Second Chances Ch 04 1

Jerry came back here to Portland to spend the weekend with me three weeks ago, and he'll be here tonight for the weekend. The rush of the cancer scare showed that we were still emotionally tied with one another. The time since showed us that we had many more things to work out. Some have been good, some have been trying. I started to realize pretty quickly after he left after the procedure, I was still pissed at him. It wasn't a deal breaker now, but I was still hurt by what he did. We've been moving on, communicating more, opening up to each other more. It's been good and we've been growing and growing together. Why does growth have to be so painful?

Funny thing, I actually and honestly trusted him more now. The relationship was different. It was better, more grown-up, more mature. Closer. Also, he was not afraid of saying things to me respectfully that he would have been hesitant or even unwilling to say before. We've both been putting our inner selves out front more and more. I guess that after his being unfaithful and both of us letting our relationship slowly die, we're using this to grow closer together. Don't let anyone kid you, it's rough. Worth it, but rough.

I've been waiting all week for Friday for Jerry to get here, and it's been a very long tough week. I invited Tim from work to this bar. He's been a good friend to me. I arrived in Portland not knowing a soul at work. He befriended me, showed me the ropes and kept an eye on me. Jerry will be getting into town today at 5 and he'll be meeting us here sometimes after 6. That'll depend on the flight and how fast he can get out of the airport. Sometimes it quick, other times its heck. I wanted these two to meet for a while.

I didn't get out of work until about 5:30, late for a Friday. I told Tim to meet me at the Bent Brick in Little Italy at about 6. It's a nice place to meet people. Tim and I have gone there for drinks a couple of times after work. Tim was his usual cherry self when I suggested it.

I got there at 5:45 and Tim was already here. He'd ordered me my usual, an Oregon merlot. We talked about the day at work and the projects our teams worked on together. After a couple of minutes of work related stuff, I broke the conversation away to the weekend. "Tim, I forgot to tell you that Jerry's in town. He should be meeting me here in the half hour. It'll be great that you two finally get to meet."

"That's great Sandy, but I just remembered that I have to see one of my tenets. He's been having trouble with something or other and this was the only time we both were available. I have to go, please tell him that I'm sorry that I missed him. See you at work on Monday, bye." He leaned over and kissed my cheek and quickly left.

That was a bit odd, earlier he wasn't in a hurry at all. My glass was empty and it took me a minute to flag down the waiter to order another. By the time he took my order, Jerry walked up to me. He lugged his laptop in a shoulder bag and rolled his suitcase.

"Oh Jerry, so great that you're here. You just missed meeting Tim. He had to go and sends his regards."

"I know, I was watching you both for over 15 minutes."

I was a bit put off, "So why didn't you join us? It's my friend Tim." I see the look on his face, it's not a good look. "I've got nothing to hide from you."

Now Jerry has a more concerned look on his face. "That's right, you have nothing to hide from me, and you haven't hid anything from me. I think that there are things that you may not be aware of. Can I share what I saw with you? I think that it'll help you to understand." I nodded yes. He sat down with his drink and looked directly into my eyes in worried way.

"You've spoken about Tim a couple of times. He helped you get settled at your new job here, he became a local contact. Pretty friendly guy, seems like a pretty good guy, don't you agree?"

I nodded yes, "I'm thinking that I going to be hearing a 'but' in a minute, right Jerry?"

It was his time to nod, "You know that I trust you entirely, that I'm not accusing you of anything. What I have to say may not look like that. It may make me look petty, weak or scared. We've been working things out together and communication is at the top of what we do with each other now. So here goes.

"Tim is seducing you, and he's pretty good, pretty slick."

"No way Jerry, how could you think that? He's been a friend to me here. I don't believe it."

"Ok, I understand how you feel, so let me ask a few questions. You game for it?" I nodded yes. I was more than a little bit ticked about this all.

"He's been warm and helpful since you met him, right?" I nodded yes. "You told him honestly that you were unattached when you arrived in Portland? He offered his help whenever he could. All the signs of a good person, right?"

"Yes, so how does that go to seducing me?"

"This was just the start. There are lots of good people out there. I've seen you do great things like that for others too. Remember Pat, your team member? Right after the interview and she accepted, you contacted her and helped provide the details of moving to Portland." I nodded yes.

"But this is different Sandy. He first started to ask you to meet him with a group for lunch? I remember you telling me later that his hours became so crazy that it ended up being only the two of you, nobody else, right?" I nodded, but now I was starting to feel something different in my gut.

