Another Morning

I was wandering in a sea of self-doubt, contemplating everything that could go wrong with the "friendly outing." Fear was a real entity within me. It had been four years since I had a romantic relationship, two and a half years since I had a date. My last dating experience ended on a bad note resulting in the man's unwillingness to call or pick up my phone calls to him. I grimaced in remembrance. It was a bitch reliving old painful memories.

I laid on my bed, letting my mind drift through my brief history, listening to the soft purring of my cat next to my right ear, and being hypnotized by the ceiling fan. My eyes closed in defeat; I had decided to not go. It was a big school. The chance of our meeting again was slim. All I had to do was not go to the coffee shop, leaving that particular task to Tabitha. He did not have my number so I did not need to worry that he would call. What a coward I was. I always prided myself with facing my fears now I was running away from a man.

My cell phone started to go off. It was Tabitha. I answered with a need to hear that comforting voice of someone I trusted. "Hey there."

"Hey yourself. So are you ready to go?" She sounded excited. I wish I felt excited.

"I'm not ready. My hair's not done, I'm not dressed, and I'm not going."

"Are you ill? Did you call him and reschedule?" Her voice was filled with worry and more than a little confusion.

I turned my head to look at my cat. He was curled up looking like a big fluffy white ball without a care in the world to plague his slumber. He relied on me to feed him, keep his litter box sanitary, and to keep him company. The boy had nothing to worry about. At that moment in time, I wished we could trade places. "I don't have his number, he doesn't have mine. I'm going to stand him up."

There was silence on the other line. The silence chilled me, filled me with dread. Tabitha had an opinion about everything. I never knew her to be silent in the two years we had known each other.

"Get your ass dressed and ready. You're going to that dinner." Her voice was low and deadly. My eyes widened in shock. It was a tone I had never heard from her.

"What possible reason do I have to go? He's a player; it's no skin off his nose if I don't show up." Was that a whinny pitch in my voice?

"Because I know you're going to regret it. The whole time I've known you, you haven't gone on a date and you've barely showed interest in a man...any man! Live a little. So there's a possibility that this might not last, but you could at least enjoy it while you can." Tabitha was more than a little disgruntled with me. She went from being forceful, to flabbergasted, to frustration all in one breath.

I hated to admit to myself that she had a point. Leave it to Tabitha to rip the fear right out of me and replace it with reason. I temporarily hoped that she did not say "I told you so" later in the week. "Fine, but I'm not dressing up." It was in my nature to defy her at some point.

"Okay, you'll wear jeans, that dark blue halter top with lace that ends just above your bellybutton and the sexy red mandarin collar blouse over the top."

A frown creased my brow. "Not the red blouse. That dresses everything up. Even jeans look like evening wear with it."

"You're wearing it and you're wearing make-up. I'm doing this for your own good. You'll thank me later."

There was no use arguing with her so I yielded to her undeniably great fashion sense, especially since I was not "girlie" enough to dress myself for a date...no...a "friendly outing." "Sure." Was all I said.

"Great! Get going because you're already going to be late." The line went dead at the other end.

I looked at the phone in consternation. She really wanted the last word on the topic. It was the first time she had ever been so forceful. In the past, she gently whittled away at my defiance to get her way. I was the one who was always forceful. That did not say much since my forcefulness got me nowhere most of the time.

I shrugged and started to get ready, my worries gone from my mind. As the French would say, "C'est la vie." That's life, baby.

--~~--

Grim determination, I held onto it with a desperate grip. I marched to the door of the restaurant, never pausing in my movements. If I paused, I would run and I did not want to run. Besides, it would be a shame to waste gas. My false bravado did nothing to quiet the butterflies in neither my stomach nor all the negative thoughts bouncing around in my brain. Those little "what if's" that drove a person mad would not leave me alone. I was five minutes late. Maybe he left and I would be off the hook.

Kaden was sitting there in all his handsome splendor. He was dressed casually favoring a rich purple buttoned up shirt tucked into his jeans. His eyes spotted me as I walked toward him. I could tell he had been scowling. Was he worried that I would not show up?

