Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  Nobody might care but me, but I want to be able to look at my kids and tell them truly I never cheated on their father. It might never come up, but I still want that in reserve. Might make up for the fact I left them with that cheating father.

  However, in my opinion cheating doesn’t make a bad father. It’s not as if he was cheating on them. Like he had some other little girl and boy, he was playing daddy to. Harold was a distant, absent father, like his own, but I truly felt like with time and persistence he could be better.

  Alternatively, the immersion program I had thrown him into. I wasn’t going anywhere, I would be monitoring the situation, and the second my kids started to suffer, they would be coming to me. Mrs. Gunderson, too, can’t forget about Mrs. Gunderson.

  I gave Aiden a pat on the cheek and ignored the lovely way his chiseled cheekbones felt under my fingertips. “It would be complicated. In addition, the fact you think it could be uncomplicated tells me this is a bad idea. So again, thanks for the tour and the help and I guess I’ll see you around.”

  I gave Aiden one last longing glance before I slipped inside my loft. I looked through the peephole and I saw him standing on the sidewalk between our two places for a long minute before he turned and walked inside his own loft. I turned away from the peephole and sighed.

  Damn, I thought longingly. Why now? Why did I have to meet Mr. Tall, Dark and Delicious now? When the only thing I can do is look and lust? I gave a hearty sigh, then wandered off to my bathroom with the new shower curtain to get ready for bed.

  Soon I was lying on my futon, trying not to think of the man just next door. Nah, I’d have to get another contractor. I know if I am exposed to Aiden even on a professional level very often, my weak resistance might break. I added call contractors to the list for the next day, then fell into a sleep full of dreams about the marvelous Aiden.

  I don’t feel bad about that. Just because I can’t have doesn’t mean I can’t dream. Does it?

  Chapter Sixteen: Aiden

  Aiden walked over to his loft door and let himself in after watching Helen’s closed door for a minute. He didn’t know why he had stared at her door for so long other than some forlorn hope she might change her mind. He stiffened his resolve, glad she had the sense that he didn’t. You would think I would know better, he thought.

  He entered the loft, his shoulders slightly slumped and his hormones raging from their interrupted tryst. He sighed as he passed the spot where he and the woman next door had so recently been getting to know each other. In the most carnal sense, he thought as he remembered the feeling of her lips under his and her breasts pressed against his chest.

  Is that what they are calling it these days, he could hear his father say in his head. It was the same thing he had said when he caught his son and little Susie Hawker down the street playing doctor when he was a kid.

  Aiden smirked at the thought and wondered how his mother and father were getting along. They had set out on their cross-country odyssey a little over a month ago and so far so good. At least he hadn’t gotten any calls to go pick up either party from some far away hoosegow.

  His mother and father had their separate spheres of influence. His mom had her house, and it was her house. She had picked the lot, approved the design and his dad had built it to her specifications. His dad had the company, which his mother hadn’t involved her in since his dad started making enough money to get an office manager to replace her. It worked for over 30 years and Aiden was wondering how having the same sphere was working out for his two hardheaded parents.

  He knew his parents loved each other, but the thought of them locked up for days on end in that tin can they call an RV sounded like a recipe for disaster. His father had the wanderlust and this was his dream for years, but his mother was a homebody and less enthusiastic. She only agreed to the trip to get his father to retire.

  The warning from the doctor was enough to make her close up her house and join her husband on the road. His father was antsy. If he couldn’t work, he needed another project and right now, that project was visiting all the states he could in an RV. Aiden wasn’t sure driving eight to ten hours a day was any less stressful than contracting, but it seemed to be working so far.

  Aiden made a note to go by and check on his mother’s house soon. It has been a couple of weeks since the last time he was by. They stopped the mail, employed a yardman to keep up the lawn, and installed an alarm, but Aiden felt better when he put his eyes on his family home himself from time to time. Woe betides everyone if his mother got home and there was something wrong with her house, he thought with a smile.

