Twice Loved (12 page)

“Get out of my face douchebag!” That is my intelligent reply to Tate.

I maneuver around him. I lose all reasoning when he’s around. I don’t think I just feel. He makes me forget everything logical in me. I hate that. I hate the power he has over me. It was one thing to give him power in the bedroom but my heart. I couldn’t let him control my heart. I’m such a mess I’m fumbling with the doorknob having trouble opening it.

He opens the door behind me as his lips brush across my neck. “You’re turned on right now! Don’t even deny it.”

He’s right I am. I won’t. Doesn’t mean I have to like it or him.

“AHHHHH!!!!!” I cry in frustration as I push past him. I plaster on a fake smile I rejoin everyone else in the living room. “Well it looks like we are all having dinner together tonight.”

Tate, Jake, and Noah head to the grocery store. It's decided we will grill out at Haley’s place that way more packing can be done without us stopping and going out somewhere as a group. I sigh as the door closes behind them. It gives me a few moments of respite.

“Mom?” My daughter’s sweet voice calls out. “What’s going on with you and Tate?” My daughter is beautifully innocent. She has made it through most of her life without the drama I went through at her age. I was a rebel, my poor parents had their hands full with me.

“Tate has decided that he wants to win me over. I refuse to let him.” I tell my daughter truthfully. She’s old enough for me to talk straight with her. I shouldn’t have to hold her hand to get her through this conversation.

“I really don’t understand.” She scratches the side of her head, “Is this because of what Grandma Mae said? Even when Daddy was sick Tate helped make you happy on some level.”

“It’s not that simple.” I pull my feet up under me on the couch. “It's so much more complicated. One day hopefully you will understand my choices.”

“Do you even understand your choices mom?” My daughter is smart, too smart for her own good. The wisdom she shows in that one simple question takes me back and I find myself smiling at her in pride even while I’m pissed as hell at Tate for doing this to me.

“I don’t know baby. I just don’t know.”

“No your mom is being a world class idiot but I get why she is.” Haley inserts her two cents into the conversation.

“Thanks Friend!” Nothing like a little sarcasm and smartassness to break the tension as the three of us smile at one another.

Chapter Thirteen

The guys come back to Haley’s loaded down with bags of food. It appears they went all out for the evening. The guys do some minor prep work in the kitchen before heading out on Haley’s little patio and firing up the grill. I should probably be concerned about the influence that Jake and Tate will have on Noah but I’m not. I trust them with my son. It scares the shit out of me to be honest.

“What are you going to do about him?” Haley asks once the guys are outside. I glance over at Olivia. She too is waiting with anticipation for my answer. Everyone is ganging up on me.

“I’m not sure. I told him we were through and not to waste his time.”

“What if he’s serious? What if he really does want to be with you now? After all you’re no longer married. Nothing holding you two back from a real relationship this time.”

I squirm in my seat now I am the one in trouble. “I just can’t.”

“I think the only reason Tate was never serious about you before was because you were unavailable. He knew you wouldn’t be free as long as Steve was alive.”

“She has a point mom.” Shocked that my daughter speaks up and even more surprised that she is slightly defending Tate.

“I just don’t know if I can do it. Can I put my trust in him? My heart was cracked losing Steve and Tate within months of each other. Tate and I broke up and three months later Steve passed away. It’s a wonder I survived the pain of a double broken heart. It would be my undoing if Tate shattered it completely this time”

“You’re scared I get it.” Haley is sitting beside me and her hand reaches out and pats me knee as she speaks. But you didn’t die with Steve. Let yourself live.”

“Dad wouldn’t want you denying yourself happiness mom.” Olivia, sitting in a chair nearby, brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t like the whole Tate and you thing at first but Daddy talked to me before he died.” She gets a wistful look on her face as she speaks of her father. “He supported you and Tate and that’s what I want to do.”

“No promises but I’ll think about it.” Tears form in my eyes, I rapidly blink them away. I lift the beer bottle on the table up to my lips. I take a long pull savoring the taste in my mouth. Can I do it? Can I trust Tate with my heart a second time?

