Hi everyone. Story is progressing slowly for me in writing but still progressing! Thank you if you reviewed, I love to receive them and they are very motivating.

Catching Up

The next morning, I awoke to an empty bed that still smelled enticingly of Carlos. I rolled over to hug his pillow and found my face against a folded note that had been left on the pillow. I smiled as I picked up the note and read it. Carlos' handwriting was very much like the man, strong, decisive, and firm. It said, Babe, have gone for a run and to pick up supplies for breakfast. There's coffee in the kitchen. C.

I jumped out of bed, quickly took care of business in the bathroom, and made my way into the kitchen. I found the coffee, and the supplies Carlos had left for me last time I stayed here, packets of sugar, along with a small container of milk in the fridge. I doctored up a cup and took it over to the picture window in the living room. I sipped the coffee slowly and tried to scan the road below to see if I could see Carlos returning. I was concentrating so intently that I jumped as I heard the sound of a key in the lock opening the door and I swung around to see Carlos entering the apartment. He was wearing black sweatpants and a black t-shirt that looked painted onto his torso. It was slightly damp at the collar from his run and his long hair was pulled back into a leather tie. He was carrying a grocery bag.

Carlos looked up and saw me and his smile was almost blinding. "Babe, you're up," he said. "Good morning." He put the grocery bag onto the kitchen counter and came over to me like a sleek black panther stalking its prey. I stood still, not even wanting to run, and he came up very close, invading my space, until I could feel the heat of his body and smell his musky scent. He slowly bent his head until his lips brushed mine gently. I felt myself leaning into him, and he instantly deepened the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth to do battle with mine. We kissed for endless minutes until he drew back, and I gasped for a shaky breath of air. Kissing Carlos is intoxicating.

Carlos gave me another, satisfied, blinding smile and stepped back. He reached up a hand to gently caress my cheek and tuck a curl behind my ear and said, "I'll grab a shower, Babe. Then I'll come out and make us some breakfast. You can have your shower while I'm cooking." He smirked, "Or you can just stay in my t-shirt. I'm happy either way." I blushed slightly at that, while parts of me tingled.

He said, "My sister who just finished college in New York, was visiting me about two weeks ago. She stays with me when she's in Newark, if she can, as she prefers it to staying with our parents. She's twenty-four and a bit over the parental controls, if you know what I mean. She left a pair of jeans and a shirt here. They've been washed. I think she's about your size. Maybe an inch or two shorter, but you can certainly try her clothes if you like and see if they fit. She won't care; she probably doesn't even realise she left them here."

I nodded thankfully. I didn't want to feel like I was doing the 'walk of shame', wearing my party dress. Especially when I hadn't even done anything to warrant a walk of shame! Carlos added, "I put them in the bottom drawer of the dresser; you can grab them when you go for a shower." He placed one last gentle kiss on my lips and moved into the bedroom to grab his things and shower.

He emerged about ten minutes later, wearing black cargo pants and another tight black t-shirt. He looked badass and sexy as hell, and I had to control myself from walking over to rub my hands all over his body. He gave me a smile and walked into the kitchen to start pulling out eggs and what looked like mushrooms and herbs from the grocery bag. I decided I'd better go and have my shower and try to calm down a bit.

I grabbed the clothes Carlos' sister had left. The jeans looked ok, although I was little worried they might be a bit short. The top looked like it was a size bigger than I wore, and I guessed Carlos' sister could trump the b-cups I sport. Ah well, it would be ok. In the shower, I luxuriated in Carlos' sexy Bulgari shower gel. I didn't wash my hair, but I dampened it down a bit so I could comb it out with the comb in my clutch purse. The jeans were a little tight, more from being slightly short than being a smaller size, but they were relatively comfortable. I pulled the shirt over my head. I had my extra panties I had stashed in my purse, but I did not have a bra, since my dress last night prohibited wearing one. I shook my head. Maybe it was a good thing the top was a little loose.

When I felt like I had done my best, combing my hair and pulling it back into a ponytail, and applying a coat of mascara for courage, I emerged from the bathroom to a delicious aroma of cooking eggs, chives and mushrooms. I walked over to take a look at what Carlos was preparing. He had made an omelette, stuffed with mushrooms and herbs and what looked like a small amount of a white cheese. I sniffed again; it was feta cheese. Yum. He was just finishing up the second omelette and smiled as he gestured me to sit at the table beside the kitchen bench. I seated myself where indicated, to see he had poured me a fresh cup of coffee and doctored it up with milk and sugar. I took a grateful gulp of the coffee and smiled brightly at him as he slid a plate in front of me and slid into the chair beside me.

"Thanks, Carlos, it smells really delicious. I love feta cheese and I love omelettes."

"De nada, Babe." We dug into the delicious food, and it was not too long before our plates were clean, and I sat back with a satisfied sigh to sip my coffee.

