Chapter 56
Malcolm
I watched Ginger walk up the stairs then heard the door close. No doubt she probably locked it as well.
“Fuck!”
This whole situation exploded out of nowhere. Going from the good time last night, hell even just thirty minutes prior to this. I’d seen the tears glistening in her eyes and felt the impact of that invisible armor being locked around her. How the fuck did one ill-worded sentence unravel all the progress we’d made?
I sat at the bottom of the steps, with head in hands, waiting, listening for the sound of the door opening. I was pissed. Pissed at myself for going way past simply putting my foot in my mouth; I’d shoved the whole damn leg in and half of the other one.
I jumped up when I heard the door. Ginger stopped when she saw me. My heart dropped to my stomach when I saw the suitcase in her hand.
“Are you going to let me leave?”
I detected a faint tremor in her voice. I could see the redness in her eyes.
“Ginger, baby, I’m sorry. Please...please at least hear me out.”
“So, that’s a no then?”
I started up the stairs. Ginger backed away from me and kept her eyes downcast. She wouldn’t even look at me. Fuck!
“Malcolm, let me pass.”
“Can you just wait a damn minute. Just talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Like hell there isn’t.” I pointed to her suitcase. “Is this how you always plan on handling things? Packing up and running away?”
“You said I had a choice. This is the one I’m making.” Her voice cracked. She took a breath. “Can I go or not?”
“Fuck!”
I ran my hands through my hair, squeezing my dreads together, trying to come up with something to say. I drew a blank. I glanced up at Ginger. She stood back against the wall, her hands clutched her suitcase. This was bullshit. One sentence. One fucking sentence had her running for the hills.
“Baby…” I sighed and pressed my thumbs to my eyes. When I looked back up at her, she was watching me. She held my gaze for a fleeting moment then turned away. “I love you, Calida.”
I turned and headed back down the stairs and headed toward the formal living room at the front of the house. The very room that started it all. The one where I professed my love for her in no uncertain terms. Now I used it as a hideout so she’d have plenty of room to leave without worrying I’d try to stop her. Every part of me wanted to do just the opposite. Everything in me said make her stay, to force her to listen to my explanation so she’d understand. But holding her hostage when she wanted to go wouldn’t help matters.
I sat in one of the stiff wingback chairs waiting for the sound of the door chime. My ability to stay put waned with each passing second. The sound came. I gripped onto the arms of the chair, needing something to keep me in place.
Last night she told me she loved me. Today she left. That was one hell of a turnaround in less than twenty-four hours.
I stood and peered out the large picture window. Ginger’s red SUV backed down the driveway. Hollow. Disbelief. She drove away. I turned and kicked the chair. It slid across the hardwoods until it hit its mate. I punched the air as I stalked down the hall back to the family room.
“No. No. Fuck this. She’ll talk to me.” Even if I had to have the whole damn conversation through the intercom at her place, I would explain myself to her.
I headed to the stairs and took them two at a time. I had reached the top when the door chimed again.
“Malcolm.”
I stopped. She came back? I slowly made my way back down. Ginger stood chewing on her bottom lip while twirling the ring around her finger.
“You forget something?” Why the hell would I ask that?
She shook her head. “Dr. Carr would think my actions…” she paused, looked down at the ring, and started mumbling to herself. She looked back up at me. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve worked…I’m working at trying to change my go-to reactions. Hearing you call me tainted…”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, that’s what I heard. Me and my son. Because as much as you want to pretend to be his father—”
“Pretend? I’m not pretending anything.”
“You know what I mean.”
I stepped forward. “Do I? Because we are having some shitty communication right now. And I one hundred percent own that I fucked up with my choice of words.”
“Yes, Malcolm, you know what I mean,” she continued on as if I’d not said anything. “You’ve stepped up, put yourself in that father role for him, and that’s great. He adores you, and I hope your feelings toward him have been genuine.”
“They are. There’s no reason for you to doubt that. Family is a hell of a lot more than just DNA. I think of Shawn as my son.”
She gave a faint smile that was gone as quickly as it appeared. “I want to believe you. I see how you are with him, but your words cut deep. They tapped into my own doubts and insecurities about myself and about Shawn.”
She looked down and ran her hand across her stomach. Her head began to nod, and she reached up to wipe tears from her face. I stepped closer. Ginger moved back.
“The night you learned…” She stopped to clear her throat. She pressed her lips together, and did a slow blink, then looked up to face me. “I love Shawn. I do. I’m his mother.” Her fingers covered her lips as she took a stuttered breath. “There were times I couldn’t look at him be…because of how he came to be. So…so when you—he shouldn’t be punished for the sins of his father, Malcolm.”
I stepped to Ginger and wrapped my arms around her. I expected her to fight, or pull away, but she didn’t. She cried softly and I ran my hand up and down her back while I tried to process what she’d said.
