Keeping Pace

by Dee Carney

  Ever since Patrick left me, I’d had the occasional bout with insomnia. I stared at the clock, blinking and praying it really didn’t say it was only a little past midnight. I’d gotten less than two hours of sleep and still had almost the entire night ahead of me. Nights like this were the worst. If I’d gotten up at four or five, at least I made it through the day feeling functional. At this time of the night, I’d probably only doze before being forced to leave for work.

  Josh joined me on the deck almost another hour later. “Bad dream?”

  I made room for him in the deck chair, which wasn’t easy. It obviously wasn’t meant to hold two people, but somehow we made it work. “No—I do this every once in a while.”

  He draped his arms around me, and I leaned back, comfortable as always in his hold. “Talk to me, then.”

  I stifled a yawn. “What do you want to know?”

  “What do you dream about when you do dream?”

  The question surprised me. The answer was easy, but I wasn’t sure if I should say it out loud. “Just the impossible,” I finally said, my voice soft.

  Josh waited for me to say more. When I didn’t, he asked just as softly, “Patrick?”

  My throat tightened, and I nodded. It was so unfair to Josh, but my eyes began to water as thought upon thought about my dead husband crashed into me. I held back sniffling for as long as I could muster but gave in when I realized wiping at my nose would be impossible without drawing his attention. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about? Missing your husband?”

  “Yes—”

  “He was a good guy, Regina. I’d be disturbed if you didn’t miss him.”

  His arms tightened around me, and a floodgate of wishes and dreams opened. “I just wish so much that we’d had a family before he died. He left me behind with nothing but his memory.”

  Josh held me, saying nothing further, while I got my emotions in check. A few minutes of silence passed when he asked, “What are your fantasies?”

  Despite myself, I smiled. “You already know one.”

  Josh’s laughter echoed off the houses around us, and I had to shush him to get him to quiet down. “What is it with women and having that particular one?”

  “It’s the fantasy. The illusion of a virile male at his most primitive. His sense of control so strained that he’s forced to extreme measures. Goes back to caveman times when they bopped a woman on the head by way of courtship, I guess.” By now, I was laughing with him, stifling the noise behind my hand in deference to the sleeping people around us.

  “Well, I hope I was virile enough for you that night. I’m afraid bopping you on the head just isn’t my style.”

  “Oh baby, trust me when I say I have never, and will never, lose faith in your virility.” My lopsided walk for the past few days testified to that.

  “Good.”

  We lapsed into a comfortable silence, the air thick with the scent of trees whose boughs were laden with leaves. There’s something about that smell. Green. It was different from when the trees actually blossomed with flowers. There was a vitality to them now.

  Every once in a while, the smell of chlorine from the Smith’s pool drifted over to me. I faced his house, noting all the dark windows. His place looked like a home to me, a place where a family would grow older together.

  As if he listened to my thoughts, Josh said softly, “I hope to have a family one day.”

  I didn’t know how to answer him at first. Smiling, I asked, “Is that a proposition?” I felt him squirm behind me, which made me laugh. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

  “No, what I mean is I think about shit like that. It’s about the only thing that makes me want to finish my dissertation and get some bigwig job somewhere.”

  “You should do what will make you happy. Thirty years or so doing physics just because you’re good at it isn’t going to make you happy.”

  “Is your job the one you’d planned on doing when you went to school?”

  I thought about my conversation with Lou earlier, and the stress vying against Beth had put me under in the last few weeks. “No,” I admitted. “I thought I’d eventually become a teacher. Somehow instead I ended up developing educational programs for school systems. Close but no cigar.”

  “Would you become a teacher now if you had the chance?”

  “Absolutely.” I turned and pecked him on the cheek. “But this isn’t about me. We’re talking about you and your future. You can support a family doing almost any legal job out there. You just have to figure out what it is you want.”

  “Is it okay that all I want right now is you?”

  He sounded so young and unsure of himself that I had to face him again. I ran my lips along his neck, turning the drag into little kisses along the way. “As long as it’s okay that I want you too.”

  We fell asleep off and on over the next few hours. There were times when he roused, and others when I heard his breathing deepen behind me. At times I watched the world come out of slumber around me, and during others, I jerked awake.

  I fully expected Josh to try to convince me to go inside, but when we were awake at the same time, we merely talked. Of course, we made out a couple of times as well. At one point I was sure we’d give our neighbors a free show should they have peeked out their windows, but one of us always became the voice of reason, pulling back before things got too hot and heavy.

  My eyes were gritty when I opened them all the way for the last time. I’d started to perspire, and that was almost as good an alarm clock as anything. The sun rose over the horizon, lighting the roofs around us. Ceramic tiles glistened as the sun’s rays reflected off dew formed during the night.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” His voice was gentle.

  I blinked away the grit. Despite my fatigue, I realized he was right. I had to work my voice box a few times to clear the sleep. “Mmm…it is.”

  “Let’s make a date. Next Sunday morning, you and me out here. Watching the sunrise again.”

  “You’re a romantic, Joshua Smith.” I cuddled up next to him. “But I like it.”

