All the usual stuff here…nothing is mine.
Jenny (JenRar) thank you once more for your super beta skills. Hmmm, that makes you sound like a super hero. Of course you are faster than a speeding bullet in turning chapters around, maybe I'm onto something.
Chapter 11 - Firsts
It was time for dinner, and Stephanie hadn't returned to our suite, so I had to assume my mother had kept her all afternoon. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved that she was getting some better company than me to entertain her or if I should be worried that my mother had spent most of the time grilling her about our relationship.
When I walked into the kitchen and heard both of them laughing, I realized I should have considered a third possibility. They might have been trading less-than-flattering stories about me all this time. I wasn't a fan of such self-centered assumptions, but my mother saying, "Speak of the devil," was probably my first clue of the topic of conversation.
"Would I be better served by running out for dinner?" I asked, only partially kidding. Once the words were out of my mouth, I realized I didn't smell anything, making me wonder if it was going to be a necessity instead of a voluntary exile.
"Now that you mentioned it, I believe that would be a good idea," my mother replied, attempting coy but coming across as scheming instead.
"And why is that?" I wondered.
"You need to take Stephanie out so that she can have a change of scenery and so that she can purchase a new dress, which you will be buying for her," Mom informed me.
Stephanie's head snapped up at the mention of money, and she was about to object, but Mom lifted a hand in the universal gesture for stop. She explained, "This is for a family function, so the family needs to cover the cost of your attendance. Besides, you'll also need shoes and some kind of accessories, no doubt, so you should enjoy the experience of dragging my long-suffering son through every store you can manage in order to come up with the perfect outfit. You've only got two days, so I suggest you make the most of tonight to get everything you need."
Then she turned her attention to me and answered my unasked question. "The annual children's hospital benefit is Saturday. Since you're home, I've gotten you both tickets and expect you to attend. It will be nice for everyone in the circle to see you out with us, especially with Stephanie on your arm. After that, if you insist on returning to Trenton, then I'll let you go back to your home, but you have to give me the chance to show her off while she's here."
There were so many messages mixed into that one explanation. First, she was reminding me I hadn't done anything with the family in a public way in a long time. While she understood my need to distance myself from them in Trenton, around here, there was a certain amount of security to be gained from being seen as an important part of the family. On top of that, by having Stephanie as my date, literally on my arm, she would also be provided the safety of being identified as someone who was under my father's protection. Plus, my mother was a very social person, and she was probably spinning all kinds of ways to get Stephanie connected in her social circle, and this was just the first step of sucking her into the family, even if it had to be indirectly at first.
"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" I couldn't just accept everything she said; it would be counter to who I was to not push back at least a little. "Stephanie's just been through surgery, I'm not sure taking her out for a long night is a good idea."
"Well, then, the two of you go upstairs and look at stuff online. Once you pick out what you want her to wear, then give it to Maria, and she can pick it up tomorrow morning," Mom countered.
"I meant I don't think going to a party is a good idea. Her immune system is still fragile, and being around all those people is just tempting fate for her to get sick," I argued.
"Stop looking for problems," my mother commanded. "You don't have to stay for very long, and it's not like I'm telling you to circulate and dance for hours. You can literally sit at the table and leave after dinner."
Turning to Stephanie, I tried to convey that I hoped she would side with me on this without being too obvious. "We don't have to go. If you don't feel up to it, we can stay here and have a low-key dinner, maybe watch the game together and give you a chance to relax a little before we head back to Trenton, where you'll have to keep up appearances."
She moved her head from side to side like some kind of human metronome before answering, "I guess an hour or so wouldn't be that stressful, and if I'm going to have to fake feeling good in Trenton, then I may as well practice at the party."
That was so not what I wanted to hear.
"Try on your tux to be sure it still fits," Mom commanded, adding the final nail to my coffin. I hated wearing anything restrictive, but a collar with a bow tie was my absolute least favorite way to dress.
Apparently, my skills of masking my reaction were slipping because I felt her hand make contact with the back of my head before she snapped, "And stop rolling your eyes at me. Seeing you two dressed up so that I can show you off to my friends isn't too much to ask for the woman who gave you life."
Stephanie's hand moved to cover her mouth, and I knew she was struggling not to laugh at the huge load of guilt my mother had just thrown my way. Compared to the regular doses she gave to Vincent, I knew I had it easy, but I still hated it when Mom said things like that.
