by Ever Coming
“Breakfast for dinner is one of my favorites.” Oh, yeah. The slight deepening of his voice as he said “breakfast” had Cate squirming in her seat, the memory of that first real kiss surfacing as he gave a wink. Sure, they’d had pecks on the cheek and even the lips before that night, but after their disaster of a dinner, something fell from between them. Their nervousness and apprehension over taking things further, fearing they would mess things up, fled. She remembered her high-school friends talking about their first real kisses and how awkward they were. For Cate and Levi, none of that was true because they waited for that moment, that perfect moment, when they were so at ease with each other that they just let it happen. Burning those oh too salty pancakes was the best thing she could’ve done. At the time, however, it had been mortifying.
“Always was.” She grabbed her water to take a sip, more to block her ever-growing blush than out of thirst. “Remember that dinner off the turnpike?”
“I remember everything.” His hand reached across the table as she placed the water down, pausing a moment as if to ask if it were okay, and soon after, covering her hand with his. It felt as if it belonged there, as if the years had been washed away and they were back to the time when they were inseparable and deeply in love, which was crazy, since they were both such very different people now. Or were they? They might have an entire lifetime between them, but at their core, how much had they changed?
“I do, too.” Cate’s eyes fell to their touching hands. “Is it weird seeing me again after all these years?”
“Weird?” His head snapped up as he spoke, wanting to see anything he might not say with words. “No.” Levi shook his head slightly.
“Not weird like that.” She inhaled deeply, trying to form the words. Her feelings were all over the place from happy to lustful to confused to comfortable. It was so much all at once, and yet somehow not quite enough. “But… it feels like in some ways we’re back to before you moved, which is stupid, I know.” His eyes disagreed with her stupid assessment, and she felt her shoulders relax. “You’ve lived all over, started a business, and for all I know, have a wife and two point three kids waiting for you.”
“You know me better than that.”
She wished she had used a better example. Levi might be a lot of things, but he had always been an honest person, and that kind of thing didn’t change.
“I do. It was a hypothetical.” She rolled her hand over so their palms touched, her fingers naturally entwining with his. “No, you are not a man who would have a wife and be holding some new woman’s hand.”
“You’re not a new woman.” His eyes were focused on their joined hands. How she wished she could see them and discover what was bouncing around his head.
“You know what I mean,” she teased, hoping his eyes would pop up and meet hers. Instead, they stayed focused on their hands, his thumb now caressing the top of hers.
“I do, and just so it is all out there, I have no children, and my wife left me a decade ago for someone else.”
Cate’s hand tried to retract immediately at such a heavy topic, but he held hers tight, his thumb offering comfort as it traveled along the back of her hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she offered. Sure, she wanted him to be the ever-bachelor waiting for her to find her way back to him, but how unfair would that have been? She had moved on, for the short time she had been granted, at least. It was only right that he had the same gift. But it wasn’t the gift she had been granted. He had been left… for another.
“Don’t be.” There was no sorrow, no anger, no regret in his voice. “I could never be what she wanted.”
“Unless you changed more than I see,” she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I highly doubt that.”
“She wanted a woman.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“Oh,” was all she got out as the waitress came back to the table to clear their places and plop down the bill, a bill he immediately paid with a don’t even think about it glance as Cate reached for her purse.
“Really, it isn’t sad,” he began as the waitress finally left. “I’m proud of Amelia. Her family is very conservative in not the best of ways, and for her to feel confident enough in herself to break from their beliefs filled me with more joy than you can know.” His voice beamed and she felt proud of the woman too, which was odd, since they didn’t know each other and since she had cheated on him. Or did he even say cheated? Not that it mattered, because his happiness for her held no dishonesty.
Cate understood a bit about families like his ex’s. She was raised in a conservative town where some kids were simply not allowed to associate with her, not out of her actions, but out of her mother’s unwed status. The judgment she felt based on the circumstances of her birth never made sense to her growing up, and made even less sense to her now that she was the age many of those parents had been at the time. Goodness, over half of them had ended up divorced. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
“You weren’t sad for being left like that.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. He might have loved Amelia, but he didn’t seem to hold any hard feelings for her departure. To the contrary.
“It was emotional, yes.” How could it not have been? You live your life with someone, and it ends. That is an emotional time. Period. No matter the circumstances. “We were friends, and she was one of the only people I knew that liked me for me, and not my business.”
Cate looked at him, her old friend, the sense of him being just Levi so strong that she all but forgot about his insane success and mass wealth. But it made sense that most people couldn’t look past that side of him. Heck, people were probably drawn to him for that very reason. How hard it must be to navigate relationships of any kind like that.
“But in all honesty, the chemistry was never there.” A small, slightly guilty part of her filled with relief at his confession. She might not be the young, gorgeous thing she once was, but she still wanted to be the one he was attracted to, as insane as that sounded to even herself. “We married because we were both lonely, and that is not the key to a strong marriage. She likes you, you know.”
