by Gail Sattler
Melissa pulled a light coat out of the closet, locked up, and walked with Josh to the street, where he opened the door of the van and waited for her to get in.
She grinned as she pushed herself up and in. “I’ve never gone on a date in a minivan before.”
“Don’t remind me. I still can’t believe I’m doing this. I don’t mean going out with you—I mean this way.”
Melissa chattered about anything other than children and cars all the way to the restaurant, while Josh remained silent most of the time.
Fortunately, by the time they were seated at a table, he had relaxed into the Josh she was used to.
Since the steak house was filled almost to capacity with a variety of couples, families, and other groups, the atmosphere was nothing like the romantic setting he had teased her about earlier.
Watching him as he smiled and commented at something she said, she wondered what a romantic date with Josh would be like. On the heels of that thought, she tried not to regret that an outing such as the one he’d described in jest would never happen in seriousness, even if she were in a position to really begin such a relationship with him.
Melissa couldn’t help it. Despite Bradley’s blunt questions, she did like Josh. She liked his easygoing nature, yet at the same time he was incredibly responsible. On the surface, his carefree and relaxed demeanor made him appear no different than any other single twenty-five-year-old man, but Melissa knew otherwise.
A list of his good qualities—in addition to a few very endearing flaws—formulated in her mind. If she didn’t know any better, she could have thought she was falling in love with him.
Melissa nearly choked on her salad.
“Melissa? Are you okay? Want my water?”
She accepted his water without comment and sipped it until the tightness in her throat loosened. His concern and quick action only made her dilemma worse.
They managed to keep the conversation light throughout their dinner until the waitress removed their plates and they were left to talk without distractions.
Josh cleared his throat and wiggled the knot of his tie. “I guess we should talk about Bradley and stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“You know. Stuff.” His voice dropped to a husky mumble. “Us.” He cleared his throat again. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to cause Bradley any more stress or anxiety. His heart is in the right place.”
“I know. I nearly lost it when he said all he was trying to do was to make me happy. I didn’t know I looked unhappy to him.”
“Besides the normal day-to-day stress of living with them when it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced in your life, is there anything that he was referring to?”
His face whitened slightly, and he suddenly began to rearrange the teaspoon and dessert fork in front of him. “Yeah. There is.”
“I’m sorry, Josh,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to pry. Forget that I asked.”
“No,” Josh mumbled. “He said it right in front of you anyway, so I might as tell you about it. For the last three years, I’ve been going steady with a woman. I even thought we could get married. We recently split up. That’s probably what he’s thinking of.”
Her chest tightened so badly it hurt. “Is there any chance of reconciliation?”
He shook his head, not looking up as he continued to play with the silverware. “No. Bradley doesn’t know this—none of the kids do, and they never will. She left me because of the kids.”
“What?”
“We talked about me moving in with them and being their legal guardian beforehand, even though my mind was already made up. She was against the idea from the start, but I couldn’t not take the kids, not under the circumstances. When I moved into Brian and Sasha’s house, she supposedly tried to make it work and get used to me living with the kids, but it only lasted for exactly two weeks, and she said she couldn’t do it.”
He paused, but Melissa didn’t know what he expected her to say, if anything. Two weeks wasn’t nearly long enough to become accustomed to such a situation, and it certainly wasn’t long enough to figure out how to deal with the changes that would become necessary. His awkwardness gave her the impression he hadn’t yet talked about what happened to anyone and that he needed to get it out of his system.
She folded her hands on the table in front of her. “What happened?”
“First she said that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. Then when I did spend time with her, most of the time I was so exhausted I was falling asleep. She didn’t like coming over because she thought the kids were suffocating her, but they only wanted some attention, which was understandable at the time. Brian warned me about that, and I told Theresa what Brian said. I didn’t want to go out for awhile because I didn’t want to leave them with a sitter, except for the short amount of time from when they get off school until Tyler gets home. I couldn’t make Tyler baby-sit more than that at first. He was pretty mad at life for a few weeks. I didn’t want to add to it. I certainly wasn’t going to hire a sitter just to take off and have some fun. Not just after I moved in. It wouldn’t have been right.”
“It sounds like you were doing the right thing.”
“I thought so, but Theresa said I was ignoring her, that I was always busy with the kids, and that’s probably true. No, not probably. It is true. I never knew how hard it would be to be a single parent. I know I put the kids first. I had to. Right now, those kids are the most important things in my life, and they’re going to be for a long time. She was mad because everything I did centered around them and not her.”
“But those things tend to level off if you give it awhile. Look at how much time I’ve spent with you in the last couple of weeks. Everything looks fine now, at least it does to me.”
“It is, but it took about a month for the boys and me to get used to each other. I guess Theresa didn’t see that it could change. Either that, or she didn’t want to. Without going into details, I’ll just say that our parting wasn’t done on kind words. She wanted to do the white picket fence thing with me. You know, get married, have fun for awhile, get a house, and then have one or two kids. You know, make some babies of our own.”
