6. Sugarcoating It

6

SUGARCOATING IT

“ C ome in,” Kelly said when they got back to her place. She wasn’t one to have someone come to her place on a first date, but it’s not like Michael was some stranger in her life.

“This is nice,” he said, looking around.

“It’s small but suits me.”

“I meant the decorations. My place looks like I’ve got a kid in it. We pick up, but there is no hiding things.”

“And you shouldn’t,” she said. “Do you want a beer?”

“If you’ve got one I’ll take another,” he said. He’d only had one with dinner.

She walked to the kitchen and he was still standing. “Have a seat,” she said. “I’m going to have another glass of wine too. Don’t think poorly of me having an open bottle in the fridge. I don’t drink it nightly, but I opened it last night when a friend came over. I’m just finishing it off.”

“I don’t judge,” he said. “Lots of women have a glass a night.”

“They do, but I don’t,” she said. “My friend, who is actually a friend from another building, stopped over unexpectedly. She was alone and having man drama and needed an ear.”

“Do people do that to you often?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she said. “I think I’m the fun one of my friends so they like to come over and have a good time with me more than anything. I had her laughing and hating on her boyfriend for a few hours and she left in a better frame of mine, leaving her wine with me.”

Jill didn’t really hate her boyfriend but just needed a few moments where she could swear freely and get it off her chest. She hoped she was never as needy as Jill to be mad if the guy she was with wanted to go out with his friends now and again.

“You got something out of it then,” he said.

She brought their drinks over and sat on the couch with him, one leg under her hip, facing him. He was in the corner at an angle too. Her couch wasn’t that big so they weren’t far apart but not in each other’s space either.

“You’re being good not asking what my other drama is,” she said, her head tilted.

“Maybe you don’t want to share it,” he said. “Could be that it slipped with my outstanding personality.”

“God,” she said, letting out a laugh. “Where have you been for years?”

He closed one eye at her and she was coming to adore that move on him. A lock of dark hair fell over this forehead and she had the strongest desire to brush it back.

“I’ve been where I’ve always been but don’t make a habit of being that open with people during work.”

“So if we met in a bar you’d be more this way with me?”

“Could be,” he said. “But I doubt it. Maybe years ago, but now I’m a dad so it’s not like I’m in bars. I get two free nights a month if I’m lucky.”

Heard loud and clear . “Do you ever have anyone watch Ty? Not that I’m asking you to do that, but I also don’t want you to rush having Ty meet someone. I mean, this is one date. We’ve established some common things that I think it’d be okay to assume we’d try for another date.”

“I’d like that,” he said. “My parents would watch Ty for me.”

“But you don’t want them to know you are dating someone because they might ask questions?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “They won’t ask as many questions as much as be supportive and maybe intrusive.”

“I know that feeling well,” she said. She took a deep breath and then let it out. “I was married.”

“Oh,” he said. “Okay. I’m not surprised. I mean at your age, it’s not surprising. I’ve got a kid.”

She liked that he didn’t react harsher than others had. “There is more to it. I’m a widow.”

“Then I’m sorry,” he said. “How long ago, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I was nineteen,” she said.

“Young.”

“Very young and there were special circumstances to it all.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“I think I do. You said some personal things tonight and I feel that me sharing the fact I went on a dating reality show and was lucky enough to not be seen doesn’t compare.”

“It’s not a competition,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.

His dark eyes were assessing her, but he still looked so relaxed across from her. Not the same guy she’d had her eye on for years from a distance.

“No,” she said. “It’s not. Brian and I were each other’s first in high school. We were friends for years. Then we started to date. I’m not sure we would ever be anything other than friends, but we tried like kids do. I don’t regret for a minute my first time being with him.”

Brian was as gentle as any seventeen-year-old could be. But after a few months, they both knew it didn’t feel as right as it should have.

“Not everyone can say that about their first. I remember mine. Don’t regret it, but maybe she does. It was at a party and we were both flirting with each other. We were in high school too and one thing led to another. Then we dated for a few months after.”

“You had sex and then started to date?” she asked. “Damn, you must have a special gift to get a girlfriend that way, especially on your first time.”

He laughed at her. He was freer with his smiles and humor now.

“I won’t comment on that,” he said. “Don’t want to come off too cocky.”

“Too late. I’ve got an image in my mind and will just keep it there.”

“Don’t put me too high up there. No one wants that pressure or worry about disappointment.”

She could tell he was trying to joke, but maybe he didn’t find it too funny either.

