The Chronicles of Moxie
Page 20
Like a lightning bolt, the pieces fell into place. His favorite artist was Michael Angelo…the name Michael.
“Michael?”
Miles just sat in his chair, looking at me, smiling like he just let out the world’s biggest secret.
“You’re Michael? But how? There was no way for you to know that I was on that site.”
“I knew you didn’t want to talk to me. So Ryan had the idea to set up a fake profile on Meet Me. Then we got Renee involved and she said she would take care of getting you on there. Renee called me when you set up your profile and I searched for it. As they say, the rest is history.”
“But what about the picture? Who was that?”
“That’s Kyle. He works in Ryan’s department at the network. He said we could use his picture for the profile.”
I sat and gawked at Miles. I wasn’t sure how to feel about all this. He went to great lengths to get into contact with me, but at the same time I was angry that he lied and I poured my heart out to him.
“Can we get out of here? Maybe go walk around the museum and talk?”
“Umm, sure.” I got up, but my legs were shaking.
Miles took my hand and we walked out into the city’s spring air. We walked across the street and entered the museum. After Miles paid our admissions, we started walking around the exhibits. At first we walked silently, looking at the art. Finally Miles broke the silence.
“I handled everything poorly. I should have listened to everything you wanted to say.”
I tried to interject. “No, wait, listen. I got upset because I thought that you didn’t want to be with me after you ran off to talk to David. That somehow you were rejecting me and Dillion. I was so scared because I thought no one would want a widower and a child who suffers from PTSD. I went into protection mode for Dillion’s sake, but I didn’t even give you the chance to explain. We both have insecurities and I was so locked down with mine that I never thought that you would have your own issues to battle.”
Tears started to cloud my eyes. He turned to face me and grabbed both of my hands.
“I was wrong,” he said. “But you should have talked to me and told me what was going on. I might not have initially understood, because all I see is a beautiful, strong, amazing woman. But I would have listened, and we could have talked about it.”
Now the tears were streaming down my face. Miles pulled me close and kissed my cheeks where the tears were falling.
“Moxie, I want you to be a part of me, part of Dillion. We’ve waited for you to come into our lives. I made the mistake of letting you go once, but now there are no more mistakes because I am falling in love with you.” He took my face in his hands and his blue eyes looked deep into mine. “I want you to be with us.”
My heart exploded. I wrapped myself around him and pulled him as tight as I could around me. I pulled back just enough so our faces came close together. I slowly pressed my lips to his and felt the warm heat flow through us.
“I’m falling in love with you too, and there is nothing I want more than to be with you.”
I fell back into his arms for another long hug, but broke it when something dawned upon me.
“What about Dillion? Shouldn’t he have a say in this? He must hate me for walking out on him,” I said with pain in my voice.
“You can ask him yourself.” Miles smiled and looked over my shoulder.
I turned to see Dillion run up to us. “Miss Summers!” he yelled. Kelly was standing back, waving to us. Miles waved and mouthed “Thank you” to his sister, who turned around and left.
I crouched down to meet Dillion in the eyes. “Dillion, I am so sorry about walking out on you like that. Please know that every day I saw you in class my heart was breaking.”
“I know, Miss Summers. Daddy said I couldn’t talk to you about it at school because he was plotting a way to bring our damsel back to our castle,” he said in his squeaky voice.
I looked up at Miles and eyed him for putting me through the torture of not being able to talk to Dillion. All he could do was giggle and shrug. I turned my attention back to Dillion.
“I want you to know that I love your daddy and I love you too, buddy. I would be honored if you would let this princess back into your castle.”
“Miss Summers, you never left my castle.”
I threw my arms around Dillion and squeezed him tight. The love of these two men was enough to pull any of my insecurities out and leave them behind. I stood up and Miles took one hand while Dillion took my other.
“Come on, boys. There are paintings with pinched nipples with our names on them,” I said and walked hand in hand with the loves of my life.
Epilogue
It is September now and the temperature in Chicago is changing. Fall has always been my favorite season, even if it means going back to school. This year I’ve been bumped up to teach first grade, which means another year of having to deal with girl scout psycho Katie.
Miles and I have been together for five months and they have been the best months of my life. Miles finally bought a house out in the suburbs of Chicago. He said that he didn’t want Dillion growing up with buildings instead of green grass around him. I wasn’t such a fan of this, considering Chicago traffic took forever, but it gave me a good chance to have phone sex with him while I waited for the cars to move.
