Indelible Love Series + Entwined Bundle

by DW Cee

  “Where shall we go eat?”

  “Before we eat, I want to show you something. Hop on.”

  We got on the bike and rode a few minutes to a more artsy neighborhood near my home.

  “Where are we?”

  “I’ve been doing a bit of research on my own, and I thought this might be the neighborhood you might want to move into...” He cut his statement short.

  “Is there more?”

  “...assuming you still wanted to move in with me...?”

  Oh my gosh, the uncertainty in his voice and in that statement almost killed me. I’d given him such a hard time the last month—didn’t return many of his calls, gave him the cold shoulder from time to time, purposely avoided him when he came over—that he was scared of me. I was just playing games with him, enjoying the upper hand I had in this relationship. What a total bitch I’d been.

  “Max. I’m so sorry for my behavior the last few weeks. I was mad at first, but I shouldn’t have dragged this out for so long. I didn’t mean to make you wonder about my feelings for you. I love you, and I still want to live with you, assuming now that you still want to live with me after my confession.”

  “I love you too, Gem.” His smile told me that it was all right in our world, again. “I want you to see how cool this place is, and if we wanted to, it’s large enough for us to...” he stopped himself again. This time, I didn’t ask why he stopped. I enthusiastically walked into the courtyard of the building and inspected the home he was so eager to show me.

  “I talked to my financial advisor and...”

  I cut off Max’s sentence. “You have a financial advisor?”

  “Kind of,” he laughed. “Josh is actually all of our financial advisor. He’s really good with investments. He day trades with his own money. That’s partly how he’s financing a year in Europe without having to get a job.”

  “Seriously?”

  Max nodded in the affirmative. “He’s been doing it the last six years or so. First he started secretly with his own money, back in high school. Once he successfully doubled his bank account, he showed us what he was doing and offered to do it for all three of us.”

  “Do I need to give him my money? It’s just sitting in a savings account earning 1% interest.” I learned something new every day.

  “If you like. He’s really good and he’s very careful. I didn’t quite understand how good he was till I went to him the other day and asked about my financial situation.”

  Fanfreakin’tastic! Now I had someone who would invest my money, without taking a huge cut.

  “Why did you need to talk about your finances? Do you need money? I have money just sitting in the bank doing nothing if you need it. You’re welcome to use whatever you need.”

  Whoa! Did I just say all those things? I hoped I didn’t freak out Max, nor hurt his manly feelings. Men were so sensitive about the stupidest things.

  “Thanks for the offer, Babe. I’m good.” He answered with a very big smile.

  “I mean it. You can use whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, Gem. It means a lot to me that you feel that close to me. But really, I’m doing okay. In fact, I’m doing better than okay.”

  “So...you’re telling me all this because...”

  “Come check out the place and I’ll explain.”

  Max was right. The apartment was cooler than cool. They were individual, stand-alone units that had high ceilings, a wide-open floor plan, tons of built-ins and cabinet space and two bedrooms. The two bedrooms were both master suites with master baths and a massive walk-in closet. I knew this place was meant to be when I saw the mini shoe closet in addition to the master closet. I have a thing for shoes, if you haven’t noticed already.

  “This place is awesome! How’d you find it?”

  “A med school buddy told me his brother just bought a unit, and because this is not the most desirable neighborhood, it’s surprisingly affordable.”

  “All right. So what are you thinking?”

  “Garret, Josh and I are each thinking of buying a unit. To cover mortgage, Josh will rent his place out before he leaves for Europe. Garret and I will live in our units. After a small down, mortgage won’t be much more than our current rent.”

  And what of me? The question was on the tip of my tongue but I kept it there. It was all me who had put us in this precarious state again.

  Max knew my worry and gave me a tender, reassuring kiss. “If you’re okay with my plans, I’d love for you to come live with me.”

  Did I bring up the fact that I was hurt he didn’t want to buy something with me?

  “Whatcha thinking, Gem?”

  “I’m thinking I love the place; it’s close to my family, and it’ll be great to live close to your brothers as well.”

  “But?”

  I thought about it. Then I thought about it some more. In the end, I just shook my head no and followed Max to the lease/purchase office. Josh and Garret had joined us somewhere during negotiations.

