by Robin Kaye
Eventually, maybe… someday, when her heart stopped breaking.
Annabelle waited for Mike, looking forward to seeing him, and dreading it at the same time.
He’d been working so much, she spent more time texting him and leaving voice mail messages than she spent in his presence. She missed him, even though she tried to put him out of her mind. He’d made such a big space for himself in her life that when he was absent, the yawning hole he left made her feel empty. She tried not to think what life would be like without him. Though, after this weekend, she’d find out. She wasn’t looking forward to it.
The Felix the Cat clock on the wall counted down the time, and with every swish of his tail, Mike became later and later. She paced back and forth in her new flats, thankful she didn’t have to wear that ugly boot anymore. She straightened the painting she’d hung over the couch—one of her own works she’d painted while going through her Tuscan phase. She’d pulled the colors from the painting and chosen the new drapes she’d hung—a mix of jewel-tone silk sheers she made out of the stash of rich fabrics she’d collected. She’d even had the Fairy Godfathers build her a cornice she’d covered to pull all the colors together. Matching handwoven table runners covered the table and the buffet where she displayed a few pieces of pottery given to her by Becca. She looked around and thought about losing Mike. The only bright side was that she’d made herself a home. It was hers. It looked like her, it felt like her, and for once in her life, she was happy both with her home and herself. She just wished she could change her circumstances.
Her mind spun with a jumble of inexplicable and sometimes diametrically opposed feelings. She never thought she’d find someone who would invade her mind and pop up in her thoughts at the most inopportune times. She’d thought a lot about it since Becca had left. She’d gone and fallen head over heels in love with the one man she’d never be able to have. She’d even sketched Mike—not that she’d meant to. She didn’t know she was still capable. But when she cleaned off her desk before leaving for the long weekend, she unearthed her blotter and found a sketch of Mike looking back at her. She must be going stark, raving mad, because she didn’t remember drawing it. The sketch—and it was a sketch, not a doodle—was definitely her work, and the subject was definitely Mike.
The phone rang. She checked the caller ID and confirmed her suspicion. Becca. The girl was still pushing her belief that Annabelle’s relationship with Mike could survive this bump in the road. What Becca deemed a bump, she saw as a sinkhole the size of New Jersey. There was no way over it, under it, or around it.
“Hello.”
“Is he there yet?”
“If he were, would I be talking to you?”
“I guess not. I’m so sorry—”
“I know. Please don’t start.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“There you go again.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I said I would. I’ll tell him when we get back. I promise. I want him to have this weekend before I do. I want what little time we have left to be wonderful.”
“How are you going to do that when you have this… thing… hanging over your head?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to spoil our last weekend together. He’s worked so hard to get the time off. I want to enjoy it with him. There will be plenty of time when we get back to make both our lives miserable.”
“I think that’s a mistake. Honey, if you tell him as soon as you get there, you’ll have time to work through this together.”
“There is nothing to work through. Look, Becca, I’ve thought about this a lot. Mike is the son your father only dreamed of. He’s going to want to give Mike everything. He’ll have a new father and you. I don’t want him to have to choose between his family and me. I love him enough to let him go. And I won’t go back to what I was when I was with Chip. I deserve more.”
“Mike might not appreciate you making decisions about his life for him.”
“Becca, it’s my life. I know what’s best for me, and I know Mike. Someday he’ll thank me for this.”
“Someday, maybe you’ll get your head out of your ass long enough to see that you two belong together. I just hope that when you do, it’s not too late.”
“I’ve got to go. I think Mike’s here.”
“Promise me you’ll at least think about giving him a chance?”
“Love you, Bec. Bye.” She hung up the phone and put the whole situation out of her mind. She was good at it. She’d done the same thing when Chip died, and it worked well for two years. She could do it for another weekend.
Mike parked outside Annabelle’s apartment in the Mustang Nick had loaned him. He had his bag packed, the gas tank topped off, a cooler filled with food in the trunk, and an economy-sized box of condoms in the glove compartment.
He also had bags under his eyes so large they could be mistaken for oversize luggage. He’d worked around the clock. Not only did he cover his normal shifts, but also the shifts of those he’d traded to free him for the weekend. Spending Memorial Day weekend with Annabelle was worth every minute—he just hoped he didn’t sleep through it.
He couldn’t attribute all his sleep deprivation to his long hours at work. He’d also spent time researching Eastern Heart Specialists. He’d prepared for his interview the way he prepared for his board exams. He studied the practice, making lists of specific questions to ask or find answers to. The last thing he wanted was to move from one terrible work environment to another.
It had been years since he’d last looked up the old man, and part of his research was to ensure his father wasn’t involved in the practice. As far as Mike could see, his father was still on the board of University of Pennsylvania Hospital, but he’d closed down his practice. Maybe the old guy was slowing down. His father’s partial retirement was a happy thought. He didn’t want to see the man. Not that he was too worried about it. After all, his father didn’t know he even existed.
