Unliving Love

by Jason A Grimm

  Chapter 7

  Rise and Shine

  Mike woke to an empty bed and the aroma of cooking bacon wafting in his nose. This was an unusual event for him. He was usually up before Jen and in their house the only smell they ever woke to was coffee from the auto start coffee pot they had.

  He was reluctant to get out of bed but the smell was too enticing. He slowly rolled out the side of the bed. The sun was well in the sky and it felt late, later than he would normally wake up. He turned back towards the bed so he could grab his phone when he noticed that it wasn’t there. He began to walk to the desk near the door of his room when it hit him that he must have left it down stairs on the end table by his dad’s chair. So not knowing the time he made his way out of his room and down the stairs.

  He felt good today. He felt relaxed like he had been sleeping for days and for the first time he found himself not really wanting to leave. He knew he had to and he knew once he got home he’d love having his own space again but he wasn’t in a hurry like he had been last night. When he made it down stairs he didn’t even stop to grab his phone he walked right past it and saw his mother and Jen in the kitchen cooking away.

  “Good morning my beautiful ladies.” He said as he began walking towards the kitchen.

  “Morning sweetie.” Jen replied with a smile.

  “Morning dear. Don’t think about coming in here we have it running like a well-oiled machine.” His mother replied as she shooed him out of the kitchen.

  “I was going to grab a drink.”

  “Well not from here. Take a drink of the water you have sitting on the end table.” Mrs. Lachey pointed towards where Mike had been sitting in his dad’s chair.

  “Oh I forgot I left that there.” Mike began walking over to his bottle of water.

  “I figured you did.” Mrs. Lachey said with a smile. “You remember the rules in the house don’t you?” She didn’t give him time to reply before she answered her own question. “You open it you drink it. We don’t waste in this house.”

  “Yes mother.” He replied with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. When he got to his water he opened it and took a sip. He reached down for his phone and pressed the button with his thumb and it came to life. 10:28am it said in bright letters but again there was the familiar blue box with the words Wes Joyner new text message. This made him tense up and his heart began to beat. He had the night before talked himself in to it being his parents and this calmed him down some. They probably just want to know if I’m home is all. Mike slide his thumb across the bottom of the screen and it went white and a few seconds later there the text was. It wasn’t asking him if he had left yet.

  You don’t have to.

  You don’t have to? I don’t have to what? They had to have messed it up. I’ll call and see what they are talking about. He thought to himself and with a press of a button and a few swipes of his thumb his phone was dialing out.

  The phone rang and rang until it finally went to voicemail. I’ll try back later. He thought as he ended the call.

  “Everything ok? Jen asked.

  “Yeah.” Mike turned and saw Jen setting stuff on the table. “Just making a phone call but no answer.”

  “Oh? Who too?” She asked curiously. She walked back in the kitchen grabbed a large pitcher of orange juice and the butter dish and brought it to the table.

  “Wes’s parents, I think they sent me a text last night and this morning.”

  “You think?”

  “Well…” He paused still wondering why they weren’t answering. “Um, the text came from Wes’s phone.”

  “Oh.” She said as she turned back and walked back in the kitchen.

  Mike made his way to the table and sat down trying not to think about the odd text he had just gotten. He was finding it hard though since he sat alone but luckily his father had just walked in the front door carrying a gallon of milk in one hand and a small brown paper bag in the other. He knew his father would be joining him and would start up a conversation so he could push back the thought of the text for now. The sight of the small brown bag was helping in this matter, it had no logo or words on it and wasn’t big enough to hold much of anything.

  His dad walked to the table and sat the jug of milk down and then looked over towards Mike. “Follow me.” He whispered with an enormous smile on his face. “I have something for you.” He held up the small brown paper bag that was in his hand.

  Puzzled, he stood up and followed his dad down the hall and into the room next to the bathroom. His dad flipped the light switch and the room lit up showing a washer, dryer, and racks on the walls with odds and ends clothes all over them.

  “Here you go.” Mr. Lachey handed him a small brown bag. “It’s from your mother and me.”

