by Diana Currie
“Tired?” I ask.
“Just drained. Dealing with my mother really takes it out of me.” He leans back against the kitchen counter crossing his arms. I can’t help but notice how his muscles flex under the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
“You should grab another glass of wine and go relax for a change.”
“Amanda, you keep treating me like I’m here on vacation. In reality this is my home until I buy a place of my own. As soon as my license comes through I’ll be able to start working, but until then I’m going crazy with boredom.” He crosses the room and takes the half filled bottle of wine off the top of the refrigerator. He shakes the bottle around at me invitingly.
“A tiny little bit,” I respond lightheartedly.
H smiles wide and pours two glasses, filling his and giving me just a small amount. I follow him into the living room where we sit in the wing back chairs again. Tyler and Gabby are watching Spongebob Squarepants. I reach for the remote control and turn the volume down a little.
“I know you’re not vacationing but I still feel like I ought to be making sure your stay here is as comfortable as possible. Mr. Thatcher would insist,” I reply to his earlier comment.
Adam smiles and takes a sip of his wine. I watch his mouth as it touches the glass, his neck muscles bulging as he swallows. Then his tongue darts out to lick his lower lip. Adam drinking wine by the fire is a sexy sight. The fireplace is not lit and I can hear Squidward’s voice in the background but still I find myself getting turned on. I can easily see this drinking wine by the fire thing becoming a routine for us. I’m not sure that is a wise habit to form, but I can’t help being thrilled by the prospect.
“I like helping you,” he replies. “I need to feel useful. I’ll probably be a pain in your ass once I start working forty hours a week, leaving laundry all over the floor and dishes in the sink.”
“I can’t picture you being a messy person,” I say blushing.
“You’ll see,” he teases. “I’ll just be happy to have something to do. I hate being in limbo like this.”
In the back of my mind I think about how I’d wondered if Adam’s helpfulness had been a means of spending time with me. Now I know he does it because he’s bored stiff while being temporarily unemployed. It’s quite a blow to my fragile ego.
We sit quietly for a few minutes watching the kids. Tyler laughs at the show and Gabby fights to stay awake. She hates falling asleep when her brother is still playing. I think about the trip to Savannah and remember I need to invite Rebecca and Eric. It might turn out to be a mistake, but I desperately want to ask Adam along too.
“So I called Brett back this afternoon,” I begin saying. Adam’s face falls very slightly. “He’s getting a few people together to go out to Savannah Friday night to see the new James Bond movie.”
“You’ll have fun. Andrew told me it was a good movie,” he replies crossing his legs one over the other and then uncrossing them again. Is he fidgeting?
“Um… would you like to come with us? It would give you something to do while you’re stuck in limbo.”
He smiles. “You want me to come?”
“Of course, since we’re friends now right?” I say just to clarify. “I’m inviting Rebecca Thatcher too so that’s another person you’ll know.”
He thinks for a minute; an adorable crease forming between his eyes. “Alright, I’ll come,” he says. “I’ve heard good things about Savannah but I’ve never been.”
“You’ll love it; bigger than Swainsboro and much more to do there. And the view of the river is beautiful.”
“Well, then I’m looking forward to it,” he replies staring at me in a strange way. I feel like he’s trying to see into my soul again or perhaps read my mind. It’s unsettling for more than one reason.
I sip my measly ration of wine and then excuse myself from the room to gather up my purse and the kids’ things.
“See you tomorrow?” I ask sounding hopeful.
“Yes, but I’ll be going into the office for most of the day. Gregory says I can learn the computer and filing systems. Then I’m having dinner at my parents’ house.”
“Oh, okay,” I reply. Can he tell how disappointed I am to know I won’t be having dinner with him? I hope not, that would be embarrassing. “Have a good night, Adam. Thanks again for the wine.”