With expectations made perfectly clear, she turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving us to come up with a plan for the evening.
"Are you sure you want to do this? Honestly, I don't mind skipping this party. In fact, I'd rather not go."
"I know." Stephanie leaned over to squeeze my hand. "But I think it would mean a lot to your parents, and sometimes, we have to do things we don't want to just because it's the right thing to do. Maybe if I'm there to keep you company, it won't be so bad."
Having Stephanie with me was the only saving grace of this whole scheme. "So am I taking you to the mall, or are we looking online?"
"How far are we from a mall?" she asked, basically letting me know which option was more appealing.
An hour later, I was enduring the third store by Stephanie's side as she pulled out dresses, held them up to her body, and then placed them back on the rack. I couldn't tell how they'd look from the fast process she was going through, but I had to assume none of them would work because of how quickly she rejected them and hung them back up.
When she pulled out a deep blue dress and held it up longer than the rest, I was intrigued enough to look at it. The movement of the dress on the hanger showed it wasn't just blue but had something else that made it shimmer when it moved. Against her, the color was beautiful, and I realized I'd never seen a dress like it on anyone else. It was long enough to be formal, but there wasn't an abundance of material, so I figured it was probably straight and would fit close to her. One arm had a long sleeve, but the other arm had nothing, leaving me to imagine that side bare. The neck was high and had some kind of pattern made out of tiny beads. Personally, I loved it and thought the unique nature of the dress fit her perfectly.
She pulled it away from her and held it out to look at it better, and I realized despite the high neck, part of the back was cut out. I knew from past distractions that Stephanie had an amazing back, and it was the memory of one of her performances to lure out a skip that kicked my mouth into gear.
"You should try that one on."
"You think so?" She sounded uncertain. "Don't you worry that the back and side would come off as being…slutty?"
"No, I think the rest of the dress conveys a certain elegance, but the only way to know for sure would be to try it on," I replied, thinking we might be nearing the end of our hunting expedition and getting my hopes up that we might get home in time to still catch part of the game.
It took a few minutes, but I finally convinced her to give the dress a chance and followed her to the dressing room. Just before she stepped in, she spun around and held out her hand to put it on my chest. "I've got it from here."
There was no reason for me to go in with her, and I knew being so far away from Trenton, there was no chance Nick was waiting for her in the ladies dressing room, but I still found it hard to stand there and let her walk away from my sight to an unsecured area.
After what felt like an hour but was apparently only seven minutes, she walked out, looking very uncertain. I, however, was sold immediately. Stephanie was a good-looking woman, and as she had proven repeatedly, she could pull off bar sexy or lady-like, either one, in the right outfit. But the vision in front of me now was one of pure elegance. She was gorgeous, despite the way she kept fidgeting with some imaginary issue on the lower portion of the dress.
I held up a finger and moved it in a circle to indicate I wanted her to spin around. The view from the back absolutely hooked me. I didn't care if she wore it or not on Saturday, but we weren't leaving without this dress coming with us. She stopped moving with her back to me and then turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. It was the most seductive thing I'd ever seen, which I blamed for my mouth working without my permission.
"This is the dress," I informed her. "You're…stunning."
She smiled at me and then finished her circle, this time stopping with her hands on her hips and a lot more confidence than she began the little fashion show with. "Are you sure you want to be seen all night with me in this dress?"
"Ohhhh, yeah," I replied, moving close to her.
She smiled as though she appreciated the less-than-eloquent response on my part, and when I got close enough, she grabbed my shirt and tugged so that we were chest to chest.
"Then in that case, we need to see about what you're wearing so that I'll know if I think this dress should be beside you all night."
"You little tease," I breathed back, finding it difficult to formulate a complete sentence with her looking like this and pressing herself to me.
She gave me a slight shake of her head, as though disagreeing with me. "I've not teased you one bit. You're the one that seems to insist upon keeping distance between us. I've been as obvious as I could be without jumping on you in your sleep."
"But you're recovering," I pointed out, suddenly finding it warm and slightly hard to keep my knees straight.
"Vincent said I was doing amazingly well and that I could do anything I wanted to, using pain as my guide." She stopped gripping my shirt and flattened her palms against me instead. "And at the moment, I'm not feeling any pain per se, but there is an ache I could use some help with."