Noah rushes in the patio door. His smile beams from ear to ear. I’m glad to see he is having a good time. “Tate is giving me pointers on how to ask a girl out.”

“What?” I choke out.

“Yea there’s this girl I want to ask out, and he’s telling me how I can guarantee she’ll say yes.”

“I see.”

Noah gives me a look, one that says I’m freaking out over nothing. “Mom don’t worry it’s all good.”

“Okay honey.” I trust Noah. He’s a good boy. His dad and I raised him the right way. Hopefully Tate is respecting that by not corrupting my son to his manwhore ways.

The night goes by quickly. We eat our meal which is heaven sent. Laughter has rung out across the apartment all night. I’m enjoying myself. It’s so easy to be around Tate. He makes it easy. Yet that easy is also hard… hard to resist.

The kids head out around eight. They are going home to get ready to attend a party at a friend’s house.

“You know the rule…”

“Yes mom. We drink, we don’t drive, we call you.” Noah replies in a smartass tone. I kind of want to smack him.

“Be safe I love y’all.”

“Love you.” is chorused back to me. They tell the other adults goodbye and they are out the door.

I stand up gathering up empty bottles and other trash to take into the kitchen. The least I can do is help Haley clean up after our little dinner party.

“Come home with me tonight?” Tate startles me as he comes into the kitchen behind me.

“Tate please don’t.”

“Princess just come home with me. Let me love you tonight.”

He’s killing me. I don’t want him to just love me tonight I want him to love me forever. That is why this is so hard for me. I want him forever. A year of stolen moments with him was never enough. I wanted more and I couldn’t have it. Tate was never faithful. He was always looking for the next woman to bang. It sounds like he was rude and disrespectful but for the most part he was charming and made each one feel special for the moment. I saw the kind of man he was. I loved him anyway. It’s just I wanted more.

I want the happily ever after. We grow old together. We fight, we make up. I wanted someone I could share the stupid daily things with. Even if he didn’t care about them he would listen to me. Make me feel like every word I said was important to him. It would be important to him because he loved me and cared about me. It wouldn’t just be about what he wanted but what I wanted too.

I want a man who is a better man just because I’m by his side. I stand by my man and love him no matter what. I was asking for the impossible to want that again. I had it with Steve, maybe he was the only one I was ever meant to have it with. Was I asking for the impossible?

“Princess…”

Oh right Tate is still standing here and I’m zoned out in my own head. How do I answer him? I don’t know what to do. I would love to go home with him and let him have his wicked way with me but could I do it and walk away from him again?

I don’t think I can. “Tate please… don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Fuck Princess! Why won’t you let me in?”

“I did let you in… and it didn’t work out for us.” I turn to walk back in the living room he grabs me by the arm. Yanking me into him, I come to a halt.

“I’m not giving up this time. I’m not pushing you away and I’m sure as fuck not letting you walk away from me. I’m fighting for you this time.”

Like that… the wall I’m trying to build crumbles. I can’t resist him anymore.

“Okay.” I say softly. I have no other words.

“Okay?”

“Fine Tate do whatever you want you always do.”

I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to fight him. He’s made up his mind and that’s all there is to it. He’s stubborn that way. I pull myself free and walk through the living room ignoring my friends as I head out to the patio to smoke. I need a few moments alone, to gather my wits about me.

As I drag on my cigarette, I think about another time with Tate. A time when it was fun and carefree. There was no expectations no pressure. We simply enjoyed being with one another. It didn’t matter if it was in or out of the bedroom. I could handle that again. I could handle being his friend and sometimes lover. What I could not handle was him toying with my emotions.

If Tate could agree to that with me again, we could be together. I could keep my feelings locked deep inside. But he had to play fair and not play on them. Could he do that? It’s possible. My mind is made up I’m going to talk to Tate about it. I’ll tell him I will follow him tonight so that we can talk.