“Sorry,” she said. “Brian and me. We just kind of fizzled out. Had so much fun together as friends. When another girl was flirting with him and he was smiling back, I’d encourage him to talk to her.”

“Not many teenage girls would do that.”

“No,” she said. “But I cared about him as a friend. We’d been friends since elementary school. He was the female version of me. Might be why we got along so well, but not enough to be more than friends.”

“Then how did you end up married?” he asked.

“I went away to college about an hour away. He didn’t go to college but rather got a job with the highway department flagging or something. He didn’t care for school much.”

“It’s not for everyone,” he said. “I went but struggled to finish it. Halfway through I told myself it’d be stupid to walk away. I’m glad I didn’t. Not that I’m using my business degree all that much.”

“I’d say you are,” she said.

“We are getting off track. You and Brian?”

“We kept in touch. As I said, we were friends. Then I get a text he’s sick and he’s scared. They were running tests and thought he had cancer.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah. Leukemia. He’d been sick or not feeling good for a while and thought he had the flu. He didn’t. The next day they started chemo and he was in the hospital. He’d be there for about a month, then go home for a few weeks, and then go back for more chemo. It wasn’t a good prognosis.”

“That had to be hard to hear.”

“Very. I was crying and came home. He wanted me to see him before he started chemo. I said I’d be there and skipped classes the next day. His parents left the room and let us talk. He said he was afraid he’d never get married or have kids. Nothing.”

“Did you say you’d marry him?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I told him he’d be fine. He was strong and he’d get through. He was a fighter. I stayed for a few days and then went back to college as he got weaker. He wanted me to go back, but we talked daily.”

“That is a big burden for you at that age.”

“It was, but I didn’t feel that way. If I could have come home to finish the semester somewhere else I would have, but it was too late into the semester. He was getting the care he needed at home. His parents knew me well. Brian and I had been friends for years so I’d text his mother at times to check in on him.”

“I’m sure they appreciated that.”

“They did.”

But they didn’t appreciate things afterward.

“I’m going to assume he didn’t get better?” he asked.

“When he’d been home for a break on the chemo, I’d been visiting him. It was Christmas break and I had a month off. On one of our visits, he asked me to marry him. Said that he didn’t know what was going to happen and wanted to say he had a wife.”

She saw the sympathy in his eyes. “You said yes?”

“I did. I loved him. He was like a best friend. We had so many memories and he needed me.”

“You were nineteen,” he said. “That’s a huge responsibility to take on caring for someone and you’d be in college.”

“I transferred back home for the next semester. My parents were pissed, but they knew there was no changing my mind. I just had to do it. I said we’d figure out the rest later on.”

“I can’t imagine my parents would be that understanding.”

“Mine weren’t. I’m sugarcoating it. But I was at an age they couldn’t tell me no. The same with Brian. His parents were livid over the whole idea of it, but we did it anyway. They were gone one day and I was sitting with him and we had a judge come to the house. When everyone found out, it was an all-out war, but since Brian was going back in for chemo, everyone bit their tongue. We just had to be positive for him.”

“Makes sense,” he said.

“He went into the hospital. His parents stayed as his medical proxy. That was the big fight, that I would step in and do things and I swore to them I absolutely would not do it. That wouldn’t be right. I went to appointments because Brian asked me to be there, not because his parents wanted to include me.”

“Did you just sit and listen?”

“I did. I held his hand. We had simple sterling silver rings that I bought us and we wore them. No one questioned me being there or his parents handling the medical stuff. We were young.”

“I’d think that is pretty common,” he said.

“We’ll fast forward. After the second month, he went through his treatment, I was in college locally and then went to see him a few times a week. Mostly on the weekends. It gave his parents a break too and Brian said they did appreciate that as they didn’t want him alone.”

“So they came around to it?” he asked.

“They did for him, but they didn’t say much to me. Long gone was the nice fun banter we had when I was just Brian’s friend and ex-girlfriend. But I get it, there were more important things to worry about.”

“Being a father, I don’t even want to think of those things,” he said.

“Continuing on. I knew we weren’t going to live together. At least not right away. We’d figure things out in the future. But I did help stay with Brian when his parents were at work and didn’t want to leave him alone. I made myself useful, and again, Brian was happy. We’d watch TV and argue about shows or play cards. When he was tired and needed to sleep, I did my work.”

She didn’t need to say how hard it was to watch Brian’s body whither away to nothing while there were talks about bone marrow transplants coming up. But his organs were failing and he was trying to recover from the chemo he’d just gone through.

She started to sniffle and got a tissue. “Take your time,” he said.

