Rebound

by Rosemary Rey

  “I need coffee. Do you want me to make you some? I bought you some soy milk.” Matt asked, standing to go to the kitchen.

  “You did?” I asked astounded.

  “Yep. I figured you’d want coffee in the morning, and I remembered that you ordered a soy latte when we were in the café. I didn’t have any here, so I bought some.” I could just kiss him. Shit, every step of the way he has proven himself to be more of an attentive lover than Ben did in all the time I wasted with him.

  “Please. I’ll take some coffee with soy and three sugars, please. You’re the best.” He smiled as he prepared the coffees.

  He settled both mugs on the counter and walked around to sit. He took a few more bites of his omelet and took a few sips of his coffee. My coffee was fantastic, laced with a little bit of--what could I even call it?—love? Too soon to think about that word. We were silent as we ate our food and drank our coffee. This felt comfortable. This felt true.

  “I want to ask you something.” Matt broke the silence. My heartbeat quickened. No thoughts passed through my mind as to what he would want to discuss.

  “Yes?” I asked, turning to face him, hoping to prompt him to spit it out.

  “I’d like you to stay with me every night this week while I’m still in town. I told you that I leave for Spain on Thursday afternoon. I’ll be back late afternoon on Sunday. You’re welcome to stay in my apartment while I’m away so that you can be closer to both of your jobs. I’d feel more comfortable knowing you’re here. There’s twenty four hour security in this building. You won’t need for anything. Glynnis will supply any food or cook meals for you. You would just have to let her know. You would have access to my car to get around when you need . . .” He stopped to look at me because I didn’t say one word. No sounds, not even an exhalation, escaped from my lips. He was offering me so much in such a short timeline that I was flummoxed. The offerings were swirling in my head, making me a bit dizzy, anxiety building. I pushed my plate to the opposite side of the counter, stood up, and walked over to clean up; thinking.

  “Perla? It may seem like I’m offering a lot in such a short time, but I just want to share the things I have with you. I want to make sure you’re safe. I really would like you to be here when I get back on Sunday. What do you say?”

  “Matt. I don’t know.” I finally said, still mulling over the offer, sensing there wasn’t a right answer.

  “It’s simple. I’m not asking for anything in return. I just want to know that you’re here. I really like you. I want to keep you safe. I think we have great chemistry. And I want to just . . . I don’t know . . . see how this works out.” The honesty floored me.

  “This could work out with me staying at my place Matt. For almost four days you wouldn’t be here, so I don’t know why you’re asking me to stay alone in an unfamiliar place.”

  “It’s not unfamiliar. You’ve been here since Friday. You’ve made your way around the kitchen already. You’re welcome to everything. I trust you. I just want to make sure you’re safe and aren’t in need of anything. And I want you here when I get back on Sunday.”

  “Unfamiliar means that my things aren’t here. I don’t live here, Matt. I wouldn’t feel comfortable being in your home, walking around naked in this pristine place, without my creature comforts.” I replied gently.

  “You’d walk around naked?”

  “Of all that, that’s what you honed in on? You’re such a dude.” He laughed.

  “Fine, you don’t have to stay while I’m gone, but will you stay until I leave on Thursday? We can pick up a few things at your place after work, some creature comfort stuff. And you can stay with me. You can go home when I take flight on Thursday.”

  “Is that really what you want?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “What I really want is my first offer. Stay till Sunday. Use my home. Make it your home. Use my car. Make it your car. I’ll give Glynnis time off so you can walk around naked.” I laughed. The offer was tempting when he put it that way.

  “You drive a hard bargain. I accept your second offer. I’ll stay till Thursday. In the meantime, I’ll think about staying till Sunday.”

  “Great, I accept your counteroffer.” He gave me a kiss as he hugged me tight. “We should go. I’ll drop you off at work.” For a doctor, he sure knows a lot about contracts.

  “All this negotiating is exhausting. Give me two minutes to clean up.”

