For all of your support, suggestions and being a friend that I have found on Wattpad!
***********************************************************
Chapter 3
Sunday morning Millie stretched, enjoying the warmth of her comfy bed, not wanting to get up. Wrapping her blankets around her, she felt a sense of peace. She loved staying up late and would often sleep in, preferring her night owl hours. The only thing she had on her schedule today was a late night Skype call with a company in Japan that she had been working their logo and branding.
After a quick run to the 24 hour grocery store on Saturday morning at two AM, Millie was stocked for the next month of coffee, frozen dinners and ingredients for some gourmet meals that she liked to splurge and try cooking every few days. She was a good cook, but often her schedule kept her busy and when she would finally realize she was hungry, it was too late to cook, she wanted it right then. So, she would make things like home-made chicken salad and it would be good for a few days whenever she needed it. She loved indulging on delivery and fast food at times, but she also enjoyed cooking.
Today, since she was not super busy, she wanted to do her devotional and watch a few streaming church services and make a big pot of marinara sauce that she would use this week for not only spaghetti, but also lasagna, chicken parmigiana or eggplant rollatini.
After grabbing a bowl of cereal and putting on a pot of coffee, Millie checked her email and put on Pandora to her Jesus Culture channel. Listening to the group as she cooked her sauce, she lost herself in the words and the mindless task of roasting tomatoes and garlic as she mixed ingredients.
Once the sauce was simmering she grabbed some tiramisu that was left over from her lunch with Lexi the day before and returned to her computer to watch some church services. In one window, she opened her parent’s church. The church she grew up in. Everything was very proper and ordered.
In another screen, she went to Paul’s church website. The music was more contemporary and upbeat. It was not like the hymnals she grew up singing about God, their songs sang more to God. Like a love song to God. Then she heard a familiar song, but with a different beat. Even the old things seemed new.
As she watched, she saw a beautiful blonde woman that had been leading the worship, hand a microphone over to Paul. “As the prayer team comes forward, I want to talk to you about Searching for God. This week, I did a Google search. I typed one word in the search box... ‘God’. Have you ever searched for God? Google had 967,000,000 results. YES! Almost a billion results! But, I am glad that I serve a God that I don’t have to search for. I can call on his name and He hears me. I don’t have to go to Google or any other search engine. My God is bigger than the Internet. If you have a need, I ask for you to come to one of our prayer partners and call on the name of God. He will come to you without you having to search Him out. Bring your problems to Him and leave them at His feet. I promise, it will be better than any Google search.”
As Millie watched Paul leave the stage, she noticed he walked behind those coming up for prayer and laid hands on them and prayed for them along with the prayer partners. He moved from person to person, always laying hands on their backs, bowing his head and then praying for a moment before he moved on to the next person. In that moment, Millie could describe Paul in one word... genuine!
Toggling from one screen to the next, Millie couldn’t help but notice the difference in the two services. It wasn’t like one was right and one was wrong, but they were just... different. Then she wondered what it would be like to sit in Paul’s church during the service. Maybe one day she would find out.
“Hey, I’m home!”
“We’re out here son.” Peter called out. “Your mother and I are having a grilling competition. You are here in perfect time to judge.”
Paul laughed. “I am not getting in the middle of this! Dad, I told you buying her a grill for her birthday was a bad idea.”
Peter and Susan Thomas had been married for almost forty years. They were both in their sixties, but that did not slow them down. Peter ran a successful business until last year when he sold and retired comfortably off the profits. In reality, they lived off the interest from the sale. To look at them you would not know that. Susan’s dream was always to live on a farm. Once they were married, they moved out of Atlanta and bought a farm for Susan to do some vegetable gardening and raise some goats and chickens.
He wrapped his arms around his mother’s back and leaned over her shoulder to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi Mama.”
“Hey baby boy. How was church?”
“Good. Things are going good.” Paul reached around his mother at the grill to pick up a piece of raw squash and popped it in his mouth.
“Hey, I am going to grill that.”
“Not any more.” Paul said with a smile. “Where’s Charity? I figured her brood would be here by now.”
“JC came down with something, so they are staying home.” James Charles, who had both of his parents initials, James like his father and the C for Charles was from Charity, was only two and always coming down with something or the other. “Where is Sydney? I thought she would be coming with you.”
“Mama, we have talked about this before. She is a good friend. One of the best I have, it won’t be anything else.”
“I wasn’t implying that, but since you brought it up... why not? She is cute, smart and she has loved you since college.”
“Mama! She is like, I don’t know like Charity. She is like a sister to me. Besides, what if we did date and it didn’t work out. It would be weird at church, where I WORK!” Paul took a deep breath, “So please, drop it.”
“OK. But, I worry about you. Thirty is just around the corner and I would like some grandbabies!”
“Mama, you have grandbabies,” Paul sighed, “Daddy, please help.”
“Leave the boy alone. Besides, you have more important things to worry about.”
“Like?” Susan asked looking at her husband.
“Like I have been grilling while you have been gabbing and my steak and grilled corn is done!” Peter looked at his son, “Come on Paul let’s go eat, while your Mama tries to figure out how to outdo this wonderful steak!”