Shawn didn’t just look like his father; he was reminder, a product of a terrifying and brutal attack. My idiotic statement and poor choice of words added to an apparent fear she had that we’d somehow treat him differently.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
I closed my eyes and tightened my embrace. I wanted to take it all. Every ounce of pain and misery she’d had to endure. I held her willing myself to absorb it from her body and free her from it all.
She pulled away. “I just wanted to say my piece.”
She turned to walk off, and I reached for her arm. I expected her to pull away, she didn’t, but she also didn’t turn to look at me.
“Do I get to say mine?”
“What more is there to say, Malcolm? I’m forever changed because of my time with Seth. No amount of therapy is going to change me back. I’m physically and emotionally scarred. Tainted.” The last word she spoke was barely above a whisper.
I grimaced, hearing that word. That stupid, fucking word. “Stop. Okay? Just stop. That was a terrible choice of word on my part, but my dumb ass statement had nothing to do with you or Shawn.”
I turned her around, getting mild resistance, but she relented. I placed my hands on either side of Ginger’s face. With my thumbs I wiped the tears from her cheeks. I spoke slow and held eye contact knowing that these words were probably the most important ones I’d ever speak.
“Shawn is my son. DNA. Conception. None of that shit matters to me. What does matter is him. His mother. And the family we’ve created. Please believe that.”
“I want to. It’s part of why I came back.” She pulled free. “But it doesn’t matter. The truth is I am tainted. I am. I’ve used the very same word to describe myself. And we’re both forever linked to him. Something you don’t want in your house.”
I hated the way she stressed the word your.
Running my hands down my face, I tried to figure out the best way to dig myself out of this hole. “This place. This house is ours. It’s meant for us as a place to grow as a family and have a life together. I want to give you that. Me. Call me crazy, irrational, or whatever, but you using his money to pay for it diminishes that. That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t want him associated with it.”
Ginger looked at me. Skepticism still in her eyes. She remained in flight mode.
“It’s my money.”
“I know.”
“How is this place supposed to be ours if I’m not allowed to make any contributions to it?”
I took a tentative step forward, placing my hands on her hips. “Baby, you can and you have. Like I said, it’s not rational, and I’m sorry. I wish I could explain it better, but I can’t. I just need to do this. You are free to do whatever you want to this place, add anything your heart desires. I just want to pay for it. The house itself.”
“And the tainted part of your comment?”
“The two parts go hand in hand. That place you stayed in is marred with bad memories and unhappy times. Home should be your happy place, and he robbed you of that. It had nothing to do with you or Shawn.”
She uncrossed her arms, letting them relax by her side. “There’s going to come a time when the truth will need to be spoken. He’s going to wonder why he’s white with blue eyes and black hair yet the man he calls father is black with hazel eyes and brown hair. Meanwhile his mother is white with red hair and green eyes. Any children we have...he’s going to stand out.”
I slipped my fingers between hers, the tension in my body melted away when she closed hers around mine. “When that time comes, we’ll handle it. Together. I’m sorry for how the words came out. And for upsetting you. You shouldn’t ever have to doubt how I feel about you and Lil’ Man.”
“I don’t. Not really. I know you love me. Us.” She rested her hands on my chest. Her fingers played with my chest hair. “I’ve felt it, seen it. It’s the other reason I came back. When I looked at you…I thought after you said…I thought it’d be gone. The feelings you create when you look at me, but it wasn’t. I just—knee-jerk reaction. Easier to think, and prepare myself for the worst so to speak.” She glanced at me. “I’m still a work in progress.”
I pulled her closer, erasing the remaining space between our bodies. My hands circled her slender waist, and I said a silent thank you that she let me hold her. “We all are,” I said, pressing my lips to her forehead.
Ginger stretched up and wrapped her arms around my neck. The embrace felt different. She pressed her body to mine, her grip tight, almost desperate. Her entire demeanor had changed from just a few minutes prior. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, with her face buried in the side of my neck.
“For what?”
She shrugged and held on tighter. “Getting mad. Overreacting. Doubting you. Just being a generally emotional nut case.”
I ran my hand up and down her back. “Hey, now, that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”
“You have crappy taste in women.”
“I’m insulted. I have excellent taste in women.”
We stood, not saying anything else. Her fingers played with my dreads and she showed no signs of pulling away.
“Do you forgive me?”
“For what?”
“Overreacting.”
“Baby, there’s nothing to forgive. I said something that upset you, and you reacted accordingly. I’m happy you came back to let me explain.”
She finally pulled away. Those beautiful green eyes of hers looked up at me. “That upset you.”
“Hell yeah, it did. I mean, you’re free to come and go, but it was the reason you wanted to go. I had to talk myself out of running after you and throwing myself on the hood of your car or something.”
A bright, carefree smile lit up her face. “That would have given the neighbors something to talk about.”
“Well, if the ones across the street were awake last night, we already gave them plenty to talk about.”
She giggled then put her hands on my shoulders and stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “I love you,” she whispered against my lips.
“I know, baby. I love you too.”
“This relationship is very uneven.”
