The week had gone by as slow as it possibly could have gone.  Dean had called me a few times to try and set up a date but things fell through when clients had called for his ‘emergency’ services.  There was just something about Dean now that simply felt odd; it reminded me of that same feeling on that first day when we had bumped into one another.

It was Thursday night and I had managed to finish reupholstering some of Granny’s old furniture and kicked the rest of the old dilapidated stuff, to the curb for garbage collection day.  I sat in my newly revamped living room watching TV when my phone vibrated on the coffee table in front of me.  Putting the remote down, after lowering the volume, I take a look at my caller ID.  It was Christian.  Christian and I hadn’t seen each other since the evening of my birthday but we had talked for hours on end every night since.  I found myself looking forward to hearing from him every day.  Just like old times.  It was comfortable between us again; just like when we were kids.

“Hey!”  I said, smiling into the phone.

“Hey you.”  I hear him laugh lightly.  “How was your day?”

“You know; same old, same old.”  I tell him.  “The typical unemployed rich girl, remodels home because everyone she knows is simply too busy for her.”  And I got exactly the reaction I wanted out of him as I hear him start to chuckle into the receiver.  “Actually, I got a lot done today.”  I told him about my days’ adventure.

“Have you heard from Dean?”  He asked hesitantly after I had finished telling him about my day.  I knew that he felt uncomfortable with the idea of me seeing someone else but the truth was I wasn’t interested in Dean that way.  Like I’ve said before, there’s just something about him that creeps me out.  I wasn’t going to tell Christian that though because I kind of enjoyed this slightly jealous and worry-wart side of him.

“We’ve talked a few times.  He’s convinced me and we’ve made plans to elope next week.”  I tell him, knowing that I would infuriate him further.  My doorbell rang mid-conversation.  I got up and walked to the front door to see who could be calling on me at nine o’clock at night.  I began laughing at Christian’s tensed silence.  As I pull the door open to see who it was, I found him standing there with his phone.  My arm dropped from my ear along with my jaw in surprise.  I hadn’t realized that I had missed his face that much until now.

“And you weren’t going to tell me?”  He said, smirking.

“I thought I just had.”  I regain my composure, letting him in, past me.  “What are you doing here?  Where’s Aiden?”

“He’s with my parents.  Tomorrow’s a PD day and Mom wanted to spend some time with him and give me the night off.”  He explained.  I nodded in understanding.  “I figured I’d stop by since I would have spent the night at home alone anyway.”

“What?  No woman yet?  I thought that boy of yours would have hooked one on his line and sunk her by now.”  I give him a wink; I loved the way he laughed at my quirky jokes.  He always had.

“I have to make a point and ask her if she’s sinking yet.”  He tells me and makes me laugh.  “You’re still coming tomorrow for dinner, right?”

“Yes.”  I tell him.  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good.”  He says and then drops himself onto my couch, pulling me into the crook of his arm beside him.  “So what’s good on a Thursday night anyway?”  He asked and kissed the top of my head.

“I wouldn’t know.  I wasn’t paying attention since some smartass of a guy was keeping me busy on the phone.”  I elbowed him in the side.  I reached for the remote and handed it to him, letting him have free range over my television.

We must have lost track of time because I woke up to the sun shining into my living room window.  My neck was sore from falling asleep at an odd angle.  I was covered with one of my throws.  As I looked around me, I realized that I was alone.  I noticed the piece of paper on the coffee table in front of me; shortly after I cleared the cobwebs from my head, I began to read it.

Mia,

I didn’t want to wake you but I had to go get ready for another day at the office.  By the way, those sexy noises came back again last night.  J  Have a good day and I’ll see you later tonight.

Love,

Christian

I smiled at the simplicity of the time spent with him last night and looked forward to an uneventful day and dinner with friends.  I headed upstairs to shower and get dressed.  I wanted to run a few errands for this evening.  As I headed out my front door, I came to a dead stop on a familiar hard chest.

“We really need to stop running into each other like this.”  I hear.

“Dean! What are you doing here?”  I asked, sort of surprised.  “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I am but I figured I’d stop in and say hi.”  He says.  It didn’t make sense seeing that his home is on the other side of town.  He must have seen the look of doubt in my face because he tried to bend down and kiss me.  I turned my head to the side, giving him my cheek instead.  “Is something the matter?”  He asked me when I backed up slightly away from him.

“Just friends.”  I mumbled in a low tone.

“What?”  He asked.  I looked up at his face.

“I said, we’re just friends.”  I held his gaze so he would know I was serious.

“Oh.”  He said glumly.  “I thought.”

“I can’t.”  I tell him.

“Does this have anything to do with Christian and his bastard son?”  He tells me and anger flushed right through me, insulted at his lack of respect for situations he wasn’t completely in the know of.

“I think you need to leave.”  I tell him, my insides shaking.

“Does it?”  He demanded this time, grabbing onto my shoulders.

