“Okay, and what about work? I just can’t take off without notice?”
“Yes, I know that. I am the producer of your show. It’s all taken care of. I spoke to Stan before I left, and as long as we are both back on Monday by three, we will have enough time to prep for airtime at six thirty. What do you say?”
“I love you, that’s what I say. When can we leave?”
“In one hour, so get your hot ass into the shower while I go get ready in the spare.”
“You really did think of everything. You know you are making it difficult on extreme levels for me to top this in the romance department,” he said.
“Yeah, I know, but lucky for me, you have a lifetime to come up with all sorts of ways to show me.”
“That I do.”
Carter wasn’t okay with us taking separate showers, so after he made love to me in mine, we quickly got ready and headed to LAX to catch our flight. What he didn’t know was that we were not taking a commercial flight. Last year, I met the lead singer of Daxson’s Denial, and we hit it off and became friends. I sealed the deal with him when I introduced him to one of our PA’s at ABC. They were now so in love with each other, and he always said to ask if I ever needed anything, so I cashed in that favor for use of his private jet. My old friends from back home would never believe I led this sort of life, but in my line of work I met people from all walks of life, and I was very lucky. Dax was a great friend, and even Carter liked the music they played.
“This is just too good to be true. You never cease to amaze me, Thea. I almost feel foolish after the argument we had and even more so with what was running through my mind.”
I waited until we were up in the air to say what I wanted to say to Carter. I knew he felt bad for our fight, but it was so much more my fault than it was his. I reached for his hands as he leaned down to kiss the ring that was now on my finger.
“Carter, the fight we had was my fault. You were just reacting to my shutting you out. I know I have apologized repeatedly, but I will say it again if you need to hear it again. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, and I certainly don’t ever want to shut you out of my life, not ever again.”
“I know that, love, and like you said, clean slate, right? We have a new beginning and a wonderful new life to look forward to, if that is what you still want?”
“Only you, Carter, only you.”
With traveling and the time difference, we didn’t arrive in New York until close to six o’clock. Mom would definitely be home. I was going to call her, but it would be my first time since returning to California, and I didn’t want to begin a conversation that I knew would take more hours than I had. She didn’t have a machine, and she would prefer this news in person.
With bags in hand, Carter and I stood in front of my family home. He could not stop smiling, maybe it was from the blowjob I gave him before we landed. He was restless on the plane, and I wasn’t ready to have sex in a bed that didn’t belong to me. After all, this was a musician’s plane, and I am sure if the walls could talk, they would tell some crazy stories.
I took a step forward and was nearly pulled back by Carter, who hadn’t moved a step.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“What if she doesn’t like me? Or doesn’t accept our relationship?”
“Wow, Carter Newbanks is actually nervous, and I do believe you are breaking out in a sweat.”
“Knock it off. Give me some room here, Thea. It’s not like I had any time to prepare for this introduction, and if memory serves, I have been wanting to meet her since we got together over two years ago.”
“I know, and I am sorry for that, but clean slate, remember?”
“Clean slate. Okay, let’s go before I change my mind.”
“Yeah, good luck in that happening. Anyway, you two met over the phone already! All you need to do is flash that smile of yours, and she’ll love you.”
I rang the doorbell and then took a step back with Carter’s hand in mine. I had never seen him so nervous before. This was a first for him. I know he wanted to make a good impression, but my mom loved everyone and was never too judgmental. She only reserved that right for me. Carter would have her eating out of his hands in no time.
“Maybe she’s not at home?” Carter asked as I rang the doorbell once again.
“No, she has to be in there. Let me grab my key from my bag.”
I finally found it buried under all the crap I never left home without, and then once inside, I called out for her. The living room was clear and so was the kitchen. The bedrooms were upstairs, so I asked Carter to wait for me while I went up to check for her. I gently knocked on her bedroom door, and when she didn’t answer, I opened the door. My mom was on the floor, unconscious and not responding!
“Mama! Oh my God! Carter, Carter, I need you!”
He was up the stairs in a flash as he took in the scene before him. Her pulse was faint.
“Babe, I know you are scared, but I have EMT training. Call 911, and let me check your mom out,” he said, but I was so scared, he had to shake me a little to come back to him.
“Thea,” he calmly spoke to me. “Call 911 now. Tell them possible Cardiac Arrest or a TIA.”
“What the hell is a TIA?”
“It’s a term for a mini-stroke. Now we are running out of time. Call now!” Carter shouted at me and it finally registered as I dialed for help.
I was trying to keep myself together, but I was failing miserably. This was my mom, and she needed me, and dammit, I wasn’t there.
“911, what is your emergency?” the operator answered.
“My mother is unconscious. I don’t know how long she’s been down, but I need an ambulance right away to 23432 Vista Drive, in the heights of Flushing. Please hurry.”
“Stand by, miss. Police and a rescue unit have been dispatched.”
“Thank you. Please hurry,” I said again through my tears as I disconnected my call with the 911 operator.
“I had a wonderful time tonight Karen, and I love that you are not a salad girl.”
“Gee thanks, Nick. Now I feel embarrassed.”
