Raina had given herself the morning off the next day. The weather was supposed to be warmer than usual, and she wanted some time away from her desk. She dressed herself in jeans and a form fitting sweater, and decided to take a long and leisurely stroll along the Embarcadero.
The street was lined with people; mostly tourists in many of the spots around Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf, and commuters using the ferry from the ferry building to go back and forth to work across the bay.
She stopped at a café and got herself a coffee, and walked along, loving the cool breeze that drifted off of the water, and the buzz of activity around her as she took her time going down the sidewalk.
Raina had walked onto one of her favorite piers and sat at a bench, watching sailboats in the bay and relaxing. She stood up after a while and walked back down the pier. She was just about to step off it back onto the sidewalk when she stopped short and stared straight ahead of her.
There on a bench, with an ice cream in his hand, was Michael. Beside him was a cute, young girl with short, dark, wavy hair that reached her shoulders. She had big brown eyes, a button of a nose, and full lips that were smiling as she talked animatedly, gesturing with her hands. She looked to be in her later teens. Her form was slender, though there were well developed curves beneath her stylish clothes.
Raina stared for a long minute, not sure if she should approach them, but seeing the blissful grin on Michael’s face, she thought she might as well. She walked up to them and smiled warmly.
“Hello, Michael. What a nice surprise to see you here. I was walking along the Embarcadero, and I didn’t expect to run into anyone that I knew.”
She was trying to play it off a little more than she needed to, just because she wasn’t sure who the girl was, and she didn’t want to put Michael in an awkward situation.
When she saw the shock register on his face, she knew that it was too late. The surprise and worry in his eyes was fleeting, and she only caught a glimpse of it before he masked it with the same smile she had seen on his face the first day that they had met at the café. He was ‘on’. He was performing for her, ever the actor.
“Raina! What a surprise,” he said as if he wasn’t entirely sure it was a surprise.
He sighed with a hint of frustration as he looked from her toward the girl sitting next to him. He seemed to realize that he was going to have to introduce them.
“Raina, this is Joanna Fernandez. Jo, this is a friend of mine, Raina.” He stood up and the young girl stood up and grinned brightly at Raina, extending her hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Raina,” she bubbled happily. Something about her reminded Raina of a very young Norah Jones.
“Thank you, it’s nice to meet you, too. Do you have some time to visit?” she asked, hoping to get to talk with Michael at least for a few minutes, and wondering wildly why he was sitting on a bench at the pier with such a young girl.
“Well, I-” he began, looking away from her uncomfortably, but Joanna stepped in.
“Yes, of course we do! We don’t have to be to my acting class until five, so we have tons of time. Do you want to visit here, or should we find a table or something?” she asked lightly, turning her head and looking around.
Michael sighed. “I think there are some tables right down that way,” he said, pointing further down the sidewalk.
She turned and he walked beside her as they began to head to the table, and Raina walked near them, her mind going at the speed of light, all of it questions and endless curiosity.
They sat down together and Raina, seeing that Michael was hesitant to spend time visiting with her, turned toward Joanna.
“So how do you know Michael?” she asked, knowing that it was probably the best way to get a direct and honest answer.
Joanna laughed and looked at Michael in surprise, and then turned her brown eyes toward Raina. Michael pursed his lips and grimaced.
“I live with him!” she answered as if it was something she might have already expected Raina to know.
Raina’s heart nearly jumped through her chest.
“You live with him?” she asked in surprise, her gaze shifting from the young girl over to Michael, who looked like an insect squirming miserably beneath a magnifying glass in the sunlight.
He took a deep breath and sighed, looking resigned.
Turning his face to Raina, he spoke in an even tone. His eyes were a solid shield, blocking whatever thoughts and emotions might be going on behind them.
“She’s… kind of my ward, I guess. She was in an acting group that I was leading, and we had a show one day. When the show was over, everyone cleaned up the space and I was heading out to the car with the last of the boxes and I saw her sitting there on a bench alone. It was much later than it should have been for her to be there.
“I asked her if everything was alright, and she said that she was stranded. Her brother was supposed to come pick her up and he had decided not to. She had no way home. So, I took her home. When I pulled up to where she lived, I was horrified. It was as ghetto a place as you could possibly imagine. It was awful. I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t condemned. I let her go that night, but I hated seeing her go into that home, and I decided to try to help her.
