Chapter Twenty-One
James
I woke up the morning after having sex with Rachel for the first time, delighted with her snuggled up against me. It had been a long time since I’d held a woman in my arms like that, and it felt good to have her there. Her warm naked body pressed into mine. But something else was bothering me. Even though my wife had been gone for two years at this point, I still felt like I was cheating on her in a way. She was no longer here, no longer alive even, yet I felt unfaithful. Could I be doing something wrong by laying here in my bed with this beautiful woman?
Trying to push the guilt out of my mind; I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to think about Whitney now, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was doing something so wrong and I just wanted the feeling to go away. Intellectually, I knew it wasn’t so, but I couldn’t get past the feeling.
Rachel’s eyes fluttered open. I kissed her forehead and tossed all of my doubts out the window. Because I wasn’t cheating on her. Whitney had passed away, and she wasn’t coming back. I had every right to move on, and I was choosing Rachel to move on with. I was glad I had waited for someone special, and she was totally worth it.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I said to her.
She smiled at me, “Good morning yourself, handsome.”
She looked absolutely gorgeous. It was first thing in the morning, with her hair a mess and her makeup smeared. But it was the most beautiful image of her I could recall, and I wanted to hold her like this forever. I didn’t want to move or otherwise interrupt this moment we were sharing. We looked into each other’s eyes, and I felt like a brand-new me. Better than I’d felt in a long time.
“Do you want some breakfast?” I asked her.
She nodded her head, and I knew she might be too tired to talk. I kissed her head once more and got out of the bed, trying to hide the morning erection I had.
“Is that for me?” she asked with a small laugh.
I laughed with her, all awkwardness gone. “Let’s get some breakfast first,” I said, as I pulled on a pair of boxers and some sweatpants, then headed to the kitchen. A few minutes later I heard Rachel come down the hallway as I was pulling a couple pans out of the cabinet.
“Do you need any help?” she asked me.
I loved that she was asking me that. I turned towards her, and said, “No, I don’t. You can just sit and relax,” I said. I didn’t want her to help me. She was the guest in my house after all. I wanted to cook breakfast for her, especially for this first morning after.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded my head at her and pulled the eggs out of the fridge, along with some bacon and pancake mix. I whipped up a quick breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes.
“You’re okay about last night, right?” I asked her. I wanted to make sure she was still okay with everything, and that I hadn’t messed anything up. The most important thing was to keep things okay between us and not awkward. Not that they were, but I just wanted to be sure.
“Yeah,” she nodded, and then quickly looked down at her pancakes. I immediately knew something was wrong.
“Are you sure?” I asked her, and my stomach dropped. I hope more than everything that she didn’t regret last night. I didn’t regret last night and would seriously hate it if she did. This woman was truly something else, and I didn’t want to lose her already.
With a look a resignation, she said, “Well, honestly, I’m nervous something is going to happen between us now and I’m going to lose my job,” she said. I was glad she told me the truth. I needed to know her feelings, and had concerns myself about where we would go from here. I found her honesty refreshing.
“You don’t need to worry about that. You’re not going to lose your job. And Rachel, if you don’t want to make this anything more than it is because you’re not ready, we don’t have to do that.” I knew I liked her, but I didn’t want to rush her into anything. I even wondered if I was ready. This hit us both out of nowhere in a way. Maybe that was the beauty in it, though, but I just wasn’t sure.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “You know, you make some pretty good pancakes and bacon.”
“What about my eggs?” I asked her.
“Well, yours are good, but if I must say, I do make a pretty mean Eggs Benedict.” She smiled as she said it and I swear, it lit up the entire room.
“Is that so?” I asked.
We both smiled at each other, and I realized how much I was liking getting to know her. I was enjoying this time we were spending together. I was enjoying just eating breakfast with her, and I’d definitely enjoyed having sex with her the night before. I didn’t want to lose any of it. I would never fire her and didn’t want her worrying about it.
“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to make it for me next time,” I said to her after a few minutes of eating together.
“I might just have to,” she said with a smile. I purposely added the ‘next time’ reference to make her feel better. I wanted her to know that I did want a next time, and didn’t want this to be some one-time thing. I wanted to do a lot more with Rachel, spending time doing anything would be great. Getting to know her more was what I wanted most of all.