His face flushed, which Melissa thought rather sweet.
Josh cleared his throat but didn’t look up. “Raising five kids from six to fifteen years old is different, even if they are family. Even you said you’d never want to have five kids even if they were your own, never mind someone else’s.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He raised his head, and the sadness in his eyes nearly broke her heart. “Yes, you did. I wasn’t mistaken, because when Theresa dumped me, she said the same thing.”
She was about to say he was wrong, but her protest caught in her throat. She had said that, but she certainly hadn’t meant it that way. At the time, she had been asking him about why he suddenly took on five children, and they had been talking about how the boys were adjusting to their new home life, and the difficulties in raising five children in general.
Suddenly, the dessert the waitress placed in front of her held no appeal.
Before she could think of something to say, Josh started to speak.
“I don’t know why I told you all that,” he said, mumbling as he picked at his cheesecake with the fork, not eating his dessert, either. “This has nothing to do with figuring out what we’re going to do about Bradley.”
On the contrary, Melissa thought it did. It explained why Bradley thought Josh was unhappy, and most of all, it told her that while on the surface Josh was fine, deep down he really was as unhappy as Bradley said. Now she knew why.
As well, something happened in her heart, and she knew that if she wasn’t sure if she loved him before, she knew without a doubt now.
Melissa was in love with Josh McMillian, single guardian of five active boys. Five boys who had unintentionally erected a shield around their uncle’s heart of gold.
Sh
e laid down the fork and folded her hands on the table to address Josh with more authority. “I think Bradley is doing this for two reasons. First, he sees the going out thing as something his parents did. The way he’s relating you to their routine suggests to me that he’s accepted you completely as his substitute parent. So that’s really good. Secondly, he sees that when his parents went out they came back happy, and he wants you to be happy too. It’s obviously important to him that you’re happy, Josh.”
“Yeah. I know. It stung at the time when Theresa dumped me, but I’m over it. I really am.”
“I don’t think Bradley thinks the same way, or he would be satisfied to have you be single and spend that time with him. But I have an idea. I don’t mind if you want to go out every once in while and let Bradley think we’re dating, but we can just see each other as friends. I don’t want to make you commit to something that you’re not in a position to do. I know the boys come first, and that’s the way it should be. If Bradley sees us doing what he perceives as dating, it will help him deal with life. I wouldn’t want to see him go through what he did before. It nearly broke my heart watching him try to sort things out. I’m also sure the other boys have had similar adjustments to make too.”
“Yes, they’ve all had their stuff to sort out in their heads.”
“Let’s just give it some time. When Bradley has everything figured out, we can either pretend to split up, or we can simply go out less and less and let it peter out.”
“You mean pretend to date? You’d be okay with that? It just occurred to me that I never asked if you’re seeing someone right now. It’s rather obvious I’m not.”
Melissa picked up the fork and pushed a strawberry around on the plate. “Don’t worry. I’m not seeing anyone.”
She didn’t stop playing with her dessert, but she did glance up without moving her head to see that Josh was now doing the same thing with his dessert.
“That’s good,” he muttered, then raised his head. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. What I mean to say is that I’m glad that whatever it is we’re doing isn’t going to come between you and someone else and interfere with an existing relationship. Actually, I’ve thought about that often since Bradley has been putting us together, before we knew what he was doing. Even though I’m sorry to hear that you don’t have anyone to call special, I’m glad I’m not causing some kind of problem. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do know what you mean. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I think this could work, but I worry that you have better things to do with your evenings than to waste your time going out with me.”
She had at least a hundred reasons why she wanted to go out with him. She also had a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t. However, she wasn’t going to let the negative overpower the positive.
From the way her heart soared when she saw Josh, even knowing he didn’t feel the same way, she didn’t think she would be seeing anyone else for a long time. She would never find anyone like Josh, ever again. If she didn’t see him like this, as friends with the guidelines they’d set, she wouldn’t see him at all, and she couldn’t handle that.
“I’m always in the market for a new friend. I really don’t do much most evenings except for Bible study night.”
He smiled, and the butterflies in her stomach went to war with the nice steak dinner she’d just eaten.
“I’d like that. I think I need a friend right now.” He reached across the table and covered her hands with his. “Thank you, Melissa. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”
And he would never know how much their friendship meant to her.
Melissa felt the backs of her eyes burn, but she blinked it away. “Don’t worry about it. Everything will work out just fine. But I think it’s time to go. I guess I’ll see you next time at church on Sunday.”
They both stood.
“Yes. I might as well ask you now. Do you want to come over for lunch?”
❧
Josh knocked on Melissa’s door and checked his watch. As much as he enjoyed his time out with Melissa, he didn’t have time for this. They’d made it a habit to go out twice during the week besides the Bible study, plus once on the weekend. Tonight they had decided to go to a movie, but he should have been at home helping Kyle with his homework. In addition to that, he also should have been fixing the loose board in the fence that Andrew had accidentally knocked out with the soccer ball. Or, he could also have chosen tonight to try and unclog the sink in the downstairs bathroom, which once full, took seven minutes and sixteen seconds to drain. The boys had timed it with the stopwatch feature on Ryan’s wristwatch. They thought they were having fun, squealing with glee when the last drop finally disappeared out of sight and they hit the stop button. It only reminded Josh of one more job he had to do.