  Aiden’s grin faded as his thoughts wandered back to the woman next door. He felt a brief flash of anger that she hadn’t disclosed her status up front or at least had on a ring like any good married woman should. His mother had a groove in her ring finger from her wedding ring. He saw it when she removed her ring to do the dishes or cook, the only times she took her ring off as far as he knew. From the look of Helen’s finger, there wasn’t even a lighter mark showing she had ever even worn one or at least not often.

  ‘She’s not Alicia’ he told himself, but he couldn’t help feeling that same betrayal he felt when he found out Alicia was married. He laughed grimly. There is such a fuss made about married men stepping out, but little is said about married women. Some of them are as good at hiding their status as their male counterparts. Alicia was a past master of the art.

  “Stay away from my wife,” he could still hear the outraged bellow of Alicia’s husband when he tracked him down on a job. Aiden’s copper skin darkened as he remembered the shock and humiliation of being cursed out and called a home wrecker in front of his crew.

  All Aiden’s protestations of innocence went in one ear and out the other with the enraged man. The only thing that kept Bruce, Alicia's husband off his ass was the fact Aiden was bigger, younger and outweighed the husband by 50 pounds. Even then, the man looked like he really wanted to try it.

  “Maybe if your wife wasn’t such a conniving ‘ho, you wouldn’t have that problem,” Aiden murmured to the absent Bruce. At the time, Aiden was too busy getting his heart broken to come up with anything pithy. Aiden did wonder where Bruce thought his wife was the couple of times a week that Aiden and Alicia got together.

  Aiden knew many women looked at him and thought he was a player but he wasn’t. He wasn’t raised that way and all his home training taught him to respect women. ‘Remember, every woman you deal with is someone’s sister or daughter or mother. Think about how’d you’d like them to treat yours and you treat theirs the same way’, his father had drilled into him from the second he noticed that Aiden was noticing that boys and girls were different.

  Aiden wasn’t a saint nor did he claim to be but he was honest, almost pathologically so. If he was dating more than one woman, which he usually was, he said so and made sure to wrap it before he tapped it. For years, he was content to play the field, learning the construction business from the ground up took a lot of time and he wasn’t ready to settle down with one woman.

  ‘Then I met Alicia,’ he thought as he shut off the lights downstairs and went up to his bedroom. His slight hunger from earlier was back. He was about to invite Helen to dinner, then she dropped the bomb on him. Dinner after a little something-something. He had to admit food was the last thing on his mind while he held her slender frame in his arms.

  Aiden absently licked his lips and swore, as he tasted her erotic flavor again. He still couldn’t believe he had jumped on her like that, but her lips were tempting him since the moment he came across her massaging his bike like a worker in a massage parlor. Usually he liked to wine and dine, but with Helen all he could think about was kiss and bed. He smirked glad she had put on the brakes before he found himself in bed with another man’s wife… again.

  When Aiden pulled in, the last thing on his mind was the woman next door. The woman who sold him the loft had told him a writer lived there, but in three years, he’d seen
no sign of her. He assumed either she moved on and hadn’t sold her loft yet, or she only came by during the day while he was at work.

  He didn’t think much about it other than giving a thought to seeing if she wanted to sell. He had done a lot with his place as far as the light was concerned, but skylights didn’t beat windows and he could imagine redoing her outside wall with glass blocks like the ones he had around his door.

  He had already gotten a couple of offers on his place and he knew he could sell it for a pretty penny even with the unfinished third floor. He flushed when he remembered the brush off he had given her question of if he was a painter. Yeah, he painted, but he would never admit that to another woman. When he was younger, he had and the woman thought either he should try to put on a show and become the next Jackson Pollock or she wanted him to paint her.

  Aiden sighed, he wouldn’t mind painting Helen which was different. The women he dated weren’t the ones that inspired his art. He wasn’t into classical beauty. He loved to paint interesting faces and Helen had both. She was beautiful, but she was also striking. She had the kind of face that made his fingers itch for a paintbrush.

