by Katie Dowe
******
“Where are you?” Latoya asked her friend absently as she made quick work of the research she was sending by email. She had been busier than usual today so she was not worried that Mark had not called her. He was probably deep into his writing. She was planning on stopping at the grocery store to buy some groceries. She was going to cook chicken and some pasta dish for them. He was coming around, she thought with a smile.
“Atlanta,” Coretta told her. “I have a layover and then I am coming home for at least a couple of days. Thank goodness I will be able to get away from ‘Mr. Obsessive.’”
“I thought you were going to end it.”
“Try ending something with a man who is claiming that he has found his true love at last,” she said with a sigh. “How is the love of your life?”
“I am cooking him dinner later,” she said with a smile in her voice.
“You sound happy.” Her friend paused. “Is he as happy as you are?”
“If he is not he is getting there. I just have to learn to live with his moodiness, but I understand it is because of his creative side.”
“Honey, be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Of being too caught up in your emotions so you don’t notice that he is not as committed as you are.”
Latoya felt the sensible comment sliced through her and for a moment she felt her heart quaking! He had seemed withdrawn for the past couple of days but she had not paid it any mind. “He is,” she said quietly. “I have to think that.”
“If he breaks your heart I am going to find him and break his penis,” Coretta warned her.
Latoya laughed softly at that. “Let’s hope it does not come to that.”
“See you when I get there.”
Latoya hung up from her and gazed over at the medium sized painting on the wall. It depicted a young child caught up in his mother’s arms and the broad smiles on their faces. For a moment, she was wistful wondering when she was going to experience the joy of motherhood!
Chapter 5
“We need to talk,” he told her the end of October. She had come by his apartment from work and had changed into a sweatpants and a sweater.
“Sounds serious.” He was in the living room where a fire was burning in the hearth. She told herself to calm down as things were going well. He got up from where he was sitting and moved over to the mantel.
“I told myself that I would give it six months and it is almost at the end of that time. If I fail to come up with the hit songs I have been trying to come up with, I am going to have to go back to doing law.”
“You cannot give up!’ she cried, relieved that was what he wanted to talk about. “You have talent, Mark, and you should stick to what you are doing.”
“I have two months to come up with something and I need a quiet place to do so. I need complete isolation.”
Her eyes met his and she knew exactly what he was getting at!
“You have quiet here.” She got to her feet and walked over to face him. He could not be ending it! Please no! Her heart cried out. “I can stay away for a few days if that is what you want.”
He turned away from her and walked to the window to look out. “I am going to Texas.” The words were like spikes driving into her heart and she could not breathe! “I have a friend there and he has offered his cabin for me to use. It’s pretty isolated so I am going to take him up on his offer and see where it goes.” He turned to look at her for a moment and felt his heart twisting in regret. “I cannot ask you to wait for me.”
“We could keep in touch,” she said desperately, feeling her life splintering. “Long distance relationships work if the two people are willing to try.”
He was hurting her and he never planned on doing so. “I am sorry, Latoya. I really care about you, but I care about my career more. I need to do this, but I have to get rid of all the distractions around me. The only way I can do that is to go away.”
She was a distraction! Latoya almost bent over with the pain of it. That was the only thing she had been to him. Coretta had been right! She had felt more than he did. She had been the girl who had taken him away from his work for a short time and now he needed her gone.
She got her feelings under control as she had learned to do over the years when she had realized that even though she was an only child she had never been included in the small circle her mother and father had created. Pulling herself up to her full height she looked him in the eyes. He would never know how much her heart was breaking right now because she was not going to give him that satisfaction. “I wish you all the best.” Her lips wobbled for a moment and she almost broke down right there. “I will get my things and leave.”
“You don’t have to leave tonight,” he bit out impatiently as she turned away.
“Do you want me to stay the night knowing that you are leaving me?” Her dark brown eyes shimmered with tears as she looked at him. “Even I have my pride, Mark. Please allow me a few minutes to pack up what I have and get dressed before coming into the room.”
She prayed desperately that he would come after and tell her that he had not meant it. All through packing her stuff into her large pocketbook and even when she was putting on her clothes she kept praying but he never came. She went into the bathroom to splash some cold water onto her face to keep from crying there and then and after drying her face she made her way out. He was waiting for her at the door. “I am sorry,” he told her quietly, his eyes searching her face as if looking for tear marks.
She nodded and taking her coat, she quickly left. She held it together until she went downstairs and even when she was in the cab heading home she did not cry. She waited until she had reached into her apartment before slumping down onto the carpet and crying as if her heart was going to break!
