’s a no? You don’t want to go any further with me?” I liked that he was disappointed.
“Hell yes, I want to go further, sexually, but where will that leave us post orgasm?” I asked with a combination of cheek and seriousness.
“In a happy place?” He winked and kissed me one last time. “Put this on. I can’t think with you half-naked. Nice bra by the way. Hopefully one day, I’ll see the matching knickers.”
I did as was told but with a little added heat. Undoing my jeans, I slid it down to give him a nice view of my knickers and after a good second or three, I buttoned my shirt and tucked it under my jeans.
“Ready.” I smiled.
“Damn you.” He rearranged himself and told me to sit far away from him. “I want you.”
Whoa...that was random.
“Are you talking about wanting me, me or just wanting me?”
“Bloody hell, Chlo-No. English. Speak English, please.” I didn’t understand what part of that question he didn’t get.
I enunciated each word loud and clear. “When you say, ‘I want you,’ does that mean you want my body—like sexually—or you want me as a person?”
“Why do you women have to make everything so complicated? I want you—ALL of you, every part of you, forever and ever. Is that clear enough for you? Am I speaking English-English and not Chloe-English?”
“Smart ass!” I threw the nearest pillow I could find. “Why?”
“Because.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s not a good enough answer. Think it through and give me your best answer tomorrow and I’ll think about possibly wanting you back.” With that, I went over to him, placed my mouth over his, and added a lot of tongue. As soon as he started tugging on my shirt again, I parted. “Good night, Your Grace.”
Brendan: New Beginnings – First Date
“Don’t hang up!” I begged. “Please. I just want a chance to talk to you.”
“I’m surprised you still have this number.” Knowing Chloe, she was rolling her eyes at me right now.
I wasn’t stupid enough to call her on it. “Dinner. Give me one dinner for a chance to apologize.”
“Nope. No apology needed. What do you need to apologize for—falling in love with your future wife? We were hardly dating at the time. You only asked me to move to LA with you, but since I didn’t, you had every right to bang other women. Unfortunately for me, that was in the most literal case. Ten years later, it’s hard to erase that picture of you flipping over your girl-on-top so you could be the boy-on-top.”
“Chloe.” It was probably a stupid-ass thing to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. She said the damnedest things.
“Whoa! Did all those dirty words just come out of my mouth? I think I have to go wash my mouth out with soap and water. If you’ll excuse me...”
“Come on, Chloe. One chance. That’s all I’m asking for—one chance to get it right this time. Dinner. Tonight. Seven at the Malibu Country Mart. There’s a charming Italian place there. Meet me at the bar if you can make it any earlier. Thanks for agreeing. Good-bye.”
I hung up before she could yell at me any further.
In my lifetime, I had done some stupid ass things. Marrying Veronica wasn’t a mistake, but the way things ended with Chloe was a huge stupid ass error. Before I met up with her tonight, I needed to do research to bolster my case.
“Yes, Cousin-in-law?” Cat answered the phone with cynicism.
“I need your help. I believe I’m having dinner with Chloe tonight. Tell me what’s been going on in her life.”
Cat laughed at me. “You believe? You’re not sure whether you’re having dinner with her?”
“Don’t harass me, Cat. I got enough of that from your former roommate.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“Everything. Start from the day I made my stupid mistake until yesterday.”
“Geez. My girl will only nap for so long, Brendan.”
“Start! Please?” I figured begging was better than commanding.
That conversation lasted long enough where I got nothing done the rest of the afternoon. Rather than be unproductive in the office, I went home, showered, and prepared myself for my epic date.
“You’re here…and early.” I stood up from the bar to greet a lovely woman beautifully adorned in a casual summer dress.
“Didn’t you tell me to arrive before seven if I wanted a drink?”
“I did. The optimistic part of me believed you’d be here by seven at the earliest. The pessimistic part of me believed you wouldn’t show.”
“Did I have a choice since you never gave me a chance to say no?”
“Yes!” I pumped my fist. “Tactic worked.”
She shrugged without much of a response. “So what now?”
“Sorry, Chloe.” I answered, embarrassed that I had kept my date standing awkwardly by the bar. “Outside by the ocean or inside with the jazz band?”
“Outside.”
