It's Not About You Read online

  I never had one of those moments of waking up and not wanting to, because the dream had been so wonderful, and so real, that I never wanted to leave it until now. But it faded like all good things and I opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling over my bed.

  The events of the night before came rushing back. I abruptly pushed myself up in the bed and looked around. I was alone. Michael wasn't there. I looked over the side of the bed at the floor. No clothes. I moved to the foot of the bed and looked. I saw my clothes, but not his clothes.

  Disappointment came swift as I flopped back against the pillows and forced myself not to cry. I knew going into last night that it wouldn't last. It was just a one time thing. There was no way someone as young and beautiful as Michael would want to spend another minute with an older woman like me.

  I hated that'd I'd entertained the thought, that I actually believed it was possible.

  My door opened and I expected Kyle to yell at me to get up because he'd experimented with breakfast again. I wasn't sure my stomach was ready for something mixed with eggs. Last weekend he'd decided to improve the breakfast burrito. I'm still not sure what that meat was.

  "Good morning."

  That wasn't Kyle.

  I sat straight up and watched as Michael, wearing his jeans, socks and his shirt—open to reveal that nice lean stomach of his—came in with a tray in his hands. He smiled at me and stood at the foot of the bed. "That is a nice picture."

  I looked down at myself. My tits were hanging forward and the hairs of my bush were peaking up over the sheets. I grabbed the comforter and pulled it up over my boobs just as I did a full body blush.

  Jesus. What was I? Twelve?

  He set the tray on the bed to my left and then to my utter happiness, dropped his pants, removed his shirt and slipped into bed with me. "I tried making the coffee on my own. Luckily Kyle was up and I think we did a pretty good job of it. But he put cream and sugar on the tray, and I ran over to that bakery just down the street and grabbed some strawberries and cinnamon buns while Kyle made this Romanov sauce to die for."

  I looked at the tray. My jaw dropped. Yeah Kyle had made his incredible sauce for the strawberries, and they were huge strawberries. There were two croissants, two cinnamon buns, two cups of coffee, two plates, two small glasses of apple juice (orange juice made my stomach unhappy), napkins, and tucked in the side was the house tablet, a bargain refurbished iPad mini I'd picked up for Kyle and I to share the New York Times on, as well as USA Today.

  I turned to look at him as he hovered over my left shoulder. When I kissed his cheek and he turned and kissed my lips he said, "I haven't brushed my teeth yet," and then he nuzzled my neck.

  "Me either." I put two sugar cubes in my coffee and some cream. It smelled so good. "I ah…when I woke up I thought you'd left."

  "Well I did. But not for long. Oh…" His brows arch and he pursed those sexy lips. "You thought I'd left you." Then he pulled back a little and looked at me. "Did you think last night was a one night stand? All that talking we did over cheesecake?"

  And again I did a full body blush. What the hell? Was it hot flashes? God I hoped not. "I…" I shrugged. "Yeah I did."

  "What kind of man do you think I am?"

  The kind that says man instead of guy. I searched his face, touched his lips with my fingertips as my mouth opened and said, "The kind that is too good to be true."

  "Yeah well I am." He winked and picked up a croissant and broke it in half. He handed me one side of it and I took it. "But I'm not going anywhere. Unless you want me too."

  "No. I don't."

  "Good cause Kyle said that if I plan on fucking you I have to walk around naked."

  We both laughed. I tasted the pastry. It was soft and buttery and still a little warm. I dipped a strawberry into the sauce and fed it to Michael. He rolled his eyes with pleasure and I licked some of the cream off his lower lip. After our little food war, he picked up the tablet and swiped it.

  I sipped my coffee as I watched him thumb through the news. After a few minutes he looked at me. "What would you like to do today?"

  "Do? Uh…I hadn't really made plans for today. Laundry mostly. Cleaning up."