*****
Mark almost called her back. He had seen the look on her face even though she had put up a brave front. She had been hoping that they would become an item and maybe if things were different and he had met her at a different time in his life he would have not hesitated. But he was not able to deal with a relationship now and he never should have started one! Now he was going to have to live with himself that he had hurt her so much! He tunneled his fingers through his hair and grabbed at the strands until his scalp tingled. He had to do this! He had to prove to himself and his mother and sister that he had not quit his job as a lawyer for nothing.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number. “Hey, buddy. What gives?”
“How isolated is the place?”
“The cabin is surrounded by dense foliage and your neighbor who is us is about a mile away. It’s very private. So much so that you can bathe naked outside and no one would notice.”
“There is an actual bathroom inside, right?” Mark asked him.
“Of course!” Lance said with a laugh. “When can we expect you?’
“Tomorrow,” he said, making the decision right then. No use sticking around now.
“Good, I cannot wait to see you.”
*****
For the first time since she had started working at the law firm, Latoya called in sick. She had spent the night reliving the conversation over and over in her head and trying to find out where it had all gone wrong! He had told her that he wanted time and space to go and do his writing and that time was running out on him. He had referred to her as a distraction and that had hurt the most. She had finally drifted off in the early hours of the morning where she had spent the time twisting and turning on the bed. She had woken up the next morning with a fierce headache and knew she would never be able to make it to work.
She had told her boss that she seemed to be coming down with something and that was the truth!
*****
“You look like hell, man.” Lance greeted him with those words the minute he saw him at the airport.
“Thanks,” Mark told him dryly as he hefted his suitcase in the back of his friend’s Jeep. He had not had a very good night la
st night. He had spent the time sitting on the side of the bed staring at nothing in particular. He shivered slightly remembering that he had not remembered to put on his jacket. He climbed into the passenger seat of the vehicle and they made their way out. “How is the family?”
“Good.” Lance glanced at his friend taking in the weary look on his face. “Lola cannot wait to see you. I have warned her against falling in love with you or I am going to have kill both of you.”
“We would not want to put you through that trouble,” Mark said with a slight smile. “I am just going to concentrate on my writing for now.”
Lance nodded and concentrated on the driving. He knew when his friend wanted to avoid discussing a situation and one of the many reasons they remained friends was because he respected his unspoken wishes.
The ranch type house nestled in the middle of several huge trees and was a very pretty faded pink color with blue bonnets all around the grounds. The grounds stretched for several miles away and Mark could see the cattle grazing on the grass.
Lance told him to go on inside while he went around the side of the building to park. He was greeted enthusiastically by a very pregnant Lola, her fiery red hair pinned up on top of her head, and two children coming behind her. “It’s about time!” she exclaimed as she came forward to hug him.
“Your husband drives like an old woman,” Mark told her with a grin.
“Not true, I was showing him the scenery,” Lance said behind them.
“I have been to Texas before,” Mark reminded him dryly.
“This is our son Michael.” Lola pulled a shy five-year-old out from behind her with the same shade red hair and her light green eyes. “And this is our little angel, Marissa. She is three.” The little girl was the spitting image of her father with his black hair and light blue eyes! She had a thumb in her mouth as she stared up at him for a moment and then ran into his arms.
“My wife and my daughter,” Lance sighed dramatically. “I am beginning to have second thoughts about you coming here.”
They persuaded him to stay for dinner and he did actually falling a little in love with the adorable Marissa but insisted on going on to the cabin and spending the night there.
“Please don’t be a stranger,” Lola admonished him as she heaped up foodstuff for him to take there. “Or I will draw my pregnant self out there to get you.”
“It won’t come to that.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “We need to plan a date when you can run off with me.”
“I am right here,” Lance told them in an aggrieved tone, shifting his daughter more onto his hip.
“Better to know now than when we are gone,” Mark told him with a grin. Lance had given him one of the Jeeps to use and he was going to find his way to the cabin. He had told Lance that he did not want him driving out there and then having to come back.
“Thanks, guys.”
“He does not look happy,” Lola commented as soon as he had left.
“Leave it alone, Lola,” Lance warned her.
The path to the cabin was not smooth, but Mark was not in a hurry. He made his way there slowly admiring the lushness of the land his friend had acquired. He got to the small log cabin in a few minutes and got out of the Jeep. He looked around and for a minute it appeared to be too quiet with only the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of trees around. He hauled the packages of food and his suitcase out and headed for the door. The inside was charming and neat. There was a large fireplace in the living room and wood was already chopped and ready to make a fire if there was a need. He went into the small kitchen to put away the food and found several canned items in the small cupboard. Good, he thought. There was enough food because he had no intention of surfacing until he had come up with something workable! His mother had been horrified that he was going away and Stephanie had told him that he was the worst twin a girl could ever have! He had broken three hearts with his decision but he had a feeling that he had done a number on Latoya! For a minute, he felt the grip of loneliness coming over him, but he shrugged it off and went to get ready for bed.