I'd read somewhere that lack of blood flow could diminish one's thought processes, which is probably why I reacted so poorly and put my hands under her arms to offer support. "Damn it, I knew shopping was a bad idea. What's starting to ache?"
Her laughter was my first clue that I'd missed something big. The step she took out of my grasp while mumbling, "Obviously, jumping on him while he's sleeping is going to be necessary after all," was my second clue.
Disappearing into the changing room, she left me to try to figure out what the hell had just happened. I found myself repeating her words, "an ache I could use some help with," over and over. Each repetition brought greater clarity, and by the end, I was ready to kick my own ass for missing the fact that I had a beautiful woman coming on to me and I absolutely hadn't gotten it and had blown my chance. I'd never call myself a player, but that was bordering on having no social skills, which I'd never thought was my style, either.
When she came back out, she wouldn't look me in the eye, and I felt as though I owed her an apology, but the words wouldn't come. I'm sorry I'm an idiot seemed inadequate.
I decided to try and be helpful instead and hope that she would forget all about that brief lapse in my ability to function appropriately. "Let me take that. Where to next?"
"Shoes," she replied, finally looking at me but with an expression that indicated I might have two heads.
We moved to the department store's shoe department, and she pointed to a chair, instructing to me sit there and not to wrinkle the dress. Normally, I would have made an off-handed comment that I was perfectly capable of handling that without her specific orders, but based on my recent behavior, I felt like it was best to play along and not say a word.
She returned and sat beside me, letting out a long breath. On instinct, I lifted my arm and pulled her against me, pleased when she leaned her head on my shoulder and shut her eyes.
I decided to risk looking like a complete ass by talking again. "Are you okay?"
Without opening her eyes, she nodded that she was fine. "Just tired. Today's been a little longer than I've been used to this week."
"We'll finish up here and go straight home to get you in bed," I told her, glad I could at least do something about her exhaustion.
"You see..." Her head snapped up as she spoke. "It's comments like that that leave me completely clueless about what's going on in your head."
What was confusing about me saying I wanted to get her in bed? Shit, I'd done it again. "You may find this hard to believe after tonight, but most people consider me to be a smart guy."
"I know you're smart," she quickly defended me.
"Even though I'm quiet, I also have social skills," I added. "My mother spent plenty of time drilling them into me."
"After that smack in the kitchen tonight, I can believe she did," Stephanie joked.
"Well, after the last hour, I felt the need to point out that I'm not usually so—" I was struggling to come up with the right word "—obtuse."
"Obtuse," Stephanie repeated. I couldn't tell if she were trying out the word because it wasn't often used or because she didn't understand the meaning.
"Thickheaded, awkward, slow-witted," I explained, listing the synonyms I felt were appropriate.
Her eyes narrowed as I portrayed myself in a less than flattering way, but when I stopped talking, her immediate response was to giggle. She put her hand over her mouth to cover it up, but enough escaped that I knew I was amusing her.
Before I could get too irritated at being the butt of a joke, she spoke. "I know I was acting a little differently. I'm not usually so brazen, but I felt like being subtle wasn't working, and we're running out of time to see what's going on here, so I decided to try and take a little control." Then she put her head back on my shoulder and mumbled, "I knew it was a stupid idea, because there is nothing about me that screams appealing."
"Where did you get that crock of shit?" I blurted out just as a salesperson appeared with five boxes of shoes.
Stephanie dismissed them, saying she could handle trying them on by herself, which gave us a little more privacy. I was disappointed when she sat up to focus on the boxes, but having something to do with her hands must have loosened her tongue. "I got it from past experience. Sure, I can get a skip out of a bar, but that's just by acting like a floozy. A decent guy doesn't look at me and think, oh yeah, I've got to get closer to that."
"You have no idea how wrong you are," I informed her.
"Well, an ex-husband who can't even wait to screw around until after I've finished unwrapping all the wedding gifts, a guy who thinks I'm definite friend material but refuses to have a relationship beyond that, a childhood friend who is more than willing to have sex, but later only thinks marriage is a good idea because everyone else is telling him so, and then what appears to be a great new guy who basically tells me that that much history means I'm the girl who is fun to hang out with but isn't really who you want with you all the time proves I'm onto something."
