Raina did everything that she could to focus on her work and on any other aspect in her life, but Michael continued to text her constantly throughout the day, every day, and sometimes even late into the night, and she continued to answer him, wanting that connection with him when he wasn’t around her.
She went to sleep after they had texted goodnight, and when she woke up in the morning, there were texts waiting for her telling her that he was thinking about her and that he wanted her. She would try to work, try to shop, try to do the errands that she had to do, but at nearly every turn, he was there in her mind, on her phone, and in her dreams.
She had never wanted a man or hungered for a man as much as she did with him. It was starting to get to her, but there was no way not to admit it to herself. She worried that they might be getting into territory that she was totally unfamiliar with, and totally unprepared for.
Thursday after their trip to Las Vegas, she invited him over to her home for the evening, and to her surprise, he accepted. He had turned her down for all the other little get-togethers throughout that week, and the week before, and she had been growing more frustrated with the fact that she wasn’t able to see him as much as she wanted to, or even at all, when he had told her several times that they would see each other.
He came that night and they enjoyed a dinner that they cooked together, and his company and closeness felt good to her. It was comfortable, almost the way that it had been at the house in Vancouver. She found herself enjoying it, and wondered if it would be alright to want more of that kind of time with him. She was aware that it felt like a couple sort of evening, but she ignored it and enjoyed their time together anyway.
They finished a bottle and a half of wine together, and she took him up to her room, wondering how long he would stay there with her, but not wanting to ask. As they came together, everything felt different between them both, somehow.
When he took her clothes from her body, he was careful and took his time, touching her softly and kissing the dark skin that he revealed. She did the same with him, and the hungry passion that had engulfed them both every other time they were together seemed shifted somehow.
Michael laid with her on her bed and they touched and talked, kissed and caressed, making love with each other for the first time. When they had both reached their orgasms, he curled his arms around her and held her to him.
A little while passed and she reached for him again, wanting more of him, but he stopped her and stilled her hand. He only said no quietly, and held her again. She wondered what it was that had stopped him, as nothing had ever made him want to stop with her before.
There was no conversation; they only stayed side by side against one another, him wrapped in the sheet for a while until he got up and put his underwear on and then got back into her bed with her. He kept the bedding between them and as he held her, he did not touch her intimately.
She watched him lying there, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, and having slept near him many other times before, she knew that he wasn’t sleeping. Only that he didn’t want to speak and he didn’t want to share any other intimate moments with her. He just held her close to him, and that was all.
Raina finally fell asleep, and when she woke, she saw that he was already awake, laying there silently. She reached her chin up and kissed his cheek, watching him.
“I have to go. It’s time for me to leave.” He said it quietly, picking up his cell phone and looking at it. She had seen him send a couple of texts the night before as they were lying there together, and she wondered who he had needed to text at night.
Michael pushed himself from the bed, looking at her with a strange expression of sorrow and something akin to regret. She had never seen the look on his face before.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting up and looking closely at him.
He shook his head and pulled his clothes on. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I have a meeting I have to go to.” He left her and went to the bathroom.
Raina got out of bed and wrapped her robe around herself. She furrowed her brow with worry and tried to tell herself that he was right, and that nothing was wrong, but there was a seed of doubt in her that could not be pushed out.
Michael came out of the bathroom and walked out of her bedroom to the front door. She went with him and as he reached the door, he turned to look at her, staring at her with a hollow expression she could not put her finger on.
“What is it?” she asked again.
“I told you, it’s nothing,” he said quietly.
He reached for her, pulling her to him and kissing her softly, over and over again. He let her go and turned for the door, opening it and then letting it go to come back to her and take her in his arms again, kissing her several more times before he made himself leave, his dark eyes serious and steady on her the entire time.
“Michael… maybe I could come over to your place tonight and we can-”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. You can’t.” He kissed her once more and then walked out finally, closing the door behind him.
She stood there, staring at it, wondering what it was that had changed. Why he had pushed her away the night before, only making love with her once, and then he had held her close all through the night. He seemed to not want to leave her, but it was understandable that he had no other choice.
Her mind was a whirlwind of questions and curiosities that did nothing more than confuse and worry her. She expected to see a text from him as she always did, but none came after he left.
She got ready for work, and when she got there, her phone was still void of messages from him. It was strange after such a constant flurry of communication to have nothing at all from him. She told herself that he was probably still in his meeting and she focused with everything in her on her work that day.