“Hi, Josh. You look tired.”
“Yeah, I am tired, but that’s okay. I’ve been tired before, I’ll be tired again. How are you doing? The little kids run you off your feet again today?”
She smiled, and a little of the weight seemed to lift off Josh’s shoulders. “No, today was pretty quiet. Or as quiet as can be when surrounded by six and seven year olds all day.”
He sauntered in and flopped down on the couch. “Better you than me. I figure we should leave in fifteen minutes if we want to get a good seat.”
“I just have some stuff to take out of the dryer. If I fold it, then I won’t have to iron as much. Do you mind waiting? Just turn on the TV, and I’ll be only a few minutes.”
“Take your time. As long as it’s not longer than fifteen minutes.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and gave him the raspberries as she left the room. Josh grinned back, then started to search for the remote.
He couldn’t believe how quickly they’d fallen into an easy friendship, which was exactly what he needed. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the simple pleasure of being able to be completely at ease with a person. Even after dating Theresa for three years, it hadn’t been like this. He didn’t know if he could even be this way with his best friend, whom he hadn’t seen in three months, and probably wouldn’t see for another three months if things kept up the way they were.
With a flick of a button, a popular sitcom came on. Josh slouched and stuck his legs out straight in front of him as he stretched out to relax. He’d already seen this episode, or rather, he’d heard it while he was busy doing something else a couple of days ago, but he didn’t have the energy to reach over and grab the remote a second time.
Since he already knew what was going to happen, Josh let his eyes drift shut, just to give himself a few minutes to think of how he might unclog the drain without having to take the pipe apart and pick the slime out of the trap, a job he wasn’t looking forward to doing. He wondered if he might make a trip to the hardware store on the way home, if it was still open, and just buy a new trap piece and outright replace it. Or maybe he could think of another way. . . .
Slowly, his thoughts faded into oblivion as the voices from the television droned on.
Twelve
“Josh? Josh?”
A slight shaking on his right shoulder brought Josh back to the land of the living. “Huh? What?” He opened one eye. “Melissa?”
He let his head flop back on the couch. “I fell asleep, didn’t I?”
“Isn’t that a rhetorical question?”
If he’d been more alert, he would have bugged her about answering a question with a question, but he knew that in his sleep-fogged state, a battle of wits against a teacher was a losing proposition.
“No, just a dumb question. What time is it?”
“It’s nearly nine, and time for you to go home.”
He sat up straight, then felt himself sway with the too-fast movement. “I slept for two hours? I’m so sorry. You should have kicked me or something.”
Her smile jolted him the rest of the way to full wakefulness. “Naw. I got all my ironing done, did some dusting,
and I got caught up in some prep work for school tomorrow. I was going to go in early to do it, but I did it tonight instead. Now I can sleep in a little later. Oh, I also got some reading done. I recently joined the Heartsong Presents book club, and I get four great little Christian romance novels every month. So it wasn’t like I had nothing to do.”
“In other words, you worked around me.”
“Something like that. Did you know you snore?”
Josh’s cheeks burned. “I do not.”
“You do.”
He covered his face with his hands. “I’m so sorry. I guess I’m not a very fun date. And when I get home, the kids are going to ask what we did tonight.”
“Tell them we spent a very quiet evening together instead of the movie.”
He dropped his hands and grinned. “It wasn’t that quiet if I snore.”
Her answering grin did funny things to his insides. Josh covered his stomach with his open palms. “Have you got anything to eat? I think I’m hungry or something.”
“You may choose between an apple, a banana, or a carrot.”
“I’ll take the carrot. Gotta have my ‘vegabulls.’ Thanks.”
“At least you practice what you preach.”
He followed her into the kitchen, then waited while she washed and peeled it for him.
“I could have done that myself,” he mumbled as he bit into the carrot. “But thanks anyway.”
“I’m sure you could have washed and peeled it. But I did it for you. I was being nice.”
If it were anyone else, he would have made a snide comment, but he couldn’t with Melissa. She really was nice, not just on the surface but from the depths of her being. If it wasn’t for needing to expend all his time and energy on Bradley and the other kids, he would have dated her for real, and not be bound by their wacky arrangement to be friends, and friends only. On the other hand, if it wasn’t for Bradley and his childish matchmaking efforts, he wouldn’t have met her at all.
Either way he looked at it, it was a lose-lose situation.
Instead of saying what he really thought, Josh decided to change the subject. “I think going out three times on the weeknights is too much for this tired, old man. Obviously you’re busy too, and seeing me is taking time away from stuff that’s really important. Do you think we should start to cut down the amount of time we’re going out on these dates? I think one date during the week, plus Bible study night, then once on the weekend is enough for Bradley to see us together.”
