“Look. It’s cool. You’re experimenting. You’re a fool for having passed up home plate tickets, but I can see why you’d be nervous. But bi? You really think?”
I shook my head and sipped at the second scotch that sat before me. I looked him straight in the face and said, “No. I think I’m gay.”
Aaron fell silent again. He regarded me a moment then started to laugh.
“What? Dude. Seriously? Fuck you!” I got up to storm off, but the multiple beers I drank, coupled with the scotch, had other ideas.
“Sit down,” Aaron sputtered.
“I gotta take a piss.”
“Sit for a second.”
I slumped back into my seat and glared at the man who was giggling like a middle school girl.
“I’m sorry. Listen. This is a lot to take in. Really, I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck am I gonna do?”
“You’re sure you’re…you know?”
“Pretty sure.”
“But you said you hadn’t had sex yet. And before you said bi, but now you’re saying gay. Maybe you’re just confused? I mean, if you are you are and that’s cool, but…why do you think you’re gay? I mean, without having had sex. What if you hate it? No sense in labeling yourself yet, right?”
“Aar, I’ve never, and I mean never, felt like this about a girl. None of it, if you know what I’m sayin’.”
“Except for Elizabeth though, right?”
I dropped my head in shame and shook my head. “Don’t get me wrong. I love her. But it’s not the way I feel when I’m with Tanner. That heart racing shit you and Jim talk about, I never really had that with Elizabeth. She was good to me. She made me happy. She was a good friend. Honestly, I look back and just…not the same. And the…e-hem…physical stuff? Not even close. Our marriage was a sham. I was an idiot. I was so busy climbing the corporate ladder and distracting myself with building a business, all under the guise of making us financially secure, but maybe I was running from her? And hiding? I don’t know. These past few weeks have been…” I shook my head and my gut started to send me a message. An angry message from the beer.
I stood and said “I’m gonna take that piss now.” I stood and ambled my way to the men’s room. I was just finishing my business, when the smell of the urinal hit me hard. I ran to a stall and puked my guts out. I heaved and heaved, sweating bullets. Tears were coming from my eyes, but those were from puking, right?
I wiped my eyes and mouth with some toilet paper then opened the stall door. Aaron was standing there with some wet paper towels. I took the towels and wiped my face again, grateful for the cool against my face. I washed my hands, and stared into the mirror. I turned to head out of the bathroom, but Aaron stopped me.
He pulled me into a hug, with some brotherly slaps to my back, and said, “It’ll be okay. I promise. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll be here for ya.”
I hugged him back. Then, the waterworks. For the first time since the divorce, I cried. I was fucking crying. Like a fucking girl.
I looked at the doorway to the bathroom and there stood Aaron, arms crossed over his chest. “You okay?”
I got up, washed my face with cool water, and swished my mouth out with some as well. “Are you?” I asked.
“What do you mean? I’m not the one with my face in a toilet.”
I gave him a dirty look. He knew what I was talking about and it wasn’t the puking from too much drinking.
“Oh! You mean you and Tanner? Dude, what’s it to me?”
“Yeah, but Aaron…we could lose business. Everything we’ve worked for?” I dropped the lid on the toilet and sat before my legs gave out.
“What the fuck? If they think you’re not good at financial planning because you like guys, to hell with ‘em. We don’t need clients like those.”
“Are you sure? I’ll sell my half to—”
“Shut the fuck up, would ya? If you want to make a big deal about it, fine. We can change our logo to a rainbow if you want. In my opinion, it’s nobody’s fucking business. Just do me one favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t cry on me again.”
I burst out half laughing/half groaning from my pounding headache.
“We’re good?” he asked.
“We’re good,” I agreed.
CHAPTER 29
I spent Saturday night recuperating from both the excessive drinking and the humiliation of having talked to Aaron. He seemed okay with it, but the Negative Ned in my head said he was just being nice until he found a legal way to cut me loose. Was I really going down this path?