***

I pull in behind Tate’s truck an hour later. I turn my car off rubbing my hands on my shorts. They are a little sweaty. I’m nervous about what I’m getting ready to do. What I’m going to be asking Tate to do.

My door opens.

“You getting out Princess?” His cocky smirk is back. I want to smack it off his face.

“Yea… I just need to grab my purse.”

He gives me a hand out of the car. I love how he is always a gentleman with me. Opening doors, lighting my cigarettes. He has the makings for a good relationship he just chooses not to do it. I often wonder if he does it on purpose. Does he sabotage his own relationships? I often felt like he tried to do that with me. Always talking about how he didn’t deserve someone like me. That I was too good for someone like him. Didn’t he realize it was my choice to make? I was the only one with a right to choose who I loved.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Sweet Tea?” I ask hopeful. Knowing he would have sweet tea in the fridge with beer. Even if there is nothing else in there.

“Of course.”

Tate walks into his kitchen and I make my way over to the leather couch. I sit down. My eyes cut around the living room. The only change I note in his house, is LuAnn’s pictures are no longer hanging on the walls, or spread out on every available space that crazy woman could find to put them. I wonder what the deal is with her these days. No one has said much about her.

“Here you go.” Tate says while holding a glass out to me. I take it from his hand.

“Thank you.”

“So what did you want to talk about?”

I set the glass down on the coffee table. Rubbing my hands on the front of my shorts again the butterflies in my stomach take up flight. He always gets right to the point no beating around the bush with him.

“Right um I wanted to talk about us.” I’m fidgeting worse than one of my students.

“What about us?” I love how his eyebrow raises up with the question giving him this sexy smirky look.

“Well what if we go back to how things were when we first met?”

“What do you mean?”

Ugg! He’s going to make me spell it out for him I can see that now. “Like when we were just friends with benefits.”

“So I can’t tell you I love you? Or see you whenever I want too?” he pouts like a child, he’s trying to be cute. It’s only semi working.

“We can see each other as often as time allows. You can say whatever you want you do anyway.”

He shifts his body toward me as he sits down on the couch. “Princess I want more than that.”

“Well that’s not happening the only way you can be with me is if you agree to stop all the happily forever bullshit.” I am completely exasperated with him and this topic.

“Wow when did you become me?”

What?! I’m nothing like him. I’m faithful. I’m loyal. I know how to be with just one man and cherish every moment together. The only reason I was able to be with Tate before is because Steve had given permission for it to happen.

“I just think it would be better if we kept emotions out of our relationship. We were good friends. We were awesome lovers, but that’s all we need to be.”

“So I can hang out with you and fuck you but I can’t love you?”

That sounds so harsh when he puts it that way. Sometimes life is harsh. “Pretty much.”

“Fine if that’s how you want to play it.” he sits back in a huff on his couch, arms folded over his chest.

“I’m not playing Tate. There can be no talk of a future or weddings… we are just friends with benefits.”

“I said fine.” Okay he’s getting a little testy. No need for that.

“What’s the deal with LuAnn these days?”

“I finally broke up with her. But she keeps contacting me. She’s like my own personal creepy stalker.”

“So will I be hidden from her again, or should I say still?” I ask curiously.

He sighs deeply. He slides me closer to him on the couch. “I’m not hiding you from anyone this time. It’s all in the open.”

“Oh well…. Um okay…”

Yep not sure what to do with that. I spent the whole year we were together a secret from LuAnn and the one other woman he tried to date seriously during the time we were together. Sure his friends and coworkers knew about me but they knew I was married too. We had the most fucked up relationship when I think about it.

Hopefully this time things would be better. I know better than to fall for him. I’m not blind going into the relationship this time. I know exactly who Tate Jameson is.

“Off topic but I’m falling in love with Brandy.”

“Yea?” his face softens as does his voice at the mention of his daughter.

“Yea, she’s a great little girl Tate. You should be really proud of her.”

His arm encircles me I snuggle into his side. “I am. Rachel’s letting me see her more now that LuAnn is out of the picture”