I feel bad leaving Adam alone here. He really does look lonely. I wish I knew why he didn’t feel at home at the Brickman’s house. My guess is that it has something to do with their disapproval of the woman or women he dated in Chicago. I really wish I knew more about that but would never pry. I’m glad he’s at least visiting with them. Maybe whatever rift exists between Adam and his parents will be mended now that he’s moving here.
“Good night Amanda,” he says and watches me and the kids as we shuffle out of the living room and head for home.
Chapter Seven: Savannah
Wednesday is a long day for me. Adam is out on his morning jog when I get to the B&B. I make breakfast for him and the other guests and Mr. Thatcher stops by while I’m serving it. French toast and sausage are passed all around as the owner chats politely with John, Dave, and Larry. He wants to make sure they are enjoying their stay and takes every opportunity to talk up the town. I see Adam return through the back door a short while later, but Mr. Thatcher takes my attention away from him before I have a decent chance to ogle him in his running shorts.
We need to go over some repairs I’d mentioned during our last maintenance and budget meeting. His timing devastates me. Adam is shirtless again and I really want to get an eyeful but he quickly darts up the stairs. While Mr. Thatcher talks, a small part of my mind wonders if Adam planned to walk through the house that way knowing I’d be here to see him. I listen to Mr. Thatcher’s thoughts and plans with one ear while tuning into the running water in the upstairs shower with the other.
By the time Mr. Thatcher is done walking me through the house discussing chipping paint on the porch, the overgrowth in the backyard, and a squeaky basement step I realize Adam has already showered, eaten, and left for his father’s office. Knowing I won’t have another opportunity to speak to him all day makes me resent my boss and his chronic procrastination. The subsequent hours drag.
Thursday is spent on my hands and knees sanding the wooden planks of the porch and then applying a fresh coat of white paint. A month ago I would have enjoyed the project. Offering to do the work myself saves the B&B money on a contractor and gives me a sundry task that doesn’t involve cooking or cleaning. Win-win. Now that Adam has come into my daily life the outdoor painting is nothing more than a labor intensive job that keeps me away from chatting up my new friend and feeding my unhealthy addiction to him.
The most interaction Adam and I have this day is when I come in from the porch to wash up in the late afternoon. He’s been reading his medical journal in the living room while Tyler and Gabby play on the floor. When I come inside his eyes dance with amusement upon seeing me, and he shoots out of the arm chair to follow me into the kitchen.
“I thought you were just painting the porch,” he says coming to stand beside me as I turn the faucet on.
“Yeah, that’s what I did,” I reply. It’s unnerving the way he stares at me with a peculiar expression on his face; watching in what looks like fascination as I stand at the kitchen sink scrubbing white enamel paint off my hands and arms.
“It’s incredible that you managed to get so covered in paint throughout the process. Are you sure you didn’t fall into the paint can?” he teases.
I give him a stern look that is supposed to say ‘I’m tired and dirty, don’t mess with me’. “I didn’t hear any offers to help me out today. Funny how your desire to make yourself useful disappears when my chore of the day involves manual labor,” I shoot back.
He gives me a brilliant smile and lifts his hand to my face. I freeze, not understanding what he’s doing. Then he presses his index finger to a few places on my cheek and nose that he claims are
dotted with white. “You missed a few spots,” he chuckles.
I must have absentmindedly scratched my nose or brushed a stray hair from my face with wet paint still on my hands. I blush.
“You’re sort of funny,” he muses more to himself than to me I think. I don’t see what is so funny about it.
I discover the paint is in my hair too so after making chicken pot pies for dinner I take Tyler and Gabby home so I can shower. I’ll just feed them a quick meal at our house. There is no way I am sitting through dinner with four guests with streaks of paint in my hair.