"How many people at that level of management need to have crazy hours? Then after three months, it was after work drinks. When did he first ask to go out to dinner after work?"

I never told Jerry that we ever went out to dinner. To me it was being out to dinner with a friend after work. "That was about a month before you showed up with my ring."

"Tim is married and has two kids. Let me guess, that doesn't come up very often. Don't most parents talk about their kids, show pictures, display them on their desk, go to school plays? Does he ever talk about his wife?"

I immediately saw the whole picture. "Oh my god Jerry, I'm starting to see what you mean. This doesn't look good, does it?" He nodded no. "He doesn't talk about his kids, and he says that his home life is non-existent. He says the marriage is not great, and says nothing more about it."

"Let me guess, he compliments you with some regularity, praises your work, supports the heck out of you if there is any trouble in your life. This is very true especially if it is something that you're doing to cause the trouble. We're human. We both do things like that, don't we? Wouldn't a friend help you see what you may not be able to see?

"When I came in, I saw him touching you. Pretty casual, not sexual. Quick answer, no thinking. How many times did he touch you in the past 15 minutes?"

"Once or twice?"

"Sandy, he felt a freedom to touch your cheek, put his hand on yours. In the 15 minutes I was watching you two, he touched you 6 different times. Your arm, your hands, your cheek. How many times do same sex friends do things like that? How often do you see different sex friends do that? It's appropriate unless you were married to somebody else. It's something a husband would do with a wife, a person would do with their partner of whatever sexual persuasion they were. It's natural and warm and friendly. The problem is that you're not his wife or his partner."

"Jerry, the reason he left so suddenly was that I had just let him know that you were due here within the half hour. That's when he bolted. I'm so sorry Jerry, I had no idea what he was doing. I thought it was friendship, a natural friendship. I.."

"We have to be honest with one another, and this was hard for me to say. That's why I stayed out of sight and watched you two. I wanted to be sure."

"Jerry, I'm sorry that this happened. I should have known better. I'll break it off with him immediately. I'll not do anything that will jeopardize what we are trying to work out together.

"I'll be honest, I will miss his friendship, but his friendship is not worth it if I'm being set up. How can he damage his marriage and his family? How could anyone do that to their kids?"

"Sandy, you know I love you and would do nothing anymore to hurt you. Doing it to you once big was enough. I also do not want to tell you what to do. We're going into this together, as equal partners. But you may be able to reset your relationship with him. You may have to."

"Whoa, what and how do you mean?"

"First off, you work together. It's going to be a bit of tension for quite a while. Getting things on the table may not be possible. Denial and hurt feelings, him redoubling his efforts, being frustrated. Payback in the office is a real possibility. Never put it past people to engage in passive aggressive behavior. That's a hell of an environment to work in.

"But because the way he moves ahead, you may be able to put some stop signs that he has to confront. I remember working around Diana for a month or two before I left. I did a few things that kept the peace and made it livable, not great, but livable." At this I nodded for him to go on.

"After a week, Diana physically touched me again. That tended to be how she related to the world. I made it clear to her in a very unemotional, professional, non-hostile way and so others could hear me that I didn't want to be touched. It was not nasty, it was not mean. It was a direct and firm request. It could not be taken in any other way. This sounds small, but it put up a boundary, it gave her limits.

"If you make it clear to him that touching is unwelcome, then you've changed his go signals to stop signs. If he doesn't respect that, then it may be time to call in personnel or his wife or both."

"Jerry, no more dinners with him unless it is both of us and his wife. After work drinks only with a group. Same with lunches." I paused, but that only took care of the one-on-one after work issues.

"You're right, this could be a real problem at work. Burning him or making a scene shouldn't be the first response. Work doesn't handle people very well when there are personnel issues, even when they don't get in the way of the job. They are let go quickly." We both remained quiet for a few minutes.

"Jerry, am I that trusting of people? Am I so blind?" That's when he reached over to me and hugged me.

"And by the way, how did you get to be so smart?" I reached over and kissed him, the first kiss since he arrived.

"I have a Graduate degree, from the school of hard knocks. I'd rather not have you go to school there." He paused and looked at me with a little bit of pain in his eyes. "The reason I can tell you all of this is that this is how it happened to me. That's how and why I know. It wasn't planned for me, it happened. I took that last step, I chose to be unfaithful to you, but I was led down that path pretty easy. That last step was small, the build up made sure of that. In the beginning and even in the middle of it, I didn't think anything I did was wrong or improper. I never thought that anything was not ok." We both were quiet for a minute.

