Driving Me Wild
Page 20
“Membership has its privileges,” Michael replied, knocking his beer bottle against mine. “Looks like your game plan is coming together quite nicely.” Grinning, Michael raised his bottle again. “Here’s to controlling your destiny.”
“Here’s to good conversation,” I said, enjoying the clinking of the glass, “and to enjoying the company of a totally different man from the guy I bathed in Merlot at Winthrop’s.” I couldn’t help myself, so I went there. “What woman softened you up, Michael? And is she still in the picture?”
###
Hmm . . . Aimee Chase wanted to know if I was seeing someone. Without really trying to, it seemed I had her intrigued. She had already tried to pussyfoot around the issue during our highway drive, even asking about the night she had seen me with Sally and Char at the Freaky Fridays event. Given the complications in Aimee’s life right now, I had vowed to leave Bobby and Scott’s playbook at home for the evening, but as I weighed her question I saw no harm in playing hard to get for now.
I drained my beer and smiled mischievously. “Aimee, you don’t want to live in my world. It’s dangerous in here.”
She crooked her neck and glued her eyes to mine. “I’m a big girl, Michael. What’s so dangerous about the world of an accountant?”
I loosed a dead stare on her. “Really?” I had little patience for the bean counter jokes, even from the woman of my dreams. “Investor relations manager, actually now Finance Director reporting to the CFO, remember? I’m nobody’s accountant. You ever thought maybe there’s a lot about me that you don’t know?”
She blinked her eyes innocently. “Such as?”
“Never mind.” I bit my lip and considered my next step. I didn’t want to scare her off.
Aimee was chomping at the bit now. “What, Michael? What’s this ‘nothing’ you won’t tell me about?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had a few volatile relationships since you and I last saw one another.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Like with Sally Hodge?”
I turned up a hand in false modesty. “You don’t want to hear about that. Why do women who don’t even love you still expect a follow-up call after a hook-up?”
“I, uh, wouldn’t really know much about that.” Aimee’s eyes darted toward the floor, and I nearly felt guilty at the sight of her poor attempt at a lie.
Among other things, I figured she was recalling Sally’s little fables about my romantic prowess. The five hundred dollars Scott gave Sally to tell those stories had clearly gotten into her head. “Honestly,” I said, shrugging, “there’s nothing worth discussing about me and Sally. The women who challenge me most are those who seem right for me in so many ways, while being frighteningly wrong in others.”
Aimee drummed the tabletop with her fingers. I could see the light going off in her head. Michael Blake just might be a real man after all. “So,” she said, “is this the specific woman I had in mind with my question? Someone you’re falling for who, ah–”
“Wants me too?” I grinned. “You can say it.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Aimee blushed and pretended to lose herself in her phone while I ordered us each a slice of pecan pie.
Over the pie, I gave her a thumbnail description of my relationship with Beverly, omitting for now the fact that she was my boss. “She’s a little over a decade older than me, very accomplished professionally and very fit.” My eyes popped involuntarily at the thought of her fierce lovemaking. “To be honest, she’s a bit intimidating in the bedroom.”
Aimee smiled. “Likes it rough, does she?”
“You have no idea,” I replied, remaining coy about the fact I was referring to a sole rendezvous. “To be frank, I think she’s overdosed on erotica.”
Aimee laughed and suddenly let a hand rest atop one of mine. “So, just how adventurous are you these days?”
“A bit more than I’ve been, I guess,” I said. “I’m not really looking for love right now–you cured me of that.”
Aimee’s eyes flickered with concern and she set her forkful of pie aside. “Now wait, you’re not blaming me for ruining your belief in love are you? I hope that’s not what you took away from that night.” I was touched.
It was time to pull up before I ruined things. I clasped my hands and stared deep into Aimee’s eyes. “You don’t need to worry about anything like that. I’m a big boy, okay? I’m just like most guys our age, Aimee, trying to find myself. It’s taken me a while to come to grips with some things in my past, and I guess I’m trying to deal with it all at once.”
