I laughed. “Now you’re trying to make me sound like I’m some kind of a diva or something.”
“A diva? You? Oh no, you’re definitely not a diva.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know whether I should take that as a compliment or an insult.”
“It’s undeniably a compliment. You’re the most down-to-earth person I know.”
“Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do anymore.”
“Fair enough. But the person I knew years ago, and the person I went to lunch with that time, not counting the person I’ve walked with in the park a few times, is not a diva.”
“Okay, so where did you get the cake?” I said, then quickly recalled how many times I’d chastened my girls for doing something just like that. “The reason I’m asking is in case I fall head over heels in love with it and I want another one.”
“You can just let me know and I’ll gladly order you another one,” Ethan said, grinning.
“And make you my pusher man?” I shook my head. “Nope. I think it would be best that I get the information and, if I want more, I order the next one myself. You know: cut out the middle man.”
“All right then.” He rubbed his freshly shaved chin. “I ordered it from a place called Bake Me A Wish! and an exclamation point is actually included at the end. I’m serious; there’s an exclamation point at the end of the company’s name. They give five percent to a fund where they will send cakes to our troops.”
“Impressive. So you just call them and place an order?”
“Yes. You call. They’ll tell you what all they have to choose from. And trust me: you may find that you’ll have a hard time deciding. I believe they have a Web site, but you’ve probably already guessed by now that I’m computer challenged, to say the least. The woman who took my order almost talked me into going with the Triple Chocolate Enrobed Brownie for you. But I knew for certain that the torte was delicious. So I decided to play it safe and go with what I knew.”
“Ethan . . . playing it safe? Now that’s an interesting concept.” I then realized I was possibly teetering on flirting with him, so I decided to pull back a tad. “You’re right. I just might be in trouble now that you’ve introduced me to this company. I bet they charge a pretty penny for this, huh?” I said.
“Oh now, they’re definitely not cheap. But they’re not too expensive. Shipping is what will get you. The company uses overnight shipping to ensure that what they ship is fresh when it arrives. And as soon as it came, I brought it to you.”
“You really went to a lot of trouble, didn’t you?”
He smiled. “You don’t even know the half of it. They shipped it UPS, so I had to make sure I was home when it arrived.”
“I understand that it’s food, but why did you have to make sure you were home?”
“Because if my wife had even the slightest hint that this torte was in town, it would never have made it over here.”
“You didn’t buy one for your family?” I shook my head. “That’s not right.”
“That thing cost too much to buy two of them at the same time,” he said, then started chuckling.
I picked up the box and held it out to him. “Look, you take this back home with you. Really.”
“Nope.”
“Yes! Ethan, I want you to take this home to your family.” I held it out again. “Take it and give it to your wife.”
“No,” he said refusing to take the box. “I ordered it specifically for you, and that’s where it’s going to stay—with you. So end of discussion.”
“Well, what if I tell you that it’s going to be a problem for me to take it home and explain it to my husband?”
“Woman, please!” He snickered. “You need to try that one on somebody who doesn’t know any better. If your husband asks you where it came from, just tell him the truth: a satisfied customer bought it and dropped it off at the shop. There’s nothing false in that statement.”
“So you’re not going to take it back?” I said, taking a step closer to him as I tried to push the box into his hand (without hurting the cake, of course).
He shook his head. “I bought it for you and it will remain with you. It’s my gift to you. You told me that you liked it, so you’re going to keep it.”
“What if I tell you I don’t like it?”
“Then you wouldn’t be telling the truth. And one thing that I do know about you is that you don’t lie. You are one of the most truthful people I’ve ever known.”
I smiled that he knew that about me. “You’re right; I don’t lie. At least, I try my best not to. Anybody will tell you that I’ll either tell you the truth or I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“I know that. I bought the cake for you”—he further closed the distance between us—“you like the cake, at least you like what you know about it so far”—he carefully took the cake out of my hand and set it on the table—“so you, my dearest among friends, are stuck with it.” He took my hand and held it up as though he was about to bring it to his lips.
I nippily pulled my hand from him. “Okay,” I said. “But only because you’re insisting.” I stepped closer to the other side of the table, making it a safe barrier between us. “Would you care for a slice of my torte?”
“I would. But since you declined my dinner offer, which was supposed to be part of my thank-you package with the cake being dessert, I guess I should pass.”
“You could take your slice home with you, since you seem to be one of those fanatics who won’t eat dessert before you eat real food.”
He looked at me, pretending he was insulted, then nodded as he flashed a warm, quick smile. “Yeah, I guess I’m just old school like that. But . . .” He came around to the side of the table where I stood. I would have run, but that would have looked too much like children playing a game of tag or something. So I stood my ground. Ethan was now standing in front of me, too close for comfort. My heart was beating so loud, I thought for sure he could hear it.
He blinked his eyes several times as he bit down on his bottom lip. “I have been known to indulge in dessert before din-ner . . . when the dessert was too tempting to hold off from,” he said.