"You're an excellent cook. Sadly, it's not one of my skills. I just never seem to have the patience and concentration to cook properly, and I've been known to burn just about anything."

He grinned at me. "Helping my Abuela in the kitchen was one of my favourite things. She loved to ask me all about my day while we cooked dinner, and I always felt like it was a special, shared time for us."

I grimaced slightly, "My mom is not a great teacher, unfortunately. She means well, but she's a perfectionist and an excellent cook herself, so she never had much patience for my screw ups and disasters. In the end, I think we both just gave up. I envy you the relaxed experience with your grandmother."

"You seem to have a bit of a mixed relationship with your mother, Babe," he commented carefully.

I tried not to sigh. "Mom is…mom. I'm not really sure how to describe her. She's very mired in her vision of what a woman's life should be, and that's geared more to the mid-twentieth century than the twenty-first. Very polar masculine-feminine roles and very much that women cook, clean, and pop out babies. If they have jobs, then those jobs are very respectable, and must be given up when you start a family. And to be fair to mom, there're a lot of other women in her neighbourhood who are exactly the same, even younger women. One of my best friends, Mary Lou, has followed the tradition and she's very happy with her life. My sister is also following the tradition, although she moved away with her husband. I'm happy for them, and all the women like them, but it's just not me. It never was and never will be. I just don't get any joy from being domestic, and babies scare the bejesus out of me."

I took a breath and a gulp of coffee. "Mom… she just doesn't get me. And she doesn't think I can be happy being the way I am, and not living the way she does. It's pretty wearing sometimes, but she doesn't hate me or anything like that. And she's not really cruel or abusive or anything. More intolerant, I think. She just keeps on at me to be like her, to give up the things that make me happy to conform to what she wants. She loves me, but her love sees a very narrow path for me to follow."

I took another gulp of coffee. That had been hard to say. I love my mother, but she really was wearing me down lately. I really do know that my mother loves me, despite her lack of empathy to what I want and her harping at me. I feel mom shows her love by cooking for me, by doing my laundry, by sending me home with clean clothes and bag of leftovers no matter how much she is mad at me for something I did. And it doesn't help that dad is so passive. He never voices an opinion, never contradicts mom, never stepped up to defend me. Dad basically ignores everyone and everything going on around him, only connecting with me over food and cars, occasionally. So, mom is left believing her opinion is the only opinion that counts.

And grandma, since she has joined them, seems to want to recapture her teenage years and make up for all the time she spent as a housewife. So, she runs around getting into mischief, and makes truly outrageous statements that frustrate mom and annoy dad. And her rebellion throws an even bigger spotlight onto my choices and exacerbates my mom's frustration.

I didn't share all this with Carlos yet. If he stuck with me long enough to come to my parents' house for dinner, he'd pretty much learn it all in one evening.

Carlos had looked pensive through my explanation. "I get it," he told me. "Not just because I grew up in a similar neighbourhood, but also because my family really doesn't connect with my choices and lifestyle either. They didn't understand why I wanted to go into the Army, why I chose to become a Ranger, why I divorced Rachel and gave up custody of Julie, or even why I want to run my own little business empire. Dad is happy just doing his job; rising eventually to own his own car yard was the pinnacle of his ambition. Mom is happy as a housewife. It's also why Selena, my youngest sister, chose a college in New York and stays with me when she comes home. Breaking from tradition is never easy."

Wow. He really does get it. And we have more in common than I would have guessed.

Carlos drove me home after breakfast and left me breathless in my apartment with a bone-melting kiss. He was going back to work on some contracts for the Miami office and, he told me, to hit the gym he frequents for a couple of hours. Good for him.

I changed out of Selena's clothes and put them aside to wash and return to Carlos. I decided to spend the afternoon working on the report. Tomorrow was Monday and I was going to try and visit a couple of bonds agencies in the city to scope them out. I was also going to contact Uncle Joe to see when I could set up a time for Carlos and me to meet with him.

By four o'clock I had a pretty good first draft of the report done on my old computer, based on all the information I had gathered so far. I did not have a printer at home, so I would go back to the library to print out the final version. I had also started a separate document that I tentatively titled "Rangeman Trenton Business Plan". I had never written a business plan before, and I didn't want to be too presumptuous for Carlos, but I was so excited about this and wanted it to happen so much, that I couldn't help hoping. I would have to go back to the library sometime next week and find a couple of books on writing a business plan though. Maybe I should look at some realtors as well to see what sorts of buildings might be available? Slow down Steph! I admonished myself.