“Who?” The conversation had taken a left turn, and Cate found herself lost.
“Amelia.” The man was officially talking crazy, and Cate gave him her famous look that told him just that. She watched as he held in the chuckle, letting her know he remembered the over-exaggerated twist of her mouth when she was not-so-subtly telling him he was nuts. They had fallen back into old habits far too easily. It couldn’t be this easy. That wasn’t how life worked.
“You met her tonight,” he added, as if she could have forgotten meeting an ex. “She showed you to the conference room,” he clarified, and she wanted to die a little. She had met his ex while wearing her mom clothes/paint clothes. Hardly the best first impression for a receptionist, much less the woman who once had been a major part of his life.
“Your ex works for you, and she likes me,” she clarified, and he nodded as if it was simply the way of things and, in his world, it probably was. “This is all a bit… odd. Is that the word?” She went from talking to him to talking to herself. How a night of art that never happened turned into this was something she would wrap her mind around later.
“It works for us.” He began to slide out of the booth, never letting her hand go, and she found herself following him, not once concerned by his outward display of affection, one that was seen by all in the restaurant and all they passed on the way back to the car.
“The piece you were looking at on my wall when I came in, do you remember it?”
Her mind wandered back to the recycled junk masterpiece as they meandered out the door and to the sidewalk.
“How could I forget? It was amazing the way it had all those levels of emotion wrapped in such simplicity.”
“That piece was how Amelia found her now-wife.” He began walking toward the car, someplace she’d rather they not be going, because it meant their magical evening was qu
ickly coming to an end. “I bought it at a gallery, and the artist delivered it personally, wanting to see who’d bought her work. It turned out I was her first sale, and she wanted to see who had fallen so in love with her piece that they paid what she felt was an insane amount of money for it. Now she’d never sell one for that price, but back then, it seemed like a fortune to her.”
They turned the corner, only a half a block from their parking spot. Too close. Cate felt him slow down as much as she had, and she wondered who was leading the change of pace. Could it be they both felt the need for this night to continue beyond the short drive back to her car?
“Long story short, she met Amelia while delivering it, and the rest is history. It was one of my best investments.” He squeezed her hand as they reached the car, unlocking it with his remote, but not opening the door.
“You have such a romantic heart.” The words fell from her lips before she could stop herself. It was true, but saying them so openly the first time they’d seen each other in years felt too much, too soon for her.
“When one has experienced true love,” his free hand reached up and cupped her cheek, “they want it for all people. There is nothing as magical as finding that one person who fills in all of the pieces of you that you didn’t even know were missing.”
He was talking about her. He wasn’t being coy or talking around the issue, he was holding her hand tightly while caressing her cheek, standing ever so close, and meeting her eyes. He was laying it all out, just as he always had in the past. His confidence in his feelings was something that had always drawn her to him and now was no different.
“And you have that now?” He didn’t, she knew he didn’t, but her insecurities spilled from her before her rationality took over.
“No, I was lucky, I had that with my first girlfriend.” He leaned in close to her ear, his breath caressing the side of her neck and curling her toes. “I’m hoping to rekindle it.”
“So much has happened since we last knew each other,” Cate said far too quickly and quietly.
“Which means we will always have something to talk about.” His words, while quiet, held such power. Power to make her weak in the knees. Power to make her believe they could really have a do-over. Power to make her dare to dream of the future she’d once planned with him.
“And I have a daughter.” She leaned into him as she gave the excuse that had been uttered so many times over the years as a way to deter the advances of men who, while kind and sometimes handsome, were never ones she would ever give her heart to.
“Who I already know and admire.”
“And I’m not the same girl I was.” She dropped his hand as she wrapped her arms around his body, enjoying the feeling of home it created. His arms followed suit, and they stood there in silence as the feeling washed over them.
“No.” He broke the silence as a car pulled out of a spot too quickly and broke the spell that had entranced them. “You are the amazing woman you are now.”
“But what if …” she began, unable to finish the thought. There were too many what-ifs. What if he still wanted a family and her body was all … “Heck no, you waited too long”? What if he found her career unbefitting his? What if he only liked her for the memories and the real-life her disappointed him? What if their love all those years ago was just infatuation, as both their parents told them repeatedly? Memories were a fickle thing like that.
“What if what?” He pressed his cheek against hers, the stubble from the day rubbing against her gently.
“What if I disappoint you?” That was her fear in a nutshell. Not that he wasn’t going to live up to her memories, but that she wasn’t going to live up to his.
“What if you and I become what we always knew we were meant to be?” The hope in his voice, the warmth of his body, and the friction of his stubble on her cheek worked in tandem as they gave her the strength to push aside her insecurities and live in the moment. She was going to do this. She was going to see if they could finally have their happily ever after, even after all the years and events between them.
