by Eva Charles
“What about school? Didn’t some teacher figure it out?”
“They were too young to go to school.”
“What about you? Weren’t you in school?”
“I went to kindergarten. I even had a few pretty dresses. At least that’s what I remember.”
She reached in her purse and pulled out a laminated photo from her wallet. It was of a little girl with long, shiny curls, and a pink dress with sparkly buttons. Her smile lit her face. She was adorable.
“I love this picture.”
“That’s a copy. The original is in a lock-box in my closet. It’s all I have from my childhood. Everything.” She took it from me, and placed it carefully back into her wallet.
“I didn’t go back to school after kindergarten. We moved a lot, and then the twins were born, and my mother needed help. It’s my only school picture until I lived with Tim’s family. Ruth insisted on buying my senior pictures. She took me to the salon, and bought me a nice dress to wear.
“You see a mean old woman. I see someone who reached out and mothered me when no one else would.”
“What about Mrs. Rose? The woman who gave you the necklace.”
“Mrs. Rose was seventy-four years old when I went to live with her, and she was diagnosed with colon cancer shortly after I moved in. She had been a wonderful foster mother, and I was lucky to have been placed there. But she didn’t have a lot left to give by the time I arrived on her doorstep.
“We’re different, Mark. We might both have baggage we lug around. But my baggage can fill this whole stadium.”
“Emmie, look around. You are a competent, self-confident woman who has a front office job in a billion-dollar franchise, and the respect of everyone, including a bunch of guys who don’t respect much of anything.”
“No, Mark. This,” she waved her hand over the room, “is just for show. Pretending to be normal is what I do to survive. It’s what I’ve always done. I told you, I’m a survivor. But inside, I’m also still the scared little girl who dug through the trash for food. I had years of counseling while I was in foster care. It’s never going to change. Not enough for it to ever work between us.”
“I don’t accept that. If it doesn’t work out between us, it’s not going to be because of your past, or your child. It’s going to be because of your unwillingness to let me in.”
“Same thing.”
“Nope. Letting me in is a choice.”
Emmie didn’t say anything. “You know I’m right.” She sagged in her chair, nearly beaten.
I needed to make her understand that this was worth fighting for, even when it was hard and uncomfortable.
“We have something special. A kind of special that doesn’t come around every day. For me, it’s the first time. It seems like a travesty to give up on us before we give it a real chance to see if it can work.”
“Maybe I just don’t like the mole on your butt.” She was trying to change the subject, but she heard me, and stopped pushing me away. At least for a little while.
“It’s a birthmark, and it’s cute as a button. Did you get a look at it the other night?”
“No, I’m afraid I was distracted by a brute who tore my underwear.”
I picked up the shopping bag from the floor and handed it to her. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” She peeked inside.
“It doesn’t bite. Open the manila envelope first.”
She slipped the paperwork out of the envelope. “I still don’t understand what it is.”
“Labs. I’m clean as the new-fallen snow. I didn’t pass on any nasty diseases to you. Trust me, they looked everywhere.” I shuddered. “Anything you don’t understand, you call this number. I signed a consent form so the doctor could talk to you… But there’s still another matter. You might be pregnant,” I said as gently as I could.
“I’m not pregnant. But I took a pregnancy test to be sure. It was negative.”
“Maybe you should repeat it.”
“Now who’s being overly cautious? Even all your sexy gorgeousness can’t cause my ovaries to drop an egg while I’m on the Pill.”
“Sexy gorgeousness, huh?”
“As if you didn’t know it.”
I laughed.
“Mark, thank you for doing this for me. Really. But you didn’t have to. I would have taken your word.”
“I don’t think you’re ready to take my word for anything this important. But I hope one day you’ll be able to… There’s more in there.”
She pulled out a shopping bag from the larger bag I’d tucked it in so everybody and their mother wouldn’t know I was carrying around lingerie.
“Agent Provocateur,” she said, slowly. “You went to Agent Provocateur?”
“I replaced the panties.”
“How…”
“I saw the tag when I picked them up off the floor.”
She was still looking in the bag. “This is a big bag for a pair of underwear.” She stuck her hand in, and rooted around. “There are several pairs of panties…and bras.”
“Sets. The saleswoman called them sets.”
She didn’t say anything, and for a minute I thought maybe I’d gone too far.
“I knew what size to get because they keep records of your preferences. You’ve only ever made one purchase there. Last Wednesday, the day before our date.”
Her face and neck had a pink cast. She looked down, to avoid my eyes, but I’d wait her out.
“You were thinking about it, too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have spent that kind of money on a matching set. You should, but you wouldn’t.”
“Maybe I always wear matching sets.”
“Emmie, I grew up with a bunch of women. And I have it on good authority that most women only wear matching sets when they think there’s a possibility they might take their clothes off.”
“I…I…I bought them because they made me feel pretty. I bought a new shirt, too. I was excited about our date. I didn’t think you’d see them unless we got into a car accident, or something.”
“A car accident, sure. Because I’m an emergency room doctor. Admit it, Sunshine, you’d been thinking about it, too.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. A little.”
“Am I your favorite fantasy?”
She rolled her eyes. She was adorable when she rolled her eyes, and I wanted to kiss her. But I didn’t.
“One day I want to hear all the details about what you were thinking, but save it for a time when we’re alone, and I don’t have to walk through a hall filled with your coworkers.”
“Mark, there are a dozen pairs in here.”
“Ten. One for every day of the week, and a few spares. I was going to have them embroider the days of the week on them so I’d always know what you were hiding under your clothes, but I decided I like to be surprised. I had the saleslady toss in the extra pairs in case I get the urge to rip them off again.”
She was covering her face. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation in my office. I can’t believe we’re having it anywhere.”
“You have to admit that was impressive. Boom—and they were laying in a heap on the floor. I know they were made of flimsy lace, but still.”
“I can’t accept this from you. The replacement for the torn pair, fine. But the rest…”
“Stop acting like a scared virgin in a historical soap opera. I’ve seen you naked and we even had fine sex.”
“A scared virgin in a historical soap opera—really?”
“I might have been forced to watch an episode or five of Downton Abbey. But that’s all in the past.”
She nudged the bag toward me, and I pushed it back. “You’re going to have to keep them, because they can’t be returned. And unless you want me to walk down the hall, handing out sets and explaining how you wouldn’t take them even after I ripped yours off and was being a nice guy…”
“Stop.”
“Emmie, you’re going to take the damn underwear. Whether I ever g
et to see them on you is beside the point. But we’re going to give this a chance. Me and you. Me and you and Teddy. You’re going to stop thinking you’re anything like your mother. And you’re going to stop believing that every man you meet would ask you to compromise your child for him. I would never do that. And if for some godforsaken reason you decide you don’t like me, there are plenty of men out there who wouldn’t do it either.”
“In my head, I know everything you say is true. It makes complete sense. But something grabs me inside, holds on in a way you could never understand. I don’t understand it.
“I don’t ever want to feel like I did the other night—cold, overwhelmed, frightened I would do something to hurt my child.”
“Those feelings spun completely out of control because you kicked me out. Because you insisted on dealing with it alone instead of sharing your worries with me. We could have talked it through.”
“We all learn ways to cope. I’m not good at baring my innermost feelings. I’m not even sure I know how. I cope by pretending everything is okay… If you wait long enough, eventually it does become okay.”
“There might have been a time in your life when that sort of thinking helped you survive, but you don’t have to do it now. Together, we can get through anything.”
“You want too much, Mark.”
“I want everything.”
20
Emmie
The following week, Mark took Teddy and me to a Blues game. He invited Ruth, too, but she didn’t want to join us. His tickets were right behind home plate, and the prospect of being on TV was almost as exciting for Teddy as the baseball players he got to meet after the game. Mark even wrangled a signed ball for him.
After the game, we walked around the North End, enjoying the festivities for St. Anthony’s Feast. Mark insisted on taking us into a family-run Italian pastry shop on Hanover Street where he knew the owners. “Tourists like the place across the street, but this is the real deal,” he told us. We bought cannolis for dessert, and Mark asked the young woman behind the counter to put a couple “lobster tails” in a separate box.
“Can I see the lobsters?” Teddy asked.
“Not real lobsters. They’re huge cream-filled pastries. Alexa loves them. Maybe we should get one for us to share, too.”
“Yes!” Teddy cried at the same exact moment I said, “Noooo.”
“I think the yeses have it.” Mark winked at Teddy.
Those two were a lethal combination, with the kind of maddening, adorable sweetness that only boys have.
Mark and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner, and Teddy was playing in his room. The chore was taking longer than usual because he kept painting stripes of tomato sauce on my neck and licking them off.
That’s when he threw out my next challenge.
“Wednesday is the first day of school. Why don’t you take the day off and spend it with me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? The team won’t be in town. You don’t punch a clock, and you get plenty of time off, right?”
I nodded. “I do, and it’s a great perk, but I save those days for when Teddy’s sick, or to use during school vacations.”
“You need some grown-up time. We need some grown-up time.”
He didn’t say another word, but he watched me like a hawk, while I stacked, and restacked, the everyday dishes into the dishwasher with the same care one would use for heirloom china.
The silence was shrill and uncomfortable. At least, I was uncomfortable. “What would we do?”
“I don’t know,” he said gently. “Whatever you want. Why don’t you drop Teddy off at school, give him a big embarrassing smooch, and meet me for coffee? We can decide then.”
“If I’m taking the day off, I’ll want to pick him up from school. I’ll have to be back by 3:30.”
“Maybe we could both pick him up. I want to hear all about the new teacher, and the kids in the class, and how you embarrassed him with a kiss in front of his friends.” He snuggled up behind me, to suck more sauce off my neck.
“You’re a bad influence, Mark Harrington.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Mark
I sat outside, scrolling through my phone, at Petite Madeleine, the tea shop my sister-in-law Cassie owned. The shop was a chick magnet. It was decidedly feminine, the kind of place where men didn’t ever feel completely at home. My brother Drew mainlined the little shell cakes, but it was the mini eclairs that brought me to my knees. I stopped by whenever I was in the neighborhood to grab a few. It also gave me a chance to see Cassie, who was the sweetheart of all sweethearts, and made my brother happier than any human being had a right to be.
As soon as she knew what I was up to, Cassie opened up the back patio, and assured me we’d have it to ourselves. The downside was she’d probably broadcast it to everyone in the family, although I could count on her not to send out the bat signal while we were here. That’s all I needed—a bunch of nosy bastards casually popping by for tea and scones. Emmie would hate it.
The door opened and they were laughing. “Look who I found.” Cassie winked at me. “How about if I send out a pot of tea and a selection of goodies? Trust me to choose for you?”
Emmie nodded. “Absolutely. Thank you.”
“Thanks, Cass.”
“The shop is so lovely, and it’s beautiful out here. I’ve heard so much about it, but I’ve never been before.”
“She did a great job with the place, but it’s not as beautiful as you.” I squeezed her fingers.
We talked about the first day of school jitters that make it hard to fall asleep the night before, about Cassie and Drew, and about Sophie, who was a few days past due and uncharacteristically irritable. The waitress brought out Emmie’s tea, more coffee for me, and a tiered tray filled with miniature pastries. Cassie sent out enough food for an army. My grandmother would be so proud of her.
“So, what do you want to do today?” I dabbed some strawberry jam on her bottom lip, then sucked it off. I meant for it to be quick and fun, but she kissed me back, and I pulled her onto my lap, and before I knew it, my hand was sliding under her skirt.
She reached down and held my hand steady. “Not here,” she murmured, her nose grazing mine. “I want you to have a good look at Wednesday.”
This was one of those dreaded moments that guys frequently experience. When you probably should know what she’s talking about, but you have absolutely no clue. Every man has his own way of faking it. “Mmmm, Wednesday,” I murmured into her neck.
“Which sexy set do you think I chose for Wednesday?”
That Wednesday. Sometimes the universe helped a guy out. “Let me get the check, and we’ll go to my place. It’s close.” She shifted off my lap, and after a quick look, I decided it was best to settle up with Cassie another time. Otherwise, I’d never hear the end of it.
“Leave your car here. We’ll come back for it.”
“What about the check?”
“I don’t think Cassie needs to see how much I want you. She’s not going to take my money, anyway. I’ll call her from the car.” I threw some bills on the table for the waitress, grabbed Emmie’s hand and dragged her through the park. Stopping at least a dozen times to taste her.
Emmie
I’d be lying if I told you ending up in Mark’s bed came as a surprise to me. And it would be an even bigger lie to say I didn’t want it. I did. Even with all the nervous chatter going on in my head all morning, I wanted him.
When I woke up, the stretch marks on my breasts and belly looked redder than usual, and my butt more wide than round. My breasts weren’t perky cheerleader types, but that wasn’t new. None of it was new. I was just nervous. But it wasn’t a bad kind of nervous that foreshadowed a dreaded event. It was a good kind of nervous. Skin-tingling, heart-racing, core-pulsing nervous.
I was all in. Not just because I was as aroused as a bitch in heat and wanted Mark more than my next breath, but because I was ready. Ready
to let him in. Ready to share my body with him. Although I was far less certain about the former than the latter.
In some ways, it was good we had already gotten past the first time. He had seen me naked, and still wanted me. Last time, I hadn’t really had a chance to see him, though. I’d been too carried away at first, then too freaked out later.
This would be different. Bed sex. Maybe he wouldn’t even like it this time. Maybe I wouldn’t, either. Right.
For a guy, and he was such a guy, he knew a lot about women. He cared about people’s feelings. He cared about my feelings. That’s why he hadn’t told me about the room the night at Slocum Inn. I’d poo-pooed it, but he was right. I wouldn’t have been able to think of anything else during dinner. Like right now.
“You still with me, Sunshine?”
“Why do you always call me Sunshine?”
He gripped the steering wheel tighter, and the muscle in his forearm contracted. “I was the kid who could never sit still. I was either moving or talking. You know, the kind of kid who a patient teacher sends on errands so he can expend a little energy, or maybe just to get him out of the classroom for a little while. And a tired teacher keeps in for recess?”
“I’m sure you charmed every teacher you ever had.”
He smiled, and even though the skin around his eyes crinkled, it wasn’t a happy smile. Not really. “My charm developed long after elementary school.” He kept his eyes glued to the road.
“I was a kid who needed to run and play. Recess was my friend—helped me get out some of the excess energy, so I could make it through the day without getting myself into too much trouble. I made the connection at a young age. So every morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I looked outside. When the sun was shining, I was the happiest kid on the East Coast, because I could play outside. The sun was the promise of a great day.”
I reached over the console and squeezed his hand.
He let go of the steering wheel, and laced his fingers through mine, bringing our joined hands to his lips. “That’s how I feel every time I see you.”
I wanted to remind him he’d been calling me Sunshine since the day we met, but he seemed so sincere, and maybe a little bruised, and teasing didn’t seem right. I didn’t want to make light of his feelings.