  Mike took the bag and slowly opened it up and peeked inside. “Is that what I think it is?” He reached his hand in and pulled out a small velvety box. Holding the bottom he slowly opened the top of the box showing a bright gold ring with a large oval diamond in the middle. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Well Mal… We really, really like Jen and we wanted you to have it so that if by chance the mood struck and you wanted to propose you wouldn’t have a reason not to.” His dad beamed.

  “What is mom going to wear?”

  “Well, we are going to pick her something out tomorrow.”

  “But she…”

  “It’s done Mal so no point in arguing about it, besides your mom has wanted a new… as she says streamlined ring.”

  Mike laughed as an image of his mom trying to race a bike down a hill while the ring acted like a parachute. “You sure about this?”

  “The ring is in your hand isn’t it?”

  “Fair point.” Mike closed the ring box and slid it back in the bag rolled it up and placed it in his shorts pocket. “We better get back out there before someone comes looking for us.”

  When they got back out in the dining room Jen was now sitting at the table and Mrs. Lachey was carrying a plate full of French toast and a pot of coffee. The table was covered with plates of bacon, fried potatoes, sausage links, scrambled eggs, and biscuits already and the smell was so amazing Mike wouldn’t have been surprised if people started coming in off the streets.

  “You two really out did yourselves this is incredible.” He said as he sat down in the chair next to Jen. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the check. “Looks absolutely amazing babe and smells out of this world.”

  Mrs. Lachey sat down the French toast and took the seat closest to the kitchen. “We may have made a bit much but what we don’t eat you two can take with you. It’ll give you something to eat when you get home.” She poured two cups of coffee and slid one to her husband. “Well dig in. I’m not making your plates for you.” She smiled as she speared a piece of French toast and placed it on her plate.

  Mike loaded his plate with bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs. “Can you grab me a piece of French toast babe?” He asked Jen as he poured himself a glass of orange juice.

  Jen took a piece of French toast and sat it on his already crowded plate. “Butter?” She reached for the tub of Country Crock that sat on the end of the table.

  “Nope just syrup please.” He took the syrup from Jen and poured some on his French toast. “I’m going to have to hit the gym like a mad man when I get back. Between last night’s dinner and this.” He cut up his French toast and began to eat.

  “How is it?” Jen asked.

  “MMMMmmmmmm!” Is all he could get out of his overly stuffed mouth.

  Jen laughed. “Your mom’s showing me how to cook.” She poured herself a glass of coffee. “I can make you a nice breakfast on Saturday mornings so you have the energy for your games now.”

  Mike swallowed. “That’s a great idea. With a meal like this on game day who knows how many yards I’ll throw for. Be setting records for sure.” He smiled then took a big gulp of orange juice.

  “Shame there is only a few games left.” She sa
id as she spooned some eggs onto her plate.

  “It’s been nice having you two here.” Mr. Lachey said in between bites. “I hope you two plan on coming back under better circumstances. Maybe you two can make it back down when your sister has some time off school and we can have a nice family weekend. It’s a shame she agreed to be a group leader at the camp the sixth graders go to or she would be here with us.”

  “That sounds like a lot of fun.” Jen said as she sliced up more of her French toast.

  “Yeah who knows. You guys are still coming down for the last game of the season, right?” Mike asked as he scooped some more eggs on to his plate.

  “Yeah when will you know if you make it to the championship?”

  “Won’t know one hundred percent till after our last game.” He poured another glass of orange juice.

  “Well you guys are playing good so I can’t imagine you not making it.” Mr. Lachey took a sip of coffee. “I was talking to coach Morgan and he was telling me that you guys have the best team you’ve had in years and have a lot of starters coming back next year too. The kid taking your spot after you are done looks good too so that will be nice for them”

  “Yeah been trying to show him some stuff.” Mike took a bite of bacon. “It’s been a good year everyone has been staying healthy and things are just clicking.”

  “What are you doing after this season?” Mr. Lachey took another sip of his coffee “Been hearing your name on ESPN… been talking about you going early in the draft. One of them said he’d eat his own shoe if you didn’t go first” He let out a laugh. “I don’t want to see it but it sure would be a funny sight.” Mr. Lachey took a sip of coffee. “So you been talking to any new teams?”