A friendly smile adorned his face. It was a smile of welcome to reassure me that this dinner meant more to him than just a quick tumble between the sheets. He pushed out his chair and stood as I approached. The table was set for a pleasant evening meal, utensils were set in their correct spots, cloth napkins were neatly folded into a fan, and a single rose colored candle was cheerfully lit with a dancing flame.

Kaden walked around the table to pull out my chair. It was a gentlemanly gesture that gave me shivers of pleasure. After he was seated again he handed me a menu. "You look lovely." Not cute, beautiful, or gorgeous. His choice of words suggested that I looked classy, at least that was the way I interpreted it.

"Thank you. You look handsome. Have you been waiting long?" I knew I was late, but it was only polite to ask, right?

"No, I haven't." He looked down and scratched is upper lip. "For a second, I thought you would bail."

Lying was never one of my strong points. Often, I considered myself a person who told the truth no matter the consequences. "I almost did. My best friend talked sense into me." A nervous laugh managed to escape.

"I'll have to thank her."

We took time to look through our menus. The waiter came by and asked for my drink preference, also our order if we were ready. He was gone as fast as he appeared, carrying our orders to the cook and taking our menus away. We were alone again. I was still nervous and Kaden stared thoughtfully at me.

Suddenly he asked, "What's your story?" The question startled me, it was unexpected.

"Which story do you prefer?" People usually hated it when I asked for clarification of their general questions. His eyes wandered to some point beyond my shoulder, lost in his thoughts.

He came back to himself and looked at me in all seriousness. "How about an eye for an eye? I told you a story about my ex, how about a story about one of yours?"

The mention of ex's brought to mind only one. My mood changed like the weather. I was nervous one minute and gloomy the next. There was a time when I lived in my past, I had since learned to shake off the shackles of long-ago and live in the present. Every so often the past comes back to haunt me, turning my mood black. This was no different.

I did not want to tell THAT story, but it was the only thing I had that matched the severity of his. It was only fair and I strove to be fair. My gaze had wandered from his; I stared at the napkin fan placed trimly in front of me. I took a breath and looked back at him.

--~~--

Justin Beaumont had not been much to look out. He was lanky with little muscles, black hair, green eyes with glasses, and preferred the James Dean look. Aside from the physique, he was no geek. Justin reeked of experience and danger. The combination attracted me. Before I could blink, we were dating. My gut told me it was a bad idea; I had just left a relationship with a man a month before and I was still hurting. Dating Justin was my attempt to erase that hurt.

It was not long till we moved in together. I worked part-time and went to college full-time. He pretended to work, jumping from one job to another eventually becoming unemployed. All the signs were there, but I refused to see them. I would go off to work and after work attend college, not coming home till late into the night. Everyone knew what he was doing; gaining a free ride and cheating on me while I was dumb enough to turn a blind eye.

One day, Justin tired of his life of leisure and unfaithfulness. He decided that becoming a chef was his destiny. Utilizing the internet, he found a decent culinary school in California. I paid for his plane ticket, giving him what little money I had for food until he could find a part-time job. For four months I supported him, barely having money to support myself. The rent was late, the bills were past due, my car never had a full tank of gas, and I went hungry most of the time.

Near the end of the fourth supportive month, his mistress confronted me. She told me the promises he made to her. He was going to marry her when he got back and he was using me because I was stupid enough to give him money. She relished describing in great detail their many sexual affairs. I stood in my doorway listening with a vacant expression on my face. After she was done, she stood there waiting for me to say something. At that point I realized I needed to stop my life from the downward spiral of destruction. I looked at the woman before me and started to laugh hysterically. She was speechless, not expecting my reaction. Before I closed the door in her face, I told her that she could keep him.

I stopped sending money. I stopped answering his calls. I severed all connection to him. To make sure he did not find me, I transferred to a college closer to home. My mom came with a moving van and helped move me back into my old room. She took care of all the bills, a task that she could barely manage with her finances. I did not feel any guilt, nothing negative with my choices. Instead I felt this overwhelming sense of relief. This was a step in the right direction on the path to rebuilding my life.

--~~--

"Life taught you a hard lesson." Kaden whispered.

I kept staring at that damn napkin. The waiter came in the middle of my story to set down our food. Then I was staring at my overflowing plate. I could not look at him while I told tale of idiocy. That mistake shamed me. I did not want to see his look change from companionate interest to hard accusation, the accusation that I should have known better than to let a man walk all over me. He could be looking at me as if I were an easy target, a woman easily tricked into bed.

