More than ‘JUST’ Friends

by Ford, Mia

  No. I had to stop thinking about him. I was there at a wonderful restaurant with Tucker. It was a beautiful evening.

  Why couldn’t I stop thinking about Jay?

  “What happened between the two of you? It didn’t work out I assume?”

  “Is this the kind of conversation you normally have on a first date?” I asked. I was actually intrigued.

  Tucker laughed. “I guess not, but you know what’s weird? This doesn’t feel like a first date at all. I mean it feels like we’ve been dating for a while or something. I’m sorry, was that weird of me to say?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. Is it weird that I feel the same way?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tucker replied. “Wow, I had such a crush on you in college.”

  “I did too!” I said. “Wow, what were we thinking back then?”

  “Do you think Darlene suspected anything?”

  “I think she did, but it drove her crazy that she couldn’t prove it.”

  Tucker held up his hands. “There was nothing to prove!”

  We both shared a good laugh before the conversation continued. That was the thing about Tucker and I—we’d always made each other laugh. It was a regular laugh riot just being around him and I was glad this was happening. It had been so long since I’d gone out and just had fun with someone.

  “That sure didn’t stop her from being paranoid,” I said. “She forbade you to have anything to do with me at all. How crazy is that?”

  “Yeah, and I can’t believe I went along with it. That should have been the biggest red flag of all for me. I should have realized right then that this was not going to be a long term thing.”

  “Well, you were young and a bit naïve,” I said.

  “What? You were just as naïve as I was. Do you remember the parade of idiot guys you used to go out with?”

  “I do remember some of them, but others I’ve purposefully forgotten. The memories are just too shameful.”

  I did have a period of time when I was in my rebellious college phase that I tended to go for guys that looked like they were up to no good. There had always been something so primal and so attractive about that for me. Even now it was hot as hell to think about. Some of those guys had the best bodies and were amazing in the sack, but most of them were really just awful people. They were self-centered as could be and were always trying to pull some scam. And it wasn't because they wanted the stuff they were scamming for, either. For most of them it was because they just loved the challenge of getting away with things and proving that they were smarter than everyone else.

  I was glad I’d matured a little bit.

  “I’m not one to talk,” Tucker said. “I dated Darlene since freshman year. Wow, how did I let that woman get her claws into me so soon?”

  “You were in love, right? People do crazy things when they’re in love.”

  “Yeah, but I should have realized immediately that I was just in lust, not in love.”

  “At that age it is hard to tell the difference,” I said.

  Tucker looked into my eyes right then and leaned forward. He put his hand on mine and spoke slowly, sincerely.

  “But I should have kept my eyes open and seen what was right in front of me.”

  My breath stood still in my body as we shared this intimate moment. I thought for a moment that Tucker was going to lean over and kiss me, but instead we just waited out this moment letting the music fade in the background behind us. Finally, Tucker leaned back and sipped his wine.

  The rest of the evening was romantic, fun, and bit flirty. We reconnected over old stories of the crazy period between eighteen and twenty-two. The college years, where everyone there is making that all important transition from being a stupid kid who thinks they know everything to being a brand new adult who has to venture out into the world with a job and find your way.

  I realized how much I missed those times and how thankful I was to have friends like Tucker. I could also recall exactly how often I dreamt of making him more than a friend. I’d never stolen anyone’s significant other away from them in my life, nor had I ever wanted to, but knowing the kind of horrible person that Darlene turned out to be, I almost wished I’d done it anyway.

  Ideally, we all would have realized who belonged with who and just followed those paths.

  But everything happened for a reason.

  Later that night Tucker dropped me off at my house. I was going to go pick up Jodie in the morning.

  “Wow, tonight was a wonderful evening,” I said as we stood on my porch under the bright light. “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you for an amazing evening,” Tucker said. “I wish I’d made that phone call much sooner. I never should have cut you out of my life, Naomi. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Tucker leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. An odd, tingly sensation rolled up my spine into the back of my head. I felt a bit faint but I knew I was going to be just fine.

  It was odd, a weird sensation but very pleasurable. As we kissed I was reminded about all of the times when we used to hang out and we’d end up having a moment that never went father because we just wouldn’t allow it to, and I’d thought about kissing Tucker.

  And it was wonderful. He was gentle but firm and his mouth felt like the warmest piece of silk just brushing against my skin. The tingly sensation in my head began to spread all throughout my body and I felt my toes curling under inside my shoes.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Tucker said echoing my thoughts.

  “Well, I hoped it lived up to the hype,” I said.

  “Oh, it did. And I hope that we get to continue that ride sometime soon.”

  Was this his way of asking me out again? The answer would be yes without a doubt, but I didn’t want to give Tucker that satisfaction just yet. Sometimes it was fun to just let a guy sweat it out.