  "I can help with that. But after cleaning. Want to spend the day downtown? Ever been to the World of Coca Cola? Or Underground. Little Five Points? Oh," He snapped his fingers. "How about a picnic. The weather's great. It's not too cold yet but it's chilly enough that Piedmont Park won't be crowded. Wanna try it? Or maybe Centennial Park?"

  "Centennial Park sounds nice. I haven't been since the Olympics."

  He blinked at me. "Are you serious. You do realize that was back in '96, right?"

  "Sorry. I just never get downtown much."

  "Well it's a good time to start. I don't have much in the way of clothing here. I live about an hour-ish away, toward town. Renting a house. How about you get ready after we finish and I'll clean up breakfast. Then we can ride down to my house and go from there?"

  I agreed and to my surprise, he helped me clean. We started laundry first then moved to the kitchen, which still showed evidence of last night's cooking, and then breakfast this morning. It took close to an hour to get it straightened out. Then he helped me with the rest of the house as we dusted and swept. He offered to help with cleaning my room but by then I was ready to shower and get going. A part of me was terrified this piece of heaven would evaporate at any minute and I'd find all of it was a dream.

  I had just finished rinsing my hair when I felt and heard someone open the shower door. Panic made me move back until I opened my eyes and saw Michael beside me. His smile made me do a full body blush again as his hands rested on my shoulders.

  He bent down and pressed a soft but sensual kiss on my lips and all the apprehension I'd started to feel about being naked in front of him without the benefit of sheets and comforter to hide under, vanished. He reached past me and pulled a sponge from where it hung on the wall, soaped it and to my delight, bathed my body.

  At that moment all I wanted was to make love to him again. Right there in the shower as I took the sponge from him and soaped him. I moved the suds over his beautiful chest, down his stomach to his cock and balls where I gently soaped them.

  "Grace…if you keep doing that, we're never going to get to of your house today."

  "Is that bad?"

  The look in his eyes made me wet all over again as he kissed me. He reached up and removed the hand-held from the wall and gently rinsed the soap off my body. I gave him boo-boo lip and he laughed, though his cock stayed hard even as we toweled each other off.

  So… it was another hour before we got dressed. And this time I let him be on top.

  The air was chilly and the sky overcast. The weather said 50% chance of rain in the evening though the sky was blue when we finally left the house. Kyle's car was gone, so I assumed he was at the gym as usual. Michael drove my car to his place, with me dressed in jeans, sneakers, a tee shirt of The Walking Dead and very little make-up.

  The whole drive we never stopped talking about things we both liked and things we didn't. I was an avid reader, of both fiction and non fiction. He preferred non-fiction, mostly biographies. But when he was a kid he devoured Science Fiction. We both loved movies, though he did admit he was more an action-adventure fan.

  Food was easy. He was attracted to the fact I could cook and that somehow it had become an art for me. It wasn't so much an art as zen. "When I cook it's like…I have the ability and knowledge to bring so many things together to create tastes and experiences," I said as he turned down a side street off Peachtree Industrial. We were close to Lenox Mall where the housing value tripled. He was renting down here?

  "My mother used to tell me cooking was a science, that you had to know the basic alchemy in order to build flavors on." He turned the car down another street where the houses were not as large but much older. Classic two stories and ranch styles.

  "Your mother is right. She like to cook?"

  "She was a chef
in her day. Cooked at some of the nicest restaurants in Washington and Oregon. She lives in Seattle now, in one of those cool little communities that grow their own vegetables." He winked as he slowed the car and turned into a drive way. "Kinda hippy that way."

  I was going to say there was nothing wrong with growing your own vegetables. It was something I'd been thinking of doing for about a year, but I didn't like bugs and my back yard sometimes had an over zealous family of possums living under the shed.

  And we can't forget the howler monkeys.

  The house we stopped at was ranch style. One I knew as Cape Cod, with a walkway from the drive and a porch, complete with rocking chairs. The house was red brick with white trim. The lawn was excellently groomed and the grass smooth. I wanted to take my shoes off and run through it, but it was a little too cold for me.

  I didn't see another car so I pointed to the closed garage. "Your car in there?"