I wanted to call, or at least text, Tanner and apologize again, but I was at a loss for what to say. I didn’t know when his flight back to Chicago was, and I convinced myself that he was already on his way back, and that my text would fall on a powered down phone.
Sunday I felt more human again. As I packed a carryon for my flight to New York, thoughts flooded my mind about Chicago. Things were so good there. I wanted that back. If Aaron really was okay with Tanner and me, maybe things would be good here…eventually. However, I was still hesitant. I had more people to talk to before I started telling everyone else. I already felt guilty telling Aaron before talking to Elizabeth about this. She should have been the first person I talked to. Oh, God…I was going to see her. Would I have the strength to talk to her on this trip?
Around five in the afternoon, I drove to San Francisco for my flight. My four-thirty-six p.m. flight, Pacific time, would land at one a.m. Eastern time, but since it was a last minute booking, it was all that was available. It took all my energy to focus on the trip at hand and not let my tired mind fester on the days past. I was heading to New York. To visit my princess. For her birthday. Of course, I’d have to face Elizabeth as well, and that was going to be the hard part of this trip. I decided to leave out the whole ‘new discovery about Greg’ part out of this trip and focus on apologizing to Elizabeth for being such a horrible husband. I needed to repair, at the very least, our friendship first. I practiced all sorts of apology speeches in my head. I knew she was with a better man…one who liked women.
On the plane, I focused my attention on the in-flight movie selection, choosing an Oscar winner I had yet to see, and checked out of my own life for a while. The movie was Argo, with Ben Affleck and my problems suddenly seemed very small. Nothing like a good bio-pic to put things into perspective.
After the movie, I continued to practice my apology speech to Elizabeth, and then considered my options with Tanner. How would I apologize to him?
I landed in New York and made my way to the taxi line, where I grabbed a ride to the hotel. At nearly two o’clock in the morning, the streets were eerily quiet. Morgan had booked my stay at the Hilton Midtown on Sixth and Fifty-sixth, just a few blocks south of Central Park. I only briefly wondered why she booked me at the Hilton instead of a Hyatt, but a nice hotel was a nice hotel.
After I checked in shortly after two, I crashed and slept until around ten in the morning. I took things easy and tried to figure out my next move with Tanner. If Aaron really was okay, maybe Jim would be okay, too? That felt like a stretch. Slowly. That was going to be the way with Jim. Hopefully.
I took the mid-day to meander through the popular streets of New York. The city was rather busy for a Monday and it took me a bit to figure out why. This week was the anniversary of nine-eleven. My thoughts went back to Tanner. How was he coping with this? How could I have been so self-absorbed to not realize that this week coming up for him would be a hard one?
Should I text him? What would I say?
Maybe it was that I was, once again, away from home, or that Aaron’s acceptance, gave me some comfort, but I decided it was time to ‘man up.’ I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and drafted a text to Tanner:
3:15pm
I’m sorry. Will you
forgive me? When
do you come back
to Napa? Can I take
you to di
nner?
I read it over a few times to make sure it said exactly what I wanted to say. I went back and made one small correction…
3:16pm
I’m sorry. Will you
forgive me? When
do you come back
to Napa? Can I take
you OUT to dinner?
Satisfied, I hit send. I stared at the screen waiting for a reply. He was always so quick in the past. Shit! Was he ignoring me? I couldn’t blame him. I started to get nervous when he didn’t respond right away, and then I realized he was probably practicing. His job wasn’t like mine where I had my cell with me at all times. He was on a field. Running. Kicking. Sweating. That last thought made my body warm.
I put my phone in my pocket, tried to put Tanner out of my mind for now, and started walking north toward Seventy-ninth Street, to a steak house called Ed Scott’s at Third Avenue. I’d been there a couple of times before. The first time, when I came to find Elizabeth when she’d run away back in April, then again when Elizabeth and I moved our daughter to the city early in the summer. Elizabeth used to work there, and I heard she still did. Dinner reservations weren’t until six-thirty, which gave me a nice couple of hours to refresh my mind with my apology speeches to Elizabeth.