“Don’t ever hide, Karen, not from me. What I meant was, you are real and you don’t hide behind any fake personas. You wanted pasta, so you ordered it and enjoyed it, which in turn made me very happy.”
“You are weird, but I like it.”
“Thank you. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask if I can kiss you goodnight?”
“Why ask now when you already took a kiss from me without asking?”
“Yeah, that was before,” I said.
“Before?”
“Before I knew what I wanted, and now what I want is standing in front of me and I’m not going to take anything from her. I am going to ask in hopes that she says yes, because right now, it’s all I want.”
“You sure do know how to charm a girl. Yes, Nick, you may kiss me goodnight.”
“Thank fuck!”
She laughed as I took her in my arms and crushed my mouth down to hers. She opened for me immediately, giving me better access to her lovely neck. I tried to envision the weirdest things to keep my dick under control, but it was no use. I knew she felt it up against her, but I vowed to take my time with Karen and show her what it is to be cared for. After I pulled away from her mouth, I held her face in my hands so I could look into her eyes.
I said, “It would be so easy to ask you to invite me in, but I’m going to turn around, go home, and look forward to another date with you. I want to do things right with you, Karen, so please know I want you beyond reason. I want to tell you that we have all the time in the world, okay?”
“Do you always have to be the gentleman?”
“I endeavor to be, and for you, Karen, I will go beyond.”
One more kiss and I took off for my truck before I kicked my chivalrous ass down the block. Tonight was good, and it felt right.
Damn, just last week I was racking my mind over my past with Thea, and now a week later,
I was romancing Karen. The fact that it felt good to laugh and have a great time with someone I felt totally comfortable with made me one happy guy.
I was headed back home when flashing lights caught my attention, and then I saw the police cruisers and ambulance in front of Thea’s mother’s home.
“Oh my God! Not Frannie,” I said aloud as I pulled up behind the EMT’s.
I parked my truck and was about to rush the steps when I saw the EMT’s come out with her mother on a stretcher. My first instinct was to call Thea, but then two figures rushed behind the stretcher and one of them was her, shocking me even more. I stepped back before she saw me. Thea was helped into the ambulance from some guy I didn’t recognize. He quickly kissed her, and then the driver closed the door. The stranger rushed past me and hopped into his car, quickly doing a K-turn and then speeding off to follow the ambulance.
Shit! What the hell do I do now? I couldn’t call my mother; she was on a cruise. Frannie was a special woman and her very good friend. Not only was she special to my mom, but Frannie meant a lot to me too. My mom would want me to check on her, and what I saw could not be unseen. Maybe I could flash my badge and simply get a status on Frannie without alerting Thea of my presence. I was overanalyzing it and just drove to the hospital. When I walked through the double doors, there was Thea in the arms of the guy that I saw kissing her. Who is he? Shit! He’s the boyfriend. She must have brought him home to meet her mother.
I couldn’t take my eyes off them. An odd feeling was running through me. Was I jealous? No, I wasn’t going to go there. It had been years since I’d been with Thea, so I guess seeing my former lover in the arms of another man was new to me. The last time my eyes witnessed Thea being held by a man, I was that man.
“Hey, Chief Bartelli, can I help you with something?”
A familiar voice brought me back in the now, and I tried to answer the nurse quietly, but Thea was already coming toward me.
I responded, “No thank you, Samantha. I’m not here on official business.”
“Nick, what are you doing here?” Thea questioned.
I was biting my lip because I didn’t want to make her night worse with me being here, but I let out a breath and turned to face her.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I was driving home, and I usually pass your old house on my way to mine. I saw the lights and the ambulance, and I couldn’t just keep driving. I just wanted to stop by and check on your mom.”
“It’s okay, and I know mama wouldn’t mind; however, she’s with the doctors now.”
“Seeing you standing in front of me…again is a bit of a shocker. I thought you were back in Los Angeles.”
“I was, and now I am back here. I wanted mama to meet someone very special to me, and since you’re here and he’s here, no time like the present to make the introductions. Carter?”
She called over to him as his eyes never left mine. He was a tall guy, looked about 6' 3", he certainly didn’t look happy having to witness Thea talking with me. Yeah, this is the boyfriend, and he knows all about me.
Once she was in reach, he pulled Thea to his side and held her close to his body, a protective move I knew all too well.
“Nick, I would like you to meet my fiancé, Carter Newbanks. Carter, this is Nicholas Bartelli, the one I told you about.”
“The one I told you about?” Gee, T, can you be any colder with your introduction? I wonder if Boy Wonder knows about the kiss we shared only a week ago and how your body instantly remembered mine. Yeah, babe, did you tell him that?
His hand was outreached to mine, and then I heard, “Mr. Bartelli, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thea has told me so much about you, and I do mean everything.”
WTF! Was he trying to piss me off? Or is he that fucking stupid? Just the way he said the word “everything” was a direct jab towards me. I wasn’t going to do this here, and what I wanted to say to Thea last week would not be in front of him. I got myself back in check and returned the greeting, just with a lesser dick attitude than he had shown me.