“Thanks for letting me talk. This isn’t a good conversation to have on a first date. As I said, very few know any of this. No one I work with. I’d appreciate it if you kept it quiet. I hadn’t gotten around to changing my name yet. His parents and mine wanted me to wait. I think they just didn’t want anyone to know Brian and I were married. We didn’t tell many.”

“Were they embarrassed or afraid of being judged?”

“I think Brian’s parents were afraid to think of the real reason why Brian wanted it done. They were so hopeful. So was I, but I just kept seeing the light fading from his eyes. I never thought he was strong enough to go in for his bone marrow transplant months later. I was on summer break, but I didn’t have any right to speak up.”

“You were his wife.”

“But had no rights and wouldn’t exercise them. I know everyone was just pacifying two young kids. He had to go through even stronger chemo to kill every cell in his body for the transplant. He didn’t make it. His organs went into failure so fast and he died within two days.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching his hand over and touching hers.

“Thanks. His parents took care of everything. I just went along for the ride. It didn’t seem like any of it was happening. In six months time, I came home from college, got married, and watched my husband and my childhood friend die. I wasn’t even there. I’d gone home that night because I hadn’t felt good. His parents didn’t call me. It wasn’t until I showed up the next morning that the nurse told me when I went into his room.”

“That’s wrong.”

That was going to linger in her mind forever. But she tried to write it off as their grief. She wanted to give Brian’s parents the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s in the past,” she said. “At the funeral, I wasn’t in the line. Nothing. I sat in the front the whole time with my parents holding my hand. No one thought anything of it. They’d know we were friends. Lots of friends were there. They’d had a closed casket and no one questioned the ring on my finger.”

Brian’s parents gave his back to her. They couldn’t even honor their son’s wish that he wanted to be married before he died and let him have that little bit in his burial on his hand.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing you did for your friend at the end,” he said. “I’m not sure many would have done that.”

“I know many wouldn’t. I felt bad I never told my friends or anyone that we married. His obituary didn’t even list me as his wife.”

“Do you know why?”

“I think both our parents agreed it was best not to. My mother said she’d asked if it was going to be listed and his parents had said no. That they didn’t believe it was a real marriage either. It was,” she said. “We had had sex after. Just once. You know, so Brian felt he was really married. I mean we’d done it before and I loved him.”

“You thought it would make him happy. You were trying to give him something at the end,” he said.

“Yeah. I was afraid many would judge me for that. Another reason why I never said anything. But we were married and all. It was a real marriage regardless of what anyone else thought.”

“Those were your decisions,” he said. “I’m not judging at all.”

“Thanks for that,” she said. “So there you go. I think I’ve spent years trying to find a person like Brian. One that was just like me in terms of fun and laughter. Then I realized there was a reason we were better off as friends.”

“You wanted to see if what you had with Brian would have lasted if he were still alive,” he said.

“You’re pretty smart,” she said. “I can’t and won’t think of what ifs because it does no good. I don’t regret one minute of my marriage to him.”

“You grew up fast. You witnessed a lot that many don’t. You might have lost some of your light and yet I don’t think you did.”

She got up for a tissue and blew her nose. “No. He wouldn’t want that of me. My life went on. I went back to college the next semester, and those that even knew I was gone, I just told them there was a family emergency I had to deal with. It wasn’t a lie.”

“Then life went on,” he said.

“It did. I still visit Brian in the cemetery. I leave him flowers all the time. I’ve seen his parents there before and don’t approach. They don’t have anything nice to say to me.”

“Even after all this time?”

“No,” she said. “It’s fine.”

No reason to say more or why. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks. Just like I won’t say anything about what you told me in regards to Ty and Electra. Pretty deep first date. Now I need to get my happy back on and my wine is all gone.”

“What else do you think you can do to get happy?” he asked.

She shifted over closer to him. “How about a kiss if you’re still interested? Or am I a nutcase and you want to run for the door?”

“Not running for the door,” he said, dipping his head down and laying his lips to hers.

She thought it was going to start out soft. When it didn’t, she expected hard.

Didn’t get that either.

Instead she got the perfect amount of panty-wetting tongue action that made her want to crawl in his lap, spread her legs wide, and remove their barriers of clothing.

She wouldn’t do that though.

But she did accept a good thirty minutes of them kissing on the couch and felt happier than she’d been in her life.

When he was walking out the door, he said he had a great time and he’d be in touch.

As for first dates, it might not have gone as planned, but she didn’t think she’d change a thing about it.