This Changes Everything

by Gretchen Galway

  “I can’t remember. I may have. I probably did. I mean, look at you. How could I not?”

  “All right, all right. Forget it.”

  “Everyone knows I’ve been in love with you for years,” she said. “Just ask my mother.”

  He sighed. “I’d rather not.” The first and last time they’d met, Cleo’s mom had asked him if his opinion of his parents’ marriage was the source of his lifetime of emotional avoidance.

  “She’s going to be pretty annoying.”

  “You’re going to tell her?”

  A mouthful of pancakes got caught in her throat. So he had assumed it would be short-lived. Why bother telling anyone?

  It’s no big deal… just having a little fun…

  She gulped down a mouthful of coffee. “Were you thinking we’d keep it a secret?”

  “She lives in Oregon,” he said, “there’s no hurry. If it’s going to bother you to talk to her about it.”

  “Before the farm, she was a clinical psychologist for twenty years. She can smell a lie from hundreds of miles away.”

  “I’m not saying you should lie. Just don’t bring it up.”

  Although she’d considered waiting a week before calling her mother, she knew she wouldn’t be able to wait that long. She was dying to talk to her about Sly, about what she was feeling, even if Mom couldn’t help saying I told you so. “She can read minds. Even if I don’t say anything, she’ll bring it up on her own within the first two minutes.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Fifty bucks, buddy.” She held out her hand. “Shake on it.”

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I was just trying to save you from getting mad at her. I know you hate it when you lose your temper.”

  “She’s going to think she was right all along.”

  Lips brushing her knuckles, he glanced up at her. He didn’t say anything, just held her gaze.

  She pulled her hand away. “She wasn’t.”

  He laughed. “I know, sweetheart. I was just kidding.”

  Looking away, she stood up and began clearing the table. “Why don’t you call about the other dog? I’ve got to teach this afternoon, so we should deal with it now.”

  He came up behind her at the sink and took the dishes from her hands. “You don’t have to do anything. I’ll call and go get him after I clean up. Then Hugo’s employee doesn’t have to drive all the way up here. Isn’t this your work time? When you compose?”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “Then get going. I’m here to serve.”

  “Nice. Very sexy,” she said.

  “You’re procrastinating. Go on.”

  “Say it again,” she said, turning and grabbing his shoulders, eager to banish the feeling that she was his infatuated sidekick. “The serving thing. It makes me hot.”

  He pushed her against the sink, captured her face in his hands, and gazed into her eyes, his nose barely touching hers. His fingers, warm and strong, stroked her cheeks.

  Raging desire flared through her body. She licked her lips, expecting his kiss.

  But he released her and stepped away. “I’d better deal with that dog before I get into bed with you again and never want to get out.”

  She watched him leave, wondering if he was really in any danger of that.

  26

  Sly drove off an hour later to get Hugo’s dog, leaving Cleo alone in the house with the Chihuahuas and a lot on her mind. The urge to seek confidential counsel from her professionally trained mother struck her at once. When the best friend you usually talked to was the guy you were sleeping with, your options for other qualified listeners were limited.

  Her mom had been eager for her to start dating again. She could give Cleo the encouragement she needed to be brave. Loving Sly was potentially wonderful, but she was too scarred from the past to let herself. Her mother would seize the chance to tell her so.

  Sitting at the piano for confidence, she played silent chords with her left hand while she selected her mom’s cell number on her phone. Neither of her parents bothered to answer the landline anymore, and they were probably out in the garden anyway, harvesting the last fall vegetables for next weekend’s farmer’s market at the town square. They called themselves farmers, but their operation wasn’t much larger than what Cleo had seen in Trixie’s backyard. Everything they grew, they grew by hand, by themselves. They didn’t make much money, and their house was so small they used the garage as a living room, but they were happier than she’d ever seen them. She knew what a successful family was. Although her own first try was a disaster, how could she not still want it, someday, for herself?

