by M. E. Carter
Once everything is clean and put away, we move to the couch with our water and continue to enjoy each other’s company.
“How long have you been divorced?” Greg’s entire body is turned towards me, all his attention on me.
“I guess it’s been official for about nine months.”
“Isn’t he already married though?” Leave it to Greg to be confused by how little integrity my ex has. That speaks volumes for his character that he can’t even wrap his brain around it.
“Yeah, they got married a couple months after I said, ‘I don’t.’” I smile, because I think it’s humorous. For as much as James wants people to think he’s important, he seems to have no problem with people figuring out why he left his wife of fifteen years. Greg doesn’t seem to think it’s funny at all. “What?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget that not every man thinks marriage means forever like I do.”
“And yet, you’re divorced.”
“Touché,” he says around his drink of water. “You make a good point, but that wasn’t my decision. Libby left me.”
This shocks me. I don’t know Greg well, but from everything I know, he’s practically perfect. Sure, he could be a total sociopath, but kids are usually pretty good judges of character and they gravitate towards him. That counts for something, right?
“Why in the world would she leave someone like you?”
“Someone like me, huh?” He grins like a stoner at 4:20 on April 20th.
“You know what I mean. Your house is clean. You can cook. You’re kind and funny and fantastic with Peyton. Do you have a secret fetish or something?”
He chuckles and absentmindedly begins playing with a lock of my hair. “No, but I think she might. She’s a little… high maintenance. One day she decided she hates my guts—I still don’t know what that’s about—and she left.”
“That’s terrible!”
He shrugs. “It is and it’s not. I realized pretty quickly how relieved I was that she was gone. Don’t get me wrong, it was awful losing Peyton that way. She was just a baby, and I had to fight like hell to get her a few hours a week. But besides that, it’s like I could breathe when Libby left. She took all her crazy with her. I like not having to deal with that every day.”
I can relate. I remember feeling that way when my divorce was finally complete. I was sad that it was over, but relieved as well.
Our eyes lock and he bites his lip. Suddenly, the vibe in the room changes. It becomes almost electric.
“I really like your hair,” he whispers, as he begins to lean in closer, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it down before.”
“That’s because I got it done the other day,” I whisper back.
Ohmygod what is happening? Is he going to kiss me? I hope he doesn’t kiss me. Oh, but I hope he does. What do I do? All of these thoughts are scrambling my brain, but all I can focus on is his lips moving closer to mine.
“I really like it,” he whispers one last time and his lips almost make it to his target, when I pull away and ruin it all.
“Why me?” I blurt out.
He stops and takes a breath. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled he was holding it in preparation for a little lip lock. But then he turns the tables on my question. “Why not you?”
“I…well…” He just said he didn’t want any more crazy. That’s all I seem to be these days. A hot mess of neuroses about every facet of my life. Deciding honesty is the best policy, I lay it all on the line. “Look at you. You’re tall and handsome and have abs for days, and yes I caught a glimpse at the gym accidentally.” I nudge his hand with my shoulder playfully making him blush a bit. “Women flock to you because you’re kind and great with kids. Me? I have wrinkles and a leftover baby gut. When I drop the girls off at school and wave goodbye, the skin under my arm is still waving ten minutes later. I’m a terrible dresser and I’m slightly neurotic. We,” I wave back and forth between us, “are not all that equally matched.”
He thinks for a second and now I’m having second thoughts about my honesty. The whole point of a first date is to hide all your imperfections, not point them out for him to focus on. I’m gonna have to get a subscription to Teen Magazine to get some dating tips. They worked back in high school. Surely nothing has changed that much.
“Let me ask you a question,” Greg finally says. “What are some of the things you like about yourself?”
“What?” This was not how I was expecting the conversation to turn.
“What do you like? For instance, you have some killer one-liners. I never know what you’re going to say, and I like that.”
“Really?”
“Really. Your turn.”
I take a breath and think for a second. There have to be some things I like about myself. I never thought hard about them before. It takes me a few seconds to come up with something.
“Well, I kind of like how I parent.” He nods encouragingly. “I watch too many moms become helicopter parents and I want my girls to experience life, and that’s going to include disappointments and boo-boos. Sure, my job is to protect them from serious things, but I want them to be strong and independent and not be shocked when they don’t always get what they want.”
“I like that about you, too. What else?”
“That’s not enough?”
“Humor me,” he says with a smile.
“Ok.” I clear my throat. “I like that I’m able to set aside my annoyance with my ex, enough to have family events with the girls so they can still have some sense of normalcy. Um… I like that I try really hard not to judge people, especially if I don’t know them. I like my humor, I guess. I don’t know. This is hard.”
He shifts in his seat, grabs my hand, and starts playing with my fingers. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re fun and funny. You’re kind and laid back. You love your friends and family fiercely and put them before yourself. I love the way you handle having a broken family. I wish Libby and I could get along that well. Those are the things I see. I don’t see wrinkles or gray hairs or flab. I see you. And I like what I see.”
“You do?” I whisper, totally and completely mesmerized by his words.
