Southern Charm : A BWWM Cowboy Romance

by Tiana Cole

  My smile instantly faded from my face when I saw that the person coming out of Joshua's apartment was not Joshua. It was a tall, slim girl with shoulder length hair, dark and wavy and tucked behind one ear. She was wearing earphones. She was humming to herself but when she became aware of me she pulled them out of her ears.

  “Are you lost?” she asked me. Well wasn’t that the question of the century. At this moment I felt very lost, and confused.

  “Me? No, I'm just leaving.” She obviously hadn't heard me knock on the door.

  “Me too,” she said. “I came up to surprise my fiancé but he isn't home.” She gave a laugh and like a fool I laughed too. She was breezing towards the elevator and I followed her.

  “Ground floor?” she asked. She had a beautiful complexion; peaches and cream. She wore barely any make up but her large eyes stood out behind the long lashes she batted as she went to press the button for the ground floor.

  “So you don't live here?” I dared to ask.

  “Oh no. I'm not a city girl. I have a hard time convincing him that he should move out too at some stage but it falls on death ears.”

  “Your fiancé likes the city?”

  “Up until recently he was going to make a permanent move out of the city but something or someone is keeping him here.” She laughed again, tossing back her head so that the wavy hair released itself from behind the right ear and fell back over her face as her head came back forward.

  The elevator door opened and she stepped out. I was frozen to the spot. I was in shock, not believing what I was hearing. I placed myself back outside Joshua's apartment. Had I been on the right floor? There must be a mistake, Joshua couldn't be engaged and not have told me could he?

  I felt like I was part of an elaborate trick. One that had me believing that I was moments away from my happy ever after. But I had been on the right floor that was a beautiful woman letting herself out of Joshua's apartment and calling him her fiancé. As this process was going on in my mind I was finding myself still following the beautiful girl out to the main door. She turned to look at me, maybe I was coming across as a stalker.

  She smiled and went to pull her hair back behind her ear and put her earphones back in. And that's when I saw it. The engagement ring. A large emerald stone on a gold band. The stone actually matched her eyes. She smiled at me again.

  “So do you live here?” she asked as she pushed the door to the sidewalk open.

  “Just visiting,” I said in such a low voice she could hardly have heard me.

  I didn't even hear my own voice. All I could hear was a whooshing sound in my ears, it was coming from the sudden extra pumping of blood my heart was doing as bit by bit it dawned on me that Joshua was still just the hot young stud I'd let take me to a hotel room for sex. He was shallow then and he was shallow now. All that play acting of being some no nonsense, no more one night stands kind of guy was all one great big joke to him.

  I wouldn't be surprised if he'd recognized me from the beginning and wanted to see how far he could play a game with a desperate forty something. He must have seen me as desperate and needy from the first night we met. Well I certainly hadn't disappointed on that score. How much more needy could I have come across. I was in sexy underwear for crying out loud. What did I think I could do, seduce a thirty year old into the role of husband and father in one night?

  I hailed a taxi. When I got in I spotted Joshua's fiancée walking in a slinky sexy way, as if she was in rhythm with the music coming through her earphones. Did she listen to music to blot out the sounds of the city she so hated?

  And then I saw Joshua. He was walking towards her. She stopped, pulled out the earphones and put her hands on her hips. Joshua's face lit up when he saw her. As they approached each other he scooped her up by her tiny waist and spun her around. My face felt hot and for a minute I thought I might be sick. I breathed in and out deeply to calm my stomach down.

  The taxi was moving all the time, but slowly in the heavy traffic, but I saw most of the action from the back window. I was trying to see if they would kiss but the taxi turned a corner and Joshua and his fiancée were out of sight. For the next two, maybe, three blocks I looked out of the back window. I looked at the dusk beginning to turn to evening and noticed that the streets were still busy. People were getting on with their lives and mine had just come to a sudden thud against a brick wall.

  I let myself quietly into my apartment. Tracy had her feet up on the sofa and her glasses on as she watched the television with the volume down low.

  “That was quick,” she said. I didn't answer. As if in slow motion Tracy took her feet off the sofa and pulled off her glasses. She looked at me while aiming the remote at the screen to mute the sound. “Come here,” she said, patting the seat beside her. “What happened?”

  Still in slow motion I let my feet take me over to the sofa and sat cautiously on the edge. I looked at Tracy.

  “You're scaring me,” she said. “Why are you so quiet and did you even make it as far as Joshua's apartment?”

  “I wish the answer to that was no. But I did go over there,” I said.

  “Oh, Libby.” Tracy put her hand on my thigh. “Don't tell me; He doesn't want to be involved as a father figure in Giselle's life. He wants to give you money and shirk his responsibilities. I knew it. These rich young men. That's what they're all like, Libby.” She patted my thigh and then hugged me to her. “You don't worry about it. Take all the money he gives you. In fact, you could have him buy you a new apartment. Or a house with a garden. Giselle would love that.”

  I began to shake my head.

  “What?” she said. “He doesn't even want to see her now? Is that it?” Tracy was defiant. “But he has to pay for her, Libs, don't stand for any nonsense.”

