It's Not About You (18 page)

The first thing I saw was a four chair table. To the right were black couches around a fireplace and a flat screen TV. Past the table was a counter and a huge kitchen with new, stainless steel appliances, and above that rose a staircase. I started running from room to room. There was a bedroom and a bathroom on the main floor just past the kitchen.
 

A door to the right of the counter revealed stairs to a full basement with another room with twin beds, a bathroom, TV and pool table! I looked out the windows and squealed. "There's a hot tub!"
 

Michael came down after me and we both went outside onto the lower deck. Two chairs and a table sat next to the covered hot tub. I could hear the soft hum of the motor.
 

But the thing that silenced both of us was the view. The folds of blues and grays in the distance, indicating the mountains beyond just above the rolling hills of green, orange, yellow and brown. Michael locked his fingers with mine and we looked at each other. "You like?"
 

I reached up and caressed his cheek. "Oh, I don't just like…I love. We have to try the hot tub out tonight—" and then it hit me. "Oh no…I don't have a suit!"
 

Michael's laugh made me all gushy inside. "Yes you do. I had Kyle pack it for you, so unless you emptied out your toiletries bag, you have a suit." He moved closer and faced me, his cock hard against my stomach. "But I doubt you'll wear it for long."
 

"Is that an invitation to break the cabin in right now?"
 

He kissed me. Oh
damn
did he kiss me. It was deep and wanting and I creamed my panties just thinking about him naked underneath me.
 

When he pulled his lips from mine and moved next to my ear to whisper, "We have to get some groceries. I want you to teach me how to cook," then my bubble of naked Michael popped.
 

I bit his ear, careful of the gold hoop and he yelled playfully as we ran back up the stairs and checked out the master bedroom on the third floor. The view from the deck in the master bedroom? Breathtaking.
 

"We sleep up here."
 

"Mmhmm," he said as he grabbed my hand again. "Let's get our things out and hit that store we saw on the way up."
 

It was close to six by the time we made our way back up the mountain to our cabin. The sun was just going down so I yanked the wine out of the bag, had him open it, grabbed two glasses from the cabinet and the two of us had our wine upstairs on the deck as the sun went down.
 

The temperature plummeted so fast my teeth chattered. We headed back in and I prepped dinner while he started the fire in the living room and turned on the evening news.
 

Tonight I planned on teaching him how to cook clam linguini. It was light, simple, and easy. He found the right pots and pans and did the work as I gave directions. I melted the butter and brushed it on the thick cut bread.
 

"I thought you were making garlic bread," Michael said as I slipped the cookie sheet of buttery goodness into the oven.
 

"I am. You just watch. Now drain that pasta. Chop, chop!"
 

Once we had the clam sauce with the linguini I pulled the bread out, sliced up a couple of peeled garlic cloves and started rubbing the cloves on the browned bread. Michael did the same thing and within seconds the garlic released its smelly goodness.
 

We ate dinner at the table, with water, wine, some sweet tea and a pot of coffee keeping warm. He talked about looking for this cabin and getting Kyle to help him.
 

"I'm surprised he didn't invite himself here."
 

Michael wiped his mouth and chin. Clam linguini could be messy. "He almost did. I have to give him a review on this cabin. Apparently he and some friends want to rent a cabin for December."
 

My phone buzzed and I grabbed my purse off the other end of the table. I realized I hadn't bothered to look at it since we left.
 

The chime was Tanae specific, so I knew it was a text from her. In fact there were five texts from Tanae. None of them said what was wrong.
 

Mom, call me.
 

Mom, where r u?

Y aren't u calling me?
 

Y r u ignoring me?
 

This is important!
 

"Is everything okay?"

I shook my head and gave Michael a warm smile. "No. I have an eighteen year old on the verge of Nineteen. I'll be right back." I pressed Tanae's profile to call and walked out the front door and into…cold!
 

"MOM!"
 

"Hey…what is wrong with you? What is it?"
 

"Why weren't you texting me?"
 

Because I'm with my boyfriend. No…that wasn't going to fly. "I have a life, Tanae. What's so important?"
 

"I need you to go pick up Phil."
 

I just…I pulled the phone back and looked at the face and then put it back to my ear. "What?"
 

"Phil's car broke down and he's stuck downtown near Centennial Park."
 

Again…I just… "And you want me to get in my car and go pick him up?"
 

"Yes."
 

"Where are his parents?"
 

"In Marietta."
 

I rubbed at my face as the outside lights came on. "Tanae, I can't drop what I'm doing and go pick up Phil."
 

"Why not?" Her voice reached a slight level of angst-y hysteria. "Mom, don't ruin this for me. I told him you'd go get him."
 

"Well, you shouldn't have done that. I'm in the middle of something and I can't leave. He needs to call his parents."
 

"Maahhhhhm…"
 

How do they do that? Turn a single word into something with eight syllables? "Tanae, why can't he call his parents?" I waited for a few seconds. "He's doing something he's not supposed to be doing, isn't he?"
 

"It's not like that."
 

"Tanae…"
 

"Okay he took his brother's car while he's overseas and it broke down. If his parents find out what he did they'll kick him out!"
 