  “We’ll see,” I teased.

  Tucker walked away slowly with a slight smile on his face as he walked back to his car.

  Once my door closed behind me I felt an odd sense of nostalgia and a bit of disappointment that my evening was actually over. I didn’t want Tucker to go, but it didn’t feel right for us to go farther, not yet. Even though I hadn’t been with a man in months and Tucker was someone I used to have strong feelings for. It just didn’t feel like it was the right time for us.

  But soon. I felt that something great would happen with us soon and I longed to see how things went on our next date.

  Even though it was late I thought about talking to Heidi about things. She would be up and have some good input, even if she did lay it out too bluntly. Sometimes that was what I needed.

  But I wasn’t sure I wanted to share everything that was going on in my head, mostly concerning Jay. As much as I enjoyed being with Tucker I couldn’t stop thinking about Jay. It was as if the more I tried to move away from Jay, the stronger his pull at me was. And plus I had to see him fairly regularly because of Jodie. It wasn’t as easy as just ceasing contact with him.

  And until I was able to cease contact with him, I had a feeling that I was always going to be thinking about having a real life with him. But his life wasn’t what I wanted.

  Tucker was much more in line with the type of life I’d envisioned. And it had nothing to do with his money, or his family’s money, or even his prestige. He was the normal, down to earth guy who had stable job and wanted a stable family life. Way back in our young days at college I could remember Tucker talking about how much he wanted a family one day. At the time he thought that it would be a family with Darlene, but I was glad to see he had finally wised up in that department, or at least until she came calling again.

  I never had to worry about Tucker coming home at the end of the day. I never had to worry about moving from town to town, often several of them within the same year and how hard that was on a childhood. Tucker offered all of the stability that I craved.

  But he wasn’t Jay.

  For al
l of his wonderful qualities, at the end of the day he still wasn’t Jay.

  But could Tucker still become the man I loved? It was too early to tell if anything real would even develop between us then, but there was some kind of a spark between us. I was still thinking about that kiss a while later lying in bed watching some television. I was tired, but I didn’t feel like sleeping. If I had to put a word to it, I would say that I was “buzzed”. I was buzzed off the evening I’d just had. It reminded me a bit of the way I used to feel after spending the night with Jay, but there was still something so different about it. Two very different men…

  As I lay in bed and tried to drift off to sleep later I wondered which one my little girl would have told me to go for. Would she have preferred her real father, even though she might have to deal with heartache and often confusion and sadness? Or would she be willing to do whatever it took to love him and be there for him?

  That was the way I should have felt, but I didn’t. I wanted to just embrace Jay and love him. I wanted us to be a real family. But was the fear worth it? If I were to end up with Jay I knew that I would face a life of total fear wondering when I was going to lose him. The world was an unstable place sometimes and in that line of work you just had to be strong enough to accept that you might lose this person at any time.

  Was I strong enough? I don’t think I was.

  But I kept hoping in the back of my mind that one day I would prove myself wrong.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jay

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  I tried to think about the question, but I didn’t really have an answer. Dr. Myles had been asking me about my relationship with Naomi and I found myself opening up more to her about it all the time. I’d just finished telling her that when I was anywhere next to Naomi I wanted to express how I really felt to her and see where she was at, but the last time I did that it had not worked out well.

  “I feel confused and angry about it,” I said.

  “Confused, about what?”

  “I find it confusing that she is so hot and cold. I mean one time we get together she will be very friendly and I might even think that some of the old magic is coming back between us, but then she will suddenly turn it off and I’m left wondering what’s going on. It’s like, I don’t know how to act around her.”

  “Have you ever thought that she is conflicted as well, torn the way you are?”

  “Yeah, it has occurred to me a time or two,” I said with a laugh. I’d always felt this, but of course I had no way to prove it. But now I had a woman’s opinion –a doctor, no less—who agreed with me.

  “I’m not saying I agree with you,” Dr. Myles said, leaving me to feel she had to be some kind of a mind reader. “But I’m just saying it is a possibility. Only she could tell you how she is really feeling. And from the sound of things, it doesn’t seem like she is even open to talking about it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you say it is from her fear of the dangers associated with your job?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, my ex-husband is a Navy Seal. He is always going off on secret missions that he can’t tell me the first thing about. It is terrifying to be that type of person’s significant other.”

  “Is that why you got divorced?” I asked.

  “No, we just grew apart. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for marriage with him. But that life is not for everybody.”

  “I know. I’ve tried to see things from her point of view and it’s not like I’m a Seal. The likelihood of me going back to combat now is very low.”

  “But you can’t guarantee it,” Dr. Myles said. “And you have to think about all of the psychological baggage that piles up in the mind of a soldier who has been in combat conditions. That baggage often spills into his personal life and bogs down his family in a variety of ways.”