*****
“In my office please, Latoya.” Mr. Gaston’s voice came over the intercom and this time she was sure he was not calling her to tell her that she had gotten another raise! For the past two weeks since Mark had left, she had not been herself. She would find herself sitting at her desk and then bursting into tears right there! Her research which had always been so accurate was now incomplete and shoddy and that was not usually her.
”Yes, sir?” She stood quietly there and waited while he perused a thick document he had in his hands.
“Have a seat.”
She did and waited some more feeling more and more uncomfortable. What if he was going to fire her, she thought panicking. This would be the last straw.
He finally looked up at her noticing her drawn features and her reddened eyes. “You have always been a very good employee. One of the best I have ever seen. Do you know why that is?”
She started to say something but her throat would not allow her to so she just sat there and stared at him.
“It’s because of your thoroughness and attention to details.” He answered his own question. “This is not like you.” He tapped the document in his hand. “That is how I have discovered that something is very wrong. Usually I don’t get mixed up with my employees’ personal businesses but you are too valuable to this company not to intervene. I am not going to ask you about it even though I have a pretty good idea what is going on, but I am going to give you the rest of the day to go home and think carefully if this job is important to you. Whoever he is that is causing you so much misery is not worth it. Take the time and think about what I said and come back a whole different person tomorrow.”
*****
Latoya cried for about an hour first. She went home and curled up on the bed and pulling the sheets over her she gave in the tears crying as if her heart would break. She had fallen hard for a man who cared more about where he wanted to reach than her and it was pretty painful. She cried about her parents never loving her the way they loved each other and the isolation she had always felt. She cried about missing Mark so much that it was like a physical pain inside her! When she was spent she laid there and stared at the small dresser that had her cosmetics on it and she started thinking. Several hours later, she got up and went to the bathroom where she soaked for a long time in an herbal bath before going into the kitchen to get something to eat. It was time to move forward. She was still going to be in love with him, but she was not going to destroy her life over him anymore!
*****
Slowly but surely, she got better. Within a few months, she could think of him without feeling the sharp pain inside her chest. Coretta was home for a week and told her firmly that she needed to get back out there.
“Not just yet,” she told her friend quietly. “I am still in love with him and I am not going to get back out there just for the sake of forgetting him. That is not going to happen.”
“I sometimes wish I was like you.” Coretta sighed. “You are the intense type and when you fall in love you do it for keeps. I, on the other hand, fall in lust over and over again and it never works out.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Latoya told her dryly.
“Have you tried calling him?”
Latoya looked down at the cup of hot chocolate she had in her hand for a moment. She had gone back the very next day after her boss had spoken to her and had thrown herself into her work with full force. At the end of the week, she had seen the look of approval on Mr. Gaston’s face and knew she had passed muster. The nights had been the hardest when she had come home to her empty apartment and lay in bed thinking about what they had shared. “I broke the promise to myself and called him two times last week, but his phone went straight to voicemail,” she admitted.
“Oh, honey,” Coretta exclaimed in sympathy. “Okay, from now on, we are going on sabbatical from men.”
“How long
can you last?” Latoya asked her teasingly.
“I will never know until I try,” she said wryly. “Besides I ended it with the married pilot definitely. I am praying that he does not do something stupid like landing the plane full of passengers in the Amazon or something crazy like that.”
“I am sure he is not that stupid.”
“I have little faith in men, honey. They tend to think with other parts of their bodies except their minds!”
*****
Mark stared at his unshaven face for a moment and realized that he had started to look like a wild eyed hippie. It had been a couple of months since he had been holed up in the small cabin only coming up for air when there was a knock on the door and a basket of food brought to him by Lance. He spoke to his friend for a few hours and then he would get back to work. Lola had invited him over to the house for dinner and he gone and he had also gone over for the birth of their son but that had been it. He had texted his mother and sister to let them know that he was still alive and well and he had paid his bills online. He had thought about calling Latoya, but he had no idea what to say to her. He had seen her missed calls and had thought about returning her calls but he had not done so. He could not give her what she wanted. It was best he ended with a clean break. He had already hurt her enough and he had no intention of doing so again. He missed her and remembered every nuance of her curvaceous body, the feel of her skin on his tongue, and the texture of her nipple as he pulled it between his teeth. He had felt himself hardening as he thought about sinking his dick deep inside her and the moans that had escaped her. She was so passionate and so warm and giving that he had never met another woman like her in his life.