Those two days with limited social interactions with Adam proved to be too much for my subconscious to handle, and it caused me to have a vivid dream about him last night. It was one of those dreams that feels so real you wake up wondering if it had really happened. In my dream I was in the shower at my house having extreme difficulty washing away the traces of white paint. That part really happened. Exterior Behr enamel is a real bitch and a half once it dries. I would have been left wondering where reality ended and my dream began if Adam hadn’t of then stepped into the glass shower enclosure behind me. Naked. This was obviously the portion of the dream that my mind concocted. His hands traveled all over my wet skin, rubbing it clean with the pads of his thumbs. Dream Adam lusted for me. He kissed my neck, whispered dirty words in my ear as the water pelted our backs, and begged me to give myself to him. He told me to relax, that everything would be okay, and then slid his hand slowly down my belly.
I woke just as his fingers lifted my thigh and hooked it around his waist. I realized what was happening and shut my eyes tight against the light of dawn. Why do sex dreams always end right before the gorgeous leading man has the chance to claim the woman? Maybe other people have more successful fantasies but it appears my dreams are consistently PG-13. It’s as if my father is there imbedded in my brain just to shut off the movie when the sex scene gets too steamy. Lying there, I will myself to fall back asleep to continue the dream I’m picturing in my head. Eventually I groan and give up. Recreating the dream with my conscious imagination does not have the same effect.
I skip my morning shower feeling like it would be a depressing dose of déjà vu once again leaving me unsatisfied. The last thing I want after reliving a sex dream about Adam Brickman is having to face my ex husband but I have little choice in the matter. Tommy is due to pick up the kids in a couple hours. Tyler and I spend some time together playing with superhero action figures. Gabby watches us and laughs as Ironman swoops down over and over to save her Barbie from the mouth of a hungry dragon. My phone rings around ten o’clock and I see that it’s Eric calling. He agrees to go with us to Savannah this evening which doesn’t surprise me. He never passes up an opportunity to hang out with Rebecca. I text Becca the good news. Now there are five of us and I’m not sure who the fifth wheel is going to be, Adam or Brett. I certainly don’t want to make Adam feel like he’s my date but Brett won’t pass up the opportunity to point out our uneven numbers.
I send one more invite via text and smile when the response comes back immediately with a yes. It might piss Brett off a bit but at least it will help control his behavior this evening. Now I just have to worry about not embarrassing myself in front of Adam. I honestly want him to have a good time with my friends and start feeling like he belongs in our small little community. I know he wonders if it was a mistake moving to Swainsboro and I want him to be glad that he did.
Tommy is on time picking up the kids. He knocks loudly on the front door and then lets himself inside before I can get there to open it. I wonder how long I should let him go on doing that. Hopefully he’ll stop on his own before it becomes too weird. For now, this is still legally his house too. This reminds me of another difficult topic I need to discuss with him.
“Hey, Tommy,” I greet casually. Tyler and Gabby run out from the kitchen to hug their dad.
“How are you guys? I missed you,” he tells them leaning down to hug each one. He ruffles up Tyler’s hair until Ty giggles and squirms out from under his hand.
“They were just having PB&J’s for lunch. Why don’t you go fill your backpacks with toys you want to bring to Daddy’s?” I suggest.
Tommy’s smile fades away. He knows I’m sending the kids upstairs because I’m about to say something I don’t want them to hear.
“What’s up?” he asks cautiously as Gabby and Tyler race each other up to their rooms.
“I was wondering if you had a chance to look over and sign the paperwork yet. Mr. Peters said he sent everything to you a month ago and I haven’t heard back from him.”
I brace myself, seeing from Tommy’s face that I’m not going to like his answer. “Yeah, I uh, haven’t gotten around to it, Mandy. The store’s been really busy this spring and those documents take a while to read through.”
“Come on, Tommy. There’s nothing new in there. Every time you ask for a revision or question some legal wording Peters bills me,” I say, my voice tense and annoyed because I know he’s just been stalling.
I walk the few feet into the hall where he stands so that we’re face to face, albeit I’m a few inches shorter. I’m angry enough to still be intimidating. “What are you waiting for? Please don’t drag this out just to punish me for hurting you.”
“I’m not trying to punish you,” he says and glances at the stairwell to check for the kids. “I still think you could change your mind and let me come home. If you just really think about what you’re giving up.”