Gathering what little courage I scraped together, I looked up. It was not what I thought at all. He was glaring at his food, fork held tightly in his hand, as if it had wronged him. I was sure that if his food had still been moving, he would have savagely killed it with his fork in vengeful rage.

Tentatively I asked, "Are you okay?"

Kaden turned his glare on me; I could not help shrinking back in my seat slightly. "I wish he was here."

"Who?" It was a stupid question, but I could not fathom him wanting to avenge me.

"Your ex, Justin. If he were here, police would have a hard time pulling me off of him. He shouldn't have taken advantage of you. I assume he knew that you were trying to recover from a painful break-up."

Momentarily, I forgot my food. "Yes. I told him of the break-up, even pointed out the guy. Justin didn't seem to care. He didn't seem to care about a lot."

Kaden viciously stabbed at the beef on his plate. "I don't think I want to hear anymore. I already want to kill the guy."

How flattering it was to have another man outraged over the wrongs done to me. My heart did a little flip. "Why don't we forget the past and enjoy our food? Do you see our waiter? I can't eat Chinese food without chopsticks. It doesn't seem right to use a fork."

The evening went by enjoyably. I managed to settle my nerves and began to relax in his presence. Conversation jumped around from cars to favorite movies. There was no end to discussion topics between us. The hours slipped by and my fondness for him grew.

The time went by fast and the restaurant was preparing to close. Kaden walked me to my car, we were still laughing over funny stories regarding our pets.

"I guess this is it." I stated uneasily as we reached the drivers side of my car.

He leaned in close, scant inches from me. "I was hoping that we could top the evening off with a kiss."

I blushed at the suggestion. What was I going to do? I did not know the first rule of kissing. The words of past boyfriends filled my mind, all of them telling me that I did not know how to kiss. "It's a friendly outing. You don't kiss on friendly outings." The excuse was childish at best, but I could not let him kiss me.

"Then let's change the perspective and call it a date." Kaden moved a little more.

He was so close that I could smell him. His scent threatened to intoxicate me. Fighting for control was not easy, but I managed to keep my head. I was about to say something when he swooped in with a kiss and caught me off guard. He took full advantage of my open mouth with his tongue. My body seemed to slowly melt and I could not think. His tongue touched mine and my knees gave out. Kaden increased the passion of the kiss, pushing me roughly up against my car. I held onto him like my life depended on it, my hands desperately clutching the soft cloth of his shirt. Parts of me started to come alive, parts that only tingled when I read a good romance novel, parts that never tingled with any other man's touch let alone his kiss. The breath was leaving my lungs in short pants. The affect he was having on me scared me, but his kiss made it hard to analyze my current situation.

Kaden ended the kiss slowly, reluctantly drawing out the feeling till the very last instant. Even when the kiss ended he still held me close as if he never wanted to let me go. He came to his senses while I was still in a dream state that only he could put me in. His ability to recover from such a kiss faster than me would later annoy me. He slowly drew away from me.

After gently kissing me on my nose he said, "I think I'll keep you." His husky whisper caressed my cheek. "May I have your number so I can call you?" Staying close to me, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket.

In my dreamy haze, I repeated the numbers automatically not fully realizing what was going on. He kissed my forehead and started to back away. How I stayed upright was a mystery. "I'll call you tomorrow, sexy." Then Kaden turned and walked away.

My mind slowly began to function again as I stared at his back. Belatedly, I went over what he said and started to get slightly incensed. I glared at his retreating form. He thought he was going to keep me! The nerve of that man! I would just have to lay into him...if he ever got around to calling. It had been my experience that the line "I'll call you" really meant "maybe I'll call you if someone else doesn't grab my attention in the meantime." Then I thought of the kiss we shared. I let out a long sigh. My wrath saved for another day. I had let him off the hook. After a last admiring glance of his backside, I entered my car and drove away. Half way home I realized that I still had his shirt.

--~~--

Thank you for sticking wtih the story. Chapter 4 is being written. People will start to put a strain on the budding relationship of Alex and Kaden. I hope they can handle it. Comments and voting are welcome and appreciated!