  “No. Glynnis will be here at noon. She’ll clean up.” I washed my hands and wiped them dry. He pulled out my jacket and purse from the closet.

  “I should take my cooler.”

  “Leave it. You don’t have lunch in it anyway. I’ll give you money to buy lunch.” He said. I walked toward him to get into my jacket.

  “Matt, I don’t need your money. I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.” I sighed in exasperation. He didn’t respond.

  We walked out of the apartment. I was starting to feel like a kept woman. The independent side of me was having problems with that. My feminine side wanted to be taken care of. In my mind, both were battling for seniority.

  He locked the door while I punched the elevator button furiously. He wouldn’t understand my taking issue with being dependent on a man.

  When he sidled up to hold me, I summoned the courage to be honest. I didn’t want to let my true feelings be suppressed. “Matt, I have to be honest with you. I’ve had to work hard to become independent again after my separation and divorce. I’d depended a lot on my ex-husband and that turned out to be a catastrophe. It’s okay if you pay for the occasional coffee or dinner and a movie, but as far as giving me money for lunch, that’s not acceptable to me. I can and have taken care of myself this long, and I’m content this way. I don’t want to feel kept again, which is why I’m feeling a bit unsettled by your first offer. You offered the very things my husband gave to me and then abruptly ripped away. I can’t go there again.”

  He pursed his lips and thought a bit. The elevator arrived just in time, which seemed to give him more time to think before he responded.

  He pressed the button for the parking level. The quiet was uncomfortable. I realized that Matt would shut down whenever I said something that didn’t sit well with him. We arrived at the parking level and walked to his car. He opened the door for me and closed it once I entered. Once he entered the car and turned it on, he turned to me. His eyes sought mine. As I looked into his eyes, the nerves caught in my throat.

  “I don’t offer these things lightly. It isn’t that I’m trying to keep you or control you. I want to share these things with you because I absolutely know that you aren’t the type of woman to use me for my money or for what I can provide. I want to give you these things because you deserve them. You’ve brought me more happiness in these couple of days than I’ve ever had. I can’t define what this is, but I don’t want to lose it, so if I can make it easy for you for one week, I would only be giving you a fraction of what you’ve given me.”

  Knowing that I may never hear those words again impelled me to lean in and give him a kiss. I needed to touch him, touching his chin. I felt an electrical surge course through my body from his kiss. At that moment, I knew I would never get over him, and that is what frightened me most.

  “My new favorite thing about you, your beard. It broke top five. Thank you. I appreciate your words. I’ll try to accept and I’ll try to stop resisting.”

  “Good. Off to work.” He peeled out of the parking spot.

  ELEVEN

  Before he dropped me off at the front of the building, he informed me that he will pick me up after my class at about 7:15 p.m. We gave each other a heated kiss. I tore myself out of the car and waved goodbye. I ran into the building with tears threatening to burst from my eyes. Where the hell did this emotion come from? I felt a mixture of elation and emptiness. I tried to pull myself together before retrieving the keys from the service desk.

  I kept busy, preventing a break down because so much
had transpired between us in such a short time. Matt wasn’t giving me enough space to process our connection. If I had a chance to be alone with my thoughts, and not during work hours, I could start feeling more comfortable about the speed in which we are becoming a couple. I couldn’t even call it that. We hadn’t expressed exclusivity. He was saying the right things and offering the very best. I didn’t want to get caught up in a fantasy.

  I got into a groove of working, suppressing my thoughts about him when my stomach began to growl. It was 1 p.m. My scheduled tour would be at three. I had no walk-ins, and none of the staff peered in for a chat. Seeing me with my head down, analyzing reports must’ve steered them clear.

  It was time to take a break. I got up and told Larry at the front desk that I was taking my thirty minute lunch break. I remembered that I had no lunch with me. I grabbed my purse and thought I should check to see if Chelsea wanted to take a break with me. I walked by her office. Luckily, she was in.

