Defining Moments (17 page)

“Where are you off to this beautiful winter morning?” he asks.

“Oh, you know, the usual adult responsibility crap. Pay bills, grocery shopping, lunch with Claire,” I announce with a smile.

“Well, you ladies have a nice lunch, and enjoy your adult responsibilities crap,” he chuckles.

I smile and slide into my car. When I reach to shut it, Cord is looking down at me with a strange look on his face.

“What’s the matter?” I ask him quickly.

“Um, nothing. It’s just . . . never mind,” he says and starts to close the door.

“Cord, what?” I ask sternly.

“It’s nothing, I just . . . your shirt . . .” he stammers, looking at my shirt and then turning a pretty shade of pink.

I look down and see that my wrap front shirt has become a little askew and one of my lace covered boobs is basically on display.

“Shit. Sorry about that,” I mumble, trying to fix my shirt quickly.

“I should be the one apologizing,” Cord laughs awkwardly. “It’s like I lost the ability to speak when I saw your shirt opening as you sat down.” He shakes his head and closes my door gently.

I laugh to myself as I pull out of the parking lot. I’m not sure who was more awkward during that whole situation, me or him.

I do my running around crap and then head to meet Claire for lunch. We’ve only gotten together a few times over the past few weeks due to her crazy work schedule and the new guy in her life. She’s acting weird about him and it makes me wonder if maybe she’s actually found her match. I’ll have to push her for the details on that one.

As I walk into the restaurant, I hear a baby cry, and when I turn to look, my eyes meet Justin’s. Great. He and Julia are here with the baby having lunch. He doesn’t even like Mexican food. Whatever.

I turn back toward the hostess and request a table on the other side of the dining area, near the bar, and tell her there will be another woman meeting me. She hands me a menu, fills my water glass, and walks away.

I’m perusing the menu when I hear my phone chime.

Cord: Do you have plans for dinner? Wanna come over, order some Thai food, and watch a movie?

I’m pretty shocked that I’m getting a text from him. He’s never texted me before.

Me: Sure, but I get to pick the movie. :)

Cord: Sweet. I’ll pick up the food and a bottle of wine, and you grab whatever movie you want to watch. 6:00 good?

Me: Yep. See you then.

I chuckle to myself. I like the easiness of my friendship with Cord. When the waiter arrives, I order a grapefruit mimosa and, since I’m a little early, some chips and salsa to snack on until Claire arrives.

“Hi, Ell,” Justin says quietly from behind me.

I turn to him and see the unease on his face. “Hey, Justin,” I respond quickly, but then look back down at my menu and act like I’m still reading it.

“How’ve you been? You look great,” he continues.

“Thanks. I’m really good. It was good seeing you,” I say with a big smile, before turning my attention back to my menu. I can feel him looking at me but don’t look back up. Why can’t he just go away?

“It was good seeing you too,” he says sounding pathetic and hurt. I nod and I hear his footsteps as he walks away.

The waiter puts the chips and salsa down and hands the mimosa to me, which I take a large gulp of. Damn those things are good.

“What the hell was that asshat doing here?” Claire squeaks as she rushes toward me.

I laugh full heartedly because I love her and her protectiveness of me so damn much.

“He was here for lunch I assume, with his other half and the new baby,” I reply. It dawns on me that when I looked at Justin, I no longer felt sad for what we’d lost. I am enjoying the hell out of life and I’m happy.

CLAIRE TELLS ME
about the new guy in her life, Tyler. She rants and raves about what an amazing guy he is and blushes when I ask if she’s slept with him.

“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ dramatically, before lifting her drink to her lips.

“Well, I think that’s awesome, Claire. Sounds like you really like this guy.”

“I do, girl. I like him a lot. He’s successful, gorgeous, funny, and independent. He’s not a clinger,” she laughs.

“So what’s the hold up on sleeping together?” I question.

“He said he wants to get to know me better before we take that step. We’ve had some heated moments, but he always pulls back. At first, it kind of pissed me off, because, well, he’s totally hot and I can barely keep my hands off him, but once he explained it was because he wants to start out this relationship the right way, I lightened up about it.”

“RELATIONSHIP?” I basically shout.

“Calm your tits, girl. I’m not marrying the guy. But he is the first guy in a long time who’s made me think about settling down. He’s almost scarily perfect,” she brags.

“Good for you, sweetie. It’s about damn time someone realized how amazing you are,” I tell her honestly. Claire is one of the most giving, honest people I’ve ever met. I can’t even imagine my life without her in it.

“Enough about me and my hot guy, what’s going on with you? You banging that hot boss of yours yet?” she taunts.

“Um, no. We are just friends,” I tell her, trying to decide if I should tell her about our friendship, knowing she’ll probably read more into it than there is. “We’ve actually become pretty good friends over the past few months.”

She eyes me for a second before responding. “Pretty good friends as in ‘friends who make out’ or really just friends?”

I laugh at her antics. “Just friends.”

“Well, that sucks. I was hoping to live vicariously through you since I’m not getting any currently.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m still in the nun phase of learning to live again.” I smirk at her.

“What are we going to talk about then? Work is boring,” she counters. “Oh, I know, how are the boys?”

“They’re all doing good. Destry is coming home and transferring to UC. The twins are looking for a house to rent for all of them,” I tell her happily.