  “Please tell me you’re coming up here this weekend to help us with the last of the winter squash,” her mother said, not bothering to say hello.

  “Relationship drama,” Cleo said.

  “Oh?” There was a long pause. “Someone new?”

  “No.” Cleo said it forcefully, knowing that would be enough.

  “Not Dylan, I hope.”

  Cleo nearly dry-heaved. “God, no. But it is somebody you know.”

  Her mother let out a long whistle. “Give me a minute. I’m out in the back forty.” Which referred to feet, not acres. There was the sound of a thud, footsteps, then her mother swallowing. When she was working, she always wore a water-reservoir-containing backpack with a straw on her shoulder. “Is he there?”

  “No.”

  “We are talking about Sly, correct?”

  Cleo made an affirmative grunt.

  “When?” her mother asked. “Saturday, I’m guessing? That would give you a day of afterglow and then another night to see if it was still as good as the first. Which it was, so you’re starting to worry.”

  Cleo sighed. It really was hopeless. “You never should’ve given up clinical practice. You’re robbing the world of a truly scary gift.”

  “My happiness will do more good. It can be catching, you know, like a virus.”

  Having heard this philosophy before, Cleo got to the point. “I need you to tell me it’s OK. I’m feeling the urge to sabotage.”

  “It’s not my place to tell you anything is OK. You have to come up with that decision on your own.”

  “Drop the shrink act, Mom. You’re not an impartial observer here. You’ve wanted me to do this for years.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve never believed I was happy just being friends with him.”

  “And you think that means you’ll be happy being his lover?”

  Flinching, Cleo closed the lid on the piano. In her mind, lover was a pretentious word you couldn’t say without a fake French accent. “I don’t think that’s all we’ll be.”

  “Has he talked about the future?”

  “As you guessed, it’s only been two days.”

  “So you haven’t.”

  Cleo’s hands balled into fists. “We were flying back from Las Vegas in a crowded airplane, and then we got to the house where we’re—you don’t know the whole story, but you think—” She jumped up and groaned in frustration, startling the three dogs sleeping on the sofa. “No. We haven’t.”

  “Does Sly have any interest in having children?”

  “Mom, come on.”

  “You haven’t discussed it? In all these years?”

  “No,” Cleo said, realizing only then that that was odd. That she’d always assumed he’d be a great father—not for her kids, but in the abstract—but she couldn’t remember him expressing any interest.

  “Do you think that’s something you might want to discuss now?”

  Cleo dug her fingers into her ponytail and twisted it around her fingers. “You can’t just be a normal mother for once, can you?”

  “How do you think he’d react?”

  “I think he’d freak out. It’s too soon.”

  “And what would he do? When he freaked out?” her mother continued.

  Crap. Mom was going for the jugular. There w
as no escaping the drilling down into the deepest secrets of her mind. Her mom wasn’t a headshrinker, she was a power tool. “He might decide this isn’t something he wants to do after all.”

  “Decide what isn’t what he wants to do?”

  Cleo sat on the couch near the dogs, stroking them for comfort. “You know.”

  “You need to say it.”

  Cleo couldn’t. “It’s not normal for women to demand that sort of thing anymore. Or a man. If that guy I went out with a couple of times last year had asked me if I wanted to have his children, I would’ve run screaming in the opposite direction.”

  “You did just that, as I remember.”

  “I could tell he wanted more than I did,” Cleo said.

  “And is that what you think about Sly?”

  Oh, her mother was evil. “Possibly.”

  “And you think it’s better that you found that out later rather than sooner?”

  “Are you capable of saying anything without making it a question?” Cleo asked. But it was the issue she’d been wondering about herself. She stroked Zeus’s back, watching him close one eye and smile, his tongue lolling. His ecstasy brought her comfort. Giving pleasure could feel as delicious as receiving it. It made her feel powerful and good, godlike.