I swallowed hard. I know he heard that. “Ethan—”
And before I could say another word, he leaned down and kissed me.
Chapter 23
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed unto the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
—Hebrews 4:14
“Ethan, don’t,” I said, shaking a little after pulling away from his embrace.
Ethan lovingly stared into my eyes. “You are so beautiful and so wonderful. You’re really the one I should have married. Then we’d be together now . . . in our own home . . . possibly with fourteen children.”
I laughed. “Fourteen, huh?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Fourteen . . . at least.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know about fourteen children. That’s about ten more than I ever wanted.”
“You would have wanted our fourteen, you know you would have. And I would have been right there with you, helping with each one of them. So this isn’t some macho male thing going on. You know: ‘Me Tarzan; you Jane.’ ”
I wriggled my nose. “So you’re saying that your ultimate goal wouldn’t have been to keep me barefoot and pregnant . . . me, regulated to the kitchen and the bedroom . . . you and I, during certain times, swinging from the chandelier?”
He put both of his arms around me as he gazed deeply into my eyes. “The kitchen? No. But I’m not going to lie: the bedroom and that swinging from the chandelier thing would have definitely been tops on our marriage list. At least, they would have been tops on mine. And I’m sure you know what the Bible says about marriage and the bed being undefiled.”
“Yeah.” I tried to pull away, but he wasn’t having it. “You know: I find it rather interesting that you’re throwing the Bible into this conversation when you and I are
essentially committing adulter y.”
“We’re committing adultery?” He frowned and leaned back a little. “And exactly how do you come to that conclusion? No sex has transpired between us. We’re not sneaking around to some hotel or anything like that. You honestly think what we’re doing constitutes committing adultery . . . us having an affair?”
“Ethan, you know what this is—me and you . . . what’s going on right here, right now. You know this would count as adultery . . . having an affair. . . whatever you call cheating on a spouse.”
Ethan tightened his arms that were still securely locked around me, pulling me closer as I tried to lean back from him. “You’re talking about that Jimmy Carter thing, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “Jimmy Carter thing?”
“Yeah. You remember that time Jimmy Carter said he’d committed adultery because he’d looked at another woman other than his wife with lust. So that meant he’d committed adultery in his heart. Of course, he was referring to a scripture that states whatever you do in your heart was the same as having done the actual act itself. Personally, I don’t think good old Jimmy should have confessed that one, not out loud. By that standard, most of the men I know could be found guilty of committing adultery. There he was the president of the United States, confessing to something that he didn’t even get any of the real benefits from. At least if you’re going to be convicted of something, you should get something out of it.” He hunched his shoulders. “Maybe that’s just me.”
“Yeah, of course you would say that.”
He rocked me a few times. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?” He was totally changing the trajectory of the conversation back to us again.
“You missed me? You . . . missed . . . me?”
“Yes,” Ethan said, standing perfectly still now. “And full disclosure: I like being with you. I want you, I do.”
I sharply broke away from his embrace. All of this was getting a little too deep for me. It was one thing to be playing around the shallow edges of the adultery waters; quite another thing to be about to dive, headfirst, into the deep end of the adultery ocean.
“Ethan, you and I can be friends. We can talk when you want to. But we’re not going to go there. We’re not. Okay, let me put it this way: I’m not going there. Years ago, you and I had our chance to be together and we blew it.” I looked him squarely in his eyes, before shoving my hand on my hip. “Well, to be perfectly honest: you blew it. Because I definitely wanted to be with you, but I wasn’t the one in control of things—you were.”
“Yeah, but you were the one who got married first,” he said smugly.
“I got married because I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to decide that you wanted something completely and singularly with me. You were too busy trying to keep me and your girlfriend at the same time. That got old real quick; and I deserved better than that. So, yes, I did find someone and yes, we got married.”
“Yeah. You definitely showed me that I wasn’t the only guy out there,” Ethan said with a quick nod. “You found someone else and the two of you married. So what was I supposed to do at that point?” He sat down at the table. “I admit: maybe I did mess up by trying to talk to both of you at the same time. But what do you expect? I was young and stupid at that age. And Denise hadn’t done anything for me to legitimately break up with her. What was I supposed to do?”
I sat down. “So you thought it was fair to me to make me the ‘other woman,’ essentially wait in the wings for my glorious opportunity to become your number one, once she messed up?”
He began to chuckle. “Yeah. I hear you. I just told you that I messed up. How was I to know what a huge mistake I was making in letting you slip through my fingers and out of my life? I was selfish. I didn’t think about how you were feeling about the arrangement. And now, I suppose you can say I’m paying the price.”
“Well, for sure it’s too late to go back and change anything. What’s done is done.”
“It might be too late to go back, but it’s never too late to start from where we are and go forward.” Ethan grabbed my hands and hurriedly brought them up to his lips as he gently planted a kiss on my knuckles. We locked gazes. “I want you,” he said. “I honestly and truly want you.”