Aimee looked thoroughly curious. “These things in your past,” she asked, “do you feel comfortable discussing them?”
I waved her off. “You don’t want to hear my stories. You have enough on your mind.”
She leaned forward, rested her chin in upturned palms. “Take me away from my realities, Michael. Share your dramas.”
I smiled warmly. “Please, it’s just typical guy stuff you could hear from any yokel.” I reached for her hand. “I want to hear about you.”
After we had put away our pie and a couple more beers, we escaped Gary and drove to Washington Park in Michigan City. It was still light out, making it a great place to wind down the evening with a clear view of the South Shore and get lost amidst a crowd that was just our speed considering Aimee’s newfound notoriety. Unlike the average Gold Coast lounge, where every soul in attendance had an eye out for “anybody who was anybody,” at Washington Park we could melt into a family-oriented crowd where people were much more focused on who they were with than on who surrounded them. Combine that with Aimee’s little reading glasses and stylish, khaki green sunhat, and we were as good as invisible as we strolled past the gazebo and headed toward the beach.
“So don’t get mad,” I said as we passed a group of what looked like an extended family engaging in a spirited game of volleyball, “but how are your parents handling having a celebrity for a daughter?”
“I’ll let you know,” she replied, eyes staring off into the big blue distance, “when they start speaking to me again.”
“Ooh, that bad, huh?”
She slid her hands deep into the pockets of the windbreaker she had tossed on for the evening. “Actually, they handled the ‘breaking news’ like champs. My mother’s just a class act, so that didn’t surprise me. I was thrown by how adult my father was about things.”
“So when did they stop speaking to you?”
Aimee came to a sudden stop, her eyes now affixed to the lighthouse standing a few hundred yards to our west. “I bit off more than I could chew.”
“How so?”
“Do you remember what you told me when I couldn’t come up with a good response to your interest in me?”
My back rippled defensively, but I kept my tone calm. “This is about my saying you couldn’t appreciate guys who treat you nice?”
She pointed a finger at my chest. “Yes, that. That accusation just kept gnawing at me, Michael.” She stepped into my personal space, the toes of her shoes grazing the tips of mine.
“It woke me up- helped me finally face how deeply I have been damaged by my piece of shit father. And how I have to finally take ownership of my life if I want anything to be different.”
I stood there toe-to-toe with this determined, defiant woman whom I still wanted more than any other. Here she was before me, revealing herself much more candidly than I intended to do in return, but I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to feel flattered or attacked. As we matched wary stares, the passing crowds melting into irrelevance, I picked my words with care. “I hope you didn’t do that on my words alone. I mean, who am I?”
Aimee bit her lip and lost her nerve, shifting her eyes back toward the beach. “You’re a guy who’s seen me at my worst.”
CHAPTER 30
Aimee
I was so embarrassed. Arms crossed against a blast of cool evening air coming off the beach, I stepped back from Michael and let newly-sprung tears roll.
<
br /> “I’m sorry,” I finally said, wiping them as I met his soulful, concerned gaze. “Now I’m mixing up events.”
He waved me off. “Not a problem. You’re talking about the Chad thing, right?”
I swallowed, then hooked my left arm under his right. “Walk with me, please? It’ll distract us both from the sad topics of discussion.”
After we had taken a few steps in silence, Michael spoke. “Can I ask you something? How in hell did we reconnect over the holidays for the first time in a decade, then go on a series of dates and never talk about the elephant in the room?”
I sighed, surprised by just how relieved the question made me feel. I looked up at him as we stepped onto the walkway leading out to the park lighthouse. “Hmm, I know why I never raised it. I wanted to think you had blocked it from your memory.”
Michael’s eyes grew much darker than the thin smile on his lips. “Oh, that never happened.”
“I have to be honest, Michael. I think the only reason I went out with you last winter was curiosity. Even after all that time, I couldn’t really understand why you would want anything to do with me.”
He smiled. “Give yourself–and me–more credit than that. You were the victim that day, not the villain.”