Paul followed his father to the patio table and ended up enjoying both steaks his parents cooked which resulted in a tie. Neither of his parents were happy about that, so insisted on a rematch next Sunday when the whole family could be there.
After signing off Skype that evening, excited about her new job, Millie stood and stretched, relieving some of the tension in her back muscles. Yawning, she looked around her studio apartment, her cocoon from the outside world. She had everything she needed. Her big king size bed to sink into and snuggle up with her blankets and laptop. Her modern chef’s dream kitchen with the best appliances money could buy, her bathroom with the waterfall shower head that felt like she was at a spa, her living room area with comfy sofa and wide screen plasma TV mounted on the wall that her computer could hook up to wirelessly. And then, there was her workstation. The three monitors with the graphics design software and browser windows and tabs running across each of them.
As she stretched, she heard a familiar ping indicating that someone wanted to chat with her on Wattpad. She sat back down to her monitor and shifted her neck from side to side to loosen her muscles. She found herself smiling when she looked at the name on the screen.
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
u online?
MilliVanilli:
LOL
when am I not?
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
LOL
same here
read ur poem
MilliVanilli:
which one?
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
all
but just read about Daddy
MilliVanilli:
yeah?
A lot of Millie went into that poem. That was how she saw her father. He was there for big events and she knew that he loved her, but he was a very distant... proper, figure. His business was his life and nothing could hinder that. Mother was in charge of raising Millie and Alexis. What little affection that came to Millie was from Nana, and once she died, mother would try, but she wasn’t one that liked to give comfort to anyone, not even her daughters, there were hired nannies for that!
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
i understand why u can’t see God as Heavenly Father
MilliVanilli:
brb dinner
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
Millie needed to get her chicken parm out of the oven, but more than anything she needed to figure out a way to change the subject. She didn’t mind writing about her family in a poem, but she didn’t want to talk about it with anyone, not even Paul.
The past few weeks, Paul and Millie had forged an online friendship. Whenever they would see each other online, they would at least say hello, but normally they would spend hours chatting and joking around, getting to know each other.
Because of the anonymity and security of being online, they both shared things about themselves that people in their real life did not know. Late one night, early one morning, Paul actually told Millie about the voice mail he did for Sydney’s phone in college. And Millie talked about her southern belle mother who drove her crazy at times wanting everything to be perfect. Excitement spilled over to Millie one night as Paul explained aspects of his job, and with her being an expert on the Internet, she gave him some ideas. He in turn was intrigued by Millie’s job on the Internet. When he found out she Skyped, he suggested they contact each other that way also, but Millie said that it was too personal and would rather not.
Bringing her dinner back to the desk, she took a bite and then let Paul know she had returned.
MilliVanilli:
back
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
who delivered?
MilliVanilli:
i cooked
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
i thought we were truthful?
MilliVanilli:
i am
i’m a good cook
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
:-)
what’s for dinner?
MilliVanilli:
chik parm
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
mmm can almost smell it
if you lived close i’d come 4 dinner
MilliVanilli:
:-)
Millie knew from her early stalking of Paul online, that his church was about twenty minutes from her studio apartment. In a large area like Metro Atlanta, that could mean he lived anywhere within an hours drive, depending on traffic. Wattpad is like any other online community, they could live anywhere in the world. And Paul had no idea where she lived, except for Millie letting him know she was born in the south eastern part of America. She could have relocated anywhere. She could live next door or in Timbuktu as far as he knew. And Millie liked that. No, she would not share that they were practically neighbors.
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
whatcha doin’ tonight?
MilliVanilli:
surfin now
gonna watch a movie l8r
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
what movie?
MilliVanilli:
Matrix
on Netflix
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
care if I join u?
i <3 that movie!
MilliVanilli:
sure
Later that night, after her conference call, Millie pulled up the streaming video in one screen while she kept the chat going in another. Popped some microwave popcorn and grabbed a soda. Then she settled in for the movie, propping her feet up on the desk and pulling the wireless keyboard into her lap.
MilliVanilli:
ready?
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
popcorn - check
soda - check
date - check
yep all set
MilliVanilli:
date?
u 2 timin me?
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
besides, its 2 AM
who else but us would watch a movie?
normal people r asleep
MilliVanilli:
r u callin me a freak?
HeDied4Me-ILive4Him:
never
i’m callin me one!
ok stop yappin, ready 2 start the movie?
MilliVanilli:
yep
Simultaneously, they hit play on their individual computers and began streaming the movie. As they watched they chatted not only about the movie in particular, but also movies in general. What types of movies they enjoyed, favorite actors and favorite movies. Both of them had laughed so much and had a great time watching a movie together, even though they were not in the same room. It was not surprising when they both promised to do it again.
At the end of the night, when Millie checked her email, she noticed that she had a new fan on Wattpad, HeDied4Me-ILive4Him. He was now reading her poems and although they got along wonderfully, Millie wasn’t sure if she wanted Paul to read her writing. Some things she shared were buried deep inside and she was nervous that something she might share would send him running for the hills.