by Naomi Niles
“Mom,” I told her seriously. “I appreciate your care, but I don’t need you to panic. Teaching might not pay as much, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ll figure it out, honestly.” But the look she gave me showed me that she wasn’t quite convinced, so I decided to make a joke of the whole thing. “Anyway, I’m going to be married to a famous hockey player soon enough…didn’t you know?”
I started laughing, but mom didn’t join in. Instead, she continued to stare at me with worry in her eyes. “I really wouldn’t get your hopes up too high with that boy,” she warned me. “I don’t want you to end up with your heart broken.”
I resisted the urge to tell her that she wasn’t around the last time I got hurt because she was still mad at me for choosing the wrong course in her eyes. “I’ll be fine,mom, I know what I’m doing – I’ll be back in California soon and all of this will be over. I was only joking.”
“Okay,” she smiled at me, sadness filling her gaze. “I was only worried because I saw some news thing about him with another girl, and I never want you to be cheated on.”
I nodded, trying to act confident that all was going to be okay, but all that mom had done was bring my fears back bubbling to the surface.
“Well, thanks for lunch,” I scraped my chair back, effectively ending our conversation. “I need to get everything packed up and ready, so I better get on with it.”
But as I got up to my bedroom, I was no longer in the mood to get myself organized anymore, so I lay back on the bed and simply allowed myself to think. Me and Miles had a lot to talk about to get this resolved, but that really did feel like a difficult conversation for two people who weren’t going to be spending much more time together. It had definitely gone past the place where this was just a fling…a fling that would end the moment that things got tough, and this thing kept on going through thick and thin.
I wasn’t sure whether that was a bad thing or a good thing.
*****
“Bye,mom!” I called, as I raced happily past her, hearing Miles honk his horn outside. “See you later.”
My time alone in my bedroom had given me a lot of time to think, and the conclusion that I’d come up with was a positive one. Whatever would be, was going to happen regardless, and there was nothing that I could do to change that. I figured that I might as well have some fun and just live in the moment. I would deal with everything that would come afterwards later on; that was an issue to deal with in the future.
I raced up to Miles’s SUV and slid into the passenger’s seat, shooting him a smile – one that told him I was coming in with a white flag hanging above my head. I didn’t want to fight, not anymore, not when we had such a short time left.
“Hi,” I said coyly. “How are you?”
“I’ve been worrying about you,” he admitted. “Freaking out about what you think about me.”
“I understand,” I told him, really feeling like I did. “I guess that I don’t really get it, because I’m not in your world, but I do know what it feels like to be used and hurt, so I can see what happened.”
“I confronted Marek,” he told me, stunning me completely. “Obviously I don’t know what happened between your sister and him, but from the shitty way he was discussing women, I can only assume that it didn’t end well.” I nodded, but didn’t tell him any of the details – that wasn’t my story to tell, and if him and Marek had already gotten into it, I didn’t want to make that worse. “So because I called him out on his bullshit, he contacted Hailey and got her to cause some trouble for me. She started telling me that she wanted me back and stuff, but it was all for the cameras. She contacted the press and set it up, wanting to get herself some fame.”
I couldn’t imagine wanting any of that, so it was really alien to me, but I knew that here were people like that out in the world.
Miles took my hand in his and he started to kiss it, a sweet gesture that made my heart melt. There was no way that I couldn’t believe this guy now;he was so exposed and vulnerable with his words, and as his mouth travelled up my arm and over my neck, forgiveness simply flooded through me fully. There was no point in getting hung up on something so stupid, when there was all this fun to be having.
“So,” he started, moving his mouth over mine. “Did you want to come to my mom’s house? I’ve cooked some food for you?”
“You have?” I said. “Sounds great.” I tried not to focus on the meeting his mompart – that made it all feel far too serious for words. Meeting parents was for serious couples, never for flings, but I wanted to go through with it all the same. It didn’t feel like anything between me and Miles had been going down the route of ‘typical’ anyway, so why the hell not?
“There’s more,” he told me, sitting back to look into my eyes. “We’re baking cookies together.”
“What?” I asked in a stunned surprise, feeling my eyebrows furrow. “Really?”
“I bake cookies every so often for the homeless shelter in town, and I thought that you’d like to join in? My mom loves it.”
“You really are something else,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I never know what to expect from you. Come on, let’s go.”
The nerves didn’t kick in until we were outside Miles’s mom’s home. That was the moment I started to realize that this was a seriously huge moment, one that could change everything. Things between me and Miles might have had to remain casual, but I couldn’t help wanting to impress her all the same. I was already aware that Miles’s father wasn’t around anymore, and that his mother was very important to him, so that ramped the pressure up tenfold.
Luckily, as the door swung open, I found myself looking at the friendliest looking woman on the planet. She appeared to be really sweet and happy, and she looked exactly like the female version of Miles, which helped me to relax around her. There was a warmth emanating off of her, one that drew me in, which I figured was going to be a good sign.