  The three Davises decided to hold off a bit longer before buying the units, thinking time may gain them more leverage. We all went to dinner and Josh called out Doug, Nick and Laney.

  “So are you going to buy the place?” Laney asked. She seemed to know more about this housing situation than I did. I didn’t realize those two had been talking without my knowledge. Not that Laney needed my permission to talk to Josh. In fact, I applauded her for getting to know him.

  “I think we are going to buy it. We like how your whole family lives on a block together. We want to re-create it, on a smaller scale of course.” Josh answered Laney.

  “It’s good to see any family having a good relationship. What do your parents think?”

  “Well…” Josh stopped talking for a little bit. “My brothers and I have a great relationship, but my parents…whole other story for a whole other time.”

  “Okay.” Laney said with a genuine smile. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think we have enough time tonight,” Josh chuckled. “One day Laney, you and I will have a long talk.” What Josh just said held a lot of meaning I didn’t think Laney fully understood. “You want to go watch a movie tomorrow night?”

  “Um…” she hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I have so much to do before this month is over. I’m graduating soon, I have a lot of schoolwork that still needs to be done, and I need to get my belongings together to move.”

  “Why are you so set on moving as soon as possible?” Garret joined in the conversation. That was something I wanted to know as well.

  “I…” She couldn’t finish her thought. “I just want to…there’s really nothing left here for me and I’d like a new start.” There was sadness in Laney’s eyes. I wondered if Donovan was in her heart and mind right now. I hoped she didn’t have a crush on him. After what he said to me the other night, she would be crushed if she knew he had no interest in her.

  “Laney, you have so many things here for you. Your family’s here, your friends are here, and I’d like to be here for you as well.” Boy! Josh was laying it all out on the table for her to take...or not. Brave man.

  She gave him another genuine smile and answered, “I know. I’m a really lucky girl. I have the best family, wonderful friends, and you are kinder to me than I deserve.”

  “Is there a but in there?”

  “Nope. It’s getting late and I think I’ll go home now. I need to study for my exams.”

  “Can I offer you a ride home?” Josh asked with a downtrodden look.

  Laney looked like she was going to refuse him again, but thought better of it. Smart girl. I knew she was always the kindest one out of all of us. “Sure Josh, I’d love a ride home. Thank you.”

  The rest of us stayed a lot longer and hung out. I was glad to see my family getting along so well with Max’s family.

  “You ready to leave?” Max asked in-between kisses.

  “Uh-huh,” I answere
d in a breathy kind of way.

  Max took a super long way home and I loved resting against his back. I tried not to think too much into why Max wouldn’t want to buy a place together. I did my best to shoo away thoughts of him not wanting any permanency with me, or him not catching on to the fact that I was deeply bothered by his action.

  “You gonna sleep on my back, again?” I heard his voice reverberating through his back.

  “No,” I answered slowly, but got off his bike swiftly.

  “What’s the matter?” He put his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him. “You’ve been unusually silent since the house hunt. You’re either unhappy that I chose a place without you, or that I’m purchasing a place without you. Which is it?”

  “Which do you think it is?”

  “How about if I tell you the answer to both questions, and then you can see if you’re still unhappy with my decision.”

  I nodded okay.

  “After we got into our fight, I started thinking about us and our situation. And after Josh told me how much money I had left in my account, I agreed with your idea that it was better to purchase than to rent. You were right. This was much smarter, considering mortgage was really no different than my monthly rent. I had just never considered it before.”

  I tried to pull back a little, but he held on tight. It was almost as though he was whispering in my ears.

  “I talked to Jake and Chief Reid, and asked what my chances were of staying at General Hospital for residency. They laughed and told me they’d only consider my application if I took you off their hands.”

  I gave him an appalled look; he gave me an adoring look, and expressed his adoration with a deep kiss.

  “Once I got my ducks in a row, I started doing my research, and after we found this place I decided this is something I wanted to do on my own. How about if I say this is something I need to do on my own? As wonderful as your family is, I feel somewhat overwhelmed by your wealth and their generosity. I feel like I can never give you the privilege you are used to in life. Before we establish any permanency between us, I wanted to have my own place, to be my own man, and not to have to rely on you, or the generosity of your family to start us in the next chapter of life. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I guess...”