“I talked to her mother and asked if it would be alright if she lived with me, just so she would have somewhere safe and good to live. Her mother said she didn’t care, so I took Jo with me, and she’s been living with me ever since.” He finished what he was saying, and when he did, he looked like he wasn’t going to say anything more about it.
Raina did her best not to stare at him. She could scarcely believe what she had heard him say. “You took her in to live with you? Wow… that’s… that’s incredible. When was that?” she asked, trying to wrap her mind around the whole concept of it.
Joanna smiled happily. “Two years ago,” she said, as if it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
“And how old are you now?” Raina asked, trying her best to keep an even tone.
“I’m seventeen now,” she answered.
“Do you… do you still talk with your mother and brother?” Raina asked, needing to understand every facet of the situation.
Joanna nodded. “Yeah, I do. I see them from time to time, but most of the time I’m busy working at a coffee shop, and I’m studying to get my GED. I missed a lot of school with my mom, and I was behind, but I’m catching up now. I should be ready to take it soon, but I’m a little nervous about it,” she admitted with a shy smile.
Michael sat there silently, watching Joanna and keeping his eyes averted from Raina. It was completely surreal to Raina that she had seen them, and that they were sitting there talking, and more than that, that she was hearing and discovering what they were telling her.
“Did you say that you’re going to an acting class?” Raina asked, her eyes intent on the young girl.
“Yes, I do that so that I can get better at it before I get to college. I want to take acting in college.” She sounded and looked completely determined.
“Well, I hope that it happens then,” Raina told her, her mind reeling from everything that she was learning. She couldn’t believe that Michael had never bothered to tell her that he had a young girl living with him.
“It’s going to happen.” Michael finally spoke. “I’m going to make sure that it happens.” He sounded even more determined than Joanna did.
She laughed at him. “If I’m his ward, he’s my warden. He takes care of everything for me!”
He gave her a lightly scolding look. “I’m not your warden. I’m just protective of you,” he said simply.
“You’re way more than just protective of me,” she replied with a smile, reaching her hand over and wrapping it around his thick muscled arm. She leaned close and rested her face on his shoulder, gazing adoringly up into his face.
He wrapped an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “You’re right about that,” he answered solemnly.
Joanna picked her head up almost as if she was just remembering that Raina was there. She looked at her, leaving her hand wrapped around Michael’s arm. It seemed possessive to Raina.
“So, how did you and Michael meet?” she asked in return.
Michael cleared his throat and turned to smile at Joanna. “We met through work,” he answered simply, and Raina had the distinct impression that he wanted to leave it that way. She wondered momentarily if Joanna knew that Michael was an escort.
The girl shrugged and smiled again. “Oh, that’s cool,” she said breezily.
Michael reached his finger up and touched the end of Joanna’s nose, giving her a grin. She reached up and did the same to him, and Raina felt a tidal wave of awkwardness wash over her. She suddenly felt that she didn’t want to be there with them any longer, and all she could think about was leaving.
“I’m sorry about this, but I do have to get going. It’s later than I realized,” she said, and Michael and Joanna stopped looking at each other and both turned to look at her. Raina hadn’t felt like a third wheel in a long time. “I am glad that I got to meet you, Joanna, and I hope you do well with your studies. Good luck with those,” she said with a kind smile. She meant it.
Joanna stood up, and Michael stood up with her. She reached her small hand out to Raina, and shook Raina’s hand. Raina turned to look at Michael and gave him a smile and a nod.
“Well, you two have fun today.” She waved at them and walked away, all the while feeling as if everything inside of her was spinning in chaos.
He hadn’t looked upset, or sorrowful, or remorseful, or at all the way that he had looked when he had left her home. He looked happy and totally at ease, spending time with his young ward on the Embarcadero. He hadn’t texted her since he had left her home, looking miserable, and there he was with Joanna, looking as carefree and happy as if there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world. He hadn’t said that he would be in contact with her. He hadn’t said that he would see her. He hadn’t said anything at all.
Confusion, irritation, worry, disbelief, curiosity, and amazement all tangled themselves up in a big knot in Raina’s stomach, and she walked to work carrying the weight of it the whole way.
Willow took one look at her when she walked past her desk, and got up and followed Raina into her office.
“What is going on?” she asked in obvious concern.