Mike got out of the ’Stang and straightened his aching body. The sun shone hot against his back. He checked his watch and winced. He was two hours late picking up Annabelle. He’d hardly seen her in the past few weeks, which wasn’t helping his peace of mind. The worst part about it was that their lack of time together didn’t seem to bother her. The last time he’d seen her, she’d seemed happy to be with him, but unlike every girl he’d dated, she never once complained about his absence. She never called and interrupted him at work, though she left nice messages or texts in answer to his messages or texts. No matter how many times Mike told himself that was a good thing, he had a hard time believing it.
He let himself into the building using the key he’d kept when Annabelle had sprained her ankle. Dick Doyle, Annabelle’s doctor, had sent Mike a letter saying pretty much what she’d said after Mike hounded her to go for a follow-up. Her ankle was healing well, and she could stop wearing the stabilization boot unless the pain increased.
Mike knocked. When Annabelle opened the door and smiled at him, it was as if someone had given him a shot of adrenaline. Damn, she looked good. When she wrapped her arms around him and didn’t let him go even after Dave nudged his big head in between their bodies, all the tension he’d been holding on to since he’d seen her last evaporated.
He looked around the apartment and was amazed by the transformation. It had seemed like forever since he’d hung the paintings she’d had resting against the walls, but now there were a few more already hung. He smiled when he realized that several of the ones he’d never seen before were signed by her. New drapes, lots of sculpture and pottery. The place looked like a little art gallery, only dustier and hairier. It had been a while since he’d vacuumed, and it didn’t look as if Annabelle had.
“I threw together lunch. Well, not personally. I walked Dave down to the deli and picked up salads and sandwiches. I thought that would be safer.”
Mike gave her a quick kiss, not wanting to tempt fate. Kissing Annabelle was dangerous business.
He didn’t want to take the chance they’d end up falling into bed. When they did fall into bed together, he wanted to hear nothing but the surf pounding the shore and heavy breathing—no sirens, no traffic, and no neighbors.
“Can we take it to go? It’s late, and I don’t want to waste a minute of our long weekend.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap? No offense, but you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
She wasn’t far off. “I’m fine. I stopped at Starbucks and got a couple of ventis for the road, and I got you a raspberry mocha.”
“How about I drive, and you sleep? You don’t need any more caffeine.”
“Do you know how to drive a stick?”
Mike grabbed the sissy bar in the three-tenths of a mile it took Annabelle to turn onto Hamilton Avenue. By the time she merged onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Dave was crying, and Mike was saying Hail Marys.
The woman was a female Mario Andretti on speed. She brought the RPMs up to a racer’s whine before shifting, downshifted into turns and accelerated out of them, and passed every car she approached while giving Mike a blow-by-blow of her shopping spree with Wayne. Which, in and of itself, wasn’t troubling— what gave him pause was the fact that she talked with her hands. You’d think they were chatting over coffee instead of speeding through rush hour traffic. The estimated time of arrival on the car’s GPS dropped at an alarming rate. The way she drove while petting Dave’s head and occasionally wiping his mouth with a napkin left Mike amazed.
Mike wasn’t used to cars. He grew up in Brooklyn, and he and his mother not only had no need for a car, they had no money for a car. He did get his license when he was in med school, and had even owned a car at one time, but he never felt as if driving was a natural thing for him to do. Annabelle looked as if she’d been born to it and clearly enjoyed driving. The wind whipping through the cracked window teased the curls falling out of the twist held together by a pencil.
He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and let sleep take him. He awoke a few hours later to the crackling sound of tires rolling over a shell driveway.
“Mike, we’re here. At least I think we’re here. This is the address, right?”
Mike opened his bleary eyes and took a deep breath of salt air. The cedar-shingled house grayed by age rose above them as the roar of the ocean and the scream of seagulls drifted through the windows.
“Yes. This is it.”
Annabelle’s eyes widened. “Nick owns this place? The whole place?”
“Yeah. He wanted to get a house large enough to sleep the whole family. His mother, grandmother, Vinny, Mona, and the kids.”
“He could sleep them and their thirty closest friends.”
Mike shrugged. It looked like a typical Westhampton beach house—only bigger. He opened the car door and stretched as he rose. Annabelle followed suit and released the door locks before she reached into the backseat and leashed Dave.
Making his way to the popped trunk, Mike threw his bag over his shoulder and picked up Annabelle’s. The woman certainly wasn’t a light packer. Dave took off with her, his nose to the ground sniffing everything in sight and watering every area of the front yard he could reach to mark his new territory. He wasted no time claiming what was his.
Annabelle turned toward the ocean. “I wish I was allowed to run. I’ve always loved running by the water. When I lived in Philly we’d take road trips to Ocean City, and I’d run on the beach every morning.”
“I never knew you lived in Philadelphia. When was that?”
“A few years ago. I went part-time to art school and waited tables.”
There was still so much he didn’t know about her. He did know enough to see that something was bothering her. It would be a mystery until she decided to talk to him about it. He just hoped she did. “Give it another month, and once your doctor gives you the okay—”
“Yeah, but in another month, I won’t be here. I’ll be in Brooklyn.”