  He gave me an unsatisfactory look, but continued. “And as for the place that I chose, I love the fact that it’s so close to your family. I want you to always be near your family and I, too, want to always be near your family. Plus, I thought you’d dig the extra shoe closet. I knew this place was for us when I saw the home for all your shoes.”

  “So...am I to just move in and be a kept woman?”

  Max couldn’t stop laughing. “Can you actually be a kept woman? If so, please teach me how to turn you into a submissive girlfriend, and I will wave that magic wand immediately.”

  “But I feel like I’m just moving into your life, rather than starting something together.”

  “Gem,” I loved the endearment in his voice, and the passion in his eyes, “save your money, till we decide that we’d like to be with one another till death do us part. At that time, you can use all your money to help us buy a larger home for that family we’ll create. Until then, help me be the man I want to be, for me, as well as for you.”

  For now, I decided to let this man be the hunter, and I would submit to being the gatherer.

  May 12, 2013 Happy Mother’s Day!

  The Reid family loves tradition as you can tell, and we have a lot of interesting as well as funny traditions in our family. I think Jake has told you guys about our Christmas tradition where we play a mean game of white elephant. We have no qualms about stealing from one another during this time to get the best present among the lot.

  Then you most recently saw our wedding tradition that was started back in our grandfather’s days, where the first man to get married in his generation picks from something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and buys a present to symbolize this adage. Gimpy’s treasure chest will put new meaning to the word “wedding tradition.”

  For Mother’s Day, we have a whole other tradition that hasn’t been practiced in a while, but has been brought back from the grave. This tradition went on hiatus for several years when so many of us were off to college and couldn’t make it back for Mother’s Day. It really needed all of us to be at home in order to accomplish this gag gift.

  Let me explain how this one works. Each family comes up with a gag gift for Mom. It could be as simple as a hand drawn portrait of Mom, or as complicated as a treasure hunt that leads nowhere. Before the contest begins, we each put $100 into the pot. It used to be a lot cheaper, but ever since most of us graduated from school and got jobs, the buy-in grew to $100 per person. What, you ask, are we buying into?

  The winning family gets to keep all the money. Correction, the winning Mom gets to keep the money. With five families plus Jake’s family, and Gimpy, the pot’s grown to mucho dinero!

  We started the festivities on Saturday at Emily and Jake’s home. Mother’s Day was usually held at Uncle Dave and Aunt Deb’s beach house, but with Emily being so big (and yes, overnight she popped and started looking like she was going to give birth today) and with the twins being so...mobile, active, unpredictable—you name it, they did it, Emliy asked to host the event in her backyard. Max and his brothers were invited (NO Hannah), and Donovan and his family were invited. The Taylors have never spent Mother’s Day with us before, but considering it was at Jake’s house, they decided to invite the Taylors as well. The Taylors, though, opted not to join in our competitive fun.

  Brunch was a simple affair in Jake’s backyard with your typical brunch food. Jake and the rest of the family made sure that Emily didn’t lift a finger. The food was catered, we all helped set up and clean up, and then most of us dispersed to set up our mothers’ gifts.

  “Isn’t this a bit morbid?” Max asked while carrying Mom’s gift to our backyard.

  “That’s why it’s a gag gift.” I responded with an evil grin.

  “You Reids have a sick sense of humor.”

  “Thank you,” Jake, Nick and I answered simultaneously.

  “Um...that wasn’t a compliment,” he said with a chuckle, “but whatever. Live in your delusional world.”

  “We will and we do!” Jake and I high-fived each other. We knew we had the winning gift.

  “How much has the pot grown to, do you know?”

  “Well let’s see,” Jake started doing the math. “We alone make $700 since you all insisted I pay double for Mom’s entry and Emi’s entry. Then there’s another $1400 including Roland’s entry.”

  “Geez. That’s $2100! What’s Mom going to do with all that cash?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe she’ll share it with me. There’s a pair of Prada shoes I’ve been eyeing!”

  Jake laughed out, “Dream on.”

  “What did you do for Emily? It’s not like the kids can do anything on their own.”

  “You shall see when the time comes.” He could be so secretive at times.

  “Does Emily’s gift have a chance of winning?”

  “Nope. I’m not looking to give a gag gift to my wife.” Of course not! “But, it’ll be humorous.”