“I called because I have something I need to tell you.”
My heart sank. He wasn’t going to Atlanta. He’d heard from Denise and was getting back with her.
“What?”
“I just want you to know that I have no expectations of having sex next week. As a matter of fact, I’ll just say it. We’re not going to have sex in Atlanta.”
Oh. I wasn’t sure what to say. The emotional turmoil that had taken over my life left me pretty much speechless. I was relieved. Of course. So did I thank him?
I wasn’t disappointed, was I?
“It’s not because I don’t want to,” he inserted into my silence.
“Okay.”
“It’s just, I’d never had sex before I met you back in college.”
“I wondered. You said you hadn’t, but . . .”
“Yeah, well, hopefully that can shed some light on why our relationship was based on my hands and not my heart. I was eighteen. When I met you, I truly was in love with you. I couldn’t wait until I saw you, I wanted to be close to you all the time, and it just came out wrong.”
“I know.”
“It’s not going to come out wrong again.”
“We’ve spent weeks talking. It’s already completely different. If we’d been able to talk back then even a little bit like we talk now . . .”
“I like sex. A lot.” He continued. “I think about having sex with you all the time. I just want you to know that I don’t take sex lightly. I’m not one of those guys who can do it and forget it.”
I was glad to hear that. I wasn’t going to be able to have hot sex with Tim, period. He was letting me off the hook.
I should have been relieved. I was relieved. And I was disappointed, too.
“I guess the truth is, I’m dying to get inside your body,” he said, the words coming in gusts of energy that might just blow me away. “I need it too much. And I don’t want the sex to get in the away again. I also want you to know that you don’t have to justify your past to me. I want to know about your past so I can have a full understanding of your emotions and how you got here, but that’s it. I don’t know if I ever made that clear.”
I didn’t know what to say, and he just kept talking.
“We have some really important stuff to do in Atlanta. Things to talk about and deal with, and they come first. If I had sex with you, you wouldn’t be allowed out of bed until it was time to catch our flights home, and we wouldn’t get a word in edgewise.”
He still wanted me. I smiled. “Even you would need a breather.” I was getting better at the banter, at least.
“With you? I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it? Just okay? What do you think about having sex with me?”
“I think that I have no idea what we’re going to do when we see each other,” I told him honestly, embarrassed, looking at the floor. “I figured we’d wait and see what happens when we get there.”
“Okay.”
“And . . . I know I . . . want you to hold me. I need to feel your arms around me . . .”
More heat between my legs. Heat with empty promises.
“I need that, too.”
“Good.” I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Then we can hold each other and talk.”
“And whatever happens, happens.”
Did that mean we might have sex after all? Or that he might try? I got nervous again.
“What about birth control?” I was a responsible woman.
“All taken care of.”
So he was prepared to have sex with me. Or just prepared for any eventuality?
“How long has it been for you?”
His question embarrassed me. Chris and I had never talked about sex. Or during it, either, for that matter.
“Twelve years.”
“Seriously.”
“Yeah. I ended that part of my relationship with Chris. I told you that.” It had been the morning after the night he’d woken me up when he got into bed by hauling me over and climbing on top of me. He’d been angry and let me know that he had every right to have sex with his wife.
He’d hurried up and finished that night, too.
And that had been the last time he’d had sex with his wife.
“You said you had separate bedrooms,” Tim said. “I didn’t know if that meant . . .”
“I haven’t had a man inside me in so long, my body probably couldn’t even take it . . .”
I’d found a way to warn him, at least.
“Oh, it’d take me. I have no worries about that.” His voice had softened. And deepened. My body responded to it.
“How about you?” I asked, to distract me from own confusion. “How long has it been for you?”
“I haven’t slept with anyone since Denise left.”
“There’s been no one?”
“Not even a date.”
“Wow.” I’d been afraid to ask. Afraid of the answer. “I’m shocked.”
“I take that as an insult.” He actually sounded a bit put out. “Just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean that I don’t have standards.”
“I know that,” I hastened to assure him. “But you’re gorgeous, Tim. I can’t believe that there weren’t women after you the second they knew you were free.”
“I hurt two women because I couldn’t commit to them,” Tim said. “I wasn’t about to hurt a third.”
God, I loved this man. And I couldn’t wait to see him.
Whatever happened.
Twenty-Four
ATLANTA WAS AN OKAY CITY. I LIKED THE SOUTHERN feel. The accents. The trees. It was warm enough.
I’d been there with James.
And here I was, back in the city to admit, for the first time in my life, what I’d suffered because of him.
Unpacking the few things I’d brought took five minutes in the four-star hotel room. Makeup out in the bathroom. The DVD player that traveled with me all set up beside the bed. In less than twelve hours Tim would be there. He landed at 6:00 am and was stopping by to say hello before his morning meeting.