“How so?”
“I come with a cargo hold worth of baggage and you barely have a carryon. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d had second thoughts.”
“Never. Ginger, baby, you’re it for me. Even with all your so-called baggage.”
“Even when I flake out?”
“Not gonna lie, I hope we’ll get to a point when running isn’t your first reaction. Especially since I already thought we had.”
She stepped back and started to speak, but stopped. She looked up at me before turning and walking away. She took a seat at the end of the sofa, and chewed on her thumbnail. Her leg seemed to bounce a mile a minute. I walked over and took a seat on the coffee table.
“I’m sorry. I...I just…”
“That statement wasn’t meant to make you feel bad. We are navigating this, figuring it out as we go. Emphasis on the we.”
She looked at me and gave a sad smile. “I don’t always know how to handle this.”
I reached over for her hands. “Handle what?”
“This. You. Us. I...um...don’t have the best track record. Things, relationships. You’re good to me, Malcolm. I’m happy with you, and I guess you could say that scares me.”
“Why?”
She weaved her fingers between mine. She gave a quick glance at me before looking down at our intertwined hands. “Expectations of being hurt,” she quietly answered. “I don’t have enough pieces left to put my heart back together if it’s broken again.”
Letting those words sink in, I moved to sit beside her. Their meaning, their honesty, affected me. I tried everything I could to take some of her burden away, but it wasn’t enough. I pulled my hand free, to use both to hold her face. Leaning forward, I kissed her right cheek, then her left, and finally made my way to her lips. I kissed her soft and slow, wanting the connection to convey my love, but more importantly my appreciation of her. My lips moved atop hers, cherishing her as she deserved.
“That’s not something you have to worry about. Til death do we part. I want to be the last man for you.”
“We’re not married.”
I shrugged. “Details, details. Not being married doesn’t change a damn thing for me.” I took her hand and put it over my chest. “You feel that? It beats for you, because it belongs to you. If you leave, if you ever wanted to end this, you’d be taking it with you. It won’t be of use to anyone else, because I don’t want anyone else.”
Ginger closed her hand into a fist then opened it again in slow motion. The tips of her fingers brushed against my flesh as she repeated the motion three more times before pulling her hand away.
“I want to get to a point where I don’t flake out. Where the little things are just that, instead of the bigger deal I make them into. And I thought I was. I want to be. You deserve to have a girlfriend that’s not so erratic.”
“Hey. It’s not a big deal. Like I said, we’re navigating this together. So, you flake out, as you call it. I don’t care as long as you do what you did. Stay and work through it. ‘Cuz let me tell ya, I can’t guarantee that more stupid shit won’t come out of my mouth. And when that happens, cuss at me, throw shit at my head, slam doors, whatever. Just don’t leave.”
Ginger moved, sliding into my lap. I sat back to accommodate her.
“I'm sorry for that.”
“Baby, stop apologizing. I'm just glad you came back. I was getting ready to come after you when you walked back in.”
“You were?”
“Hell yeah. You took off with my heart. I kinda need it to live.”
I slipped my hand under her shirt and ran my fingers up and down her back. She rested her head on my shoulder and placed light kisses on the side of my neck.
“I won't try to leave again. I want to be here. To be with you.”
“I want you here. Going to sleep with you curled up beside me is the best thing ever. You're a perfect fit.”
She sat up to look at me. “What?”
“You women call it spooning, but the way your body fits curled up next to mine is a perfect fit.” I moved my hand down to the curve of her ass. “Not too much. Not too little. Just right.”
She laughed. “I didn't know it was possible for you to think a woman could have too much ass.”
“Well, in most cases no, but for sleeping, if it's too thick then it’s hard to really get close and comfortable.”
“How much time have you spent trying to find the ‘just right,’ Goldilocks? Wait, nevermind. I don’t think I really want to know how many asses you’ve tested out.”
She tried to move off my lap, but I held her in place. “Aww, baby, don’t be jealous. It’s not like that.”
“It sure sounds like you’ve been on the hunt.”
“No. I wasn’t looking, but the moment I had it, I knew. That very first night you stayed here with me I knew I never wanted to sleep without you again.”
Ginger straddled me, and put her hands on either side of my face. She leaned forward and gave me a soft kiss. “I think that can be arranged.”
I grinned and slid my hands down to her waist, rocking her forward. “What are you saying?”
“Well, you like sleeping with me. I like sleeping with you. You want me here, and I want to be here, so maybe I can stay…on a more permanent basis.”
She squealed when I flipped us so that she was laying beneath me. I smiled down at her, enjoying the radiant one she gave me in return. The look of joy and happiness on her face made my heart swell.
“You wouldn’t be playing with my emotions would you?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. I placed a kiss on the side of her neck, and ran my tongue up to her earlobe. I caught the tender flesh between my teeth. “You sore?”
She wrapped her legs around my waist. “A little bit.”
“Too sore to celebrate?”
She shook her head.
“Good.”