I ordered us food, grabbed our drinks, and begged for the nicest table outside where we weren’t next to screaming kids.
“It’s really nice to see you again, Chloe. You’re beautiful, as always.”
“Thank you. You haven’t changed much, either. Except, of course, for that little mini-me of yours.”
I smiled at the thought of my little boy. “I don’t know where I’d be without Nolan. He gets me out of bed in the mornings. I love being his father, and I can’t wait to see him when we’re not together.”
“Wow. I never thought I’d see this side of you. I guess it never dawned on me that you’d be a great father.” I could see Chloe finally softening with talks of my boy. This was the ticket to her heart.
“He’s such a great kid, Chloe. I’d love for you to get to know him. One thing Veronica and I did right was produce Nolan.” The little progress I made was undone with the mention of Veronica. “I’m sorry, Chloe.” There was no time like right now to apologize and start again. “No matter our situation, I shouldn’t have cheated on you. I know you won’t believe me, but I have never done that to another woman—ever!”
“Lucky me,” she murmured before taking a sip of her wine.
“Please, Chloe. I know that this is coming ten years too late, but can we start over again? I’d like to go back to that fateful mornin
g when you slept in till close to noon, walked out in a ratty sweater and bedhead the size of an eagle’s nest, and stared at me with uncontrollable desire.”
“Shit, Brendan.” She couldn’t help the giggles. That was a good sign. “I did not look that bad.”
“You didn’t, but your hair did. I thought you’d go bald in the back of your head with the amount of time you attempted to slick your hair down with your bare hand.”
“You are no gentleman for remembering crap like that.” Her giggles turned to a roar. We were definitely back on track.
“Seeing as how you’re focused on your bedhead, I’ll take the silence as an admission that you were insanely attracted to me from the onset.”
“You’re too much, Brendan O’Shaughnessy. I need to stay away from you.”
“No. Please don’t. Since you’re here, I’d like for us to hang out again.”
“I won’t be here forever, Brendan. I’m only here for a couple of months. Then I go back to London, or wherever else my job takes me. Remember why we ended the first time?”
“Then give me two months. After that, we’ll decide what to do. You may fall madly in love with me and want to move to LA. With Hollywood here, we don’t lack in high-profile weddings. Or, I might fall in mad love and lust with you and want to move with you wherever you go. You can support me and Nolan.”
She rolled her eyes in disbelief. “Speaking of, where’s your son tonight?”
“He’s always had impeccable timing.” I pulled out my ringing cell phone and accepted his FaceTime call. “Hello Munchkin. Where are you today?”
“Hi Dad,” he called out to me. Then he looked over to Chloe with a surprised look and said, “Hello Pretty Lady.” That earned him a sweet laugh from Chloe. “Are you having dinner with my dad?”
“Yes, Nolan. Have you had dinner, already?”
“Dinner? Where I am, it’s lunch.” He held up his chopstick and sushi.
“Are you in Japan?” Chloe asked.
“Smart and pretty. She’s a keeper, Dad.”
“Oh my gosh. Where’d you come from?” Chloe asked with wonder. “You’re as slick as your father.”
“I came from my mother’s womb and thank you. I’m my father’s mini-me.”
“You sure are, Nolan.”
“Dad, Mom’s waving me over to her so I have to go but I have a question for the pretty lady in front of you.”
“Go ahead, Buddy.”
“Chloe, do you think you can come with Dad to my kindergarten graduation? It’s just a formality, of course. It’s not like I’m changing schools or anything, but my mom can’t make it. She has some shoot in Bora Bora. Please? Can you come and celebrate with us?”
Damn, I loved my son. He was doing all the work for me.
“Um…I’ll talk it over with your dad. I’m unsure if I can—” The line dropped dead before she could finish her sentence. “You put him up to this, didn’t you?”
“Did not.” I raised my hand like a Boy Scout promising honesty. “I had no idea he’d call tonight. Promise.”
“Ugh!”
“I guess that means you’re coming? Shall we pick you up or do you want to meet us there?”
“Send me the info. I don’t want my ‘Pretty Lady’ title to turn to ‘Ugly Mean Lady’ next time I run into your adult five-year-old.”
“I take it this means we’re starting new? All has been forgiven and forgotten?”