“I do.”
“But I want you to think I’m pretty.”
There. I said it. The crux of all my hesitation.
“I don’t think you’re pretty.” My heart drops a bit. “I think you’re stunningly beautiful. Even when you pull your hair up.” Forget the drop. Now my heart soars as he leans in closer and this time, I lean back. “Can I kiss you now?”
“Please.”
Instantly, his lips are on mine. They’re soft and warm and feel so good as they move. He pulls back briefly, only to lock eyes with me, then to come right back. Only this time, his lips open and mine follow. His tongue is in my mouth, and he tastes like wine and pasta. And I love it.
I can’t figure out where to put my hands. I want to run them through his hair and grab onto his shoulders and pull him to me, but I can’t do it all at once, so I settle for wrapping them around his neck.
His kiss gets deeper and soon we’re laying on the couch, him on top of me. Me enjoying the feel of him. We explore each other’s lips and mouths and soon he’s kissing down my neck and my body is ready to take this further. I want to feel his touch on my skin. I want my touch on his. I want to make this the start of something special.
Rubbing his hands up and down my back as we kiss, I know I’m going to feel it for days. There’s no way I’ll forget the feel of his touch.
His hands move up and over, grazing over part of my stomach…
And then I hit that visual wall. The one that makes me tense up and expect the worst.
I know where his hand is headed. “I’m not having sex with you,” I blurt out right before he touches my boob.
He freezes. Slowly, he puts his hand back down and pulls us to a sitting position. I cringe. I blew it. The crazy he’s not looking for just reared i
ts ugly head and he’s never going to want to see me again.
“I wasn’t planning on having sex with you tonight.”
“Oh.” Well, now I feel foolish.
He pulls me forward and gives me a gentle peck on the lips. “It’s not because I don’t want to sleep with you. It’s because I don’t want to jump the gun. You’re still skittish and I don’t want to push you before you’re ready. Before I’m ready.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “Oh.”
He cocks a half-grin. “And Elena, we may never get to that point. Who knows. We may be better as friends. But I hope you’ll try this with me. I like you. I’d like to see where this can go.”
I bite my lip, trying really hard not to smile like that girl whose picture turned into all those crazy stalker memes. “I’d like that, too.”
“Good. Now, would you like to watch a movie?”
There’s nothing I’d like more except…. “I think I need to head home. Kissing you is kind of, well, frankly it turns me on…”
He barks a laugh. One-liners for the win!
“… and if I don’t leave, I may change my mind, which sounds great. But then, by tomorrow, you’ll see how neurotic I can be, so I’m going to shut up now because I sound like a crazy woman.”
Continuing to chuckle, he grabs my hand and pulls me to a stand. “You don’t sound crazy. You make me feel good about myself.” He kisses me again. I really could do this all night. “Let me walk you to your car.”
We spend another several minutes making out against my car, until someone honks while driving by and reminds us we’re outside. I feel smitten, which is something I haven’t felt in a while.
The entire drive home is a blur. I lock every single moment of our date into my memory. Even if it doesn’t work out, I’ll have these memories. Memories of the way I feel. Memories of the way I should be treated. Memories of what I want. And I won’t settle for less anymore.
My phone buzzes as I pull into my driveway. I know who it is right away.
Callie: Well??? How was your date?
Normally, I’d answer but this time, I ignore her. For the first time in a while, I’m going to be selfish and keep these memories all to myself.
“Let’s begin our stretches everyone,” the instructor says in a soothing, gentle voice. She is way too Zen for a toddler gymnastics class.
Nevertheless, all dozen or so parents guide their kids through various yoga-ish poses designed to give the child a good stretch, but also promote bonding with their parent. Or at least that’s what it’s supposed to do. Mostly it bores everyone involved to tears, and I mean real tears. Every week at least one kid has a meltdown because they can’t go play. But what do we know? We’re just paying to play with our kid in a safe environment.
“When are you going to tell me about your date?” Callie leans over to whisper-yell, as she wrangles Christopher into a downward dog pose while he makes fart noises.
“I’m not,” I whisper-yell back, Max laying flat out like a star fish, unwilling to use any of her limbs.
Baby stretching is going well.
Once again, she tries to lean in so we won’t be caught speaking during the quiet part of class, because that’s how lame we are. “Why not?”
“Because I’m right behind you. She’ll have to tell you later.” Greg’s head pops up in between us startling Callie and forcing me to stifle a laugh. He, on the other hand, has a huge ornery smile on his face.
“You jerk,” she says and smacks his arm, eliciting a glare from the instructor. The three of us immediately straighten up and wipe the smiles off our faces. It’s a good thing our kids are officially too old for a parent/child class and will be moving up to the kiddie class next semester. We get in more trouble than the kids do.
Now that the kids are officially warmed up, the instruction part of our class is set to begin. We all watch as Miss Hanaghan, which is what I lovingly refer to her behind her back, pulls out a box. The kids all fidget, anticipation thick in the air.