  “Hi, Lovey.” I knocked on the door. Chelsea looked up and smiled.

  “Hi, Sweetie. How are you?”

  “Good. I’m hoping you can spare thirty minutes for lunch. My treat. Please.”

  “I already ate, but I’ll take a coffee.”

  “Great! Are you able to go now?”

  “Sure.” She collected her things and closed her door.

  “Maybe I can get a salad at the café. How are you?” I asked postponing my conversation. I wanted her advice as to how to proceed with Matt. We walked toward the gym’s front entrance, proceeding to the café.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t pack your lunch. That’s not like you.”

  “I spent last night with Matt. I didn’t make anything to bring today. I was kind of busy.”

  “Mhmm. I bet you were. So how’s it going?”

  We arrived at the café and it was moderately busy. I found a salad and took Chelsea’s coffee order. Chelsea grabbed the next available table. After standing in line for an eternity, I was able to order and pay. I brought the salad to the table waiting for the latte and Chelz’s coffee to be ready. Chelz grabbed our coffees so I could eat my salad without losing time.

  “To answer your question . . .” I took a deep breath trying to formulate the story. “I feel like it’s developing too fast. We had a great time Saturday. We had great sex. He took me home and I thought, okay, I’ll see him someday. He picked me up the next morning at an ungodly hour, left tons of voicemails and texts, and . . .” I took another moment to compose how much I could say without sounding ungrateful. “He picked me up from work last night. He washed my clothes. These are yesterday’s clothes that he washed, dried and folded. He bathed me. He brushed my teeth. He tucked me in bed. He bought me soy milk. Fuck, Chelz. He’s done more in this short time . . .”

  “Than Ben ever did for you, right?” She filled in the blank correctly.

  “Yep. That isn’t even half of it. He wants me to spend the week with him until he goes away on business. He wants me to stay at his place while he’s away. He wants me to have access to his Rover. His goddamn Rover, Chelz. It costs more than I’ve made in two years. He said he trusts me. He wants to keep me safe. He wants to know that I’m in his home for when he comes back. I think I even rattled that shit out verbatim.”

  “That’s all great stuff. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is I only expected this to be a one night stand. A simple fuck. A really, really good fuck, but just one fuck. And now, I think I’m falling in love with him.”

  “Oh, Sweetie. You can’t expect to have a one night stand with a man who knows the results of your last pap smear.” Chelsea said with a giggle. I laughed. She always brought levity to my seriousness. “What do you want? Because it seems to me that you’ve found someone that wants to give you all the things you deserve. What does he want in return that you aren’t willing to give freely? What do you need him to prove so that you accept this?”

  “First, I need a crystal ball to tell me that this is all going to be okay. He said that I’ve brought him more joy in these few days than he’s ever had. I guess that’s all he’s expecting. My time and affection, which I’m willing to give, but what if that isn’t enough? What if in the future, I’m not enough and I still think he’s everything? What do I do when he breaks my heart?”

  “Like Ben. Was Ben enough?”

  “I thought he was, but this . . . this is too good to be true.”

  “Comparing the two, which is never a good thing because they are two different animals, which one fucked your brains out?”

  I coughed my latte. “Chelz! That shouldn’t be the measure of what is best for me.”

  “Sorry, I just really want to know. That Doctor looks like he can make you come by looking at you. Okay, I love Dougie. He’s the best thing for me, but even when we were courting, he never washed my clothes, bathed me, and tucked me into bed.”

  “You forgot brushing my teeth.”

  “Not all men do those things, and those actions don’t matter to every woman. It’s obviously important to you because you feel pampered. You were never pampered. You did the pampering of Ben. You need a man who will indulge you. Enjoy this. Stop questioning. You don’t have to move in with him. Think of it as just a convenient offer. You aren’t giving up your place. You’re gaining more than you’re losing.”

  “Is it too soon to feel this way about a man?”