“Yay! I was wondering how long he’d stay away before he transferred.” She stops and takes a bite of the chips and salsa before continuing. “What’d asshat have to say about his boy giving up a full ride to come home and go to school?”

“I don’t know. I don’t talk to Justin. I don’t even know if Dez has told him yet.”

The waiter comes over and takes our order, including more grapefruit mimosas. We munch on chips and chat.

By the time we’re ready to head out, we’ve both had several mimosas and decide on taking cabs home. I’ll come back and get my car tomorrow.

WHEN THE CAB PULLS
up in front of the apartment, I reach down and grab my purse, pulling money out to pay the driver. I thank him and step out of the car, just as Cord pulls into the parking lot.

“Ellie, where’s your car? Did it break down?” he asks with genuine concern.

“No, my car is fine,” I chuckle, “Claire and I had a few mimosas with lunch and weren’t comfortable driving, so we took cabs.”

“You should’ve called me. I’d have come to get you guys,” he says with a smile.

“No biggie, although I didn’t have a chance to go get a movie for us to watch tonight.”

“That’s okay. I have a huge selection of movies. We can just pick one of those,” he declares.

“Sounds good. I think I’m going to go take a little nap. I’ll see ya at six,” I tell him as I walk into my apartment.

When I wake a couple hours later, I have a serious headache. Damn yummy grapefruit mimosas.

Popping a few ibuprofen, I head in to take a quick shower, just to rinse off the day. I throw my hair up in a bun and put on my favorite yoga pants and a big sweatshirt. Movie night in is my favorite, especially with a gorgeous man and Thai food.

I grab a bottle of my favorite wine from the fridge and head to Cord’s.

I raise my hand to knock, but the door flies open and a large male body crashes into me with full force.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Ellie,” Bishop says as he catches me from hitting the ground.

I grab onto his arms and lose the grip on my wine bottle, which crashes to the concrete and shatters.

Before I even know what’s happening, I’m up in Bishop’s arms and he carrying me into Cord’s apartment.

“I’m not hurt, you big ox, put me down,” I tell him playfully.

“I know you’re not, but you have on flip-flops and there is glass all over the place,” he laughs and puts me down inside the apartment.

“What the hell did you do, Bish?” I hear Cord shout from the kitchen.

“I may have run over Ellie in my haste to get the hell outta dodge before she got here. Didn’t want to intrude on the date,” he stresses.

“Not a date,” both Cord and I say and then laugh that we said it at the same time. Awkward.

“Whatever. I’m going to clean that up real quick, and then I’ll be out of your hair,” he says as he grabs the dust pan, broom, and a big container filled with water.

Cord and I both watch as he sweeps up the glass, deposits it in the trash, and then pours water over the red wine staining the ground.

“I’m out,” he shouts as he places the broom, dust pan, and container back in their places and races out the door.

“He was acting weird,” I tell Cord as I make my way into his kitchen, watching as he dumps our food out of the cartons and onto plates.

“Yeah, he is weird. I got this. Go pick a movie. They’re all in the big entertainment center in my room.” He nods his head toward the hallway.

I make my way to the back of the apartment and find his room pretty easily considering the only other room is basically being used as a storage unit. I wonder when his house is going to be done. I’ll be sad when he isn’t living beside me anymore. I’ve grown to really enjoy our easy friendship.

Cord’s room is about as masculine as you can get. All the furniture is dark stained wood and the bedding is different shades of grey, red, and white. The furniture is too big for the room, so there isn’t much walking room. I make my way to the entertainment center and am floored when I see the huge selection of movies he’s got in there.

I chose Lethal Weapon I, because it’s basically one of the greatest movies ever, and make my way back into the living room.

Cord has all the food and a couple of glasses of wine set out on the coffee table in the living room, with pillows on the floor for us to sit on.

“Here ya go,” I say, handing him the movie.

He looks at the movie, then at me and laughs. “Raising three boys, I should’ve known you’d be action movies kinda girl.”

“I am actually,” I tell him honestly.

“Well, it just so happens that this is one of my favorite movies, so if I start quoting it during the movie, just smack me.”

Cord starts the movie and we eat the yummy Pad Thai he ordered. By the end, we’re on the couch, curled up on either ends, sharing a large blanket with a bowl of popcorn in between us.

When the movie is over, Cord turns the TV off and turns his body toward mine.

“So, let’s chat,” he suggests.

“Okay, Mr. Cordero. What would you like to chat about?” I counter.

“I don’t know. Tell me about your life before we met.”

“I think we’ve covered the dirty details about my lovely divorce, and you’ve met my boys. Not much else to tell,” I reply.

“I don’t mean your family, because you’re right, we’ve covered that. What you’ve never told me about is what
you
were like before we met,” he inquires.

I look at him for a minute, trying to figure out what he means, because my first thought is I’m the same person I’ve always been. I’m the same person now that I was then, but I’m not, and he must see that.

“I don’t know really,” I tell him shyly. “As a teenager, I was very social and popular, but when I got pregnant with the twins our senior year of high school, I sort of became the social outcast. I mean, who wants to hang around the big pregnant girl who throws up at the drop of a hat. I was cramping their style. But Justin stuck around, obviously, because we got married right after graduation.”

“But what did you aspire to do? Before you got pregnant and married, what was your dream for your life?”