“I’ll bet Tisha Lyons doesn’t see it that way.”
“I love Tisha,” Michael replied, “but you let me worry about her.”
“I would never challenge Tisha,” I said with a listless chuckle. “I saw enough that day to know better.”
Michael and Tisha had inadvertently interrupted my first public beating at Chad’s hands, just outside an unlocked storage room underneath the football stadium. The storage room had been a perfect getaway for us on days when I had to stay after school for cheerleading practice or Spanish club, or when I knew Mom would be home early. Our make-out sessions there had never been interrupted; apparently no other horny Kenwood couple knew it was an option.
When Michael yelled at Chad that day, he was chasing me across the football field. Initially, Chad had been as surprised as me by the interruption, but he quickly got over it. It floored me how quickly the memories of that day could come rushing back–the sensation that something bad was about to happen as all four of us, separated by only a few yards each, hovered on the balls of our feet. Sizing one another up.
Chad, who had dropped out of Kenwood a couple of years earlier, still knew enough to be dangerous. He looked young Michael up and down in his varsity baseball jacket and dress slacks, then spat in his direction. “Who the fuck are you?”
He had a tremor in his voice, but he answered quickly. “Michael Blake.”
Chad’s eyes narrowed and he stepped toward Tisha and Michael. “Related to Warren Blake?” Warren was already a local legend on the football field, heavily recruited by a number of Division I schools.
Michael ignored the reference. “Get out of here, Chad. You’re not even enrolled anymore.”
Chad turned back toward me, waving a hand at the other couple. “Get on these nuts, nerd.”
Tisha now: “We saw you hit her, you jackass. Get out of here while you can.”
Chad, facing me, stopped in his tracks and shook his head. “Whoa, someone’s got a mouth on them.” He stalked back in Michael’s direction, but threw me for a loop by rushing past Michael and first shoving Tisha to the ground. “You watch your mouth, bitch.”
That’s when Michael grunted and charged Chad like a bull. When he tackled him, the pair fell to the ground and I nearly fainted from fear. My memory breaks down at that point: the only thing I know for sure, each of them gave as good as they got. Michael on top, landing a fierce blow to Chad’s forehead; Chad flipping Michael, then cuffing him good across the mouth; multiple-round tussles, including punches to guts, kicks to the nuts, and more bloodied mouths.
My greatest shame: I froze like a damned damsel in distress. I had never confronted my dual nature so starkly before. Aimee Chase, on track to be class salutatorian, with the highest PSAT scores in my class, would now be on full blast as the girlfriend of an 18-year-old dropout and weed dealer. And at this point, I was praying he wouldn’t kill a smart, upstanding kid that I really liked.
I don’t know who would have won the fight that day; I was too emotionally compromised to comprehend the odds in either real-time or hindsight. What I do know is that Tisha ended it. Whether it was thirty seconds or three minutes into the fight, she got to her feet, reached into her backpack, and entered the fray.
“Get off him,” she said to Chad as he crouched over Michael. She had a wood-handled switchblade extended, its tip already eking its way into the side of his neck. “Now.”
Seconds later, Chad was gone, filling the air with profane threats but retreating all the while. That left Tisha to judge me wordlessly as Michael wiped the most profuse amounts of blood from his mouth.
“We should all go,” Tisha said, her eyes avoiding mine but chock full of disgust. “That fool might come back loaded.”
I met Michael’s eyes finally, confident his recall of the trauma was close enough to mine. “You realize, right, that you intimated the same thing about me that day with Chad that you did at Winthrop’s?”
He came to a stop with me a few feet from the lighthouse and coaxed me to join him in leaning against the railing. “I recall my words, the main question, at least. Why do you let them do this to you?
“Look, don’t get weirded out, but I was always watching you, Aimee. I saw the guys you responded to even around Kenwood, the ballers, the shot-callers, the mysterious dudes who were primarily about racking up body counts.” He shifted, faced me head-on. “You asked why I wasn’t turned off of trying to date you when we reconnected last year? Call me an eternal optimist–the old me, at least–but I think I wanted to believe you would prove my old man right. He taught me this theory, see, that women go for the bad boys in their youth but then get through college and shift their focus to ‘good guys’ like me.”
