Don't Explain (8 page)

For a moment Caitlyn considered calling Alexis over and having her work
her lust magic on him, whisking him away to some sanctuary of pleasure until he
was ready to go back to Sacramento.

The thought made Caitlyn feel a little sicker. She and Alexis shared a
lot, but that was going a little too far. Probably even for Alexis. Probably.

Unfortunately, her only alternative plan was to give him the cold
shoulder and ignore him for the remainder of his stay in Massachusetts. But
Michael was not easy to ignore, especially when he didn’t want to be ignored. She
was left only with her will, which was weak at best.

Caitlyn took her time in the shower and bathroom in an attempt to avoid
what was to come. Maybe he’d even be gone by the time she was done, but when
she peeked her head out of the bathroom, he was still lying in her bed, staring
at the ceiling.

He turned his head to look at her and smiled. “Want to go shopping with
me?”

Caitlyn tried not to melt under his smile. “What?”

“I need some clothes. I didn’t pack much.”

“I don’t think I can. Sorry.” Caitlyn walked across the room in a towel
to her closet and began the search for something really unsexy. She didn’t find
the search too difficult and settled on a pair of jeans and a Patriots jersey.

“What do you have to do today?”

“I should go visit my mom and then I am going to watch the game with
Alexis at the Tipperary. It’s what I do on Sundays.”

Michael threw the covers off his naked body and stood up. Caitlyn turn
her gaze to the floor, but Michael walked over to her, and she was soon looking
directly at his penis. She shot her stare up to his face and chewed on her
bottom lip.

“How about this? I’ll take a shower. We’ll get some breakfast, go
shopping, stop by and see Cat, and meet Alexis to watch the game. We’ll figure
the rest out when we get back.”

Caitlyn shrugged.  “I don’t know. My mom probably won’t be up for a lot
of visitors, and the game is kind of a girl thing.”

Michael grabbed her hips and pulled her into his hardness. “You’re trying
to get rid of me again, aren’t you?”

“This time I am.” She nodded her head to show that she really meant it,
but he stopped her with a hard kiss. She didn’t struggle as much as she knew
she should and told herself that this was the last one, so she might as well
enjoy it.

“Too bad. You’re going shopping with me. I need a woman’s perspective.”

#

“I’m kind of partial to the ‘49ers,” Michael said as Caitlyn held up a
New England Patriots t-shirt for the third time.

“Well that’s too bad. You’re in New England, and I am not showing up at
the pub with someone in a ‘49ers’ shirt. You’re more than welcome to go back to
your motel if you don’t want to pick one of these shirts.”

She’d been saying stuff like that all morning, and he was pretty sure
that she actually did want to get rid of him. He didn’t really know why. The
night before had been great, and the other times they spent together were great
too. He just couldn’t stop thinking about the night before and hoping that night
would be an encore performance.

Since telling Caitlyn about Margaret after dinner, his vacation had been
successful, and he was kind of glad that Margaret left him. If she hadn’t, he
wouldn’t be here enjoying Caitlyn more than he thought was possible.

He looked at the t-shirts she was waving in front of him. They all looked
the same to him, so he grabbed one at random. A t-shirt was not going to keep
him away from her. Michael didn’t know how much longer he would be able to
spend with her, but he was going to make the most of his time in Massachusetts.

“I need some jeans, and some shirts without logos on them.”

“Fine,” she said and began limping further into the men’s department. “What
size?”

“I don’t know. Come check these pants.”

Caitlyn looked back at him and glared. He just stood there unrelenting,
and she finally gave up and walked over to his back side. She reached her
fingers into the back of his pants and flipped the waist band. He felt the
familiar aching he had for her, and if she hadn’t moved so quickly, he would
have turned around and kissed her again.

He followed Caitlyn to a pile of folded jeans and ran his finger along
the curve of her neck. “Let’s go back to your place.”

She shrugged his hand away without looking up from the pile she was now
digging through. “No can do. We’re already in Worcester. If my mother finds out
that I was in town and didn’t visit her, she’ll raise all sorts of hell. It’ll
be doubly true if she finds out that you were the reason.”

Michael smiled. He actually liked her mother. She had no sense of decorum,
and he found it hilarious. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

“Fine. We’ll see Cat.” Caitlyn hobbled around the table. “How’s your
ankle doing?”

“I’ll survive. Here.” She held up a pair of pants.

“Looks good.” He grabbed a green shirt off a nearby table. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t want to try them on?”

“I’m wearing the same clothes I did yesterday. I’m going to change into
them the second they’re charged to my account. If there’s a problem, I’ll bring
‘em back.”

Caitlyn placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him. “Whatever.”
He had to get her out of this mood. While it was fun to mess with her right
now, he wanted the Caitlyn from last night back for later. Maybe she’d relax
after watching the game and drinking a few beers.

Michael emerged from the bathroom not too long after paying for his
clothes. The jeans were a little baggy, but otherwise the clothes were fine,
which is why he was surprised when Caitlyn saw him.

“That’s not going to work,” she said.

“Why not?”

“We’re practically matching.” She pointed to her outfit then his. “We’ll
look ridiculous.”

“You said that I had to wear a Patriots shirt.”

“To the pub, not around the mall and to my mother’s house. Put on the
green shirt.”

“Doesn’t fit. Looks like we’re twins.”

Caitlyn let out a deep sigh, and then put a fake smile on her face. “Let’s
go return the green one.” She turned and started limping back toward the store.

Michael jogged after her and stopped right in her path. She stopped and
glared up at him. He grabbed the green shirt out of the bag and held it in
front of a passing teenage boy. “Free shirt,” he said, handing the shirt to the
kid.