“Hello!” She grinned happily. “You must be Danielle; come on in.”
I followed behind, drinking in the homeliness of her house. It was a gorgeous place, that she had decorated really well, and I couldn’t help but comment on it. “You have a lovely home!”
“Miles brought it for me,” she swelled with pride at that comment. “He purchased this for me first of all, before he even got his own home.”
I shot him a glance, one that was seeing him through new eyes yet again , and this time what I could see was a kind, sweet boy who would do anything for the people that he loved. Damn him, did he have to be the perfect man when he was so unobtainable? Did he have to be everything that I ever wanted when I couldn’t have him? It didn’t feel fair at all!
“That’s really nice,” I grinned at her. “And I hear we’re baking cookies for the homeless shelter tonight too.”
“We are!” she agreed excitedly. “We do it all the time. Come on through, let’s get started.”
Chapter 29
Miles – Tuesday
Watching Danielle and my mom get along so well as the scurried around the kitchen, getting everything together to bake the cookies was really heartwarming. My mom was the most important woman in the whole world to me, and seeing them chatting and having a laugh made me think over something that could never be – a future with the woman that seemed to fit into my life so well. I always wanted my wife to get on well with my mom in that way; it wouldn’t even slightly be able to work if the two women in my life weren’t great friends, and it was a real shame that there wasn’t any hope of this ever becoming that.
Danielle was just so different from anyone that I’d ever been with before, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d really considered every option for us to have a future together. I knew that I’d written the prospect off right away because of the distance, but was that really something that we couldn’t overcome? There had to be a way, there just had to be.
Hailey was never interested in meeting my mom, even when she learned that my father died when I was young, and that s
he was all I had. I opened up to her, told her the story of what it felt like to lose my dad and to never have a male role model in my life, but it felt like she wasn’t even listening, and then she told me that she couldn’t come and meet my mom because she had plans with a group of her girlfriends that night. At the time I thought that it was because I pushed too hard, too soon, and that I was putting an unnecessary pressure on her when it came to us, but now I could see that it was just because the dinner wasn’t in the public eye – and that everything she did had to be seen by others. If a photographer had been coming around and creating a story out of the whole thing, I had no doubt that she would be around like a shot.
Not like Danielle; she wanted to come no matter what. She was happy to just come and have some time with me being normal. In fact, I got the impression that she preferred it that way. I felt like she enjoyed watching me play hockey, and that she got a lot out of it, but that really she was very content for us to just hang out as if we were two very normal individuals
“No, no,” I grinned to myself as mom joked with Danielle. “Not that flour, this one.” She was never unkind my mother, and you never got the impression that you were being lectured whatever she said to you, and I could see Danielle physically relaxing around her the more she got to know the kind of person that she was.
I stood back for a moment and let them get on with the baking, preferring to admire the scene instead. I was really enjoying seeing them together, and although it was making me a little confused about the true depths of my feelings, I was trying not to focus on that part.
“Hey!” Danielle suddenly noticed that I wasn’t doing anything, and she pointed it out to mom. “Have you seen what Miles is up to? Sitting back while we get all the hard work done?”
“He knows much better than that,” my mom replied sternly, which actually made me feel a little bad…that was until she span around with a handful of flour and she tipped it over my head! “Now,” she turned to Danielle. “How about we sit back and have a rest, and let Miles get on with it?”
“Sounds good to me,” she grinned, linking her arms through my mom’s. Then I watched in shock as they sat at the kitchen counter, and demanded that I make them some hot drinks too.
Knowing that I wasn’t going to get away with it now, I scurried around the kitchen and got everything else complete. Luckily because we did this sort of thing all the time, I knew exactly what needed to be done, which meant I could work and listen to Danielle and my mom talking in the background, getting to know one another that much better.
And then I heard my mom say the dreaded words that no one wants to hear when they bring a date round to the house. “Ooh, I know. I’ll go and get the baby pictures!”
“Mom don’t,” I tried, but it was too late, she was in the other room grabbing at the photo albums and my cool reputation was about to be destroyed forever.
At first, I grew increasingly embarrassed as my mom showed Danielle humiliating pictures of me from the past – me in the bath, me rolling naked in the mud, me fighting with one of my friends…but she wasn’t fazed. There was a reason that I found her so captivating, a reason I couldn’t let her go, and I couldn’t help but feel like the reason I was so addicted was because I was genuinely falling in love with her.
Shit, that was trouble, I just knew it. My feelings were never meant to run that deep, and I felt awful that I’d allowed it to go so far. Where the hell was my self-control?!
My heart was still racing by the time we sat at the dinner table to eat the meal I’d prepared, and I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking glances at Danielle, just wondering what I was going to do about my shocking revelation to myself. I’d already been away that things were going a little awry, but this was serious.This was genuine, heartbreaking stuff and I had no idea how the hell I was going to handle it.