Chapter 4
Cate slammed her hand down on her old-school alarm clock, to no avail. Sitting up, she leaned over once again to turn the blasted thing off, only to realize it wasn’t her alarm clock, but her phone ripping her from sleep. A quick glance told her it was not even seven, the time she normally got up. She wandered to her phone, which she had absentmindedly had forgotten to turn off the night before, and saw her daughter’s name on the screen.
“Hello?”
“I was beginning to think you were ignoring me. I was expecting it to go straight through to your messaging.” Her daughter knew her well. She never left her phone on at night. If there was a true emergency, people would call her landline. If not, it could all wait until morning.
“I forgot to turn it off last night.” Cate found her way back into bed and under her warm covers.
“Wait? Are you home?” The latch of a door closing followed by the white noise of a running sink filled the silence. “I’m in the kitchen now, so I can really talk.” As if being around Heather had ever squashed her daughter’s being, well, her daughter.
“Of course I’m home. Where else would I be at this… Jamie, really?” Cate wanted to hide her head under her pillow as if her daughter could actually see her burning face. Her Jamie, her dear, sweet, very innocent as far as she was concerned daughter asked her if she was at a man’s home after spending the night. Not just any man, either—Jamie’s boss.
“Really, Mom.” Jamie spoke as if they were having a natural, everyday conversation and not one with all the awkwardness. “You’re not a kid, and it’s not like he was a stranger. Plus, he is hawt hawt hawt.” A faint whistle grew louder, interrupting her daughter’s “hawt” song. Thank goodness. Not that he wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with her daughter… ever.
“Is there a reason you called me before the rooster wakes?”
“I was calling to see how it went last night.” Of course she was. After her little shenanigans with setting Cate up, which in all honesty she owed her for, Jamie wanted details. It would’ve been nice if she actually had given Cate some notice though. At least enough to put on some mascara.
“About that—”
“You can thank me later.” Cate could envision her daughter swooshing her idea out of the way with an exaggerated hand sweep. “Tell me everything… well not everything, because ewww, you’re my mom.”
At least Jamie had some sense of propriety.
“Yet you accuse me of spending the night?” Cate teased back, hoping to squeam her daughter out just enough to end this line of conversation. Heck, she didn’t want to have this conversation with anyone.
“And if you said you had, I would have pictured you two sitting up all night reminiscing about days gone by.”
As any good daughter would, Cate mused.
“You watch too many sappy movies.” They both did. Thursday nights had been devoted to watching all the “make you cry they are so happy” movies when Jamie had still lived there. Mostly they talked through them and ate popcorn, but once in a while, they got entrenched in the woman’s search for her happily ever after.
“So you didn’t talk?”
Cate heard Jamie’s cup clink in the sink and looked over at the clock. Stinks. She had five minutes until her alarm went off. Not that she had to get up, but she had vowed to give a hundred percent this summer if she limited her temp work, and she was going to do so. She already had a handful of completed paintings, not including the ones from class, which were more directed and far less “her.”
“Of course we talked.” Cate got out of bed, switched the alarm off preemptively, and went to her dresser, pulling out her clothes for the day. A pair of ripped, faded jeans and a t-shirt some company had given her school about dental hygiene week. Not like she would miss it in her wardrobe if it became paint-ridden.
“And?”
“And nothing.” No
t nothing, but far from something she wanted to share. As far as her daughter knew, he was just a high school friend who fancied her. Cate had worked hard to have Jamie see her father for all of the amazing he was, and part of her had always hidden her relationship with Levi out of respect for that. Not that his time in her life made her time with James any less, but putting any doubt in her daughter’s eyes seemed unneeded at the time.
“No kiss goodnight?” Annoying kissing sounds followed, as if any decent kiss sounded that obnoxious. Cate shook her head and started to dress with her phone smushed to her shoulder.
“No.” And that was the sad fact of it. After their hug and his very real statement of intention, he drove her to her car, still near his office. Instead of letting him get out of the car like the gentleman he was, she spouted off a good-bye and a thank you for dinner, and was out of there faster than fast, like a total loser.
“Fine if you don’t want to tell me.” The dejection in her daughter’s voice hurt her.
“It’s not that.” She pulled the phone away long enough to get the shirt over her head. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Kissing is natural between two adults who love each other.” Cate closed her eyes as the exact words she used while giving her daughter “the talk” were echoed back to her. “It’s not like I asked if he was into whips and chains.”
“Kill me now.” Cate groaned as she made her way to the bathroom. As it was, she was already doing the little kid pee-pee dance. But as uncomfortable as the conversation was, it was an important one and one she wanted to finish to its natural end, even if that meant the pee-pee dance.