By late afternoon, she still had not heard from him at all, and it was more than weighing on her mind; it was dragging her heart like a tow cable and an anchor. She texted him, thanking him for spending the night with her. She wanted to keep it simple in case there was nothing to worry about.
He texted her back, telling her that it was incredible, and then there was no other message from him. By the time she got home from work that night, she was on edge. She sent another text, asking if everything was alright, and he texted her back a long while later and said that it was.
The next morning when she went into work, Willow took one look at her face as she passed by her desk and stopped her.
“Okay, what’s going on with you?” she asked, following Raina into her office when Raina wouldn’t stop.
Raina sat at her desk with a heavy sigh. “It’s Michael. He stayed the night with me at my place, and things sort of… changed, and now he seems to be backing off, and I don’t know what’s wrong. He says nothing is wrong, but things have changed a lot, and I know he’s not being honest with me. Something is definitely going on.”
Willow blinked at her and pursed her lips a moment. “Well, let me ask you this. Are you happy with him?”
Raina nodded. “Yes, actually, I’m really happy with him so far.”
“Is it possible that you might be reading too much into the situation, and that maybe he has something else going on that has nothing to do with you?” Willow asked honestly.
“I guess so… I mean, it felt like it was me, but I might be wrong about that. He said we’re fine. He said nothing is wrong.” She remembered the texts she had seen him send the night before when it felt like everything was alright. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t me at all, and I’m just so focused on him that I’m overanalyzing it, and I should just give him some space.”
The reality of her words struck her, and she knew that what she was saying was probably exactly right.
Willow winked at her and laughed. “You? Overanalyzing things? Never…” She stood up and left Raina alone, and Raina tried to focus on her work.
There was no word from Michael all that morning. She made herself put it from her mind and instead, she sent a text to Aaron, asking him to meet up with her for a walk on the beach that afternoon.
He answered back just a few minutes later, telling her that he would be glad to. Relief flooded through her, and she was glad and grateful to have someone so close to her that she could trust and talk with.
They met up as planned and he wrapped her in a big hug before they headed to an abandoned section of the beach to walk together.
“So how are things going?” he asked, looking over at her with a curious smile.
She let out a huge sigh and pushed her hands down into the pockets of her jacket. “Good, and maybe not good.”
He lowered one brow. “Maybe not good? What part is that about?” he asked with concern.
“It’s Michael. Things were going really well, and we were having fun and then he just… suddenly sort of backed way off. I don’t quite know what to make of it. I don’t understand why he’s doing that.” She frowned as the doubts deep in her resurfaced.
Aaron was thoughtful for a moment. “Did anything happen or change between you two?” he asked, looking at her carefully as they strolled through the sand.
She shook her head. “Not that I can tell, I mean… one minute things seemed normal, whatever normal is for us, and then… they just changed. He was staying over and spending the night with me, and he went from hot to cold really fast. I mean… he stayed the whole night, and he was affectionate to me, but not romantic with me. Things went from hot to friend, and it seemed like there was so much sorrow and regret in him, like he wished he had never come over, or something.”
Finally, she was giving voice to her fears. She hadn’t wanted to speak them aloud, and she hadn’t wanted to share them with Willow, but she could share them with Aaron. She could tell him anything.
“I’m sure that he doesn’t regret going over. Is it possible that it could be anything else?” he asked, looking as if the machines in his head were whirring as they worked for a viable solution.
She shrugged. “It might be. I saw him texting someone the night before.”
Aaron nodded. “Did it go poorly after the texting?” he asked.
Raina suddenly felt as if she was being silly and extremely over analytical. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s probably your answer then. It’s something else that’s bothering him and not you,” Aaron said with ease.
Her thoughts went back to the way that he wouldn’t let her touch him and the fact that he hadn’t wanted her more than once that night. He seemed to close himself off to her after that, and she had barely gotten a single text from him since then. He had not sent her any texts of his own accord. Every bit of communication that had happened over text since he had left her house had been answers to texts that she had sent him. There was nothing else from him at all.
She sighed again in frustration and told herself that she had to stop thinking and worrying about it. She turned all of her attention away from herself and focused it on her best friend, walking at her side.
“So enough silliness on my end, how’s the divorce going?” she asked in a caring and sweet tone.