Feeling that I had my head on straight (ha-ha) to talk to Elizabeth, thoughts invariably turned to Tanner. If Aaron was really, truly okay with my newly discovered version of me, then, I guess all would be fine. After further talking to him, while I was sober on Saturday, I really felt that he was…fine with me and Tanner, and I would have at least one person in my corner. We might lose a client or two (e-hem, the Reverend) but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. How would Elizabeth take it?
I was just exiting Central Park at the Metropolitan Museum when my phone buzzed in. I quickly pulled the device out of my pocket and was relieved, more or less, to see the reply from Tanner.
5:51pm
I’d like that. I’ll be in touch.
Not sure when I’ll be
Back in Napa. TTYL
Okay, so, he’s accepted my invitation for some mystery time. But his message was so brief. Was he also accepting my apology? Shit! Had I completely ruined things?
I shoved my phone in my pocket and tried to forget about it. I’d done what I could. I was making the first steps. I apologized. He knew this would be hard for me, or at least he said he knew and understood. Once I was done with Phoebe’s birthday dinner tonight, I would have to figure out my further apology strategy with Tanner. I really was having to apologize all over the place. Man…I was an ass! Right now, I needed to get my head out of (gulp) boyfriend mode, and into Daddy-slash-ex-husband mode.
Standing in front of the door to Ed Scott’s Steak House, I took a deep breath in and slowly released it. Game time. I was looking forward to seeing Phoebe, but seeing Elizabeth, and Jack, made me more nervous than I expected.
I walked in through the heavy wood and glass door, and stood at the hostess stand, where the young hostess was speaking to a customer on the phone. She signaled to me to ‘hang on’. While I waited, my gaze was drawn to the bar. A flood of memories crashed into my mind from last April when I came to find Elizabeth, convince her to call off her crazy ‘adventure’ and bring her back to Napa. Jim had been great with worming some information from his wife, who was my wife’s best friend since before college. Anyway, he was able to tell me that Elizabeth was working at this place as a bartender. That’s where I found her, stocking beer bottles. When she realized I had found her, she dropped a beer bottle sending it spraying all over her. I was equally shocked when I saw her—her beautiful, long brown hair, chopped short. That night, Jack Stevens also eyed me menacingly, even though I didn’t know who he was at the time. The next day, Elizabeth and I sat through an awkward dinner, and then a very bizarre evening that started with some sexual revelations of Elizabeth’s that were absolutely not to my liking. I knew that weekend that things between us would never be the same; I just couldn’t have expected how drastically different they would be.
I pulled my attention from that dark, awkward place, and looked in the dining area, a place without memories. Right away, in the far front corner of the restaurant by the windows, I spotted my Phoebe.
She was so grown up looking. Where had my little girl with braces and braids gone? The half-pint who sat on my knee while opening her birthday and Christmas gifts? Then again, those were the few times where I took time for my kids. Holidays. I went to a few dance recitals, and games, but there was always something more pressing at the office. Shit! Years I would never get back. Now my baby was an adult.
Phoebe looked absolutely radiant. The city apparently agreed with her. She turned to look at the man seated to her right. She looked at him with such love and devotion, and the smile that graced her face made my heart skip a beat for her. The man then leaned forward and kissed her sweetly on her forehead. Part of me wanted to charge in and pull him off of her, yet the other part was taken aback by the tender way he regarded her. Nothing lewd or obscene. A chaste, and loving kiss to her forehead. It was clear they were both deeply committed to one another. He was a keeper—so far.
At the large round table with three vacant seats yet, to Phoebe’s left sat Elizabeth. She took my breath away, but still, it wasn’t like it should be. She was simply a striking woman. However, she now held herself differently. There was a self-assuredness in her, the one that irked me months ago during divorce discussions. Now, it was a beautiful thing. Next to Elizabeth was Jack Stevens. As I had noted the last time I saw him, he was a ridiculously handsome older man, and I did mean older. Who would have ever thought that Elizabeth would be drawn to a man ten years older than her?