“We’re going to work on our hand-eye coordination today,” she says, and pulls out a purple plastic racket.
Uh oh.
I look at Callie, who looks from me to Greg, who looks from Callie to me, and we all have the same look on our face. The look that says this isn’t going to go well.
The parents around us with their horror-stricken faces seem to agree. But being the good little paying customers we are, we take a gamble and soon every child has a racket in their hand. No adult, only the children.
Suddenly, I feel the overwhelming need to protect my shins from these weapon-wielding midgets.
“At this age, balls are too fast for these guys to hit with any accuracy, so we’re going to use something they can take their time with.” The instructor then dumps out a huge bag full of balloons, and the chaos begins.
For the most part, it’s organized chaos. Some of the parents are standing behind their kids showing them how to hit the balloon like a tennis ball. Some parents are tossing it to their child to hit. Max has forgotten the racket completely and is enjoying tossing the balloon in the air and catching it. It’s not exactly the point of the exercise, but she’s learning how to catch, so whatever.
And then there’s Christopher.
The three of us keep a close eye on him at first, knowing this could turn ugly at any moment, but he seems to be doing well. He won’t let Callie help as he tosses the balloon up in the air and tries to hit it like a baseball. She looks at me, shrugs, and begins documenting this moment of calm with her camera.
He’s surprisingly good with this hand-eye-coordination stuff, making contact with the balloon almost every time. The more he gets into it, the harder his swing. The harder his swing, the wider the berth the rest of us give him. And wider the berth, the more power he puts into it. It’s a vicious cycle.
And then it finally happens. The moment we’ve all be waiting for, or at least those of us who spend any real amount of time with this child.
Christopher tosses the balloon up, pulls back, swings the racket forward, and loses his grip. The racket flies through the air across the room…
And nails the instructor in the face.
“Who in their right mind thinks it’s a good idea to give plastic rackets to a bunch of two and three-year-olds?” Callie has been bitching about being kicked out of class since we got to our booth at McDonald’s. Technically, she wasn’t kicked out, but once the instructor’s nose started bleeding all over the place, the room was deemed unsanitary and the rest of today’s class was cancelled.
Greg quickly went into coach mode, assessing the injury. When he got within a few inches of the instructor’s face to have a look, I thought she was going to pass out from swooning so hard. It made me roll my eyes, which Callie caught and promptly gave me shit for. Once Greg declared it was nothing more than a bloody nose, Callie was strongly advised to look into a different class, better able to keep up with Christopher’s energy level. “If you ask me, she had it coming to her.”
“I don’t think she asked for it,” Greg disputes, taking a bite out of his Big Mac, or whatever he got, and chewing until he can speak again. “But it wasn’t her first class. She should have adjusted the class based on the kids. Especially since she’s been teaching Christopher for several months.”
“Exactly.” She looks over her shoulder to peek at the kids. They’ve all got their mouths jammed up to the plastic window in one of the tubes, making blowfish faces.
I briefly wonder how much kids’ slobber has been on that window, but then remind myself this is how mine have built up strong immune systems. “You think he should take a class at your gym, Greg?”
Greg immediately starts choking and shaking his head back and forth. “No…” he gurgles out in between coughs. “No way.” He bangs his chest a few more times before getting under control again. “Christopher doesn’t need gymnastics. He needs pee-wee football so he can tackle.”
Callie deflates. “I looked into it alre
ady. They don’t take kids until they’re four.”
“Oh, I bet if you took him to a practice, they’d make an exception.”
Her face brightens. “You think?”
Greg nods slowly. “Oh yeah. It’s every coach’s dream to find a kid his age with natural abilities. Those are the kids you can’t wait to work with and who you’ll make extra effort to train.”
“I have a question for you.” I lick the ketchup off my finger and dip another fry. “Why do you bring Peyton to this class if you’re the program director at another place? Wouldn’t you get the class for free if you did it at your gym?”
“We don’t have a class for her age that fits my schedule. But it works out better this way anyway.” He takes a sip of his drink before continuing. “I don’t want to bring my personal life into work. I wouldn’t put it past my ex to show up on a Thursday simply to cause me problems at work. It’s better that she not have any reason to go there.”
“She sounds like a psycho,” Callie states, sitting back in her chair and getting more comfortable. We may be here a while. The kids still have a lot of energy to burn since we left early.
“I don’t really know for sure,” he admits. “I just don’t want to find out. I’d rather not lose my job because she gets a bee in her britches.”
“A bee in her britches?” I giggle. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
He looks at me and smiles, and I find myself smiling back at him. If no one was here, I’d lean over and kiss him. But they are, so I won’t.
“Ick. Get a room,” Callie says, screwing up her face and breaking the moment.
“We’re not even touching each other,” I respond with a roll of my eyes.
“Well you might as well be with all that googly-eye shit going on.” She leans forward on her arms and looks back and forth at us. “Will you at least tell me if you had sex? I need a little excitement in my life.”
Greg looks like a fish out of water trying to figure out how to respond. I shake my head and drop my napkin on the table, leaning in mimicking her pose.