He groaned and pushed his hands down in his pockets, looking out to sea at first, and then lowering his eyes to the ground at his feet. “Not good. She wants everything, like I told you, and she is fighting me on all of the details. Every single thing. I’m just so fed up with it. When she told me that she was leaving me for another woman, I took it in stride. I was a complete gentleman about it.”
“I bet you were,” Raina added in.
“We talked about the divorce and we agreed that it was going to be easy and smooth and be settled fairly and quickly. We agreed on everything, and now… now this. It’s not how it was supposed to go, but then, nothing with her has gone the way that it’s supposed to go. I’m so tired of it. I just want it done and over with.” He gave his head a shake as he kicked some sand beneath his feet, sending a small spray of it outward before him.
“My heart hurts for you. I’m so sorry to see you have to go through this.”
“Well, it could be worse; at least it’s just a divorce of business. I mean, it’s not like my heart is broken or anything. It’s not. I am glad about that. This would be so much worse with a broken heart. She stopped loving me ages ago, and I just… I haven’t loved her in a long time.” He spoke with sorrow in his voice, and she could see it all over his face.
“I know you haven’t. I kind of hoped that you two would find your way back to being in love the way that you were when you first married her,” Raina told him with a soft voice.
He shook his head. “I was hoping the same thing, but when the bond between us began to fray and separate, it just never came back together again. It seems like nothing could have ever fixed it. It isn’t the love that I wanted, and it isn’t the love that I thought and hoped that we might have. It was… it was a substitute, right from the start.”
Raina frowned. “I want more for you than that. I want you happy and in love and enjoying your life with someone who thinks the world of you.”
“I want that, too.”
“Well, have you thought about dating anyone? I mean… I know it’s probably not the best time, and you’re right in the middle of a nasty divorce, but even going on a few fun dates might lighten your heart a little bit. You don’t have to go out looking for love right now, but you could be going out and having fun. That might be good for you.” She turned her head and gave him a concentrated look.
He stopped and turned, focusing his attention on the waves rolling into the shore. “I want to wait until the right time.” His eyes were set on the sea, and she smiled a little as she watched him, thinking how nice it was that at that moment, his eyes were the same color as the sea.
“Okay. Do what’s right for you, and know that whatever that is, I am always going to be here and have your back. You’re going to have my support, no matter what.” She gave him a smile and he looked over at her and smiled back, taking her hand in his.
They stood there together, holding hands and breathing in the sea, letting the salt water heal them as it always does. No words passed between them, but they shared each other’s worries in silence, and shared a strong and silent comfort with one another.
After a long while they turned and began to head back to the cars in the parking lot. He walked her to her car and stood with her beside her door.
“You know, now that I’ve had some time to think about what you were saying about Michael, I wonder if perhaps he might not be falling for you, which I’m sure is very easy to do, and maybe he’s trying to stem the emotion. Maybe he’s trying to keep that from happening.” Aaron took both of her hands in his and looked openly into her eyes.
She nodded. “Maybe so. You might be right about that, but as far as I can tell right now, I’m just going to have to wait.”
She shrugged and took her hands from Aaron’s. He reached his arms around her and pulled her close to him, embracing her as he nestled his face into her hair, and she heard him breathe her in.
“Thank you so much for today, for the talk and especially for the company. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She smiled and hugged him back.
He turned his face and kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger there for a long moment before letting her go, his eyes steady on her.
“I’ll see you soon. We’ll have dinner, okay?” she asked, giving him a light smile.
He nodded and held the car door for her as she got in. He shut it carefully and patted the top of the car as she started it up.
Raina waved at him and he waved in return, giving her a tender smile as she drove away.
She thought about what he had said as she went home. It might be possible that Michael was feeling more than he wanted to, and that he had taken a long beat in stepping back from her just for that reason. Maybe he was trying to get control of his emotions, feeling that he had gotten too close to her, too fast. She had felt that way about it with him, and she was working hard herself to keep her emotions in check.
It seemed like the most logical and realistic answer that there could be. Realizing that gave her some comfort, and she found solace in it. She did not hear from Michael at all that day, or that night, and several times she resisted the urge to text him, telling herself that she should give him the space that he so obviously wanted, and she should wait for him to come to her when he was ready, rather than pushing and insisting that he attend to her just because she wanted him. She knew she had to have some regard for whatever it was that was holding him back from the fires they had created together.