  “A few.” Mike took another gulp of orange juice and followed it with a large bite of scrambled eggs. “Won’t really know anything till later though. It all depends on draft order and trades ya know.”

  “Well you know we support you no matter what you do.” Mrs. Lachey spoke up cutting off her husband.

  They kept to idle conversation for the rest of breakfast. Once they all were done Mike began to clear the table, gathering up the dishes and taking them out to the kitchen.

  Jen began to stand up.

  “No you don’t” He said and motioned her to sit back down. “I’ll handle this. You two cooked I can clean up.”

  She smiled and sat back down.

  Mike made several trips back and forth before he had all the dishes in the kitchen. He put the leftovers in a giant covered dish, scraped the plates and trays, and then loaded everything in the dishwasher. He turned the water on at the sink and piled the pans in it to be washed by hand. He could hear them laughing at the table, although he couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying over the water and the scrubbing sound. It didn’t take him long before he had the pans and skillets washed and sitting in the dish strainer.

  “So when do you two plan on leaving?” Mrs. Lachey asked Mike as he was drying the counter.

  “As soon as we’re ready. It’s already late and Jen wants to see Wes’s house before we leave.” The thought didn’t sit well with him. The idea of going in to the house never sat right and even less now with what Wes did there.

  “Yeah we were telling her how much he did to it.” Mr. Lachey took a sip of his coffee. “It really is a beautiful house.”

  “If you say so.” Mike began to make his way out of the kitchen. “I’m going to go get all our stuff together.”

  “Ok.” Jen gave him a smile as he walked down the hall and up the stairs.

  Getting their stuff together wasn’t a difficult process. His stuff was all in the bag and Jen’s dress was laid out on the desk underneath it. He picked up the dress and neatly folded it and placed it on top of his folded clothes in the bag. He walked over to the bed and took all the sheets and pillowcases that they had put on it last night and roughly folded them up and sat them at the foot of the bed. He looked around the room to see if he was leaving anything behind and noticed Jen’s phone on the headboard. He walked over grabbed it and put it in his pocket. He walked back over to the desk and for good measure looked in the bag to make sure that he had his papers and the USB drive. I definitely don’t want to be forgetting any of this stuff. He thought to himself and sure enough they were all in the bag under Jen’s dress. He took one last look around the room, this time for more sentimental reasons. Once he took everything in one last time he turned and walked out the door closing it behind him.

  When he got back down stairs they were all still sitting around the table talking. He leaned over the chair and grabbed his phone off of the end table that he had it sitting on from last night and placed it in his pocket that was holding the family heirloom engagement ring. He walked over and placed his hand on his father shoulder.

  Jen looked up. “You all ready?”

  “Yeah have a long day ahead of us.”

  Mrs. Lachey stood up and gave Mike a hug that would have made any defensive player jealous. He wrapped his free arm around her and returned the squeeze.

  “Going to see you two in two weeks right?” He asked

  “You bet.” Mr. Lachey stood up and took his turn at giving Mike a hug. “Can’t wait, it should be a really good game.”

  Mrs. Lachey was now over giving Jen a hug.

  “Yeah and I’ll use my new found ability to cook you two a nice dinner.” Jen said as she returned the hug to Mrs. Lachey.

  “Oh I can’t wait.” Mrs. Lachey said as she moved to allow her husband a chance to give Jen a hug.

  “You two be careful, no speeding.”

  “We will don’t worry.” Mike said as he turned towards the door. “I’ll call you after we stop at Wes’s house and get on the road.”

  “Ok sounds good Mal.”

  Mike and Jen walked out the door and made their way to the car.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lachey stood at the door waving as they climbed in.

  Mike tossed the bag he was holding in the back seat, fastened his seatbelt and turned the key bringing the car to life. He looked up gave his family one last wave and then placed the car in reverse and slowly backed his way out of the driveway.

  “You sure you want to stop by that house?” He asked Jen as he put the car in drive.

  “Absolutely.” She smiled back.

  “Ok then.” He pressed the gas and drove off leaving his parents’ house behind.