Raina sat down and leaned her head back, closing her eyes and sighing. “I don’t know. I don’t know what in the hell is going on.”
“Well, why don’t you start with whatever put that look on your face?” Willow coaxed her.
Raina opened her eyes and looked at Willow. “I don’t think I can believe it myself, but here goes. I was walking on the Embarcadero today, and I happened to run into Michael. I haven’t heard from him since he left my house the other night. Like… not a word. Nothing. That’s so unlike him.”
Willow’s eyes grew wide. “You did? You saw him there? What was he doing?”
Raina’s face remained stoic. “He was taking his ward out for ice cream.” She could scarcely believe the words were coming out of her mouth.
Willow’s brow furrowed. “Ward? What... what ward?” she asked in utter confusion.
Raina leaned forward and closed her hands together on the top of her desk, leaning on her elbows slightly. “Michael has a seventeen year old girl living with him at his home. He’s had her living with him since she was fifteen. He took her out for ice cream today, and I ran into them and met her. He looked pretty miserable when he left my place last time I saw him, but he was happy as a clam when I found the two of them on the pier today.”
Willow’s mouth fell full open. “You’re kidding… he has a teenage girl living with him? Are they… how is that… What’s she doing living with him?” Willow asked, voicing several of the questions that had already run through Raina’s mind.
Raina raised her brows. “That’s exactly what I thought, when I met her. She’s a cute little thing. They are obviously very close. I guess she was living in a bad situation and he rescued her from it.”
“Prince Charming… rescuing the little princess…” Willow said quietly. “How was it with them?” she asked, looking as stunned as Raina still felt.
“They’re… close. They adore each other. Anyone could see it.” She sighed and rubbed her hand over her forehead. “Maybe it really is a good thing. He just never said a single word about her during the whole time we were talking and spending time together. Nothing. Not one word. You’d think that he might have mentioned having a sort of… daughter… living with him.”
Willow frowned thoughtfully. “Not if he was trying to keep his private life… private. You said he was pretty closed off about his personal life. I could understand that actually, in his profession… being a male escort, he probably doesn’t want his work to infringe at all on his home life. That makes sense. Right?”
Raina considered it carefully. “You know, you’re right. It might be a strange situation, but you’re right. If I was him, I wouldn’t want something like my escort job anywhere near my daughter figure… that does make perfect sense. I just wasn’t expecting it, and it’s the last thing I ever would have guessed about him. It’s pretty strange. I guess maybe I was looking at it the wrong way. Thanks, Willow. You have such a common sense way of looking at things, and it’s so helpful to me all of the time. I appreciate it.”
Willow grinned and stood up, giving Raina a kind smile. “I’m glad to help. I love my job, and I care a great deal about you.”
Raina smiled and waved Willow out of her office. She turned to her computer then and went to work, and she managed to focus on it so intently that she was startled when her phone went off shortly after five o’clock. It was a text notification.
She turned and looked at her phone, and her heart skipped a beat. She hoped with everything in her that it was Michael. She had missed their constant texting, and she was annoyed with herself that she had gotten so used to it so fast, but she had, and she wanted to hear from him more than anything. She had lost track of how many times a day she would look at her phone and see no message waiting, and set her phone back down in disappointment. She finally had to start setting her phone further away from herself, so that she wouldn’t reach for it every few minutes, and wish that she was hearing from him.
She picked it up and swiped the screen, and saw that she had gotten a message from Michael. Her heart swelled in her and she couldn’t hold back the grin on her face. Touching the message, she opened it and read it anxiously.
‘It was so good to see you today. I missed you.’
Her first reaction was irritation. He missed her. He didn’t have to miss her, all he had to do was text her, and the only reason they hadn’t been talking was because he had stopped their communication altogether.
She sighed in resignation. Maybe she was still reading too much into it, she thought. She wanted to wait to text him back, simply out of spite, to make him be the one who was waiting by his phone for a text, not knowing when it might come, but then she stopped herself. She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t like him, and she wasn’t going to make him wait as he had done to her.
She texted him back, and read it twice before she pressed send. ‘Good to see you, too. Missed you as well.’
Then she set her phone down at the corner of her desk and went right back to her work, though her attention was split between her monitor and the phone nearby, wondering if he was going to start texting her constantly like he had before he stayed the night at her house.