  His father never really understood his urge to create and only relaxed when Aiden made sure he understood it was just a hobby. Aiden had no illusions about his talent. Yeah, he might be able to sell a few pieces, but contracting was a secure gig and he’d never give that up for something as iffy as life as an artist.

  After manning a paint brush all day yesterday, the last thing on his mind was picking one up at home. He wanted a shower, a beer, and maybe a pizza. He was too tired to even think of cooking, though he could as many women came to find out.

  His mother believed all of her children should be self-sufficient. She didn’t want her son marrying some woman just to get a home cooked meal. Therefore, Aiden had spent time in the kitchen along with his sisters growing up. Being the only boy didn’t mean he didn’t have to cook, clean and wash like his sisters.

  His father was completely on board even though his culinary prowess stopped at the barbeque grill and Aiden wasn’t sure he even knew where the washing machine was at his parents’ house. Aiden would miss his father’s grill and his cooking unless his parents made it back this way before it got cold. In central Texas, this meant December so Aiden wasn’t writing them off completely.

  When he pulled in, all his plans flew out the window when he caught sight of the slender woman caressing his bike with her long slim fingers. He had gotten instantly hard imagining those hands on him and his new goal was to find out who was feeling up his bike.

  Aiden fast-forwarded through the rest of their encounter even the kiss. He didn’t need another Alicia in his life. He barely escaped the first one with his sanity intact. He thought he and Alicia had something special only to find out he was the last in a long line of men she stepped out on her husband with. In addition, she had two kids at home. He smiled grimly and hoped her kids had no idea what Mommy was up to when she disappeared at night.

  He laughed bitterly as he shucked off his paint smeared clothes, glad his dad had taught him keep a set of grubby clothes in his truck just in case. Normally he wore an Izod and a pair of Dockers to work, but when Sam called in, he had no choice but to change and jump in with the paint crew. He was glad to say he hadn’t forgotten how to swing a paintbrush.

  Sam was getting to be a problem and Aiden knew he was going to have to find a replacement for him. Sam was an employee of his company’s and not a subcontractor or he’d tell Sam’s boss not to send him to any more of his jobs. Now he’d have to deal with Sam directly.

  He and Sam had grown up together and climbed up the ranks together and now that Aiden was boss, Sam thought his old friendship bought him special privileges. Aiden knew this was a risk when he was working with the men he now ordered around, but he never thought Sam would become this pain in the ass and soon, Aiden’s example of how he didn’t play favorites.

  His father had built his company from the ground up and Aiden would be damned if he’d let it decline on his watch. No old friend was enough to make him disappoint his father. Aiden pushed the idea of Sam and the possible ramifications out of his head. He needed a shower and a beer and then maybe see about ordering that pizza. He briefly thought about trying to interest Helen in sharing it, but knew by the look on her face she would not be in the mood.

  His cock gave an interested twitch letting him know it was in the mood and Aiden was glad to feel it. After Alicia, he hadn’t bothered with women. Funny how he didn’t think he trusted the women he was dating, but he had because now that he didn’t trust any woman he also didn’t trust them enough to have sex with them.

  He’d be damned if he went through another scene like the one he had with Alicia’s husband. He had never felt so foolish in his life. He actually thought he loved that skank and bought a ring. It was in his pocket for his date that evening when Bruce had shown up and blew all his plans out of the water.

  Flight attendant my ass, he thought grimly as he stepped into the hot water of his shower. That was her excuse for not always being available when he wanted. The reason he couldn’t come to her place was she shared an apartment with a bunch of flight attendants who all had different schedules so they couldn’t be sure of having any privacy.

  Aiden shook his wet head as the hot water beat down on him, wishing it would wash away the feelings of shame. He would never mess with a married woman, but Alicia hadn’t given him the choice. He never asked because he had met her out at a club and she hadn’t been wearing a ring. Just like Helen, he thought grimly wondering if the story of a divorce was true or not.