This is only temporary, I warned myself. This can’t be forever. Stop falling, just stop it. But of course I couldn’t. It was far too late for that.
Much to my surprise, dinner actually went down really well. Danielle actually enjoyed the Minnesota dishes, which made me far too happy. It made me feel like she could fit in here if she wanted to, which was a really dangerous trail of thought that couldn’t get me anywhere. Especially since my mindset was already somewhere pretty crazy as it was!
“That was really nice,” she told me, shooting me that amazing grin once more. “Thank you for cooking, Miles. Oh, and thank you for having me round,” she said to my mom, which drew my mom even closer to her. I could tell that she was in love with her too, which was a shame, because I couldn’t make my mom happy by making Danielle mine. I knew that all she ever wanted was for me to find the one and to settle down, but this just wasn’t going to be that time.
“It’s been lovely,” mom replied. “And I hope you’ll come around again sometime. I know you have to go back to California soon enough, but if you ever decide to visit in the holidays, we would love to have you over.”
A ball of emotion filled my throat as they hugged to say goodbye. This was perfect, too perfect, and I hated that it couldn’t continue. For the first time since I met Danielle, it actually made me feel kinda mad. How unfair was it that I met the girl of my dreams, and she couldn’t be mine?
“Come on,” I said a little sadly. “Let’s get you home.”
On the drive back, the words that had been balling up in my stomach came flooding past my lips. I didn’t feel like there was any point in holding it back anymore, not when she was going so soon. I felt like I would always wind up asking what if? “I really don’t want you to go,” I confessed, refusing to look at her as we sped along the road. “I don’t want you to leave in two days…or ever.” I could hear her sucking in her breath, which meant that I had shocked her. I might as well go the whole hog now. “I like you,” I told her. “I like you a whole lot, more than I should.”
She took my hand in hers and ran kisses along it, obviously not quite sure what to say to that. Her lips against my skin was such a romantic gesture that made my heart flutter wildly. She seemed to know exactly what I needed without me even having to ask, and that made me feel even closer to it.God damn it!
“If you like me,” she finally rasped, deciding on an answer. “Then why did you ignore me for such a long time?”
Really, it was only a couple of days, but I knew what she meant. In the short time we had been together, it felt like a life time that I had been dodging her calls and ignoring her messages. “I got too distracted from hockey and I got a whole load of shit from the coach.” I knew that it was time to tell the truth now, so she wouldn’t assume that Hailey was involved at all. I needed to reassure her once and for all that my ex really did mean absolutely nothing to me.“But I don’t care about that stuff anymore. I need to just work on balancing things better, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry that happened,” she told me sadly. “I didn’t ever want to be a burden to you. If you had just told me, I would have backed off right away.”
“It isn’t your fault,” I told her. “It’s never been your fault.” I thought for a second, considering really letting her go, and the words that I never thought I would say fell from my lips. “I really can’t allow this to end.Maybe we could try the long distance thing? You will be back on holidays and stuff after all. I know it’ll be hard and totally crazy, but it has to be worth a shot.”
Danielle shot me a confused look, one that I totally understood since I had never thought I would say that myself, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense…but only with her. I wanted to see if we had a future, even if that meant considering the hardest thing in the world. The only problem was I’d seen it tear apart couples that had been together for a very long time – never mind something as brand news as this. Still, it had to be better than the alternative, surely?
“I mean, we could try it right?” I asked her once more. “At least until something changes for one of us.”
“Maybe,” Danielle nodded slowly.
“It would be hard, but I suppose not impossible.” I could tell that she was really thinking it over as I pulled up on the side of the road, a little way down from her home, and I didn’t want to interrupt that. “Hey, it looks like my parents aren’t in,” she smiled at me as I stopped the car. “Would you like to come in for some cake?”
“As if we didn’t eat enough tonight!” I joked, pushing her lightly. “Of course I’ll come inside.”
Just as we walked through the door, my phone bleeped with a message from my mom that made my head spin even more.
‘Miles, Danielle is amazing. Never let her go. If you can find a way to make it work, then you should. I really think that she is the one.’
Chapter 30
Danielle – Tuesday
I just couldn’t quite let Miles go at the end of our date. I knew that I should, to give myself some time alone to process all of my feelings for him by myself, but then he started talking about trying to make a go of things long distance and I couldn’t resist him for another second longer. The fact that he even wanted to give that a try made me feel incredibly special, because we both knew how dangerous that could be. The only reason that I was even slightly resisting was because in a way I felt like it would be better if this thing ended on only happy memories, rather than dragging both of our hearts through the ringer, just to end up sad and alone anyway – that way, we wouldn’t even be able to make it as friends.
But if I didn’t at least give it a shot, would I always be wondering what if? Would any other relationship ever be able to compare? This was some really heavy stuff, information that I should be seriously mulling over alone, but Miles was here, and we didn’t have long left together so I didn’t want to waste time thinking when I could be hanging out with him some more.