I had to eat. More accurately, I had to have a drink, and I couldn’t drink without getting some food in my stomach. Room service, available through the hotel’s fine-dining establishment, was way more than I needed. And far too expensive. But there was a pub downstairs that had salads. And more important, a full bar.
It took another ten minutes for me to make it down there, look over the menu, and order. Leaving me a good eleven hours before Tim.
And then I noticed that I was the only person in the bar who was there alone. And I remembered. It was Valentine’s Day.
A day for lovers.
Fitting that I was there alone.
I picked up my phone and dialed.
“Hello?” Pat Potter, my closest writer friend picked up.
“Hi. I need to ask you a favor.”
“Of course.”
“I’m in Atlanta. To see Tim. I’m due to see him in the morning for the first time in almost thirty years. He could be a mass murderer for all I know . . .” I was rambling. I heard myself. And I couldn’t stop.
What was I doing meeting up with Tim like this? I wasn’t eighteen any more. I’d learned the hard way that a woman was never safe. And here I was leaving myself wide open for further hurt and humiliation and . . .
“If I don’t call you by five o’clock tomorrow, please call the police.” I told her where I was staying.
“Okay.” Pat took down the numbers. Read them back to me. “You’re going to be fine,” she added just before we hung up. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Have fun.”
Her words incited another onslaught of excitement and fear that not even the scotch I was drinking could quell. They rang in my mind like a permission slip to do whatever I wanted to do. No matter what that might be.
He went out to dinner the night before he left for Atlanta—a way to keep himself occupied s
o minutes wouldn’t turn into hours.
The work he was going there to do seemed like a pretense. As far as he was concerned, he was flying to Atlanta to meet up with Tara.
He thought about her all night and called her just before going to bed.
“Hey, Babe,” he said, relaxing once he heard her voice. “Are you in your hotel?”
“Yeah. All checked in. The room’s nice.” He pictured her there. Where he’d be in just a few hours. Interminable hours.
“How are you feeling?”
“Nervous.”
“Do you miss me?”
“So much.”
“I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight knowing you’re down there alone and I’m up here alone.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ve been thinking about the whole sex thing.”
“Yeah?”
“It dominated our relationship the last time. I let it get in the way of the things that were most important. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
“I completely agree.”
“So we’ll take it slow and easy. Conversation first.”
“Okay.”
There. He’d done it. And he added, “Then if it happens, it does.”
Just couldn’t let it go. Even now. Twenty-seven years after he’d lost her because he couldn’t keep his hands off her long enough to let her know how much he loved her, he was still aching to touch her.
He was wide awake before the alarm went off. He’d been awake most of the night. The thought of seeing Tara for the first time in almost thirty years had kept him conscious. With Tara in Albuquerque and him in Ohio, creating a two-hour time change, he’d been up until 2:00 AM many times, talking to her after she finished work for the night. And he still had to be up at six to get to work on time.
It was almost déjà vu. Reminiscent of the days when he drove from Huber Heights late at night to clock in late at the grocery story.
This time he was older, but he’d still make it work. There was plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead, he thought.
For now, he was living again.
Just before he shut off his phone for the trip, he texted Tara.
Hey, Babe, good morning, heading to the airport.
Her reply was immediate.
Can’t wait until you’re here. Be safe.
I hadn’t slept much. I’d been afraid of oversleeping. Afraid my hair wasn’t going to cooperate. I only had the hotel’s hair dryer, and it might not give my hair as much body as mine did.
I’d been wide awake already when Tim’s text came through telling me that he was on his way.
I flew out of bed and into the shower.
What if my hand were shaking so much I couldn’t apply my eyeliner? I thought about the jeans I’d chosen. They were too long—all my pants were, but I had high-heeled boots to wear with them. And the shirt. One of my favorites. It was blue with muted flowers in green and yellow. It had gauze sleeves and sequins and fit me well enough to show Tim that I was thinner now than I’d been at eighteen. The shirt covered the top of my jeans, but only if I didn’t raise my arms.
I was doing everything I could not to think about the things I had to tell him. And not to think about his body—wanting my body.
I bathed with extra care, making certain that every part of my body received proper attention. I shaved. I left the conditioner in my hair a little longer. I had to be perfect.
Like I could somehow make up for my sexual imperfections, my inability to feel desire during intercourse, if I could just look good enough.
Not that we were going to have intercourse. We weren’t. Yet. But it would come up at some point. I could count on that. This was Tim and me.
Unless, after he’d heard about James, he didn’t want to touch me at all.
Hair and makeup application all went as planned. Easily. The Sorvelli jewelry looked perfect. I had three piercings in each ear. And matching earrings for each. Would he think that I was too over-the-top? Be turned off by that many holes in my ears?
And then I paced. Peered out my window. Watched the clock.
I couldn’t believe that in less than an hour I was going to be seeing Tim Barney—and was afraid I’d wake up and find out that the past three weeks had been a very, very cruel dream.
