At two o'clock in the morning I'm still wide awake, my mind too busy to succumb to sleep. I can't stop thinking about my two men.
Jake seems to want me still, although he hasn't done anything about it but say mean things about Ryan, and though he aggravates me I also still feel a connection with him.
Ryan definitely still loves me. I don't love him, but I can see that I could. That I did.
If only I could remember. It's so frustrating.
My phone gives its new-email sound, and since I'm awake anyhow I check it out.
Donna,
Just wanted to let you know I got home safely. Thanks for the coffee - I might have fallen asleep without it.
I'll call you around nine Monday night if that's all right.
Love,
Ryan
I write back.
Nine is good. I'm glad you didn't have too bad a drive.
In seconds, he sends another message.
You're still awake?
I respond that I can't sleep, and moments later the phone rings. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I curl onto my side. "Just awake."
"Not tired?"
"I'm baked. All that walking in Niagara? But I can't fall asleep."
He says, "You need a teddy bear. You have one here."
"I sleep with a teddy bear? Maybe I really am seventeen after all."
He chuckles. "You don't sleep with it. You just like to have it around. I'll email you a picture so you can sort of have it with you."
"Okay. But tomorrow. You should get to sleep."
"Mmm, not happening."
"Why not?"
He sighs. "Lots on my mind."
"Well, if I'm awake, and you're awake, why not tell me about it?"
He pauses, then says, "Oh, Donna."
His voice is low and soft, almost a growl, and it sends an electricity through me that I've never felt from anything else. I've heard him say my name that way before, I know it, heard it while he held me and touched me and made love to me. I don't remember it but I know. My body knows, right to its core.
I can barely gather enough breath to say, "Yes?"
"I wish you were here," he says in that same sexy rumbling voice, and I shut my eyes as it seems to set all my cells rumbling too.
While I'm trying to pull myself together, he clears his throat and says, "Sorry. Shouldn't have said that."
"I liked it," I admit before I can stop myself.
The silence on the line is absolute, like he's holding his breath the same way I am. We haven't had the physical connection I had with Jake when we were together in person, but my God, do we have it now. I don't know what to do with it, but we have it.
"Is it hot in here or is it just me?"
I giggle. "I think it's you."
"Far more likely to be you. You're the pretty one in this relationship."
"Hardly." It's so much easier to flirt over the phone than in person. No wonder phone sex became so popular.
"Pretty and smart too. If you weren't so nice I'd have to hate you."
His imitation of a grumpy woman's tone makes me laugh.
"Then it's good I am so nice. And to prove it, I want to hear what's on your mind." Especially if you'll tell me in that gorgeous voice.
He sighs, and I shut my eyes, knowing I've broken the mood and wishing I hadn't. I'm not surprised when he says, "How much time do you spend with Jake?"
Jake and the gorgeous voice can't co-exist, no question. "I saw him a couple of times last week. Lunch twice, we worked on my sculpture, and I helped him make a plan to sell his art. Why?"
He doesn't speak for so long that I'm beginning to wonder if we've been disconnected, then says, "Hannah warned me about him."
I half-sit up. "What about him? Does she know about the... the charge thing?"
"Not that she said. No, she figures he's after you and thought I should know."
Settling back into bed, I say, "She's after him, she's not exactly unbiased."
"Sure, but still. She thinks I should make sure you don't see too much of Jake."
"So she can have him! And besides, how are you supposed to make sure I don't see him? It's not up to you."
I hear him snap in a breath, like he's going to challenge this, but then he breathes out slowly. "No, it's not. But I guess I'd rather you didn't spend much time with him."
Given how Jake walked away from me outside Starbucks without saying goodbye, not even waiting for poor Hannah to stop looking at me in shock and confusion and hurry after him, I doubt I will see him but I still don't like this. "Ryan, I can see anyone I want."
He doesn't respond to this. "What were you talking about when I came out of the bathroom? He was obviously mad about something."
"Nothing."
"If you're not going to tell me that's one thing, but don't pretend there's nothing to tell. I know there is."
"Fine," I say, annoyed that he won't leave it be. "I offered to give him back the money he spent on me when I stayed with him."
"You what? Why?"
"Because he took good care of me and it cost him a lot of money, and I thought it was only fair."
"You wanted to give my--"
He cuts himself off but it's too late. "I thought it was our money. Actually, the way you talked before I thought a lot of it was my money. So can't I use it however I want?"
"But why on him?"
"I told you, because he helped me."
"I..."
He stops and doesn't seem to be able to get started again.
"But it doesn't matter anyhow because he wouldn't take it from me. He was mad I offered, actually. So it's no big deal."
This time the pause stretches so long I have to say, "Hello?"
He sighs. "God, I'll never get it right with you, will I?"
The sadness and frustration in his voice touch me. "What do you mean?"
"It's a sweet thing you tried to do. I shouldn't be an ass about it."
I find myself arguing the other side. "But it makes sense you don't want your, our, money going to a guy who might be trying to get your wife away from you."
"I'd never have found my wife without him."
That might well be true. We'll never know for sure.
"Honey, look, I'm sorry. I just worry, you know? I'm here and you're there and he's there and it makes me uncomfortable. But I trust you. I know you won't do anything with him."
I remember telling Jake that if I left Ryan I'd go to him. I feel like a slimeball.
"Get some sleep, okay? We both need some."
"I'm sorry, Ryan."
"For what?"
My eyes fill with tears in a rush and I choke out, "For everything. I've ruined our lives."
"Oh, honey. You haven't. The ECT has. And they're not ruined anyhow. We'll figure it out."
"Really?"
"Really," he says with such certainty I have to believe him though I can't see how it'll happen. "We'll find a way. Or start over together."
"Okay," I whisper, feeling calmer. "If you say so."
"I do," he says softly, and I think of how he must have said those words at our wedding.
"Do we have a wedding video?"
He chuckles. "I thought the same thing just there. And yes. We'll watch it some time."
"I'd like that."
"I'll take a picture of your bear and email him to you. It'll help you sleep."
I smile. "What will help you sleep?"
"Well, I have the real bear."
"Lucky."
"Definitely," he says, in that sexy growl.
I shiver. "Good night, Ryan."
"Good night, honey. Sleep well."
"Once I get my bear, you mean."
"Of course."
We hang up and a few minutes later my phone signals an email. I open it and burst out laughing. He's put leather gloves and a black fuzzy scarf on the bear, a big sad-eyed plushy thing that would probably be a polar bear if it weren't a faint shade of pink, and he's captioned the picture with, "Didn't want him to get cold zooming through the Internet to you."
I write back, "Thank you. He says he's nice and warm."
Then I fall asleep, but the image in my mind isn't of the bear.
It's of what Ryan might have looked like saying, "Definitely," in that voice that makes my body go wild.
***
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying Kate's story. The next chapter will be uploaded on Tuesday! :)
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