“It’s ugly,” he said.

Michael dug out his wallet and found the receipt. “It’s worth thirty
bucks if you return it.”

“Sweet.” The teen took the receipt from Michael’s hand and walked away.

Michael turned back to Caitlyn, who was not looking any happier. “Why’d
you do that?”

“You shouldn’t have to walk any further,” he said. Then he picked her up
and draped her over his shoulder. “Whose idea was it for you to walk around the
mall anyway?”

Caitlyn squealed. “Put me down!”

“You’re injured. I’m going to carry you back to the car so you can rest
up that ankle.”

“I can do it.”

“I’m your attending doctor and…”

“Are you okay ma’am?” A short, bald man stopped in front of Michael. “Do
you need me to call the police?”

“I’m okay. Thank you,” Caitlyn called from behind Michael.

Michael looked seriously at the man and said, “It’s okay. I’m a doctor.” Then
he walked past him and toward the exit.

Caitlyn giggled. “Does that work often?”

“Almost always.”

Michael carried her to the car and set her down in the passenger seat and
then got into the car. “And you thought we’d look ridiculous because we were
wearing matching shirts.”

Caitlyn laughed. Michael leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ve really missed
you, Murph. I don’t know where you went earlier, but I want you to stay with
me.”

“We’ve been together all day.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t with me. I’m not going to be around for a long
time, but I want you to be with me while I am.”

“What happens when you leave? To hell with me then?”

“No, but let’s cross that bridge when it gets here. For now, let’s just
enjoy this for what it is.”

“And what is that?”

“Friends who occasionally make out and have sex.” When he said it, he
knew there was something wrong with it. It sounded too brash, too impersonal.
But it was the only label he could put on it.

“So, I am your rebound.” She looked down at her hands.

He couldn’t help but wonder it himself. She was a distraction from
Margaret; he couldn’t deny that. He pulled out of the parking spot and drove
toward the parking garage’s exit. “Maybe. But the truth is, now that I think
about it, Margaret and I weren’t working. She was always complaining about my
work schedule, and we were comfortable in a way that bored the hell out of me. She
was a great person—pure sugar—but we didn’t have much in common outside of
working in a hospital, liking kids, and knowing sign language.

“I don’t think I could have realized that without you. Without
remembering the kind of connection two people could have not just in bed, but
out of it as well. I wish I could say I was happy with her, but I was more just
content that I found someone to share my bed nightly. Someone to come home to.

“It’s scarier to realize that I was in that type of relationship. So,
really I should thank you because you’re one hell of a friend and the best
rebound a guy could have. Because I don’t know how long I would have been
miserable only hoping for something that I didn’t really want.”

“Turn right at the light.” Caitlyn was strangely stoic. In all the years
that he knew her, she was never stoic.

“Caitlyn?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” He prepared for tears. He didn’t like them, but he could deal
with them if he had to.

“At least you know where we stand.”

The rest of the car ride was silent with the exception of directions. Michael
didn’t want to hurt her. He was trying to compliment her, thank her, but it
obviously didn’t take. He wasn’t sure how it was possible for him to completely
screw up this friendship at least once a day since he got there. He was just
trying to be as honest with her as she was with him.

#

Michael parked the car on the street in front of Caitlyn’s mother’s
house. Caitlyn examined the property: the lawn was overgrown again and the
house needed to be painted. Caitlyn didn’t care what her mother said. She was
firing the middle schooler from down the street that her mother paid ten bucks
a week to mow her lawn and was hiring a proper landscaper.

Caitlyn got out of the car and shuffled to the front door. Her ankle
still ached, and she wished she brought a bottle of aspirin with her. She
doubted her mother would have anything that hadn’t expired four years ago.

Michael came up behind her and offered a hand, but she refused. She was angry
with him. Though she wasn’t sure why. The truth was she was angrier with
herself for letting him use her as a rebound, and as hard as she tried, she
couldn’t help but be drawn in by him. He was intoxicating, and she wanted more
despite the consequences that waited for her at the end of this “friends-who-occasionally-make-out-and-have-sex”-ship.

Caitlyn walked into her mother’s house and was assaulted by a cloud of
smoke. “Ma!” She moved down the hallway and toward the den, which is where her
mother almost certainly was. “Ma! You home?”

“Caitlyn?” Her mother appeared in the door frame of the den. She wore a
house dress, and her hair was rolled into a bun at the top of her head. Caitlyn
tried to remember what her mother looked like ten years ago, but it was hard to
fathom the beautiful woman that her mother once was behind the raspy voice,
wrinkles, and weight she had acquired since Caitlyn’s father died.

A heart attack in the middle of the night was the end of her father. It
was unexpected. Her father was a swimmer and ate well. He seemed to be doing
everything right, but it didn’t keep his heart from going out and his wife from
waking up next to a corpse.

It changed Catherine Murphy forever. She stopped going out, started
smoking again after almost 30 years, and ate junk food. Caitlyn wondered if she
was trying to speed up her death.

“Who’s with you? I’m not dressed for company.” Her eyes narrowed on
Michael.

“Ma, this is Michael Fitzgerald. I went to college with him. You met him
once, remember?”

“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Murphy,” Michael said.

“You cut your hair. Much doctorlier than the shag you had in college. You
were able to come out here with your busy schedule?”

“I needed a break.”

“Sometimes trips aren’t about us.” Caitlyn’s mother was good at holding a
grudge.

Caitlyn turned to Michael with her eyes wide and mouthed “sorry,” but
Michael was smiling back at her mother.