  He shook his head and determined to leave the woman alone. Maybe somewhere down the line they could try it again if she really got a divorce. Maybe not, he thought. In fact, it might be the best thing around to give Helen a wide berth. He lived here for three years, this was the first time he had seen her, and he could go three more.

  Yeah, but that was before she moved in, his conscious reminded him. If she’s moving in, he thought grimly. For all he knew she could be setting up her loft as a little love nest. Nah, he thought, he’d give Helen a pass. If she called about a contractor he’d be too busy to take on the job.

  This carried him, though his shower and getting into some old sweats he used for lounging around the house. He ran down, grabbed a beer and ordered his pizza. As he sank down in the couch to wait for the delivery person, he flipped on the TV, tucked away in an entertainment center. He tried to concentrate on the TV, but the thought did intrude, ‘but, damn that woman can kiss’.

  Chapter Seventeen: Harold

  Harold collapsed into bed exhausted. This was the longest day of his life. He didn’t see how Helen did it and she was doing it for 12 years. He groaned as tonight’s dinner of potato pirogues in cream sauce settled unhappily in his stomach. After the break, his system wasn’t used to heavy meals anymore and his stomach was more than happy to tell him about it. He popped antacids along with two more aspirin and laid back.

  He was not meant to be the main parent. He had no role model. His father hadn’t been the main parent. His mother was. It was her that took him to all the sport practices and such. Until his father had to admit, Harold had absolutely no athletic prowess and then they cut out sports. Then his father started taking him to the factory and the long climb to the top began.

  Harold looked back on those days and sighed. Even manhandling large boxes of paper around the warehouse was preferable to this. Why had he wanted kids again? Oh, that’s right, because that’s what people did and he liked kids. He loved his kids, but in small doses, not the giant economy sized chunk he had gotten today,

  He was beginning to think Helen might have been on to something with her no baby stance. However, he was coming to this conclusion about 12 years too late. He banished the thought. He wouldn’t wish his kids away even in his head. Helen would be back soon and things would get back to normal.

  Rather, the new normal of h
er being here with the kids and him at Jillian’s with her. He tried to have confidence in that thought, but it wouldn’t come. He tried again, she had to come home. Didn’t she?

  Picking up the children was just this morning in reverse except Tonya’s directions were in a harsher tone and the long looks more pointed. Harold knew his days were numbered. Tonya had asked him again when her mother was coming home and again he had fobbed her off with a vague answer but he knew that was the last time. He had to come up with something definitive soon and he was coming up empty.

  He didn’t know how Tonya knew something was different, but she did. Helen was gone longer other times, but in less than 24 hours Tonya had sussed out there was a problem. Then again, he didn’t know how she knew about Billy Smith and she had. Tony was enough of a boy not to go tattling to his sister even his twin.

  She took care of it, he thought with a shudder. He tried to shake it off. She was his daughter, he was her father, and Billy Smith was a bully who’d gotten what he had coming to him. Harold wished he had stepped in back then, now. Maybe he’d have a bargaining chip with Tonya, if he had.

  He made up his mind to track down Helen by any means necessary. She had to be in this discussion with the kids about the divorce. Nothing else went according to his plan, but he really needed this to.

  When he pictured the discussion, he saw Helen and himself presenting a united front with him slightly to the back and out of the line of fire. He hadn’t expected the kids to kick up too much of a fuss because Helen was the main parent.

  From the second she popped them out and the lactation coach got them latched on to her milk engorged breasts, they were a unit. The three of them with him the outsider responsible for food, shelter, and cheering at various games. Other than that his job had pretty much been done after he impregnated Helen.

  He barely got the kids home after school and they had walked up the stairs to their rooms before they were coming back down dressed in their soccer uniforms. Harold looked up from his perch on the couch and sighed. He walked back out to the car with Tonya’s stare boring a hole in his back.