“There’s the doctor. I’ll be right back,” Thea hurried off and left me alone with him.
I shuffled my feet across the hospital floor, not really knowing what to say next, but he spoke first.
“Look, Nick, can I call you that?”
“Yeah, that’s my name.”
“Good, now if you please, allow me to be clear.”
“Yeah, on what?”
“Thea. The one thing you and I will ever have in common. You only made your presence known in our life as of a few days ago, and meeting you now and especially in this circumstance was not what either one of us expected, but here we are. As you can imagine, I wasn’t all too happy to find out that the love of my life shared a recent kiss with a past boyfriend, but she told me all about it and has assured me it was a mistake on her part. More like a regretful misstep.”
I retorted, “First of all, I was more to Thea than just a boyfriend, so let me make that perfectly clear. It’s obvious to me that what Thea told you has pissed you off. If the roles were reversed, I would be angry too, but that kiss is my business, and I’m not in the mood to share my feelings with you. If our paths cross again, you do well to remember not to come at me in any fashion, because you may not like what I do. Is that clear enough for you?”
“No, it’s not, and when it comes to Thea, I will come at you as much as I damn well fucking like because she is mine and soon will be my wife, so whatever you thought was going to happen between you two while she was here last week is not going to happen, not fucking ever. Oh, and here’s something you should remember about me. Don’t let the suit or my clean fingernails fool you. I can hold my own in a fight, and when it comes to protecting what’s mine, I will not hesitate to get down and dirty and go a few rounds with the likes of you. Clear?”
“Fuck you!” I wanted to say to him, but I wasn’t going to. I knew I would be behaving a hundred times worse if the roles were reversed. And, clearly, this was not the time nor place. After his declaration, I remained silent and waited for Thea to return. She came out moments later, wiping her eyes. Fuck! It always pained me to see her cry; I mean, a punch to my gut. Carter rushed to her side and picked her up to hold her. I kept a safe distance, but I was still able to hear what was being said.
“Carter, you were right. She suffered a mini stroke along with her sugar dropping dangerously low. She’s up now, getting an MRI, and then hopefully we can see her.”
“I’m so sorry, baby, but thank God we were there or this outcome would have been a lot worse.”
“I know, I don’t even want to think about that. Carter, would you go to the cafeteria and bring me a hot tea? I’m freezing.”
“Of course, anything for you. Will you be okay until I return?”
“I will. I am not going anywhere.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I watched him hug her and place a kiss to her lips, probably doing it for me to see. Yeah asshole, message received. She may be yours now, but she was mine once, and we may no longer be together, but I can still be a friend.
He brushed my shoulder as he passed me, another message I did not miss. Thea had her head cast down to the floor. I knew she was silently suffering and was trying not to cry, but who was she kidding? I knew her like no other.
Before I changed my mind, I willed my legs to move and sat down beside her.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. Thea, please look at me?” I whispered as I waited for her to lift her head.
My hand found her back, and instinctively, I began rubbing small circles until she finally sat up and her sad eyes found mine.
“You don’t know that, Nick. You didn’t see her when I found her unconscious. What if I hadn’t come home? She would have died up in that house and all alone. What kind of daughter am I? I move across the country and leave my widowed mother all alone?”
I lifted her chin to look at me and wiped away her falling tears.
“Hey, stop it
. Don’t do this to yourself. You have your own life, and your mother has hers. She would not want you blaming yourself over this. Your mother is one of the most active women I know. I see her practically every day, powerwalking through the neighborhood. When I’m outside on my deck, she always waves hello to me and then carries forward with a smile on her face. Please, Thea, this is not your fault, so stop blaming yourself. You got to her in time, and now she’s being taken care of.”
“Whatever, Nick. You always do this.”
“What do I do?”
“You always had a way of reassuring me, even when I didn’t deserve it. At least you are consistent.”
“Thea, look…”
She looked over my shoulder and then stopped me from talking.
She said, “Nick, before Carter returns, please allow me to apologize to you for my actions and the immature way I left last week. I know I was wrong for not calling you, but my head was running wild and being back home was just making my head spin. Then I had to deal with my mom, your mom, and then Karen added the icing to the cake. I know I was wrong to leave abruptly, but I just felt it was better for everyone. I should have never allowed you to kiss me, and what’s worse, I kissed you back. Please let’s just forget about all of it, and leave it where it belongs.”
“And, where does it belong? Because Thea, you know that kiss was so much more than just how you described it. I owned that kiss, and in that moment, you had returned to me. Am I wrong?”
“Yes, you are! Nick, I have been in love and with Carter for over two years now, and by giving you something that only belonged to him was so wrong, I know that now. I guess I have Karen to thank for that. She called me out and made me see what I once had and who I was back then, but Nick, we are not kids anymore. I nearly lost Carter over things that should no longer be relevant to me, and yet, one visit back home and one big mistake of a kiss jeopardized all that I have. So that is what I am sorry for. Please, let’s leave it at that.”
I was going to say something else, but Carter returned. He handed Thea her cup of tea and sat down beside her with his one arm around her.
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