  Is that what had happened with Sly in Vegas? He was getting off on making her feel good?

  “I’d like to know as soon as possible,” Cleo admitted.

  “Then maybe you should ask him.”

  Cleo made a face. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Why? Of course you’d like to have a happy, rewarding union with someone. You were hurt before, but you’d still like a family. Why not say so up front? Don’t be ashamed of what you want.”

  “I don’t want him to think I’m in a hurry.”

  “You called me because something was bothering you,” her mother said. “Putting it off isn’t going to make it easier.”

  Cleo slumped over on the couch, completely horizontal now, and let the three dogs climb all over her. “I’m not even sure if”—she bit her lip and rushed on—“marrying him is what I want. We just… it’s only been…”

  “You know my suspicions about that,” her mother said.

  Unbidden, tears burned in Cleo’s eyes. Love? All along?

  She touched her lips, remembering the feel of his kiss, and her insides melted like plastic wrap on a flatiron.

  Cleo’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think it’s mutual.”

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  “Don’t make me say it.”

  “Then write it down,” her mother said.

  “That would be worse.” The last thing she wanted was a paper trail.

  “I think it’s important to get it out.”

  Cleo hugged Zeus to her neck. “He won’t want to see me again.”

  “But if he doesn’t love you by now, Cleo, would you still want him in your life?”

  ♢ ♡ ♤

  Sly sat in late-morning traffic in Berkeley with a giant dog slobbering on his shoulder from his spot in the backseat.

  “Sorry about the change of plans, Mouse,” he said, hitting the gas to turn before the light changed.

  Not expecting the change in gravity, Mouse teetered off the seat with a muffled thump. A moment later, his head reappeared in the rearview mirror, his droopy eyes reproachful.

  “Sorry about that,” Sly said. “It’s impossible to turn left in this town. Ironic, don’t you think?”

  With a sigh, Mouse replaced his chin on Sly’s shoulder, which was already soggy from their first mile on the road.

  Sly reached up and stroked his massive head. Except for the parts that were sticky with drool, Mouse’s fur was silky and thick, a tactile pleasure. “I hope you like your new house. Whichever one that is. Not quite sure yet if this is a forever thing for Hugo.”

  His words echoed in his ears. A forever thing. Not quite sure yet.

  He hadn’t anticipated how accelerated his relationship with Cleo would be. They’d had their first real date less than forty-eight hours earlier, but already he felt as if everyone expected them to get married tomorrow. According to Mark, Trixie had hoped they’d elope yesterday.

  “I care about her a lot, but come on,” he told Mouse.

  Mouse sighed.

  “She doesn’t even know what she wants herself. Maybe I’m the first of a hundred men she’s going to sleep with to make up for lost time.” The idea didn’t bring him any comfort.

  He was approaching the turn for his condo in Rockridge. Trixie’s house was another ten minutes of twisty turns up into the hills.

  If he had a job, he’d be at work right now. Maybe that was his problem. All this free time made him neurotic. He’d founded a multimillion-dollar corporation and started a few smaller ones, never wasting time doubting himself the way he was now.

  And his personal life hadn’t ever bothered him this much, either. Even Teresa, who had meant more to him than any of the other women he’d dated, had never given him insomnia. But since his first night with Cleo, he hadn’t slept more than two hours in a row. Even when she’d been asleep, he’d stared at the ceiling, or at her.

  Mouse began kissing his ear with long, wet strokes of a tongue as big as a man’s hand. His loose jowls leaked drool down the collar of Sly’s shirt. The creepy feel gave him gooseflesh.

  “You’re a handsome guy,” Sly said, patting Mouse’s head away, “but I prefer a certain blonde these days.”

  All he needed was a decent night’s sleep. No sense trying to think about anything right now.

  The closer he got to Trixie’s house—and Cleo—the better he felt. He wondered when her first lesson was, if they’d have a little time together. As he got out of the car and opened the back door for Mouse, he vowed to make time.

  The dog, however, stared at him from the backseat, not budging.

  “Come on, Mouse.” Sly spoke in the voice he’d used for team-building retreats. “You can do this.”

  Mouse lay down, rested his chin on his paws, and closed his eyes.

  Sly clipped the leash on his collar and tugged. It was like trying to move a redwood with a jump rope.

  “You can do this!” Sly repeated, but his confidence was fading.

  The advantages of having a dog from Chihuahua, Mexico, instead of Newfoundland, Canada, struck him with full force. Newfies had been used to haul lumber over the tundra. And to rescue drowning fisherman in icy Atlantic waters.

  Mouse wasn’t going anywhere unless he wanted to.

  Sly looked up at the house, imagining Cleo naked, and sighed.

  Inside the car, Mouse also sighed.

  While Sly stood there pondering the volume of a Newfoundland’s bladder, Cleo came out of the house and walked down the steps to the driveway.

  “Hi,” she said. Something about her seemed strange, but he was too preoccupied with the dog to pursue why.

  “He won’t get out of the car,” he said, turning back to Mouse.

  Her gaze moved to the backseat. “Holy moly. He’s huge.”

  “Yup.”

  Moving past Sly, she reached into the car and stroked Mouse’s blocky head. “What a handsome fella.”

  “Too heavy to lift. I can’t convince him to move.”

  “Maybe he’s scared.”

  He glanced at her, hearing the empathy in her voice. “I’m not scary.”

  She buried her fingers deeper into the black fur. “Maybe it’s not you, it’s me.” The dog watched her with sad eyes. Drool puddled on the leather under his paws. “I’ll go get a treat, see if that’ll move him.”

  But nothing she got appealed to him. They tried ham, cheese, peanut butter, crackers, kibble, and even the dried bull penis Bella had given him at the clinic with his other gear.

  “That’s just wrong,” Cleo said, wrinkling her nose at the two-foot-long brown stick. It was like a magic wand. Except without the magic.

  “I’ll bring him back to
the clinic.” He let the unwanted bull penis sag in his hand at his side.

  “Maybe you should try bringing him to your place.”

  “And what, stay there with him all week?”

  “If he’s happy there.”

  He turned, about to make a joke about making her happy, then saw the tightness in her lips. “Would you rather I did that?” he asked.

  “I was just talking to my mother.”

  “Oh, no wonder,” he said.

  “She thinks I should ask you if you want children.”

  His bark of laughter made her flinch. He sobered instantly, feeling the hairs rise on the back of his neck. “And this is how you’re doing it,” he said.

  “Apparently.” Her restless hands twisted the fur around Mouse’s neck.

  “What else did she say?”

  “Don’t blame her. I’m the one taking her advice.”

  “I’m just curious,” he said. “You’re obviously upset.”

  “You haven’t answered the question.”

  “You didn’t really ask me,” he said, knowing he was being a jerk but unable to help himself.

  “Do you want to have children someday?”

  The world around them faded away, leaving them in a silent bubble, frozen in time. “You’re serious.”

  “That’s another thing my mother pointed out.” She raised her chin. “I am serious. I’m serious about us. Are you?”

  He heard the blood rushing in his ears and felt his legs twitch as if the starting gun had just blasted.

  They were friends. Everything had always been so easy. He’d thought he understood her, that she understood him. “Is this really the time or place to discuss this? I’ve got this huge animal stuck in my car, we’re standing in some random driveway…”

  Her cheeks were as pale as the haze hanging over the bay. “I need to know before we take this any further.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “Because I’m not prepared to answer that question right now.”

  “I see.”

  Their eyes met for a moment, then both turned to stare at the dog. A car drove by but didn’t stop. The sun hadn’t come out yet and didn’t look like it was going to.

  “I have to get to my first lesson,” she said. “The dogs are on the porch off the kitchen. I can check in on them between lessons. You don’t have to be here.”