I was fighting hard; I’m not going to lie. Because I wanted him, too. I inhaled, then exhaled slowly as I silently counted to ten. “Ethan, it’s not going to happen.” I slowly shook my head as I spoke. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? I’m opening up my heart to you. I’m being truthful with you . . . telling you that I truly want you. Hear my heart.” He took my hand and placed it over his beating heart. I closed my eyes as I felt the thumping that seemed to instantaneously synchronize with the rhythm of my heart.
“It’s taking everything I have within me right now not to whisk you off of your feet and carry you away,” he said.
“Ethan, I know you. You’re a good man . . . a godly man. Sure, your body may be telling you at this minute that it wants the two of us to be together—”
“Oh, my body didn’t just start this conversation during this hour. It’s been building for a long time. Trust when I say: it’s been a long time coming. Do you remember that first day I met you? It was at a house party. Well, that day is essentially burned into my memory bank and in my heart. Let me put it this way: I could end up with Alzheimer’s and I would still never forget you and that night I first saw you.”
“Ethan, you really need to stop. This is wrong. And it does neither of us any good to stroll down this dead-end lane. We have separate lives now. That’s the way it is. And we both know that you’re never going to leave your wife. . . .” I said it as though it was a statement, but it really was an open question he was free to argue against, if he so chose.
“You’re right. I can’t leave my wife now, at least not right now. There are too many moving parts that would come to a screeching halt were she and I to divorce at this point. But mostly, I have to be there for my girls. True the older ones are close to being on their own, so if I left now, it wouldn’t affect them as much. But my baby girl needs me. I can’t leave her primarily in the care of a woman who is so focused on herself and her own desires that she doesn’t have time to cook, wash clothes, or basically look after a child who still needs a parent present in her life.” He stood and paced back and forth a few times.
He stopped and turned back toward me. “You remember when my daughter was missing last week? Well, Denise claims she’d gone to get her hair and nails done and that it totally slipped her mind that she was supposed to pick up Jacquetta. Tell me: how do you forget that your daughter’s at the school waiting on you? How do you forget something like that? Huh? And it’s not like they decided this a week in advance and she’d just forgotten when the date arrived. They’d talked about it the night before. And Jacquetta said she even reminded Denise before she left for school that morning.”
“I’m sure you probably don’t want to hear my opinion. But honestly, I don’t think your wife forgot because of her hair and nails appointment. I think she likely has a man on the side. I’m not trying to be messy or get all in your business. But from all that you’ve shared with me about what’s going on with her and the two of you, that’s precisely what it sounds like to me. She likely got caught up with that guy and the time just slipped away before she knew it.”
“Well, regardless of what Denise may or may not be doing and with whom, I just need to ensure that I’m around to take care of my daughters, especially the youngest.”
“So that’s going to be what? Another nine . . . ten years before she graduates from high school that you’re going to need to be there?”
“Yeah. But I’m willing to make that sacrifice if that’s what it takes to ensure my daughter has what she needs. Because if my wife and I divorce, Denise will certainly be granted the majority custody. The court won’t give me custody even if I am the better parent and I want custody. I’m a guy and Denis
e is the mother. Unless I show that she’s unfit, she’ll get primary custody. And you can believe it’s not that my wife would really want custody. She knows I’m the one who takes care of them. She would do it just to spite me. She would do it to get the child support, which I honestly don’t have a problem with paying or her getting. But she would do it mainly to hurt me and to deny me my fatherly rights, forgetting how much she’d be hurting our daughters.”
“That’s a dilemma for sure,” I said. “Then there’s the church.”
“Yes, there’s the church. But that’s not forefront in my mind. Church folks divorce all the time these days. It doesn’t carry the stigma the way it used to. The people who might have a problem with it will get over it soon enough and move on,” Ethan said. “My children are my greatest concern. And knowing Denise, she would likely have all kinds of people, men and women, hanging around the house. I don’t want that kind of a life for my daughters. I don’t. There’s too much going on for me to be a part of putting my children possibly in harm’s way.”
“I hear you with that one,” I said. “I always said that if Zeke and I didn’t stay together and I found myself in the position of having to date again while having girls in my house, I’d seriously think about putting off dating until my girls were grown. And even then, you still have to be careful. Some of these men are so bold that they’ll try and hit on your grown daughters. I’m not telling you what I’ve heard; I’m telling you what I know.”
“I hope you know I would never do anything like that. Never,” Ethan said, as he shook his head.
“I know that. I wasn’t talking about somebody like you.”
“I only have eyes for their mother,” he said. “Although, I will confess: your mother was hot!”
“My mother?”
“Yes. Your mother. Back when I would come to see you, I thought your mother was fine.”
“Ewww! That’s gross! You thought my mother was fine?”
“Yes. What can I say? My father told me that if I wanted to know what the girl was going to look like when she got older, check out the mother. I checked out your mother and she was both cute and fine.”
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