It was a Saturday afternoon and we were having an end of summer barbecue with friends at the new house. Renee, of course, brought Raj, as the two of them were going strong. Renee even mentioned to me that they were discussing moving in together. Secretly I was jealous, because I would have loved to live with Miles and Dillion.
Ryan came into the house, followed by Tom and their new pit bull, Chanel. Poor dog didn’t stand a chance of having a heterosexual life with a name like that. Tom even bought him a pink collar with rhinestones on it. Dillion loved that dog and he would sit next to him and explain the history of the Roman Empire, while Chanel just sat there, drooling all over Dillion’s pants.
After the whole fiasco with Martha, I cut our communications to a minimum. When I needed to talk to my dad, I called him directly on his cell phone, hoping that I could cut out talking to Martha altogether. I hadn’t taken Miles to meet them yet. I was afraid Martha would scare him off and tell him that it was HIS people who killed Jesus and to stop blaming the Jews for everything.
I was in the kitchen, getting the hot dogs ready, when I heard Miles sneak up behind me.
“I would love to put my hot dog in your bun,” he whispered in my ear.
“What would you say if I put on a strap-on hot dog and put it in your buns?” I teased, turning around to face him.
He engulfed me into his arms and planted a panty dripping wet kiss on my mouth.
“While I like our toys in the bedroom, there will be no strap-on of any sorts added to the mix,” he confirmed.
“Damn, I hope the company I got it from takes returns.”
Miles pulled back from our embrace and eyed me nervously.
“Relax, I’m kidding!”
He let out the breath he was holding in.
“Anyways, I got the ball gag for you to wear instead,” I smiled.
Miles swatted my ass. “Behave, you wicked wench.” We both laughed.
Dillion came bouncing into the kitchen. “Are we going to eat soon? I’m famished!”
“Yup,” I said. “Your dad was just pulling the hot dogs off the grill. Did you eat all those cheese balls I put out on the table?”
“Yeah, but then Uncle Ryan told me that I needed to stay away from the balls that were hairy. What does he mean?”
Miles and I looked at each other, but instead of outrage all we could do was laugh and smile.
Acknowledgments
I can honestly say that I never thought I would get to a point where I would write an acknowledgments page. Why? Because I never thought this book would actually happen. It started out as a way to get what in Yiddish is called “shpilkes” or nervous
energy out. I started writing short clips and posting them on a blog. A lot of people enjoyed reading them and I got the crazy notion that there were people that shared my sense of humor and would enjoy what Moxie had to offer.
First, to my mentor, friend, sounding board and all around great gal, Nadine Silber. You have given me all the tools that I needed to make this book become a reality. You were patient and walked me through every single step, showing me what it means to be a true author. When I first contacted you about romantic comedy writing, you never hesitated helping me and never treated me like I was some little person on the totem pole. Thank you for all your help.
Thank you to Ella Medler, who patiently read through every line of Moxie with a fine tooth comb making sure that I dotted all my i’s and crossed all the t’s. It’s takes a mighty woman to edited my writing and my husband thanks you, since he was forced to edit all my graduate papers for me.
To the group who urged me on to write, the S’muffins. All of you encouraged me to take my craziness and turn it into writing. You’re a sisterhood of smutty women that deserve to achieve every dream. Including getting David Gandy naked in your bed. To my Three Chicks with Dicks, what can I possibly say but that I love you. You’ve provided me with wonderful support, whether it was listening to me bitch or laughing about everyday things. To the two people who made up the character of Renee, she wouldn’t have come to fruition if the two of you weren’t in my life.
Thank you to my family for always allowing me to chase crazy dreams, and there have been many. Thank you to my husband Craig for supporting this endeavor and funding the enormous Kindle bill that sparked my interest in writing. You always said I could do anything, except the laundry, dishwasher, cleaning the counters, folding…
And finally, to my beautiful son. May you never read this book. But if you do, there is a large sum of money stashed away for your therapy bills.
Thank you for reading The Chronicles of Moxie. You can follow Z. B. Heller at
Email: zbhellerbooks@gmail.com
Website: www.zbhellerbooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ZB-Heller
Twitter: @zbheller
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7948170.Z_B_Heller
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments