My stomach lurched. "No food."
"Okay water and toast. By the way, we got a great picture of you last night drunk off your ass. I thought you looked deranged, but Sean thought you were beautiful—crazy guy."
I groaned again, imagining what the picture must look like.
After some toast and a lot of water, I did feel better. My head was absolutely killing me, but I was able to walk away from the bathroom, which was a marked improvement.
Stewie and Cerise spent the day taking care of Annalisa and me. We were both pretty pitiful, but that night, he took Annalisa out to dinner on their own. Cerise and I practically jumped for joy. The only thing bringing us down was the fact that Stewie would be leaving the next day. He had to fly back to Miami for some reason he couldn't explain.
That night, as Cerise and I debated how this whole Annalisa and Stewie thing would go down, Sean called. Cerise headed home as soon as she saw my face fall. I was dreading our conversation.
"How was your day?" I asked in an attempt to delay our talk.
"It was—long. I had trouble concentrating."
"Oh—was that—did I—"
"It was fine, sweetheart. I was just distracted thinking about you."
"Oh." I felt bad that he spent the day worrying about this. It made two days in a row that I'd been responsible for him having a tough day. I realized I should have just told him earlier about Alvin, but I couldn't wrap my mind around what I wanted to say and how he might react.
"Did you think about what I said earlier?" he asked softly.
I took a deep breath, trying to pull my words together. "Yes. I—it's not easy to talk about. I made a mistake."
"What was the mistake?"
"I had—after Brent, I had trouble getting close to anyone. Alvin, he was a nice guy. We were friends. I just—I shouldn't have—" It was so tough to put it all into words. Alvin had really helped me. "I got involved with him. I knew he cared about me and wanted more, but I thought I was being really clear that I couldn't do that—give him that. I wasn't ready for anything other than—well—"
"Sex?" he supplied.
"God, that sounds so horrible." And it did. It made me feel like the brothel-owner the bitties called me.
"No, it doesn't. You're human. You wanted to be physically close to someone. I completely understand that part of it. But I—I need to know—are you sure that's all that was there?"
"No." His loud sigh made me feel awful. "I care about him. He's my friend. We had lunch often, and it was easy to talk about nothing in particular with him. It was just—easy. But I never loved him or even liked him in terms of a relationship. I didn't want to hurt him, but I just didn't want—"
"You didn't want to be alone."
"Ugh. I feel like such a bad person."
"Stop, Morgan. It's okay. I get it. I just—I was afraid you had feelings for him—other than friendship."
"No. I actually feel really bad that I don't, but—"
"I don't. I'm pretty fucking ecstatic you don't." His tone had changed completely. He sounded a little excited and happy. "So now comes another question you probably won't want to answer."
"How about we chat for a while and you let me have a break from tough questions."
He chuckled low. "Alright. I can wait. What do you want to talk about?"
"What are your hobbies?"
"My hobbies?" He sounded so surprised, like I'd just asked him which sock he put on first.
"Yeah, you know, what do you do in your spare time? Do you have spare time?"
He laughed a little uncomfortably. "Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but yeah, I have spare time. I've been taking more breaks the past few years in between projects. I like to read—mostly mysteries and sci-fi. I have a vacation home in the Caribbean. The beach is amazing. I grew up in Minnesota where we had a home on the lake not far from Duluth, but there's nothing like the Caribbean ocean. Hmm… I play video games a lot with the guys. We shoot pool. I hang out with my mom and dad a lot. It's all pretty boring stuff, I guess."
"No, it sounds nice. If I had family I cared about, I'd spend a lot of time with them too. Cerise and Annalisa are my family now, so we're always together. I love the beach, but I've never been to the Caribbean. I've seen pictures, though."
"You'd love it, and I bet you look pretty hot in a bikini."
"Actually, I have a string bikini I've never worn."
He groaned. "Don't put that image in my mind, sweetie or I'll never get to sleep tonight."
I laughed, feeling a little powerful at his comment. "I don't have much time to read, but English was always a strong subject for me in school. I've always liked stories and movies. Stewie's stories about you have been—well, they've been great. I love them all."
"Mmm. Except the one about prom." Oh damn. Freaking Stewie just had to tell him about that. "You're silence damns you more than Stewie's words, sweetheart. What bothered you about it?"
"You're really gonna make me talk about this?"
He chuckled again. "Damn right."
"Well, he, uh, mentioned you were practically screwing her on the dance floor."
"And?"
"Ugh. You're gonna make me say it?"
"Yep," he laughed.
"I was jealous, which is absurd since it had to have been over ten years ago."
"He said you looked heartbroken."
I stood up and stomped around the room, pacing. Oh, I was so going to get Stewie back for that. I couldn't believe he said I looked "heartbroken." Sure, I'd felt that way a bit, but it wasn't very nice of him to go off and repeat it to Sean. "Freaking Stewie. I was drunk, okay?"
"No you weren't." The laughter in his voice did tense, excited, and nervous things to my stomach, but it was paired with discomfort about the topic.
"I was well on my way." How was it that he knew me so freaking well?
"Why can't you just admit you like me and didn't like the idea of me making out with some other girl?"
"You're pushy," I huffed.
"So I've been told, but it doesn't mean I'm not pushing for the truth."
He must spend his days and nights studying people to be able to call me out so effectively. "Fine. Imagining it made me feel awful. Happy?"
He laughed. "Yes, actually, very happy."
"You're impossible. So, do you like art?"
"Art?" Ha sounded confused. "Like paintings?"
"Yeah and drawings and sculpture."
"I don't dislike it. I've been to a few art galleries. I can't pretend to understand it all, but it's interesting to try."
"You aren't supposed to understand it all," I explained. "You're just supposed to have a reaction to it."
"You sound experienced. Do you spend a lot of time looking at art?"
"Actually, I—well I paint a little and sometimes draw."
"Really? I had no idea. Stewie didn't mention that. Can I see some of your artwork?"
I was shy about pointing out my artwork and wondered why I'd even told him about it. "Uh—Stewie doesn't know. Very few people see my artwork—well aside from the paintings in the inn."
"Can you send me something with Stewie tomorrow?"
"I'm not that good, Sean, I just mess around a bit. I—"
"Please? I want to know everything about you."
I was silent at that statement. For someone who'd been doing her best to stay away from love and attachment, it sounded really overwhelming.
He seemed to pick his words wisely. "Is it bad—that I wanna be close to you?"
"No, it's just—you're a thousand miles away, maybe more. Being close to me just seems so impossible."
"That's not why you're uncomfortable." What was he some kind of emotional reader? A psychic? Maybe that was his famous business. "Come on, Morgan, level with me."
Level with him? How could he not see the hundred different ways this could end badly, and he wanted to try to get closer before we actually met. Level with him. "I—I'm scared." He stayed quiet as I tried to
pull my thoughts together. "I'm afraid to get attached to you."
"Don't be. I wish I could say something to reassure you, but I can only tell you how much I like you and how I'd be right there next to you if I could right now."
I groaned out a loud sigh. "What would we be doing if you were here next to me?"
He coughed loudly and started laughing. "Sorry, choked on a soda." He cleared his throat. "Um, I can tell you what I'd be trying to do to you, but you might be insulted."
Rolling my eyes, I laughed in response. "Is it similar to what you did to your date at prom?"
"Uh, no. That was child's play compared to what I imagine when I think of you, sweetheart."
"See, that's where you lose me. We could have zero chemistry in person. It could be like total brother/sister weirdness."
He laughed. "I'm pretty confident that I would want to strip your clothes off and have my way with you, but if you want to what-if the situation, go right ahead."
"I'm serious. What if we aren't physically compatible? I've never even seen a picture of you."
He sighed loudly. "Are you that hung up on looks?"
"No, not at all, but chemistry is more than just tossing a male and female together."
"True, but something tells me we won't have any trouble in that area. I've never had a woman not be attracted to me."
"Really? What about the chick in the bar who turned you down?" I laughed at his groan.
"Damn, I'm regretting giving Stewie full reign to tell you whatever stories he wanted."
"Yeah, well, notice he hasn't told me anything recent."
"There's not much to tell, Morgan."
"What about Michelle?"
He groaned again and sighed loudly into the phone. Good. It was about time he was on the receiving end of uncomfortable topics.
"Michelle was… she was Alvin in heels."
"Ugh. That's a God awful image."
He chuckled. "I thought she understood that I don't do commitment with her type, but when she found out about another girl I'd been with—this is making me sound so bad."
"I knew what you were when I started this, Sean."
"And what am I?"
"A womanizer—a player—you jump from chick to chick without commitment."
"That's not fair. There's more to it than that."
"So explain it to me."
He sighed into the phone. "It's hard to have a relationship when I'm always moving around. And it's hard to know where someone's motives lie when they already know that you—or they think you can do something for their—for them. I get lonely, I won't deny that, and I want someone in my bed, but beyond that, it's just really difficult to put myself out there."
"It'd be easier to understand if I knew who you were."
"I know, but—"
"No. I get it, Sean. I really do. It's just sometimes this whole anonymity to protect you gets to where it backfires and shuts me out."
He was quiet for a moment. "I know, Morgan. That's what I've been afraid of. I've been trying to find ways around it."
"Like sending Stewie?"
"Exactly."
"Speaking of Stewie," I suddenly remembered Annalisa. "I'm really worried, Sean."
"What about, sweetheart?"
"He's leaving tomorrow, and Annalisa is really getting attached to him. We talked about this before, but Annalisa hasn't had too many relationships. She's very innocent, and I'm just worried she's gonna take him leaving really hard."
"He won't be gone forever. He already told me he'll be leaving as soon as—when he's finished here. But you should prepare Annalisa. His schedule is pretty crappy. He's gone almost as much as I am. It doesn't mean it can't work, she'll just have to be patient."
"Will I? Have to be patient? Would I be sitting here alone most of the year? Will this often be a phone relationship?" My stomach turned at the thought of seeing him once a month, maybe even less.
"I would hope you'd travel with me most of the time. I know you have to run the inn, but maybe you can spend weekends with me when I'm traveling."
"Are you always gonna travel so much?"
"I don't know." He paused for a moment, and I liked that he was really thinking about it. It made me feel like I really mattered to him—enough for him to reconsider his lifestyle. "I like what I do. I won't pretend I don't. And I have to travel to keep doing it, but I can choose how much downtime I have between traveling. I could be in one place longer than I am now if I had the right motivation."
"So you could really commit to one woman? No sleeping around. No other women, period. Cuz I don't deal with 'sweetie, she meant nothing' text messages."
"See, for you I'd send flowers, maybe even a box of chocolates."
"Sean," I warned.
"Kidding, I was kidding. I haven't been around someone who really gave a shit about me. I'm not trying to be all dramatic or get pity from you. That's the truth. No one has just wanted to be with me. They like the money and the attention, but it's never been about me, not since—not since the business took off. In high school, I was a one woman guy, Morgan. I'd like to be that again… for the right woman."
"And you think I'm that woman?"
"I think you might be. I want you to know who I really am before I fully answer that, but every time I talk to you, every small thing I hear or learn about you shoves me harder in the direction of saying yes."
"Including the Alvin thing?"
"Especially the Alvin thing." If he could see my face at that comment, he would surely have laughed. I was seriously wondering if he was sane. No guy in his right mind would feel that way. "You've been through so much that's similar to me and my life. If I could just tell you everything, I think you'd be able to understand it all and really relate to it better than even Stewie."
"So just tell me who you are," I whined.
He laughed. "No." He was tapping something in the background, and I wondered if it was a nervous habit. I so wanted to know all his quirky mannerisms. "Just two more weeks, I promise."
"A very long two weeks."
"Tell me about it. But I don't wanna think about that right now. Tell me what you're doing for Thanksgiving."
Background Check
We spent another two hours on the phone talking about the Thanksgiving feast at the inn, about the new guests that were coming in, and I told him some stories about myself when I was young. He liked hearing about the near disasters in renovating the inn, but he admitted that he had trouble listening to the really dangerous things I'd done, like climbing up on the roof without any kind of safety rope. He laughed at my stories of the trouble Cerise and I got into in high school as we partied a bit too much, and he wanted to hear about my boring college life. He told me about the twelve times he'd been pulled over for speeding, but was evasive about how he'd only managed to get warnings for most of them. And he wanted to know all about my art.
It was a little weird to talk about what inspired me to draw or paint something. I'd never given much thought to it. That was something I really liked about Sean, he made me think, made me look closer at things, especially myself.
The entire conversation drew me to him more strongly than ever. When I started yawning like crazy though, everything changed.
"Okay, sweetie, you need to get some sleep, but before you do—" His muffled groan made me think he was scrubbing his face with his hand while groaning. I sat up a little to prepare myself for something unpleasant. "I have to ask you something you aren't going to like."
"Can't we just end on a good note?" He didn't answer right away, and that made me more comfortable than anything he might have said to comfort me. "Okay, Sean, go ahead."
"I—I wish, but I promised—I have to ask you." He sighed loudly into the phone. "I need to know—I mean, everyone associated with me—they all, we all, I need to do a background check on you, Morgan."
"What?" That was so not where I thought this was going. I didn't see that one coming at all. "Why would you—"
&nb
sp; "If there's anything bad the media can pick out of your background, Stewie and his team need to know about it first. There might be information there that you don't even know about, but it's something others can get their hands on and use against me."
I didn't even know what to say. How would someone use my background against him? And what kind of person did he think I was that I would, I don't know, hide some criminal past or I didn't even know what he thought I was hiding. What did this have to do with our relationship? And if this was a necessity now when I didn't even know his last name, what kind of invasion of privacy would be "necessary" if our relationship got more serious? I could feel the unease, the fear and anger building up inside me.
"Morgan? Please tell me what you're thinking."
"I don't think you want to know what I'm thinking, Sean" The anger was certainly there in my voice.
"I know it doesn't sound right, but I wouldn't ask if it wasn't necessary. I've tried to find a hundred ways around it, but I—" He sounded sincere. He didn't sound like he wanted to do this, but it only left me wondering about the future. "Morgan, please talk to me?"
"Is this how it's gonna be, Sean? If you already have to do a background check just to meet me in person, what are you gonna ask of me if we get serious? Someone really has to dig through my past before they can even see you?"
"No. You're different. They've never asked this of me before, but they know. Stewie knows. The first day he met you, he said he might as well start the process because he knew I'd eventually fall for you."
Whoa there, hold the train. Fall for me? I stood up. This was crazy. I tried to calm down and control myself, but I was panicking. He said "eventually." He didn't say right now. But still. It was inevitable? How did he know that? How could he be so certain about me and us when we hadn't met yet?
"Morgan?"
I started pacing the room, trying not to hyperventilate.
"Morgan, please. I'm not trying to pressure you. I'm not trying to rush you. I don't expect anything, I just—please talk to me." The pleading tone to his voice helped me calm down a bit. His voice even shook a bit, and I knew he was putting himself out on the line with this.
Accidental Texting: Finding Love despite the Spotlight Page 10