  “It's too late for that, Tracy, I think I already did. I've been standing for Joshua's nonsense all this time. It's just been one big joke for him.”

  “What did you mean, Libby?”

  “Well,” I spluttered. “I just met his fiancée, that's all.”

  Tracy sat bolt upright. “You met who?”

  “You heard me. That's how she introduced herself. Fiancée. And I saw the ring. She is so beautiful.” I stood up. “How could I fool myself into thinking I had a future with a guy like Joshua? Not that I even know what a guy like Joshua is. I don't know him at all.” I turned to look at her. “Do I?”

  “I don't get how...” Tracy screwed up her brow. “So he came on to you at work, at that office party, took you to lunch, on a date, went through the whole charade of discovering he was Giselle's dad and all this time he was engaged?”

  It was strange, seemed like a lot of trouble to go through to be with someone else. I didn’t have to know his reasoning though, I was done caring.

  “Looks that way. But you know what? To hell with it. Giselle and I were doing fine until he showed up and we can carry on doing just as well. I don't need Joshua to be Giselle's daddy and neither does she.”

  “Who's my daddy?”

  Both Tracy and I looked at the door. Little Giselle was standing there, rubbing her eyes and breaking into a yawn. She walked to me and put her arms up for a cuddle. I was happy to have her in my arms, she was warm and folded her body into mine, head on my neck. Once again, we were back to a unit of two and it was looking like the time for Giselle to start asking about her daddy had finally come.

  Chapter 16

  For the next week or so I played a game of avoidance. I avoided Giselle's constant demands to know who her father was and I avoided Joshua's friendly but persistent texts about when we could meet to discuss seeing his daughter.

  In some respects it was like playing God, but I had my reasons.

  On the one hand what do you tell a two year old about her father when you really don't know anything about him yourself. All you have are confused feelings about him, a lot of what looked like empty hope and shattered expectations.

  Our conversations about who her daddy was always came a
t awkward times. For example we were at the counter at the store, paying for our milk and bread. Giselle was in her stroller when she saw a man carrying a little girl of about her age.

  “Look mommy,” she said to me pointing. “I think he's my daddy because he's kind to little girls.”

  “No, Giselle he's that little girl's daddy.”

  “So where's my daddy, mommy?”

  I got all hot under the collar, paid for my groceries and left the store in a rush. Giselle turned back to look at me from her stroller seat, tears in her eyes and yelling, “Where is he? I want to see him. I want to see my daddy.” Well this wasn’t going well, not the way I thought the conversation would come up.

  Just outside the store I stopped and kneeled in front of her.

  “Listen, Giselle, honey, not all children have a daddy and some don't even have a mommy either. A lot of children can have both but not always. Some children only get their daddy's when they're a little bit older.” That didn’t really make sense, but I was trying to reason with a distraught child without losing it myself.

  “But why?”

  “Because that's just how it happens. Sometimes they're already there before you are even a baby and sometimes they just come along when you're a big girl. I'm sure you'll see him one day but could we just be a little patient until then. Mommy loves you lots and lots. I love you this much and you love me this much so if there's no daddy for now then we'll just have to remember that we still have each other.”

  She sniffed and sobbed. I wasn't sure how much of that made sense to her. The guy carrying the little girl had walked past us and caught the tail end of what I'd said. It was embarrassing but it was as much of the truth as I could possibly tell her.

  We continued home and I pondered what I'd said. I was angry at Joshua and at myself for not checking him out properly before jumping into bed with him a second time. The fact that he hadn't been up front with me just told me that he was only using me.

  All the same, I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to deprive Giselle of having a father figure in her life. I would just have to make sure that Joshua's life as a two timing gigolo was not going to make Giselle into the kind of woman who thought cheating on women was in any way acceptable. Worse, she would be a woman who went after guys beneath her due to her father screwing up her beliefs about how dating should go.

  The next thing I had to do was speak to him. I called him that night when Giselle was in bed.

  “Finally,” he said. “I was beginning to think you'd dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “I'm sorry, I know it seems like I've been avoiding speaking to you but I had to think long and hard about how we would do this.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I don't want to get it wrong either. I mean it's a big thing, meeting your child for the first time.”

  “Look, Giselle is very impressionable, Joshua. I don't want you promising things you can't deliver.”

  “Of course. I'm completely prepared to play it any way you'd like.”

  “Play it? This isn't a game, Joshua, this is someone's life. You can't play games with people and then let them down. It just isn't fair. You need be straight forward and honest, don't hide anything.”

  “Libby, I have nothing to hide.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Well you could have fooled me.”

  “Wait, did I catch you at a bad time?” he said. “Besides weren't you the one hiding Giselle from me?”

  “I already told you. I didn't hide her, I just wasn't at the stage of telling you yet. I'm not the liar here Joshua.”

  “Look, let's just not go there, Libby. I don't want us to fall out. Besides...”

  “Besides what?”

  “Well, you know? The last time we got together I thought we had a real chemistry.”

  “Did you now?” Oh man I was being cold. The truth was I just wanted to get through the conversation as fast as possible and get off the phone.

  “Yes, I really did. Before I got too drunk and opened my big trap, we had a great evening and the sex was-”

  “Not going to happen again.”