  Chapter Eight

  By Saturday, we’d developed a comfortable routine. The roses he left for me every evening were in bloom, now sitting in two separate crystal vases. Josh made progress on his dissertation and kept his parents’ house in order, mowing the lawn and bringing in the mail. I went to work every day, content with my life for the first time in a long time. I looked forward to having an entire day to be with him now that the week was over, instead of having to rely on skimpy evening hours when I came home tired from the day.

  I can’t say at what point it became a mutual understanding that he spent the nights with me. It just happened. Today the doorbell shattered our peace before we’d risen.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said to Josh. My handy satin robe was nearby, and I slipped it on to cover my nudity. He was similarly nude beneath the sheets, and I was very tempted to ignore our unwelcome visitor to explore him further. Like clockwork, he’d greeted me with an early morning erection.

  He stretched but then rolled off the edge. “Shower,” he replied as he made his way into the bathroom.

  I paused long enough to watch the sway of his glorious ass before remembering the person at the door and venturing downstairs. When I opened the door, I blinked in surprise.

  “Lou?” I stepped back without thinking. “Is everything okay?”

  He mistook my action as an invitation and stepped through the doorway. “Morning. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  It was a little after nine, and normally I would have been up already. Between the late nights with Josh and the occasional bout of insomnia, sleeping in this morning had been a luxury.

  Clutching my robe, I went ahead and made room for him to come farther inside. The room seemed to grow warmer by his presence. He smelled good this morning, the familiar scent of his cologne filling the air. Since I could count the number of times Lou had been inside
my home since Patrick died on a single hand, I was surprised by how comforted I was by his presence. “What brings you over?”

  “Kitchen still through here?” He smiled while he kept walking.

  I frowned as I followed him deeper inside my home. Josh had heard the doorbell, and his early morning routine of a long, steamy shower kept him upstairs for now. I didn’t want these two men in the same room together for some reason I couldn’t explain. I just knew my life at home needed to remain separate from the one at work.

  Lou studied the décor of my kitchen, that pleasant smile still on his face. I did a quick visual inspection with him, thankful there were no reminders about Josh’s presence anywhere to be found.

  “Lou—”

  “Got any coffee?”

  That did it. Barely keeping a rein on my growing irritation, I faced him head-on. “Lou, it’s early on a weekend. I wasn’t expecting you. Not to be rude, but what’s going on?”

  He leveled those pretty blue eyes at me. “I want to talk—off the record.”

  “About work?”

  “Yes.” He glanced at the empty coffee maker. “I’d love for this to be a relaxed conversation between friends. If I happen to mention a thing or two about the job by accident, a minor slip of the tongue, during that conversation…” He shrugged.

  Still thinking about Josh upstairs, I weighed my options. This was my boss, strongly insinuating I needed to be told something. My price for hearing it would be to endure it at his leisure. With a sigh, I set to work getting the coffee brewing.

  Sitting at the round table, we both stared at the slowly filling carafe until when it was half full, Lou finally spoke. “Big plans for the weekend?”

  “Nothing concrete.” If Josh had his way, we’d go check out a particular exhibit on architecture he’d been wanting to see. Something about a display on defying the laws of physics. I’d proclaimed it endearingly geeky, to which he’d blushed.

  If I had my way, on the other hand, we wouldn’t be leaving the bedroom. Being intimate with him had become addictive.

  “If you haven’t eaten yet, maybe we could head over to Sunshine Alley and grab a bite while we talk?”

  The trendy little eatery always had a line at its doors on Saturday mornings. “It’s kind of you to invite me, but really, I’m thinking more about heading back to bed,” I replied, hoping my light laughter would soften the rejection.

  “Regina, it feels like you’re avoiding me. You have no plans, clearly haven’t eaten but don’t want to hang out?”

  “I’m not that spontaneous a person, is all.”

  “You used to be. You and Patrick used to take off at a moment’s notice. Remember how many times I had to cover for you?”

  “Things are different now. Patrick isn’t here, and I’m just not the person I used to be.”

  Lou moved his chair closer to mine. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. You’re not the same, and I want to know what happened.”

  “What happened?” He knew as well as most. He’d been there for me after the devastating call from the hospital. “My husband died. That’s what happened.”

  “Yeah, but that was several years ago.”

  “It doesn’t feel like several years ago.” I wanted to rage against Lou for daring to suggest I shouldn’t miss Patrick. That I wasn’t allowed to still mourn for him. Not only that, his lack of empathy was confusing. “Not to me.”

  “Regina, time moves on. You need to move on. When’s the last time you had a date?”

  Biting my lip, I rose from the table and went to work retrieving coffee mugs and the requisite coffee condiments. My hands weren’t quite shaking, but inside I felt as if I trembled. He’d outstayed his welcome already. Quite an accomplishment for someone who’d been here less than fifteen minutes.

  By the time I’d set two steaming cups on the table and sat again, I thought I’d gotten my emotions under control. Lou reached for one of the cups and went to doctoring his.

  “Program development isn’t your first love, is it?”