"No they won't. They might not be happy with him, but they won't kick him out."
 

"Yes they will!"
 

"Tanae…did he tell you they will?"
 

"No…yes… "
 

I felt Michael's hand on my arm and I nearly jumped out of my skin and down the mountain. I hadn't heard him come out the door. "Do we need to go?"
 

Had he heard me? Had he been listening in? Och…no, idiot. This wasn't like the phone at home with multiple extensions. I knew he was just being a great guy but Tanae had just made me mad. "No. We're staying here," I said, not even thinking about Tanae on the phone.
 

"Who are you talking to?"
 

"No one. Tanae, call him back and tell him your mother is busy and can't come get you. He needs to call his own mother."
 

"Who are you with? Is that Kyle?"
 

"Tanae, good night." I disconnected and shut the damn thing off.
 

Michael stood beside me. He kept a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "You haven't told her about us, have you?"
 

"No."
 

"Come talk to me, Grace."
 

"I can't."
 

"Why not?"
 

"Because you don't have kids." I finally turned and looked at him. "Do you?"

He shook his head. "No."
 

Michael looked worried. I didn't like that look on his face. I was the one making him worry. But he was smart. Damn smart. "Did you know I didn't know that for sure?"
 

"Yeah. There's a lot we don't know about each other, even after a month." He went to the Ranger and popped open the back. He reached inside and pulled a small sack out. I'd seen it earlier and he'd said to leave it.
 

When he came back to me he took my hand and pulled me to the cabin. "You grab the wine, I'll get the cheesecake and we'll meet at the fireplace. And then," he paused as we stopped at the front door. "We talk."
 

Michael stared at me as we sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. Empty cheesecake plates, forks and wine glasses littered the stone hearth and I held my coffee mug in my hands. The wind had picked up outside and I was trying to get my courage up to talk to him about Tanae, and Burt, and Thanksgiving and I was failing miserably as to where to start.
 

"You haven't told your daughter, or your ex about me. Or about us." He wasn't asking me.

I searched his face. That was a good place to start. I shook my head.
 

"First, I need you to give me an honest reason why."
 

Why? Well…

Hrm.
 

I looked at him over my steaming mug. "Because I'm chicken shit."
 

His serious expression broke. "You gotta do better than that, babe."
 

"Okay. But being chicken shit is a big part of it." I licked my lips. "I don't mean to belittle you or make it sound like you can't understand because you don't have a kid."
 

"Point taken, and I agree with you. There are some things you're feeling I don't have a common reference to."
 

I smiled at him. "Yeah. You could say that. Wait…let me put this all together and put things in order."
 

Michael sipped his coffee and he never took his hand from my knee. He'd slipped off his sweater and wore just a teeshirt and those nice, worn, holy jeans.
 

Let the angels sing!
 

"My marriage wasn't exactly an easy one. Burt was, no
is
, a control freak."

"Did you know that before you got married?"
 

"No. Not really. I only have my self to blame for not finding out sooner. It was a sneaky thing, you know? Little stuff at first. I mean, we both had careers. He was an up and coming neurologist at Harvard and I had just been promoted to manager in one of the nice advertising agencies in downtown Atlanta. We'd been acquaintances for a while, introduced by mutual friends until we were at a wedding and we hit it off over drinks."
 

Michael's gaze didn't waver. He was paying such close attention I thought for a second he was going to whip out a pen and paper and take notes.
 

"We had a small ceremony and kept two households for a while. I mean, he was in Boston, I was here. But that didn't stop me from getting pregnant. He agreed to move back here because my insurance was the best to have the baby with. So we found a house in Chamblee, Georgia. It wasn't where I wanted to live—I had a nice three story picked out in Roswell. One of my good friends up there is a photographer. But he was working at Emory and needed to be close to downtown and so did I.
 

"The pregnancy wasn't a great one—I ended up with gestational diabetes. Which was hard because I had to watch
what
I ate and all I wanted to
do
was eat. Tanae was born in November, right after Thanksgiving and that's when things changed."
 

"Oh? How?"

"He convinced me that he was making more than enough money and I should stay home and take care of the baby. You know, be a great contact mom. So I agreed and turned in my resignation. But trust me, being home twenty-four seven with a kid is not fun. I needed human interaction, and since my mom was living here at the time, she would volunteer to come over while I'd go shopping or just out walking, or go meet Kyle for adult talk. Kyle was a real life saver back then.

"But when Burt found out he got mad. I mean really mad."
 

"But not violent."
 

"No. That's when I started noticing the way he would word things and what he'd say and when he'd say it. Like for instance with Kyle. He said Kyle was a grown up man with a gay man's values and didn't understand children, so maybe it would be better for the baby if Kyle and I started limiting our interaction…at least until Tanae was older and could understand."
 

Michael's brow arched.
 

"Yeah. You see it, don't you? I didn't. I was still recovering from a serious body re-fit, because once you have one of those little suckers, you're never quite the same. Nothing fits back where it's supposed to. And he made a point of letting me know that. Not blatant complaints because of the baby fat, just things like I needed to keep in shape for Tanae because I should want to be there when she graduated high school.