  “But...”

  “But nothing Joshua. I made a big mistake sleeping with you. I mean the first time seemed to have been fated because at least it brought me Giselle-”

  “Us. It brought us Giselle.” Despite my anger, my heart fluttered a bit when he said us. I pushed that feeling way down deep until it was hidden.

  “Joshua if you knew how long I'd waited for a baby... For you it was one night of passion, one you quite easily forgot, let's not forget. So don't go giving me the good father routine. You're a father by accident only. And I swear to God you better be a good one. And as far as Giselle is concerned she only has one mother, you get it?” I thought about what I’d just said, and it was really harsh. I didn’t take it back though as I waited for his response.

  “Well of course, Libby. That goes without saying. You know I really don't get what's going on between us here. I thought we'd gotten over how I treated you. I thought we'd moved on and might get somewhere. I mean, I was thinking that one day you Giselle and I could-”

  “We'll take it one meeting at a time, shall we Joshua? Now, next week we can meet here at my apartment. I think it would be best if Giselle was on familiar ground.”

  “God, Libby, you sound so official,” said Joshua. “I see this as a wonderful experience and you make it sound like I might need a lawyer present.”

  “Speaking of which have you thought about how you are going to support Giselle financially?” I mean I knew how he would, I just meant if he would.

  “Absolutely. She'll have everything. I guess we can hash out the finer points when I see you both. Next week, right?”

  “Yes I'll text the details.”

  “And until then?”

  “Until then what?”

  “Well, I thought you and I could...”

  “Joshua from now on, the only thing you and I have in common is that we are parents to Giselle. We discuss visitation and that's as far as it goes.”

  “Oh.” He was silent. I didn't know what he was thinking about at that moment. Maybe it occurred to him that he hadn't yet told his fiancée he was a daddy. That side of things would all have to be dealt with. One thing was for sure, I wouldn't be letting Giselle go to his wedding and be the flower girl.

  My brain went into overdrive and a big wave of jealousy and disappointment came over me in a flash. That had escalated quickly and I was picturing my baby girl walking down the aisle with petals towards her daddy while he waited for another woman to walk towards him, it was all too much.

  “If there's nothing else, Joshua. I have to go.”

  “Oh, all right, yes. I look forward to next week then. I must admit I'm more than a little nervous.”

  “Don't worry, she won't bite.”

  I hung up the phone. I could feel like I was about to lash out at Joshua and say things I didn’t mean in my anger. I felt that I'd given him ample opportunity to just come clean and tell the truth about his fiancée with the emerald engagement ring but he had the balls to suggest that he and I could end up having sex again.

  Then it hit me that I didn't know how I was going to stay composed as he sat and sweet talked Giselle while all the time wanting desperately to scratch his eyes out. I wondered how other mothers dealt with this side of their relationships when the marriage was over, or never happened and the children only saw their dad on occasion. I figured they had to do it so maybe I would be able to.

  I supposed I'd learn to cope in the way other mothers had. But as I hung up the phone I couldn't help having that heart wrenching feeling of what could have been if only Joshua had been all the things I'd hoped he would be.

  Chapter 17

  “Hi, Tracy, it's me,” I was frantically calling my friend while trying to clear away after a conference at work that had gone on for an overly long time. It was the day Joshua was coming over t
o my place to meet Giselle for the first time and I was late picking her up from day care.

  “What's the matter Libby? You sound flustered.”

  “That's because I am,” I gasped with the phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder while trying to clear my desk. “I'm running way late to pick up Giselle. I wondered if you could pick her up and take her to the house. Just wait with her until I get there.”

  “Sure I will, honey. You stop panicking, take your time. I haven't seen my little angel in a while. But isn't today the day that Joshua...?”

  “Yes, this is the day and I have to get held up today of all days.”

  “Just call him and let him know you're running late,” said Tracy.

  “I'm sure I don't need to. The less I have to say to him the better. This evening will be hard enough,” I said. “I'll make it before he gets there. I just needed you to help me out by getting her.”

  “You got it,” Tracy said. “I'll see you later.”

  Tracy was the best. I owed a lot to her.

  I hurried and got myself out of the building and what followed then was a chain reaction of catastrophes that had to be seen to believe.

  Just seconds after stepping outside and onto the street I toyed with the idea of hailing a taxi rather than taking the subway. I looked up and down and all of a sudden – wham! A guy slammed into me, and knocked me so that I was staggering on my feet. He took that opportunity to grab my purse from me.

  A nano second after he raced away from me I realized that my whole life was in that purse so I started to chase after him.

  It was a block down the road when I realized that I was almost forty one and I did no exercise to speak of. I was hot, out of breath and getting looks from people who did nothing to stop the mugger, they just stepped aside and let him pass after watching the mugging like it was some kind of side show. I mean where were the decent human beings these days, I certainly would have called the police if I saw something happen.

  I put my arms up in the air and surrendered. My purse was gone. I walked, breathless, to the subway station then realized I had no money for a ticket to get a ride. I probably should have reported it, but I was so frazzled I couldn’t think and I had no way of calling anyone with my cell phone gone.