by A E Gamrat
I nodded through the whole weird encounter. Then we fell asleep, and I never went back after that. I guess it shouldn’t have bothered me since everyone knew, but I felt very uneasy being there. It wasn’t like we were good friends either, and we graduated soon after that.
“You cold, baby?”
“No, I'm good.”
“Thought I felt you get a chill. Figured I was warm enough for you, but if you need a blanket,” he says, squeezing his arms tighter around me playfully. We both go back to watching the TV, but now his big hands are rubbing up and down the outside of my right thigh.
All this touching and caressing has my body on fire. I’m running on all cylinders, and he seems so calm and relaxed. I need to pinch myself constantly to remind myself this is real.
“Can I ask you something without getting kicked out?”
I lean up and look him dead in the eyes to see what this question is all about. There's a sliver of nervousness, but nothing else. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Okay.” He sits up more, and we are now no longer cuddling. He better not ruin this evening. I kid, but not really, I want this to last forever, but I'll take tonight for now. “So, you’ve lived here since your divorce?”
“Yes.” Where this conversation goes is either going to make him adorable or a complete ass. “I have.”
“And I know you are still good with your parents.”
“Of course, we are great.”
“Of course you are.” He’s gearing up to ask me something but is hesitant. “This place isn’t exactly what I pictured for you and working at a used bookstore.”
I really do try to keep my laughter in, but he’s too adorable. My bungalow, as I like to call it, was not cheap to build. Before it was built there was nothing but land here. When my contractor was coming up with the plans, I went to the city council to make sure there were no major issues to build on this piece of land. Did not want to have my house here one day and the next swallowed up by a sink hole.
“Well, I guess you laughing is a good sign. I was afraid to ask. Wasn't sure if it was going to bring up bad memories or something.”
“No, no, no.” I untangle my limbs from him, stand up and grab his hand. “Come on, you need to see the view again.” He follows behind me, holding my hand through my dining room, and into my kitchen, when Silver abruptly stops. His sudden halt causes me to ricochet back into him since he’s still holding my hand.
“What is all of this?”
Honestly, I forgot all about how the kitchen looked. Silver’s consumed me since the first knock I heard on my door. Not like I would’ve been able to clean this mess up quickly before Silver saw it.
“I did…some baking…today.” There’s nothing to be embarrassed about; it’s not like I'm growing drugs, but seeing every flat surface covered in some kind of pastry is craziness. My face is bright red, and Silver hasn’t stopped looking around with his mouth hanging open.
“Gin? You did this all today? Like morning to…I came…so, late afternoon.” His rambling makes me feel a little better. I'll take a shocked tone over an annoyed one any day. “Why are you standing there like this is a bad thing, or you’re expecting to get yelled at.”
“Uh.”
“Did he yell at you when you did amazing things like this?” He adds dramatically and spins me around.
“Well.”
“This is absolutely insane. There are so many different kinds of cookies, muffins, and bread.” He pauses with his hands on his hips. “What are you going to do with all of this?”
I walk over to one of my high bar stools and sit down. “I’m not really sure.” I puff out a sigh. “Was going to go down into the basement and see what kind of storage I had. The storm came, and I decided not to go out into that.”
“Good idea, you don’t need to be out in weather like that.”
I get warm tingles in my belly from his dominant tone with me.
“Is this the door that leads to the basement?” He grabs the doorknob, and my stomach is in my throat. No one other than my kids have been down there. Not even Anne or Claire have been allowed down there, and now Silver is going to trek down there on his own. Not sure if I can handle it.
“Yes, but—” Before I can get another word out, he’s disappeared. “Son of a bitch.” I race down to catch up with him. It's such a mess it‘s not even funny. I've had plans for my basement, but it‘s become storage. “Silver,” I yell out like there are canyons between us. Anyone could figure out pretty quickly were my pantry is.
“Over here.” Before I can even walk toward his voice he’s already walking back with armfuls of containers. “I found these on a self. Didn't have to go into the pantry.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
“It’s cool, Gin; everyone has junk drawers or junk closets. One day I'll see yours, and I'll show you mine.”
If I could hug this man right this second I would, but I‘ll wait so it won’t be one-sided. When I hug him, I want him to be able to be hugged back. I'm so going to be selfish wanting Silver’s touch.
I start right back up the stairs, and he follows me. Another “thank goodness” moment. Old habits are hard to break, and staying organized in all aspects of life is so hard to break. The room downstairs is my dirty secret. In my married life I didn’t allow myself the junk drawer or closet. Those ideas were ridiculous to me. There was no need; I took care of everything.
“I still can’t believe you made all of this today. Tell me how to package this stuff. I'm afraid I'm going to ruin something.” Silver still has the awe twinkle in his eyes over all of my baking. The scary thing is I didn’t realize how much I did bake today. I might have a problem.
“I’ll wrap up the breads, but put the cookies with the cookies, and I have special containers for the cupcakes.”
“So, this is like stress relief for you, right?”