A few minutes later, she heard her phone buzz, and her heart began to beat swiftly as she smiled hopefully and reached for it. It was from Michael.
‘When am I going to get to see you again?’ he asked her. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’
She was surprised by his flirtatious words, especially after having seen him that day in such a cool and aloof mood, but then she realized that he was probably hiding his connection with her from Joanna. Everything about them was probably a secret hidden from the young girl.
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment and then sent a message to him. ‘I’m going to Boston on Friday, you could come with me for that trip if you want to.’
She hadn’t thought of him going at all, because she hadn’t heard from him and she didn’t know where they stood, but as he had begun texting her again, she felt that maybe she had over analyzed everything and that they were probably fine. He had told her several times that nothing was wrong. Maybe nothing really was wrong.
She set her phone down and tried to concentrate on her work before her, but with each passing moment, her eyes and her mind and her heart were turning toward the phone, rather than looking at what she was supposed to be working on.
He texted her back a few minutes later and she gasped and grinned when she read it. ‘Would love to go with you. Can’t wait to have time alone with you.’
She furrowed her brow then as she realized something. ‘Is Joanna going to be okay while you’re gone?’
She knew that it wasn’t her business, and obviously something had worked out for him before regarding him leaving town, because Joanna had been fine enough for him to leave town with her twice, but she wanted to ask, now that she knew about the girl.
He texted Raina back a couple of minutes later. ‘She’s fine. She stays with a friend of mine.’
Raina felt a kind of release in her, and some of the tension that she had felt began to ease up. He was taking care of a young girl, and he was working hard to do it. She realized that he was sacrificing time with Joanna to go out of town with her, and the knowledge touched her heart.
‘Thanks for coming with me. I’m sorry to keep you from her,’ she answered, meaning it.
He replied. ‘It’s fine. I just worry about her while I’m gone. I worry about her constantly, all the time. She’s always on my mind.’
Before she could respond, he sent a second text. ‘I never intended to have children, but now that I do, I feel like it’s changed me a lot. I can understand now why my mother worries so much about me.’ He included a laughing smiley face.
His second text helped her to feel as though he was really acting in a responsible way, and that he had done some good for the girl, by giving her a better home.
‘It’s good of you to take care of Joanna like you do,’ she answered him.
There was a long wait before he texted her back, and she had returned to her work before she heard her phone go off. She smiled to herself and picked it up, looking at the screen.
‘I keep thinking about that dark corner in Vegas. We’re going to have to find a dark corner in Boston,’ he teased, sending a kissing smiley face.
She giggled and felt her cheeks warm. Her mind eased, and she felt as if they were back to normal again; back to the two of them being what they were before he spent the night.
‘I’m sure we’ll find one,’ she answered, sending a kissing smiley face back to him.
They went on that way for the rest of day, and long into the night, and the messages seemed to just get steamier as time progressed. It felt like a huge relief to her to have him back, to pick up where they had left off, and she found herself anticipating the trip to Boston more than ever. She couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.
She met him at the airport, as was becoming their regular habit, and he looked really happy to see her again, as if nothing at all had changed or happened between them. he was wearing his dark brown suede jacket and his Indiana Jones hat, and she grinned when she saw him.
He wrapped his arms around her in a big hug, and kissed her for a long moment. She knew in her heart then, that no matter what had happened to strain their relationship, things were as they ought to be, and she was beyond happy to know it.
She surprised him, when they got to Boston, with tickets to the Boston Pops Symphony, who were putting on a holiday performance. It was an early run, and it was the opening night, so she was surprised to have been able to get tickets, but she got them. She had told Michael to bring a nice dress jacket to wear, because they would be going out, and he didn’t disappoint.
The man looked stunning in his black dress jacket, and she could only imagine how amazing he must look in a tuxedo. She made a mental note to find a way to take him to something where he’d have to go black tie. He could’ve stepped off of the cover of a gentleman’s magazine as it was.
She wore a light lavender evening gown, and pinned her hair up at the back of her head. She looked elegant and sophisticated, and when the two of them walked into the room, all heads and eyes around them turned toward them admiringly. She loved the feel of it, and she loved the way it made her feel to be on his arm.
They sat and enjoyed the festive concert, and when it was done, the two of them left and took a taxi back to the hotel where they were staying. When they got out, she opened her umbrella against the rain that was falling steadily all around them. The night was mild and the rain wasn’t too cool, and she liked the fresh scent and feel of it.