After we ate breakfast, it was time for me to take her home. I didn’t want her to still be here when I had to go get Nell. I felt like that might have been a bit too much for Nell just now. Especially since she didn’t even know anything about Rachel and I going on a date yesterday. I didn’t know how she was going to react to it and needed to talk to her before it was just sprung on her. She was just a little girl and really wouldn’t understand things.
I drove Rachel home and kissed her goodbye.
“Thanks for kissing me and not making the same mistake,” she joked.
“Anytime, gorgeous,” I said. I loved her sense of humor and that she sought to find the humor in everything. That just drew me to her more.
Rachel smiled at me once more, and I kissed her again. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to make up for not kissing her that first night. I should have kissed her then. So, I had time to make up for. I found I didn’t want to stop kissing her. Her lips were so soft and perfect I didn’t want to let them go.
After I said goodbye to her, I drove off and headed to Kassondra’s house to pick up Nell. I knocked on the door and was greeted by her mom, followed by her dad, still looking as happy as ever. It made me wonder if they ever argued, and if they did, did they do in front of Kassondra? I had no idea. It really was none of my business, but they just seemed so in love that it made me curious.
After Nell came out and we said our goodbyes, we got in the car.
“What did you do last night, Daddy?” Nell asked me, as we drove away from her friend’s house.
“Well, I hung out with Rachel. I took her to dinner, as a matter of fact,” I said. I looked in the rearview mirror as I said it, and watched my daughter’s eyes light up. She looked so happy just at that one little sentence.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes, really,” I said, nodding my head.
Nell smiled at me, and I smiled back. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was smiling about, but I liked to see her smile anyway. She was such a sweet kid and smiled often. When she didn’t smile, I knew something was wrong. So, the fact that she was smiling told me that she was happy.
“Why?” I asked her. I thought that maybe she would have explained why she was so excited about it, but she didn’t.
“Because I really like Rachel. I want her to be your girlfriend, Daddy.” She practically yelled the last part, and it took me by surprise.
“Really?” I asked her.
She nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yeah. I like that you’re happy, Daddy. You’re happy when you talk about Rachel.”
It surprised me to hear her say this. It seemed so adult-like. But, she was so observant, she noticed everything. If I bought a new shirt, she noticed it. If I got a haircut, even the tiniest trim, she noticed. If I didn’t get much sleep and had dark circles under my eyes, she noticed it. She was a very bright young girl. She caught on to everything, and even the subtlest change would catch her eye.
It warmed my heart when I thought about how much she liked Rachel, and it made me feel a lot better about where things were headed. At least where I hoped they were headed. We hadn’t really talked about it, and things were a little fuzzy this morning at breakfast. Rachel didn’t clearly say what she wanted, just that she was nervous about losing her job. But even if things didn’t work out between us, she was a damn good assistant, and I was never going to let her go.
“I’m glad you like Rachel,” I said to Nell, as we drove on towards our house.
Nell didn’t say anything more. She just smiled and stared out the window. After we pulled into the driveway, I helped Nell get out and carried her stuff back into the house. When we went inside, I turned on Nell’s favorite movie, and we snuggled on the couch. It was crazy to me how much I missed my daughter, even when she was only gone one night. She hadn’t even been gone for twenty-four hours, and I had missed her dearly. Though I did have someone to distract me a little bit.
“What would you like for dinner?” I asked Nell as her movie ended. It was still about an hour more before it was officially dinner time, but I wanted to get an idea at least, so we could know what to do.
“Pizza!” Nell yelled.
I loved her enthusiasm for pizza. It was her all-time favorite food, and it actually worked for me. It was easy and was also one of my favorite foods. We had that in common.
“Okay. Pizza it is; I’ll order some.” Then I grabbed my phone, stepped into another room and ordered a pizza to be delivered. I figured they would be busy, so it wasn’t too early to order. This particular pizza was really popular, and said they’d have our food here within sixty minutes, which was perfect. Then I went and watched movies, with my little girl. Bonding over pizza and her favorite movies.