  I still reeled from his chastisement, so his question caught me off guard. It took me a minute to respond. “No—no, it isn’t. I mean, I enjoy what I do, but I would have never guessed ten years ago that I’d be here now.”

  “If an opportunity to move into something different came along, would you take it?”

  I sipped on my sweetened coffee, already feeling as if my energy level doubled before it had a chance to pass to my stomach. “Possibly…probably. Depends on what we’re talking about.”

  “It involves a promotion. You’d be my peer.”

  This made me sit up, my brain already doing all sorts of calculations around my current salary. “Don’t leave me hanging!”

  “The district is forming a new position that you’re well qualified for. They’re looking for someone to oversee instruction and operations.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Lou grinned. “That’s the beauty of it. It means whatever you want it to.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t get it.”

  He reached across the table and unwrapped my fingers from around the mug. His thumb stroked along the inside of my palm. Even though it wasn’t sexual—I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way—the tickling made between my thighs tingle. “All you need to get is that it’s an incredible opportunity. Yours if you want it.”

  “Why me?”

  “Besides the fact you could do any job you set your mind to? Because I like you, Regina.”

  Maybe the coffee wasn’t doing the job I needed it to do because none of this made any sense to me still. We went from talking about Patrick and my dating habits to this position with the school district. I was flattered Lou thought me capable, but what connecting piece was I missing in this conversation?

  “You’d be my peer, you understand,” he continued. “That would change the rules.”

  Why was he talking in riddles? My frustration bubbled over. “What rules? Lou, I’m sorry, but I am totally not following any of this. It’s early and I need more coffee…and I just need you to spit it out.”

  His fingers interlaced with mine. “Us. I’m talking about us. You wanted to stop what we had going because of my promotion. We’d be peers now. A little birdie would only need to tell the right people you want the job, and it’s yours. And there’d be an us.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, when it rained, it poured.

  I know I couldn’t have hidden my surprise well. Even I noticed that my eyes were bigger and rounder. I’d lost the ability to speak, my mouth falling open and then closing, making me look the idiot. What us? Sure, we’d gone out a few times, and we would always be friends, but the spark I needed hadn’t existed. Had I been the only one there after we’d had sex? Surely Lou had to have recognized the lack of chemistry between us. He wanted to try again?

  “Good morning.”

  The feeling of being caught with my hand in the cookie jar—or in the hand of another man—made me freeze. Josh finished pulling on his shirt in the middle of the kitchen doorway, but not before I’d seen him look at where Lou had been holding on to me.

  Lou slanted his eyes at me, his confusion apparent. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”

  I slid my hand out of his. “Lou, this is Josh.” My heart pounded. “Josh, this is my boss, Lou.” With everything in me, I hoped Josh took the hint when I emphasized Lou’s relationship to me. It wasn’t that I needed him to be polite or anything on my behalf; I needed him to get there was nothing going on between us, despite our guilty appearances.

  My turmoil ebbed somewhat after they shook, but my thundering heart still insisted no good would come of this. Josh poured himself a cup of coffee and stood propped against the counter, drinking the black brew. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  With those words, I knew he’d heard what Lou had said before he’d walked in. He kept any jealously out of his tone, but I could barely look at him. I’d done
nothing wrong yet couldn’t help feel the weight of his stare as he watched over us—like a parent might watch over two horny teenagers on a darkened front porch.

  Lou, on the other hand, studied Josh’s wet hair, his bare feet, and the fact his shirt clung to his still-damp body. There was so much said and not said just by his appearance. There weren’t many reasons why a man his age would be at home with me. To me, the most plausible one meant we must have been related. While I have a few distant cousins, Lou knew I don’t have an immediate family, although Patrick did.

  Lou glanced at me. “So Josh, how are you related to Regina?”

  Oh God. Apparently Lou and I thought alike.

  Josh took a casual sip out of the mug. He looked back at Lou with cool green eyes. “Gina and I aren’t related.”

  My cheeks went white-hot as I listened to him use his pet name for me during sex. Lou wouldn’t know the significance of it, but Josh had just marked me in front of my friend. A loud declaration of his place in my bedroom.

  Some part of me said to step up and claim Josh as my boyfriend, but that at once seemed silly. I was too old for a “boyfriend”, yet wild horses couldn’t have pulled the word “lover” out of me, either. I didn’t know what Josh was to me.

  At the end of the day, he was a friend. I said as much to Lou who, as I figured, didn’t buy it. He looked at me, a long scrutiny this time, with a question inserted between us. He’d come to my house this morning with the intention of renewing our old ties but now wasn’t certain if someone else had already stepped up to do the job. I’m sure he wasn’t certain of this, but the idea was there.

  Lou picked up his mug and then drained it. “I guess you did have plans after all, Regina.” After placing the empty cup in the sink, he turned to me and said, “Think about the job, and my proposal. They’re both still open.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Josh said to his retreating back.

  “Likewise,” Lou called over his shoulder.

  I waited until the front door opened and closed before rising to my feet. The tie of my robe chose then to slip, and I had to catch the two flaps before they exposed my nudity to Josh. He’d been staring at me, not saying a word. Just sipping his coffee.