To distract my rampaging ambitions, I opened Age of Empires and started a quick game building up a settlement with all the rapid settings. I got absorbed in building and upgrading buildings and evolving the civilisation. I wasn't in the mood for a battle, so I'd set the game to complete on building a 'wonder'. By five-fifteen I'd completed the game and I closed out the computer for the day. I decided I should try and keep the peace by showing up for dinner with my parents. I didn't have time for a shower, so I just tamed my hair, applied light makeup, and dressed in a knee-length denim skirt and pretty top. I put on some ballet flats and picked up my car keys to head out at quarter to six. I had just enough time to get there and not be late for dinner. Despite using the elevator in Carlos' building, I was not yet confident to step into the creaky old elevator in my building. Luckily it was only two floors and I skipped out of the lobby into the rear carpark. My Miata was parked over near the dumpsters. I never got the good parks at my building. The really good parks are all handicapped spaces for all the older people in the building. And they are piranhas about parking! Parking in a slot they want leads to blood in the water. So, I tended to just say, 'screw it' and park in the crappy parks. It was less stressful. I hightailed it over to my parents and was able to pull up at three minutes to six.

I have no idea how my mother and grandma know I am coming, but they are unfailingly waiting for me on the front porch when I arrive. They must have some kind of inbuilt radar to tell them when I enter the Burg. I got out and hustled up the walk to the door, since I knew mom would be upset if I dallied and delayed dinner by even a minute. Mom looked approvingly at my skirt and top but sniffed when she spotted my shoes. No doubt I should be wearing Mary-Janes or something, but I decided to ignore it and just smiled at them. "Hi mom. Hi grandma," I greeted them.

"It's nice to see you baby girl," my grandma said. "How was your hot date with that hunky man from the elevator?"

"Mother!" my mom admonished. "Let Stephanie in so we can sit down. If we don't sit down immediately the pot roast will get dry. You know how Frank hates dry pot roast."

My grandma rolled her eyes at me and stood aside to let me in. As mom bustled back to the kitchen to grab the gravy boat, grandma murmured to me, "That man would eat shoe leather if she poured enough gravy on it. He's not gonna notice if the roast is a little dry." I supressed a snort of laughter and we took our places at the table. My dad had finished carving the roast, and was already seated, hooking slabs of beef onto his plate, and piling up roast potatoes.

Eating is serious business in the Plum household, so for a while conversation was limited to 'Please pass the gravy' and 'Frank would you like more potatoes?'. However, it wasn't too long before my grandma's desperate need to know about my date resurfaced.

"Did you go on your date with that hunky black man, Stephanie?" she asked.

I sighed to myself. "Grandma, he's not black. He's Cuban-American. His family is from Newark. And yes, he took me out on a date. We went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner and then went and saw a movie."

Mom frowned at the mention of his background. My mom is not really prejudiced against specific cultures or backgrounds. But she doesn't know anyone Cuban-American and she believes everyone born in the Burg is better. She spoke up though, at the mention of the restaurant. "Japanese food?" she asked incredulously, "What on earth is Japanese food?"

"We had Teppanyaki. It's a kind of barbeque technique where they cook the food in front of you and then you eat it immediately. It was delicious." I decided not to mention I had had to try and eat with chopsticks. That had been an adventure.

"What kind of food, though?" grandma pressed.

"They made us three dishes, but small servings of each. One was chicken, one was thin strips of beef, and one was lamb cutlets. They were all cooked with thinly cut vegetables and sauces. The sauces were really yummy; sweet, salty, sour, and a little bit spicy. If you want to try it sometime, I'm happy to go back and eat there again." My mom frowned deeply at that, not liking the suggestion. But she said nothing, and dad just kept his head down, shoveling in gravy-laden roast beef and potatoes.

Grandma's face lighted up though, and she nodded enthusiastically. "I'd love to try it," she said excitedly. I decided I would see if Carlos could take maybe just Grandma and me there sometime. Looking at my grandma, it was easy to see that she wanted to experience more of life, and this was a simple thing to do. My grandma had adored my grandpa, you had only ever had to look at them together to see the love between them. But their lives have been very simple, very predictable, and very Burg. I could also see in my grandma some of the spark that burned in me; the desire to see and experience more of the world, to try different and exciting things. My mom couldn't fathom it, but I could empathise completely.

The rest of dinner went smoothly. Mom had made a variety of Italian cookies for dessert. They were a particular favourite of my dad's, and he scarfed some down and took an extra stash of them back to the living room to settle back in front of the tv with his coffee and cookies. I helped mom and grandma clean up and mom packed up a bag with leftover pot roast and cookies. I thanked her and hugged her and grandma. I waved goodbye to dad and motored off home.

Once in the building, I stood in front of the elevator and sighed. I pressed the button. When the door opened, I looked into the dingy car, at the peeling wallpaper and faded linoleum and I just couldn't. When I tried to step forward, my feet just wouldn't move. I gave up and turned to the stairs. Oh well, at least I can work off a bit of the pot roast and cookies walking up and down the stairs.

Is that a silver lining?

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