  "I don't have a car." He grinned again as he held out his hand. I took it and he lead me to the front door. "The house actually belongs to a college friend, but he and his wife are in Germany for two years. His wife works for the CIA. I don't know what she does and frankly I don't think I want to know. But it pays well and when he found out I was moving to Atlanta, he offered me the house rent free. I just have to make it lived in and maintain it."

  "You're doing a great job with the front yard."

  He blew a razzberry. It was cute! "Nah…that's a service he pays for." Michael unlocked the door and moved in quick. I nearly ran into him as he stopped and pressed numbers into a keypad just inside. "Sorry…security. I've already screwed that up twice and he gets charged for false alarms."

  I moved inside with my jaw dragging on the floor. The place looked like something out of Southern Living Magazine. Marble foyer with a small but beautiful stained glass lamp beside what looked like an antique table. Michael threw my keys into the bowl beside another set of keys and took my hand.

  "Don't worry about the keep-off feel of the furniture. It wears off after a while." He pointed to the living room and its beige, green and gold furnishings. "I didn't even go in there for two weeks after I moved in."

  "It's beautiful."

  "The whole house is like this. Chelsea—that's his wife—likes to decorate in her spare time."

  We passed a modern, stainless steel kitchen, a small office with a seriously geeked out gaming system and leather couch, and two fully furnished spare bedrooms.

  The master bedroom took up most of this side of the house. I looked up at the trey ceiling as my sneakers sunk into the carpet. The bed was the largest king I'd ever laid eyes on and the divan was soft. Burgundy and gold with tassels and matching curtains. A flat screen was mounted from the corner and angled to be viewed from the bed.

  "Why on earth would you ever leave this house?"

  Michael had disappeared into a door and came out with a pair of jeans and hoodie in his hands. "To see you."

  I blushed as he tossed the clothes on the bed. I turned and saw a fireplace on the back wall. "Oh…this is just too much."

  "Right? I saw that and all I could think about was cold nights, snow outside—"

  "—hot chocolate and warm company." I turned and smiled at him.

  And the smile he gave back was priceless.

  Pictures sat in an assortment of frames on the mantel so while he changed I looked them over. One in particular caught my attention. It was a shot of Michael and another woman. They were outdoors, arm in arm, and she had his smile, and his eyes. "Who's this?" I picked up the frame and turned to face him.

  He looked so good in that hoodie and was just pulling his jeans up. Commando. That would make it easy for later.

  "Oh that's my sister, Melissa."

  "There is a serious family resemblance, down to the same color hair."

  He laughed as he joined me at the fireplace. His feet were bare and sank into the carpet just like my sneakers did. "There should be a little. We're fraternal twins." He took the picture and looked at it for a few seconds. His expression worried me a his smile slipped away and a crease appeared between his brows. "She's with a guy I can't stand. A real asshole. So I don't get to see her much." He put the picture back on the mantel. "In fact, I haven't seen her in over a year."

  "Is he the reason you haven't seen each other?"

  "Mostly. He's abusive and she won't see it."

  "Physical?"

  "No. Verbal. Passive Aggressive. I never thought of that as abuse before I saw my sister lose herself to it. But it is. I have a psychiatrist friend who told me that kind of abuse is the most common, and that's why we don't tend to see it. Where one in the relationship enjoys dominating the other by a constant barrage of complaints and well placed sentences to make the partner feel all their troubles and woes are their fault." He continued to stare at the picture. "If he ever touches her, or I find out he has, I'll kill him with my bare hands."

  Getting to know Michael had it's surprising points. And this was one of them. I saw passion in his eyes, and a fierce devotion to his sister. But the fact they hadn't spoken was also a sign of how he respected her choices. "You are a complicated man, Michael Oliver."

  "No." He moved that gaze to me and his expression shifted. "I'm just a brother who misses his sister. So," he said as he clapped his hands together. "You ready? I don't know what we're gonna do and I don't care as long as we're together for the day."