My phone beeped a text.
“Just landed.”
I was never going to breathe normally again.
A few minutes later, the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“What’s up?”
My heart settled. All fear disappeared as I heard his voice. This was no stranger from thirty years ago. This was Tim. My Tim.
He told me that he was on his way to get the car he’d rented.
Life’s tragedies, damaged psyches, worries about difficult conversations all faded away. This was my Tim. And after twenty-seven long, desolate years, I was finally going to be where I’d always belonged.
In Tim Barney’s arms again.
Holding on.
And being held.
He pulled into her hotel, parked the car, and went straight to the elevator, pushing the button for the fifth floor, loving the fact that he already knew that Tara didn’t like the lower floors in hotels. Something about being up high put her at ease.
He found her room and then dialed her phone.
He’d had this crazy idea that if he surprised her, if she was shocked when she saw him, she wouldn’t be so nervous.
He was hoping their first moment together in twenty-seven years would be just her and him. No nerves. No fears.
“Hello?”
“Look outside your door . . .”
“What?”
He heard a rustle and then, “Oh! You’re here!”
The door flew open and Tim barely registered that she looked exactly the same as she lunged toward him, grinning and half crying, too.
Her arms were around his neck out in the hall, clutching him as tightly as she ever had. And his flew around her, too, filling them with her, completing him for the first time in thirty years.
She lifted her face as if by instinct, and he met her lips without hesitation. Their tongues touched, entangled, and it wasn’t new or strange or different. She felt and tasted exactly like Tara.
He’d flown all the way to Atlanta to come home.
“Let’s get out of the hallway.”
I heard Tim’s words, though I was having a hard time holding on to coherent thought. It was like I’d consumed an entire bottle of scotch. Really good scotch. The kind that you could drink in large quantities and not get sick.
He walked right into my room as if he belonged there, taking me with him to the armchair on the other side of the bed. He sat, and pulled me onto his lap. It had been almost thirty years since I’d seen him. He should be a stranger to me.
He wasn’t. At all. His brown eyes. His smile. His taste. He was my Tim. Exactly as I’d left him.
I asked about his flight. But couldn’t remember his answer five seconds after he’d given it.
We had to talk. He had to know the truth about me. We couldn’t go any further, or even think about a future together until he knew what had happened. He might be the same man.
I was not the same woman. I couldn’t pretend that I was.
He kissed me again and I fell against him, weak with wanting him. I knew the feeling would leave. Long before we got anywhere near the sex we weren’t going to have.
But just like thirty years before, I couldn’t stop him. Or myself. I thrust my tongue in his mouth as if I had every right to be there. Because in my heart, I did. I always had.
And when he set me on my feet and moved toward the unmade bed that I’d just vacated a short time before, I went with him willingly. Without thought.
His hands were everywhere on my body, caressing my legs through my jeans. He kissed me again. With a wild hunger that I answered. Kiss for kiss. His lips moved to my neck, and I turned my head to give him better access, feelin
g the cool sheet against my heated cheek.
I was eighteen again. In the house on Maple Street.
He was suckling my neck as he’d done thirty years before, and the sensations shot from skin, through my body, and down between my legs.
There was nothing to say that wasn’t being said. Nothing more important than Tim on top of me, claiming what was his. What had always been his.
My hands were all over his chest. I tore at his clothes, getting them out of the way. I was like a woman possessed. I had to have him. I didn’t recognize myself. And I didn’t argue with the power driving me.
My shirt was up, over my head and off. I wasn’t wearing a bra. And he got rid of my camisole as quickly as he had the shirt.
I felt the cold air of the room on my breasts and didn’t freeze up. I was a woman. Beautiful. Sexy. On fire for my man. I was Tara Gumser, and he was Tim Barney.
With his thumb against my nipple, he met my gaze and I thought I might cry. He was doing things to me that I hadn’t thought possible. Sending desire from breasts that had been numb for my entire adult life down to my most private places.
I knew it wouldn’t last. That if we went any further I was going to dry up and there’d be pain. I thought about warning him. He deserved to know.
But I wasn’t going to stop him. Any pain I felt would be worth becoming one with Tim. I’d screwed up thirty years ago when I’d made him stop before we’d completely finished. I had a wrong to fix.
Our shoes fell off. He undid my jeans and tugged at them until they were off, and I undid his pants, pulling them down, too.
I was wet down there. Just like I’d been when he’d talked to me on the phone that night.
Tim lay down on top of me, taking my mouth with his as his naked body came into full contact with mine and I was completely on fire.
I could feel his penis nudging at my womanhood, and I lifted my hips to meet him, to press against him. In some faraway foggy place, I knew that this was where it was going to hurt and I just plain didn’t care. I loved him so much. And I felt right, completely right and honest and true for the first time in my life.
It Happened on Maple Street Page 23