He glanced at me. “I think I lost my shit on you at Winthrop’s because I hadn’t prepared for the idea that you still weren’t giving me a chance based on my niceness. As if that’s a word.”
I hugged myself against the cooling air, but turned toward him. “Did you even consider the possibility that I was open to nice guys, but that you just didn’t happen to do it for me?”
“Please,” he said, sighing, “my ego’s too healthy to think that way.”
I laughed at his admission, then rested a hand on his forearm. “If it helps, the closest thing to a nice guy I have dated is Ian Wallace.”
He peered at me, genuine curiosity in his eyes. “You mean he’s not a stereotypical Alpha Male who chews up the scenery and treats you like his sex slave?”
I couldn’t help but guffaw at that image. “Uh, not at all. Ian is where he is because he’s a brilliant attorney and workplace politician. People respect his mind and his ability to influence the heavy hitters in his environment–the owners, obviously, but also the league’s sponsors, business partners–”
“Everybody but the media,” Michael said with transparent glee. “Sounds like he’s more geek than hustler. Whatever he is, I hope he realizes he owes you big.”
“He is well aware of that,” I said, my gaze dropping.
Michael tapped my shoulder. “You sacrificed your privacy and, in the eyes of some, your dignity for this guy. Do you love him?”
I swept a few strands of hair out of my eyes. “I care deeply about him. It was never just about the hot sex or the thrills. It was a relationship built on respect.”
Michael’s tongue made a clicking sound. “You just used past tense.”
“Oh, it’s over,” I said, crossing my arms. “That was the one demand his wife made in return for signing off on my coming forward publicly. She wants to be Mrs. Commissioner, but she does not want to have to tell her fellow one percenter wives that Ian is still seeing me.”
Michael let a grim smile appear on his lips. “So you’re back on the m
arket?”
“Not for you,” I said. “You’re on my hit list.” My words started to come more slowly. “Your accusations–past and present–drove that conversation with my parents. And while I’m glad I did it, you owe me for the hours of therapy I may need to recover from the revelations.”
Michael stared out toward the water. “Should I ask what you learned, or would that get me splashed in Merlot again?”
“Let’s just say I opened up a can of worms,” I replied. I bit my lower lip, weighing whether I was comfortable sharing much more. My impromptu trip down memory lane with my parents had taken some jarring turns. I closed my eyes and leaned hard against the railing as some of Mom’s words resurfaced.
“These flashbacks,” she had said when she finally joined me in her car, where I had waited after storming out of Dustin’s office that day, “tell me that your long-term memory is better than most people’s. Sweetie, what are your conscious memories of me and your father? Of how we acted around each other, how we treated one another in front of you?” When I told her that as far as I could recall, their interactions had always been distant and icy, she nodded. “Modeling that in front of you took a lot of work. It was sad–it is sad–but after the way the early years went, we agreed that it was better for you to see us have no relationship than the type we modeled when you were an infant and toddler.”
“I’ve been having these dreams,” I found myself saying to Michael, looking up into his eyes as he faced me with an elbow on the railing. I summed them up for him, along with the memory fragments that had led to my confrontation with my parents. “It turns out the root of most of this has to do with my being in the middle of several abusive incidents between my parents. Sexual incidents.”
Michael frowned. “How long did this go on?”
“To hear my mother tell it the other day, for the first three years after I was born. They had never told me their affair continued after my birth. My mother apparently was not a pliable ‘other woman.’ They had a bit of a love-hate dynamic going throughout her pregnancy with me–he resented her for getting pregnant, she resented him for not leaving his wife–and it continued once I was born. I guess it wasn’t uncommon for him to come by our apartment, or her to drop by his writing office, and have no-holds-barred shouting fests followed by some pretty disgusting make-up sex.”