  “I know, but I’m dealing with that. I come to see you every week and I have for ten months.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve mentioned it.”

  “You think?”

  I sighed. “Maybe I haven’t told her much about it. Actually, come to think of it I have never told her about my outburst that day or that I almost lost my position. And I haven’t told her a thing about our sessions or all of the progress I’ve made, not really. All she really knows is I’ve gotten some assistance to deal with a few problems and my mood is radically better.”

  “So, she has noticed the changes in you?” Dr. Myles asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “A lot of people have. I didn’t realize how rigid and how inflexible I had allowed myself to become. I was closing the world off from me and I didn’t even see it.”

  “That is the trap we often find ourselves in,” she said. “It isn’t always easy to dig out of. Sometimes we find that we need some assistance.”

  “I can attest to that,” I said. “So, what is your opinion on the Naomi situation? Should I talk to her and see if she will at least give this a chance?”

  “After all this time, what makes you so sure she is still interested?”

  “It’s the way she looks at me. There is something in her eyes that I can’t put my finger on, but it looks the way it feels when I look at her. That’s the only way I can explain it. I feel something between us. Something very special and I’ll work myself tirelessly to keep that alive. I know that most people would tell me to give it up and throw in the towel, but I love this woman so much that I don’t think I could ever come close to loving anyone the way I love her.”

  Dr. Myles smiled at me. She crossed her fingers and locked eyes with me.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, you shouldn’t lose hope on real love. And if it is real love, shared by two people, eventually it will work itself out. That’s the way I’ve always seen it happen, anyway.”

  “Wow, look at you? Did you just peel away some science and reveal yourself to be a hopeless romantic?” I asked.

  “I do have my moments,” she replied. “I’m not always so harsh and analytical.”

  As she said those last words she removed the sexy glasses she always wore, and sat them on her large, mahogany desk. She was now peering right into me with a very interesting expression on her face. If I hadn’t known better I could have sworn she was actually flirting with me.

  “I am learning that about you,” I said with a smile.

  “It looks like our time is almost up,” she said. “I want you to do something for me before our next session.”

  “Ok. What’s up?”

  “It’s an exercise that I think will help you with some trust issues.”

  “Who says I have trust issues? You’ve never mentioned this.”

  “You have a problem when you don’t know what someone else is thinking. It creates stress and havoc in your life. You are so used to being in control and telling others what to think that when you don’t have that option you really don’t know how to respond to it. You weren’t always this way. You need to get back to where you are fine being you and you alone without anyone else’s input or output. No matter what anyone else thinks about you or your job, or the world—it is not your problem or your concern. I want you to start consciously practicing this and I want you to keep a small notebook.”

  “A notebook?”

  “Yes. You will keep detailed entries of at least three times a day when you observe this happening. You will note the time, the people, and the circumstances of it all.”

  “Wow, this sounds like an awful lot of work.”

  “Well, you’ve never been afraid of a bit of hard work, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” she said. “I expect you to do this every day until our next session and I’d like you to review it at the end of each day so that you can ruminate about it.”

  I was skeptical but the assignment sounded easy enough.

  After I left the session I kept wondering how often I actually did that.
I realized I did have that problem of worrying about what other people thought and how it might pertain to me. I had never had that before in my life, until recently. Had it started before or after I’d met Naomi? Was it a recent thing?

  Maybe that was something we’d uncover with the continued therapy. At the very least I was optimistic.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Naomi

  “That’s awesome,” Heidi said. She blew on her nails and continued to file. “I honestly don’t see the problem. Just pick one or keep them both on the hook, you player, aren’t you?”

  “You are not helping,” I said.

  The two of us were hanging out on a Friday afternoon at my place just enjoying some relaxing time in front of the television, trying to work up the energy to actually go outside and find something fun to do. After work we had decided to just go there and see what we could get into. It had been a while since we’d gone out and had any fun. My parents agreed to watch Jodie. They already watched her during the day and were glad to do so, even though I offered to put her in daycare if they ever wanted a break, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. I’d never seen two grandparents ever look so proud as those two were. It was heartwarming.

  Heidi had taken the opportunity to file her nails. She claimed she was going to make an appointment at the nail salon and get the full works. So far this quest wasn’t going well.

  I missed Jodie and wanted to spend the evening with her, but it had been a good long while since Heidi and I had gone out together to just have fun as two best friends. She’d been talking almost non-stop about my date with Tucker a few nights back. I was going to have to start filming things like that, so I could give her the video and she could watch it and dissect it to her heart’s content without driving me up the wall asking me to describe each and every thing about it. She even asked me to describe exactly how the bread tasted and what type it was. “Fancy restaurants like that always have really different, special bread.”