“You can call it that. All the women on my mom’s side of the family bake, and I mean like this. If my Auntie May even suspected you weren’t feeling well, she would make cookies, chicken noodle soup, and bread. All by scratch without blinking an eye or breaking a sweat.”
“That’s crazy and amazing. So now you bake like that too?”
“Basically…I don’t even think about it. To bake is just in me.”
“You should be selling these amazing treats.” He says this as he samples a cookie here and there. “Your husband and kids were damn lucky to have this.” My burst of laughter stops Silver from putting another cookie into the container. “What?” he asks, all naïve.
“Oh, my kids loved my baking, but my ex hated it. He hated anything I did for myself that didn’t involve him and me taking care of him.”
“What?” he mumbles with a mouth full of cookie. “You should be selling these… This is amazing.”
“Oh, you know.”
“I do know, and the world should be celebrating your amazing art. Look at all you made today. Most people couldn’t do this in a month’s time.”
“I hand them out and take them to the store.”
“People probably come back for them.”
“I guess.”
“I know, sweetheart. Shame on that man for not knowing what he had.”
What can I even say to that? After our relationship ended, my parents said the same thing, but it’s different when those words come out of your crush’s mouth. He's made me feel special with every interaction, and I have no idea how to handle any of it.
He must know I'm uncomfortable because instead of continuing the praises, he silently packs up all the cookies. He sets a container off to the side, and when he notices me checking out the single container, he smiles all big. My guess is the container is for him, and I love it. I would bake every day for the rest of our lives to see his smile.
Time passes, and finally all the containers are full and most of the bread is in the freezer. Now I'm afraid he’s going to want to leave. I don’t want him to leave, but I’m not sure how I want the night to e
nd. All of this seems too good to be true.
I need to think of something to stall him a little longer. If I show him the rest of the house, and we go upstairs, that might suggest other things. His back is to me as I look at him from across the room. Every part of him seems so large and strong, making me weak from lust and anxiety. The combo really goes hand in hand, but when you’re a fish out of water, they intensify tenfold.
Watching him rearrange my fridge to fit all my craziness makes me want to ask him to stay forever. I'm not even sure where he lives or what his day-to-day life even looks like. We saw each other one day, and I’m ready to jump right in.
The fridge door closes, and when he turns, he’s staring right back at me. The magnitude of us being together, in my house, hits me again. We barely know anything about one another, yet it feels like this kitchen is ours.
“I don’t want you to go,” slips out of my mouth. I turn toward the window to hide my red cheeks. I've never even wanted to say those words before to another person. Never said them to my husband, but Silver, I want to hold hostage.
I hear his footsteps, loud and determined, make their way over to me. I can feel his heat at my back, and all I want to do is lean back into him. Before I can move or say a word, his strong arms wrap around me, pulling me into him. My head lands right below his chin, and my hands lie on top of his arms.
“This scenery is crazy,” he says.
“Yes, one of the reasons I had my house built here.” Silver turns my upper body toward him. I can see all the questions he wants to ask. “When I got divorced, this is all I asked for. A house to be built out here and to be left alone.”
“This is all you wanted?”
“Years ago, my kids and I found this place by accident. One afternoon they wanted to explore the forest. So I brought them over here, because this was the only forest-like place I knew of. It was one of the best afternoons ever. So, when I filed for divorce, I told them I wanted nothing from him but a house built right here and for him to take care of his kids.”
“Damn,” is followed by some muffled laughter. “And here I’ve been worried your relationship with your parents had changed.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh because this is not the first time someone has asked me about my relationship with my parents. Society assumes when you go from luxury to minimum something awful has happened. Well, I guess something awful did happen, but I was the one who made out. “My parents and I are great. I'm sure you know that too. Your mother gossips like my mother, let’s be honest here.”
“Don’t I know it. I think seeing you work in a used bookstore caused some doubts.”
“Prejudiced much?”
“Hey, you never know. What people say and what is really going on, for the most part, is never the same.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mimic him, though it's completely true. I've lived most of my life since birth acting one way out in public but being someone completely different when I actually felt comfortable. “You are now one of the few who know the truth about my house. I think most assume I paid for it myself. I didn’t want one cent of his money. After all the years I put him and the kids first, I was finally doing something for me.”
“Shit, Gin. I don’t even know what to say to that.”
I turn around in his arms so we are now facing each other. My neck bends back far enough to look at him, but I'm making it work. The emotions I see in his eyes for me, about me, they make my heart skip a beat every damn time.
One of the only times I ever heard my ex say my name in a concerned way was a few years ago, a test came back showing something. It ended up being nothing, but he sounded concerned. Made me feel wanted and loved. A few weeks later I found out he was more worried about me being sick and how I was going to have the house clean and ready for one of his poker nights.
When his callous thoughts didn’t surprise me, I knew the relationship was over. I didn’t know how to get out or what I would do. Seeing the ass with another woman around the same age as me sent me flying over the edge. There was no second thought on what I would do or what I wanted from him.