  I thought my face would crack at the size of my grin. No one…no one had ever told me that before. Especially not my ex.

  I followed him out of the bedroom and back down to the foyer. He grabbed the other set of keys. "I'm going to drive."

  "Drive?" He moved back down the hall to a door and unlocked it. "I thought you said you didn't have a car." It wasn't an odd thing, not when someone lived in the area he did where MARTA had trains and busses everywhere.

  "I don't." Michael pushed the door open. The smell of oil and gas, amid other garage smells I remembered from my childhood, greeted me as the lights came on.

  A motorcycle took up the center of the empty garage. The chrome along its front and sides gleamed under the fluorescent light above.

  "I have a bike."

  "No shit. This is what you were driving to the coffee shop?"

  "Yep. I drive it everywhere." He approached it and put his hand on the seat. "Harley Davison Superlow 1200T. It's got the frame of a Sportster but all the advantages of a touring bike."

  It was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in a while. I'd always loved motorcycles, but I'd never dared to ride one. Ever. Or get this close to one.

  "Zip your jacket up and put this on." He handed me a black helmet.

  I took it and my eyes bugged out. "You want me to ride with you?"

  "Well, yeah."

  "I've never been on a motorcycle."

  He offered me a gloved a hand. "Then I'm happy to be your first, Grace Murphy."

  After Sunday he spent every night at our house during the first week. He helped with dinner and dishes, spent time with Kyle going over work stuff, and then he and I made love every night. Sometimes in the shower, sometimes in the bed, on the floor, in the kitchen…that was a chancy bit there, since Kyle was bound to come home and catch us.

  Late evenings were spent with just us, or if Kyle was free, outside on the deck, enjoying wine and the heater and blankets. The colder nights brought in the feeling of Fall. We got to know Michael and he and Kyle started this really weird bro-mance.

  At the end of that week Kyle gave me his approval for a deeper relationship.

  "Just keep him naked. Or at least shirtless."

  I couldn't remember ever being so happy. Except for the birth of my daughter, but even that was marred by the actions of my ex in the hospital.

  Yeah…even during the happiest time of our lives he made an ass of himself. To me, to the hospital staff. Even when the doctor told him to cool it and pay attention to his wife who was crying with embarrassment at his behavior, he argued w
ith her. He basically told her she was a quack.

  They were all quacks.

  Why?

  Because our daughter had been born with a collapsed lung and the nurses and doctors were taking extra special care of her and I had a fever that wasn't breaking.

  But you see…it was all about him. He wanted his child in the room with us, not in the NICU. And they had no right to keep him from what was his.

  Just thinking about that day made me mad. He was, and would always be, a narcissistic asshole. There was nothing anyone could do about it. I just hated the fact it took me so long to figure out…that it wasn't me.

  Luckily the Prick hadn't called and made threats about Thanksgiving all week.

  All last week and continuing on this week Michael came by the Trade In Beans every morning for his coffee as long as I was there, which was five days last week and four this week. October was a great month for us with the weather getting colder and more people wanting hot beverages.

  I would hear the sound of his Harley and my stomach would flutter. In the middle of the week he leaned over the counter and kissed me, which of course set off a huge tackle-the-manager session after morning rush. The morning staff had changed that week as George moved the more experienced workers to other locations, so the only worker who wasn't that happy for me was Mary. She wanted to stay at this location and I sort of wondered if Michael's constant presence had been why.

  Mary's real self reared its ugly head that Wednesday, just before my shift ended. It was October the 28th, Tuesday, and the wind had built up some speed outside. Leaves flipped and fluttered past the windows as the late afternoon turned a little darker than usual. Storm was coming.

  The back office makes an L shape. Employees walk in past the cabinets of supplies, like toilet paper, napkins, huge containers of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg then past the desk where the computer is and I run reports. The room takes a sharp right to where there are lockers set up for employee purses, shoes, clothing, whatever they need and each employee had a locker assigned. Having their own personal space was just something George liked doing for his staff.