“Do you want to go back in just yet, or would you rather walk around?” she asked him with a smile.
He grinned. “To be honest, I’d rather walk around. I haven’t been here before, and I’d like to see as much of Boston as I can before we go back to San Francisco. I got to see a little today while you were in your meeting, and I love it, but I’d like to see more, if that’s okay with you.”
She nodded and slid her arm into the crook of his arm, and together they walked down the sidewalk, and he held the umbrella over them. They explored some of the downtown area in the old part of Boston, and decided to stop in to the Plaza hotel for tea.
He hadn’t ever had a proper high tea before, and though it was late evening, when she asked their server for it, the hotel obliged, and brought out three different tea pots with three different kinds of tea, and two stacked trays filled with finger sandwiches and delicate chocolates and desserts.
The two of them talked and laughed and enjoyed their tea for a long while. They ended up going through five pots of different teas before they finally left, walking together through Boston Public Gardens in the rain. They stopped at Cheers and she showed him the bar that was once made famous by a television show, and then they went inside just to see it.
After they left, they walked along the dark wet street under tall trees that were losing their autumn leaves, beside brownstone houses that looked down onto the street like sentries. She managed to get them lost, certain that they should be going one way, until they had walked five blocks and she realized that they should have gone only one block the other way.
They laughed about it, and eventually made it back to their hotel. Cold and tired, they took a long hot shower together, and for the first time since he had left her house, they lost themselves in passion in each other’s arms in the steamy water, and shortly after that, they fell asleep together in bed.
She woke up at one point, and looked around in the dark room. There was only a little shaft of orange streetlight coming in through an opening in the curtain, and raindrops glistened on the window pane as she looked out. She turned her gaze to the man sleeping beside her, and she felt her heart flutter.
He was beautiful as he slept; his eyes were closed and his thick black eyelashes brushed against his cheeks, his squared jaw slightly loose, his lips parted slightly as soft breath moved in and out. His solid wall of muscled chest and his thickly muscled arms were softened in his relaxed state.
She watched him sleeping, and wished that she could run her fingers through his dark hair, and kiss his lips and his chest, and wake him slowly with the passion that burned in her for him. She watched him and her heart began to ache, and she knew then that she was beginning to fall for him.
Raina told herself that she had no business doing any such thing. He was in a business arrangement with her, and while they were fine having their torrid affair, she absolutely could not feel anything for him as far as deep emotion. They had an arrangement, and an understanding, and he had a daughter figure he was looking after. She vowed to herself that she could keep being his friend and his lover, and never let it become anything more. She knew that it might be a difficult promise to keep to herself, but she was going to do everything in her to try.
On Saturday, she took him to the Museum of Fine Art, where they spent a great deal of time looking at wonderful works of art, especially the Egyptian collection and the Impressionist paintings, including works by Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, and Matisse. He had never seen anything like it, and he was awestruck by what she was able to introduce him to.
When they left the Museum of Fine Art, she took him across the road to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and they discovered many wonderful treasures in there as well. They walked through the glass globe at the Mary Baker Eddy library, whispering and hearing their echoes bounce all over the inside of the world. They walked the Freedom Trail and when it took them through Little Italy, she took him to Mike’s Pastry on Hanover Street, where they indulged in proper Boston Crème Pie. They had no end of authentic Italian restaurants to choose from, but she had a few favorites there, and she took him to one that wasn’t quite as busy as the rest.
They enjoyed a delicious Italian meal for dinner, and finished walking the Freedom Trail past the Old North Church where Paul Revere had left lanterns in the window, telling the militia which way the red coats were coming. They walked past an old graveyard and down to the docks where the oldest ship in the United States Navy was docked, and they watched at sunset as the colors were lowered and a real cannon blasted as taps played for the end of day.
Raina and Michael found a good Irish pub and stopped in to have a drink before they went back to their hotel, talking of all the fun they had shared, and the things they had seen. She told him about some of the things they could see on Sunday before they left, and he thanked her for taking him on the trip.
That night they exhausted themselves in bed, fueling their passion and pleasure, and Sunday they explored a little more before they went to the airport and flew home to San Francisco. He kissed her gently as he said goodbye to her at the airport, and they got into their respective cars, and left one another, both of them happy and contented.