By the time she finished talking, she was on her third box of shoes, and I was ready to punch something. "In case you haven't noticed, except for a few short breaks and whatever that was with my mother today, I've been with you all the time this week."
"Yes, but we're in this weird unreal place, and when we get back to Trenton, you'll go back to your life, and I'll be that girl you'll occasionally hang out with, but you'll be just as happy to tell good night so you can go back to Haywood and away from me to sleep," she argued, continuing to shovel a load that was hard to stomach.
"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a second bed in our suite that I haven't used once since we moved in," I told her, pointing out that I was sleeping with her by choice, not circumstance. "And you were spot on in the dressing room when you said I was the one keeping a distance between us, but it was only out of respect for your injuries and because I wanted to be sure you fully understood what life around me and my family connections would be like. I'm not a normal person; it's not fair to ask you to accept the craziness that comes with me."
"Right, because my life is usually so calm and predictable," she sassed in return, rolling her eyes so that I could see it.
"What I'm trying to say is, because of my family, I don't have any experience with a normal relationship." Explaining this was harder than I thought it would be. "But after being around us for a few days and seeing how many potential skeletons are locked in nearly every closet, if you think you could handle it…"
"I can handle it," she jumped in when I stopped because I couldn't figure out what to say next. "So…"
Damn it, now she expected me to talk again. I'd figured it was too good to be true when she interrupted. Maybe I was making this too hard. I'd never had anything normal, but right now, that was exactly what I wanted with Stephanie. So, I decided to try something I'd never done before. "Would you like to go out with me?"
She blinked a few times, giving me plenty of time to second guess myself. "You mean, like on a date?"
"Yes, on a date," I clarified. "Saturday night, my parents have given me two tickets to a charity ball, and if you'd be willing to come with me, I'd love for you to be my date."
Her entire face lit up when I reframed our previous command performance into a chance for us to get dressed up and go out because we wanted to be together. Hell, the way she was beaming at me, you'd think she'd never been officially asked out before.
"A real first date," she mumbled, basically confirming that what I'd thought was impossible was actually true. "I'd love to," she answered and then looked at the pair of shoes in her hand. The heels weren't as high as a lot of shoes I'd seen her wear, but they looked to me like they'd match the dress I was holding. "I'll need these." She held up the pair, and I smiled, glad to know the chances of her breaking an ankle were lower in these than the other options the clerk had brought over. Then she added, "And I think your mom mentioned accessories."
This was the Stephanie I admired. The self-deprecating side was no doubt a part of her too, but I didn't know how to react to that. I couldn't take out her past, and even if I wacked her ex-husband when I went after Nick, it wouldn't erase the damage they'd done to her. But when she was more in control and assertive, I found myself willing to go along with anything she suggested.
"We can stop by the jewelry counter next."
She shook her head and grinned, an expression I now recognized meant I was about be challenged and would most likely need to carry her purchases to have something to hide my crotch behind. "I don't need jewelry; I need the kind of accessories that come in a little pink bag."
It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. The only pink bags that I was familiar with were from Victoria's Secrets. Once I realized that she intended for us to go lingerie shopping, I wasn't sure if I should suggest I'd wait for her outside the store to keep from embarrassing myself or kneel down and begin thanking God for finally trying to make up for the shit of my life by giving me Stephanie and sexy clothes all at once. Realizing God was most likely not rewarding me, and even if he was, this didn't really seem his style, I kept my mouth shut and just nodded instead.
Two hours later, while driving home, I realized we'd spent more time looking at bras and panties than we had dresses and shoes. When I pointed that out to Stephanie and made the comment that it seemed backwards, since everybody at the party would be looking at the dress and nothing, my chest literally felt bigger when she answered, "I don't really care what they think of how I look, so I didn't need to put much thought into it past picking something that wouldn't embarrass you. But what I'm wearing underneath the dress isn't going to be seen by all those people, which means I was picking out something for your eyes only. Knowing that part of the outfit was for you meant it had to be just right, so it took a lot longer."
I stumbled over how to respond. "I...I don't know what to say... No one's ever said something like to me before." Honesty seemed like a good idea since playing it cool was obviously well beyond me at this point.
"Good," she answered quickly. "Because no one's ever treated me like you do before either, so it looks like we've got a lot of firsts to look forward to."
Maybe I was wrong about this not being a divine reward. At the moment, Stephanie certainly seemed like an angel to me.