“You can take it any way you like, Brendan O. As you know, life is never that easy.”
“I’m looking at tonight as our first official date.”
“Whatever!”
Michael: Crappy New Beginnings
“Where were you last night? You got home late.”
Chloe couldn’t answer me. She only stared at me making her a cup of coffee. “Yeah. I think I arrived right as the clock struck midnight.”
“Where’d you go, Cinderella?”
“…um…I had dinner with a friend…”
“Does this friend have a name?”
“Brendan O’Shaughnessy?” she eked out an answer.
Wishing I had heard incorrectly wasn’t enough. I knew what she’d said and I couldn’t believe it. “What did you just say? Did I hear correctly that you went on a date with the man who cheated on you? Not only did you go out with your ex, who’s a cheater, but you also went out after we promised to talk about our future? You asked me to think about the best answer possible so that you might consider a future with me. What happened to ‘I WAS WAITING FOR YOU TO PICK ME?’”
She started in with the “It’s not what you’re thinking, Michael.” I didn’t believe her.
“You’re impossible, Chloe. No different from ten years ago, you’re playing the both of us again. What is it you want to see? You want us dueling at dawn for your attention?”
“No. It’s not like that, Michael.”
“It sure feels like a pissing contest.”
“Michael!” I didn’t know why she was the exasperated one. It was me whose heart was being played. “I haven’t had a proper date in like five years. No man has asked me out in two. Can’t a girl just enjoy the attention of a man?”
I wasn’t about to take out the violins for her. “You now have the attention of two men—AGAIN. This isn’t some rendition of that horrid American reality show, Bachelorette. You need to decide right now whether you want to be a part of my life or a part of Brendan’s. You can’t have both.”
“Screw you, Michael. This is why we can’t work. You’re impossible.”
Screw me? Was she actually mad at me?
“Hello?” A voice called out.
“Shit. Why are they here so early?” I walked over to greet my sister and her family. Chloe followed. “I thought you weren’t coming here for another week.”
“If you read any of my texts, I told you we were heading here early so I can be rested before my audition,” she snapped at me. “Hi Chloe!” My sister did this scary turnabout and greeted her long-lost friend.
“Hey, Ron. Hello there, Sarabeth. How’s my favorite niece?” At least my niece loved me. She smiled and offered herself to me. “How was your flight?” I asked while kissing her head and chubby cheeks.
“Miserable,” Ruby answered the rhetorical question I asked her daughter. “It was so damn long. It gets longer each time.”
“Then maybe you should stop coming,” I suggested.
“Or maybe we should relocate. Hollywood is calling, Darling.” She addressed no one in particular.
“I don’t think so, Rubes. I’m not leaving London for the craziness of Hollywood,” her husband answered.
“How are things?” Ruby asked both of us. Neither of us said a word. She stared at me. She stared at her good friend. “OK…I see we’re back to the usual.” The knowing chuckle annoyed Chloe and me. “We’re headed to the Taylor’s. Would you like to join us?”
“Already? You just arrived. Don’t you want to rest?” Chloe asked.
“Yes, but Laney insists I bring Sarabeth over. She wants to see her.”
“Why can’t she see her another day?”
“Because, my dear Chloe, when Laney wants something, it has to be done ASAP. Plus, she and the family are headed to their beach home tomorrow and she’ll be gone for a week. She says that’s too long for her to go without seeing our princess.”
“I’ll go with you,” Chloe offered—probably to get away from me. Well, she wasn’t getting out of this that easily.
“I’ll go too. Donovan, Jane, and I are not finished hammering out details of the nuptials.”
“I don’t think he’ll be home, but you’re welcome to come.” My sister grinned. She’d been around us long enough to know something was up.
“Chloe, why don’t you ride with me?” The grinding of the teeth did not make for a sweet request.
“I was going to ride with Sarabeth. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
; “You’ll see her plenty,” I reminded Chloe. “I insist you ride with me. We have unfinished business.”
“Shit,” I heard her mumble as we headed out to the Taylors.
Chloe: Meddling New Beginnings
Thanks to Ruby’s interference, I escaped another run-in with the man who confused the hell out of me. I hopped in Ruby’s car before Michael trapped me in his own.