“There’s nothing to say. I've never been this happy, and seeing you the other day made me realize that second chances might be possible.”
“Baby, we never even had a first chance.” He pulls me even closer, cupping my chin, and his lips come down to graze mine. There's nothing rushed to his light kiss and the light kisses after. My toes are on fire from our lips making contact. My head is fuzzy, and I swear I'm sixteen again when we kissed for the first time.
Our first was rushed and barely even a kiss. We knew our lives would never cross paths again, so we kissed. It was quick ,and the next second we were apart, never to see each other again. The early years of dating and marriage with my ex, I put that flash of a kiss in the back of my mind. I felt guilty when I thought of Silver and that kiss, but now it’s fair game. So instead of acting like a fumbling teenager, I thread my fingers through his hair, make a fist, and pull him closer to me. My tongue tries to peek out and make contact, open up his mouth and dance with his tongue, but Silver is having none of that.
The masculine sounds coming from the damn man have my body heating up, yet he’s still barely kissing me. He kisses all along my lips from one end to the other but will not take it any further. “Silver,” his name comes out more of a whine than a moan. He’s making me all kinds of needy and acting like this is normal behavior between us.
“Ginny, baby. Let’s slow down.”
If he’s talking, I hear nothing. I do feel his hands gripping mine and detangling my fingers from his hair. Next he’s separating us, and I’m fighting this action with every tooth and nail I have. I'm practically wrapped around him like a burrito, but somehow his manly strength is winning.
“I know sweetheart, but I didn’t wait most of my life to get you and screw you the first chance I got. I wouldn’t have done that even all those years ago. It’s always been more than sex appeal, though you had it then and still have it now.”
“Oh, right…”
“Don’t roll those baby blues at me. You were sexy then and even more so now. All this single lady independence has me on constant edge. I'm a man, sweetheart, and can wait and want to wait a little while longer.”
“Alright.” Who could say no to that speech? Once I pull away completely and collect my thoughts, I can finally look him in the eye again. I'm experiencing some many firsts with this man, and I'm far from a virgin. It's crazy all the new emotions and situations we’ve been in together. Silver has always been in my dreams. Now my dreams are coming true. “Sorry for acting like that; I've never done that before.”
He puts his big palm over my mouth. “I do not want to hear what you have or haven’t done with another guy before this right here, right now. I'll talk about anything, and I mean anything, but everything with me is your first, understood?”
“Yes,” I moan out, and I'm hot all over again. I hope these feelings and interactions never change or diminish. I deserve this kind of happiness for once in my life. I deserve a man who wants to worship me, pamper me, and then let me do the same for him. “If I behave can we snuggle on the couch again?”
I guess his answer is when I’m scooped up and practically thrown on the couch. In seconds we are right back in our starting position on the couch, my head resting on his upper chest, me on my side, and my legs bent slightly over his lap. His breaths are still ragged and uncontrolled, and this makes me happy. He might have it together enough to slow us down and stop where we were headed in my kitchen, but his breathing tells a whole other story. This is my favorite story of the night.
So many opportunities in life we all pass up for one reason or the next. I never believed in fate because life showed me how was I supposed to act and what my life was supposed to look like. When I threw my life out the window harsh words were whispered about me in front of me and at my back. None of it was shocking; I knew every woman I came into contact with was a vulture w
aiting out their prey's death for an easy meal.
Some of the words still stung a little, especially when my age was brought up. “How is she ever gonna find someone else at her age?” or “She’s divorcing him instead of turning a blind eye.” The last one was said with my parents around, and my nearly eighty-year-old dad almost took the bitch out. I don’t normally use that kind of language, but at that fundraiser I heard my dad use language I didn’t even know he knew. Made me so proud of where I came from and who my parents are.
I saw an opportunity to get out of a bad relationship, and I took it. Maybe it was the easier route, though I had been thinking for a while about leaving, but the office scene gave me the nudge I needed. My ex was mad I couldn’t just get over the affair. He told me, “It’s what happens in this world.” I shot back, “Great, then find someone who wants to be cheated on.” Then, for whatever reason the sleepover, is back in my head.
“We are so products of our families and society, right?”
“Well, yeah…I think so, but no one has to be.”
I think I was for a very long time. I try not to beat myself up too much over it. I did what society expected of me.”
“I stayed in a relationship far longer than I should’ve, and when we were close to separating, we found out she had terminal cancer.”
“Oh my god.” I try to sit up, but he holds me close to him. “Was she your daughter’s mother? I'm so sorry.”
I'm not sure if he’s holding me to hold me, or if I'm grounding him while he tells me this story. “She’s not my biological daughter. I met her mother at my first bank job. We were both in this weird time of our lives. She was jaded over love, and I knew I had to give mine up.”
I swallow hard at the realization he might have wanted me as badly as I wanted him. No one knew of my crush. I didn’t want to hear how bad we were for each other and how out of his league I was. He would never amount to anything and the social world would scorn me.