  “Are you asking if it’s too soon to fall in love with a man because you just met him or too soon after your divorce?”

  “Both?”

  “Can we really put a time line on falling in love? It just happens. We either fuck it up by running away or we push forward and work hard at it. He seems worth the work.”

  “But I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me.”

  “That will come. You’ll learn about each other and grow together. If you two grow apart, like you and Ben, you’ve had a great time and you’ll find love again. It seems you’ve already have.”

  “We should get back.” I said, standing and clearing up my salad, which I barely touched. I’ll save in the fridge and eat it before my Burlesque class.

  I wasn’t quite cheered up. She asked a lot more questions, which I reflected on. I concluded that I just needed to see this through, enjoy myself, and make up for years of sexual frustration. I won’t allow myself to change my conviction of maintaining my independence. If he wanted to be exclusive, which I already am, I would do so faithfully. I have no plans of seeing anyone else. After four days of bliss, how could anyone else compare to him?

  ***

  We arrived at my apartment. I’d hoped that there wouldn’t be a parking spot, leave him double park to wait for me outside, and I’d run upstairs to pick up a couple of outfits for the next two days. Fate was against me because there was a parking spot right in front of the three storied house. He easily glided the Range Rover into the spot. Before he went around the car to open the door for me as is his custom, I exited the vehicle with my house keys in hand to unlock the front door. I opened up my mail box and retrieved my mail. He stepped up behind me and put his hands on my hips. A small shiver went down my back as I opened up the front door. I loved his touch, wishing it were skin on skin.

  “Just a word of warning, my place is super small. Both of us may not fit in simultaneously, so please be forewarned.”

  “So noted.” He smiled. But even his smile couldn’t take away the nerves of him seeing my modest place. In comparison to his place, mine was a hovel. “How long have you lived here?” He asked as we walked up the three stories.

  “Over a year. I found this place after six months of living at the Inn. Alice and Ross didn’t want me to move to this area. It’s not a bad neighborhood, but they’d hoped I would have an easier commute into the city. Taking a bus to the train is a lot. But this place is inexpensive and the community is quiet. They gave me some of the Inn’s old furniture when they renovated some of the rooms. My landlady lives on the first level. She’s ve
ry sweet. My neighbors are young professionals, so there aren’t any wild parties happening.” We arrived at my door in the back of the building. I unlocked the door and switched on the light. “Do come in.” I curtsied.

  He entered and I noted that he looked around the small space. I’d painted the entire place white and a lot of green accessories for a give a pop of color. I don’t have a lot of extra accessories, pictures or art hanging on the walls or on the furniture. The necessities were in the small space: a twin bed; nightstand with library books, alarm clock and small lamp; a tall armoire for clothing storage; a tall dresser; a small, foldable round table and two folding chairs for eating.

  “I would give you a tour, but what you see is what you get. I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time. It’s a nice place.” He stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, taking in the surroundings.

  I went to my armoire and grabbed my leather weekend bag, purchased as a splurge from a local discount store, and put it on the bed with it unzipped and opened. I grabbed a few mid length skirts, a few tops, and a couple of dresses from the same armoire. I took them off the hangers and folded them, laying them on the bed to be packed. I pulled two pairs of flat shoes from underneath the armoire and laid them on the bottom of the bag. I walked over to the dresser and pulled out a few bras and matching panties, resisting the urge to smell them. In another drawer, I grabbed a couple of t-shirts and yoga pants. I folded and neatly packed in the bag.

  The quiet was palpable as I entered the bathroom to get my toiletries, combs, and an extra pack of my birth control for the new month. My period was due on the day he was to travel out of the country. I expected it to be over when he returned on Sunday afternoon. When I exited, I saw him contemplating the apartment, which is not enough square footage to deeply consider. I didn’t have personal pictures up or any artwork. I never planned on living in this apartment for very long, and personalizing it further made me feel like I settled into complacency.