There were three more chairs and I wondered who else would be joining the party. I politely pointed for the frazzled hostess that I had located my dinner party. She smiled sweetly and nodded, so I walked to the table with the happy foursome thinking, well, this won’t be awkward at all.
On my walk to the table, Elizabeth spotted me first. She smiled timidly. We’d not spoken much, and I wondered how my apology would go over, and when I’d be able to get time to deliver said apology. I smiled back at her warmly. I was genuinely happy for her. She seemed to recognize that as she cocked her head slightly and changed her smile to a proud and grateful one, her eyes crinkling with happiness. She elbowed Phoebe slightly, who immediately looked my way. She beamed and said, “Daddy!”
The man that was seated next to her, the one had kissed her, stood, and faced me. He looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place his face at all. He took a step in my direction and extended a hand to me. “Mr. Fairchild. Charlie Smith. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His speech had a slight southern drawl to it. Clearly, he wasn’t a New Yorker. We shook hands. He had a good handshake. Kid is doing well, I thought. Is this why Phoebe wanted me to come out? She’s not going to announce that she’s getting married or something? She’s far too young!
I looked at Phoebe’s hands for a ring and panic started to grip me when I saw a rather large and stunning ring with blue stones and diamonds on her ring finger. It took me a second for it to register that the ring was on her right hand not her left. Was it simply a birthday gift from this Charlie Smith?
Suddenly, Elizabeth was at my side. “It’s good to see you. You look well,” she said with a curious lilt to her statement.
“Thank you. You look wonderful yourself,” I said. And I truly meant it. I gave her a gentle hug, keeping an eye on Jack, who looked more than a little uncomfortable with me touching his girl. I stepped back from Elizabeth and turned to the man who was wishing evil things to happen to my man parts, and extended my hand. “Jack, it’s good to see you again.” Then out of nowhere I added, “I see you’re making Elizabeth very happy. Thank you.” My comment stunned him, almost as much as it stunned me. He took my hand, shook it with a nearly painful grip, and gave me a curt nod, with an expression on his face somewhere between damn-straight-I-make-her-happy and wha
t’s-your-game?
I turned to Phoebe who was slack jaw watching the exchange that was beyond civil between her parents who, the last time she’d seen us together, were barely speaking. “Don’t I get a hug from the birthday girl? I did fly all the way across the country to see you,” I smiled and held my arms out for her.
“Um, Daddy,” she started. Uh-oh. Why do I think I’m not going to like what’s about to come out of her mouth? “I want you to know that everything is under control.” What an odd statement.
Phoebe stood and started to walk to me. Immediately, my gaze dropped to her mid-section, and while she’d never been a twig like some of her dancer friends, she’d always had a nice figure. Currently, my baby…my twenty-year-old baby girl…had a bump. As if she’d swallowed a small watermelon. Not one of those giant ones, but not one of those tiny seedless kinds either. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her belly. My mind started to come up with all sorts of reasons like she’d adopted some really horrible eating habits, to the macabre, does she have some rapid growing tumor growing, to the completely insane that she’d been attacked by an alien like the movie and that at any moment, her ribcage would burst and a hideous creature would escape. But as soon as she hugged me, her belly pressing into mine, I knew.
My eyes flew to Mr. Charming-With-the-Tender-Forehead-Kisses and I clenched my fists.
“Daddy,” she whispered in my ear, “It isn’t Charlie’s. Don’t be mad at him. Let’s sit and discuss this like adults. But hug me first. This is awkward.”
Awkward? She wasn’t kidding! What the fuck of all things sane was going on here?
I complied and hugged her back, giving her a kiss to the side of her head—she still was my daughter after all. Phoebe walked back to her seat and I chose the seat next to Charlie. The tension at the table was thick, but I watched Phoebe and her poise was, in a word, remarkable.
Unexpected Dreams: Dream Series, Book 4 Page 20