“I made certain this is what I wanted a year ago before I ever said it out loud. I’d never have put us all through this if I thought there was any chance for us,” I say gently.
He sighs as I gather the strength to look up into his ice blue eyes. His expression is full of desperation and it makes my anger fizzle out. I step forward erasing the space between us and wrap my arms around his back. Tommy embraces me too, holding me tightly against his body. His embrace is intimate like that of a lover, a husband, relishing in a rare moment where we let our guards down and just hold one another again. I can feel his pain and I wonder if he can feel mine. We’re suffering from two different kinds of remorse, but it’s equally difficult to overcome.
I hate that he keeps clinging to this false hope, reopening the wound every time he asks me to reconsider. Even after all the years we spent together I don’t think I’ve ever held him the way he’s holding me. My body doesn’t respond to him in that way. Sitting across the breakfast table from Adam Brickman, watching him as he eats scrambled eggs and drinks coffee ignites more of a spark inside me than I ever felt with this man, the father of my children. It’s the kind of spark I always wanted to feel with Tommy and I often wondered if it was something that even existed other than in the movies. Being close to Adam makes me feel that excitement deep inside my bones just when I was beginning to think it was nothing more than fantasy. Knowing it does exist makes me surer of my decision to end my relationship with Tommy. But it doesn’t make the process any easier to bear.
The past year I’ve worked hard at not letting the divorce make Tommy and I estranged. I’ve never resented him for the way our marriage unraveled. He’s done nothing wrong to deserve losing the life he and I were building. It breaks my heart to think about finalizing the divorce too, but I know it has to be this way. Tommy is my family whether we’re together or not. Tyler and Gabrielle have entwined my life with Tommy’s forever and I don’t regret that fact. I’ll always care about him in some way, because he is a part of my family, though he doesn’t understand what I mean whenever I tell him this. I suppose it’s too much to expect for him to accept that right now.
Slowly, I disengage myself from his grasp and offer up a little smile. He returns it, putting on a brave face. “You have to let me go,” I whisper feeling my emotions start to bubble to the surface.
“I’ll sign your papers, Amanda. But you can’t make me stop loving you,” he replies.
We stare at each other a moment or two longer, not expecting the ot
her to say anything more. Our eyes only break free of one another when Tyler calls down to ask me where his Spiderman pajamas are.
“In the dryer, baby,” I call up to him. “I’ll come help you pack.”
Thirty agonizing minutes later my kids are strapped into Tommy’s car and I wave goodbye as they pull out of the driveway. I seriously think about just nursing a bottle of wine the rest of the afternoon after that confrontation with Tommy but my mommy conscience gets the better of me. Besides, I’ll probably do a little drinking in Savannah tonight. My battered psyche can wait until then.
I’m looking forward to this evening because it’s rare that I go out anywhere without the kids. Marriage and children have really turned me into a homebody, not that I was ever much of a thrill seeker even in high school. I don’t usually have an opportunity to hang out with Rebecca and Brett other than at my house so a night out is a real treat.
I spend the afternoon doing chores around my house. I do some grocery shopping, pay the bills, and tidy up the kids’ rooms. It’s my scheduled day off from the B&B; Mr. Thatcher is even going to answer maintenance calls should there be any. I definitely need a break from constantly working but a part of me is curious to know if Adam’s noticed my absence. I’m sure he doesn’t miss seeing me the way I’m already missing him, but I’d like to think he’s just a little bummed to learn I’m not coming in today.
I don’t feel nervous about having invited Adam to Savannah until late afternoon when it’s time to shower and dress. I’d normally throw on some comfy jeans and a nice top but now there’s someone to impress. I search through my closet three times before deciding on a knee length khaki skirt and a sleeveless pink blouse. The ensemble is dressier then jeans but not quite fancy. All my dangly and hooped earring are collecting dust in my jewelry box having not been worn since before Tyler’s baby days. Infants and big earrings do not mix. I select the nicest pair I own that weren’t a gift from Tommy and slip them on.