"Jerry, I've still been a bit pissed at you for going off with Diana. I know you explained it to me a couple of times, but I couldn't get my head around it. I can see it now. Tim's technique was so sly and gradual... it could have happened to me too. I don't know if I would have taken that last step. After all, I've seen what happened after you took that step. Without your experience, I don't know Jerry, I just don't know." We spent the rest of the evening at the apartment, talking things over, important things over.

The next day was Saturday and Jerry's got a 3PM flight for home on Sunday, so tonight we decided to go out. Some of my friends from work will be at Rontoms tonight, and I'll introduce Jerry to them.

At 8 PM, Jerry and I arrived and met some of my coworkers on the outside patio. It was a great place to see everybody. The warm air, the open sky, the new friendships and Jerry at my side. Work remained hectic, but we have a good group of people that really try to get along. High Tech involves high stress when things go wrong, and it still breaks with some regularity. I saw Jill across the patio and she ran toward us. She's Bob's girlfriend. I've met her a few times and we've been friendly.

"Jill, I'd like to introduce my boyfriend Jerry." Jerry reached out his hand and shook Jill's. "He's been spending a lot of time out here lately with me."

Jill asked, "What kind of work do you do? I hope not another IT person Sandy? We have way too many IT people in this crowd." and the two of us laughed. Jerry just smiled. I'm sure he was wondering if he was the only one.

"I'm an accountant and a CPA. I've been working at some firms and been in an Accounting practice for the past year or so. I specialize in Audits."

"Oooo, sounds ...sounds..."

Jerry piped up, "Dull and boring?"

Jill answered, "No, not boring, more like a detective and a 'who done it'. Catch somebody doing anything interesting?"

"Actually, I have. I had an idea but it took our firm's DBA working with me after hours to help me get the evidence."

"Jerry, I'm going to leave you and Jill alone for a while to talk shop. She's at a law firm specializing in financial litigation. I'm going to talk with Linda on some work matters for a few minutes. You really don't want to hear us talk techy shop. Not only will your eyes roll, your head will probably do an exorcist spin." then I moved on.

About 10 minutes later, I had to visit the women's washroom and Jerry waved me over on my way there. "Jerry, I'll be back in a minute or two." I couldn't wait. I returned directly afterword and joined Jill and Jerry's conversation.

"Sandy, I was talking to Jill about that piece of Yukon gold jewelry I bought for you." I never got any Yukon gold from Jerry and I'm sure that my confusion showed in my face. "Oh come on, we were at your brother's house. Remember, the pretty YUKON piece. It wasn't expected, just appeared out of nowhere?"

Then it struck me, Yukon was the safe word I gave him. Jerry was asking to be saved from Jill. "Oh yes, it was beautful. Just a small nugget, but very pretty. I remember it well." He breathed a sigh of relief. I noticed that Jill was a bit plastered and was a bit touchy feely with me right now, and then with Jerry in front of me. We stayed with her for a minute or two and then moved on. Jerry grabbed my hand and whispered thank you in my ear. We ran into Bob a couple of minutes later and explained that Jill was needing him, although she didn't know it. He looked at me quizzedly, then understood. Jill sometimes has a hard time stopping drinking after the first 2.

That night back at my apartment we talked about the evening out, then about us again. We came to a mutual agreement on what we each wanted for the future. We kept going until 1:30 and it was rough, and glorious. In the end we understood and agreed with each other what our lives should be like together, now and in the future. We bonded again, stronger and more determined than before. We had a going forward plan. He was going to find a job out here and we'd move back in together. For the first time, we made a decision with our eyes wide open, along with our hearts. We're doing the right thing for both of us. We sealed our decision with making love, and then sleeping in until noon.

On Monday, I ran into Tim while waiting for a meeting to start. He and I had some small talk, the pre-meeting to the meeting. As others were assembling to go in, Tim escorted me into the room by my elbow. I jumped, I visibly jumped. Softly and without anger, but loud enough for others to hear, I asked him very politely to not to touch me, that I felt uncomfortable when he did that. He was shocked a bit and tried to cover it up and then we both joked about it, but I held firm. I hoped that it defused the problem. The meeting went on without any issues.

By the end of the week, three additional women told Tim the same thing in the same way. The firm is 60% women and most are under 30. Tim pulled back and we kept our friendship, but it wasn't as intimate as before. His grooming me faded into the background. Jerry was right, and I'm very lucky.