“Nick usually takes the family out here for a week or two in July. I always get an invite. You and your parents probably will too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Can you picture you, me, and my parents trapped on a glorified sandbar? Yup, that’s my definition of hell. It would be like a twenty-four-hour marriage channel. All nagging, all the time. You can count me out. There’s not a house large enough. Besides… it’s against my religion to make plans more than a week in advance.”
“Hold on, you spent the last year planning a wedding.”
“I’m a recent convert.”
Mike dropped the bags and stepped behind Annabelle. His hands went to her waist, and his mouth to her ear. “Wanna hear my short-term plans?”
She inhaled a sharp breath, and when he pulled her against him, she let it out with a whoosh. His hands moved forward and splayed against her stomach just below her breasts.
“Yes.”
His lips quirked at the breathless quality of that one word. His dick twitched against her.
“Oh yessssss.”
He kissed the side of her neck down to the thin white spaghetti strap holding up her blue and white cotton top. Damn, he knew he should have waited to get inside. “I want to make love to you for seventy-two hours straight.”
“I’d like to see you try. But first, I think we need to eat. You’re going to need your strength.”
For now, the only thing Mike needed was Annabelle, but then, he didn’t want her to think the only thing on his mind was sex. They’d have plenty of time to make love… over and over and over again. There was no need to rush it, no matter what his body told him.
He reluctantly let her go and picked up the bags he’d practically thrown on the driveway before. He carried them up the stairs to the deck and unlocked the door.
Dave barged through the threshold and almost knocked Mike over. Then came Annabelle, clinging to the other end of the leash like a skier behind a boat.
By the time Mike caught up with her, she’d gone through the foyer and into the great room, which opened onto the back deck, the pool, and then the ocean. The east side of the house was mostly windows showing off the spectacular view. The sun shone on the water, sailboats with brightly colored spinnakers bobbed in the distance, and the sea grass over the dunes danced in the wind.
“Wow.” Annabelle spun around to take in the rest of the place. A large fireplace. Big, comfy white slip-covered couches. A dark wood floor and painted beams gave the house a comfortable feel without it being overly beachy. A figurehead of a hand-carved mermaid hung over the stone fireplace and looked as if it was taken off the bow of a tall ship.
“Amazing.” The mermaid called to her, so she approached the fireplace, stepped onto the hearth, and ran her fingers over the weathered wood, trailing over the ridges of the scales chiseled on her tail. “This looks real.”
“I’m pretty sure it is. Nick’s not into reproductions.”
“Oh.”
The kitchen on the other side of the room was something out of Architectural Digest. Granite counter tops, dark wood cabinets, and industrial-size stainless steel appliances.
Mike disappeared while Annabelle walked around picking up and examining knickknacks. When he returned, he set a cooler in the kitchen. Annabelle opened the cooler and shooed him away. She couldn’t really cook, but she was good at putting stuff away. “I’ll empty this. Is there anything left in the car?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
He stared at her so she stared right back. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “I’ll bring our bags to the bedroom. Do you want to come up and look around?”
“I’m going to set out lunch for us. I’m hungry. I’ll explore with you later. Okay?”
Annabelle was nervous, and she wasn’t the only one. Why Mike was nervous, she couldn’t imagine. She’d caught him looking at her in that way he had—the way that made her feel as if he could read her mind. God,
she hoped he couldn’t. If he could, her plans for their first and last weekend together would be destroyed. She didn’t want it to end yet. She was going to put it off as long as she possibly could. She loved him enough to give him that. They’d both end up hurting, but at least when he looked back at their time together, he’d have a few happy memories. And so would she.
She emptied the cooler into the refrigerator, dumped the ice, and put the cooler on the porch to dry. She’d come a long way since the day she freaked over Mike telling her that he loved her. The conversation she’d had with Becca came to mind, and she cringed when she realized Becca had known long before she did that this was more than just sex. It had been more since day one. She hadn’t realized it until it was almost over.
Annabelle was lost in thought when Mike came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I was going to heat the knishes, but I’m not sure how to turn on that oven.”
He’d changed when he was upstairs into a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of board shorts, and smelled of sunscreen. She stood back and watched as he took over in the kitchen, arranging the knishes on a cookie sheet and placing them in the oven. He took out two plates and began serving the food from the deli containers she’d left out.
Mike moved around the kitchen with the same intensity as he moved around an X-ray machine. Within minutes, he had two plates full of food, napkins, and silverware in his hands.
“Could you grab a few beers? I left some in the fridge last time I was here.”
“Sure.” She retrieved the beers and followed him out to the deck.
“I closed the gate to the steps so Dave can’t take off.”
Dave commandeered a lounge chair with a mattress-like cushion and fell asleep with his big head in between his front paws. His back legs twitched as he let out a muffled high-pitched bark. Leave it to Rosalie to have a dog that talked in his sleep. He was probably dreaming of chasing seagulls on the beach.