“So what if it did?”  I asked him.  “You and I will never be.  And frankly, with this insinuating, I don’t think I’d call you a friend either.  What goes on between me, Christian and Aiden doesn’t concern you.  Now, if you will please get the hell off my property, I have errands to run.”  And I pushed him away from my door, letting myself out and locking my front door.  As I turned to walk to my car, Dean was blocking my way.  “We’re done, Dean.  Forget my phone number, my address, and forget our friendship.”  And I stomped to my car, locking the doors and turned my keys in the ignition, revving my engine to let him know that if he didn’t move his car soon, he’d end up with a sizeable dent in his front fender; I didn’t give a damn that he was a hot shot lawyer.  He got in his car and left.

I showed up at the Masterson’s slightly earlier than expected but I figured I’d lend Gloria a hand with her cooking.  Mr. Masterson was outside on the patio, tending to a few more details.  I handed Gloria the bottle of wine and bouquet of fresh flowers I had purchased specifically for the evening.  She was so thrilled at the thought and immediately jumped at my throat, taking me into a loving hug; this woman reminded me so much of my mother, it was frightening.

“How’ve you been, Sweetie?”  She asks me.

“Good.  I’ve been keeping busy.”  I tell her.  She smiled at me and escorted me to the kitchen where she took a vase out for the flowers I had brought her.  I began helping her trim the ends.

“I’m glad.”  She tells me.  “Things can get lonely in a large house like that.”  And she looked at me suspiciously.

“Amelia!  You’re here!”  I hear little four year old Aiden scamper into the kitchen and latch on to my legs.  I laughed as I fluffed his black hair.

“Hey you!”  I say and then crouch down.  “Where’s my hug?”  I ask him and knew that it was all that it took.  Gloria watched us curiously as I eventually let him go.

“It looks like someone has a girlfriend.”  Mr. Masterson walked in, chuckling.  “Amelia, it’s so good to see you again.”  Phillip tells me as he comes over and gives me a quick hug.

“She’s not my girlfriend Poppy!”  Aiden exclaimed.  “She’s my best friend.”  And he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the back yard as I tried to stay in my place.

“Go ahead dear.  We’re alright in here.”  Gloria reassured me with a wink and I let Aiden lead me out back.

We were in the middle of a game of tag when we decided to take a break.  We lay, on our backs, in the grass, looking up at the sky, our heads next to each other’s.  We were looking at the clouds that floated by, telling each other what shapes or thing we were able to make out.

“That one looks like a bunny!”  Aiden said excitedly.

“I see it!  It does, doesn’t it?  Oh!  Look over there!”  And I point.  “That one looks like a butterfly.”  We continued like this for a few more minutes until Aiden got bored with our game.

“Amelia?”  He asked me as we sat up.

“Yeah, little guy?”  I pick a few pieces of grass out of his hair as I waited for his answer.

“My hand hurts.”  He says and I pout my lip, showing him that I was sad for him.  “Look at it!”  He says with a straight face as he holds his hand in a claw-like form.  I stifled my smirk and had a slight inkling on what was about to happen.

“Oh no!”  I held my hand in front of my mouth, pretending I was shocked.

“My other hand is starting to hurt too.”  He says and he can no longer contain the urge to smile.  “I think you need to run, Amelia.”  He says and I start to giggle.  “I feel like a tickle is coming on!”  And his little fingers start to wriggle about in his claw-like shaped hands and he gets up to start coming towards me.  I decided I would play his game.  His giggle was simply too contagious to pass up.  I got up and turned to run until I bumped hard into a solid muscular wall.  Before I could topple back onto the ground, Christian had grabbed my arms to stabilize me.

“Whoa!”  He said, chuckling.

“Hi Daddy!”  Aiden runs over to him and Chris takes him into a large hug and kisses the top of his head before ruffling his hair up.  “Amelia and I were playing Tickle Monster.  You want to play too?”

“I don’t know, Aiden.”  He said and then he made a face as he sticks a hand out and looks at it.  “There seems to be something wrong with Daddy’s hand today.”  And I hear Aiden start to squeal as he ran a quick circle around us and stopped in front of his father again.  “I might need your help, buddy.”  And then he straightened up and looked at me with a smirk.  I instantly knew that I was in trouble.  I began backing away slowly until I heard a “Let’s get her!” coming from Christian’s mouth and an equally loud squeal coming from Aiden.  Christian let Aiden chase me around for a bit until he got tired and asked for his father’s help.  Within a few minutes of running around the yard, I was duped into thinking that Aiden had fallen and hurt himself.  Thinking the game was over, I ran over to him as he latched onto my foot, wrapping his legs around mine and holding on as Christian wrestled me gently down to the ground.

“Gotcha!”  Aiden squealed and then jumped me so he could pepper me with tickles along with Chris.

“Aiden?  Can you come here please?”  Gloria called out to him.

“I’ll be right back, Daddy.  Don’t let her escape!”  He says excitedly as Chris slowly stopped the tickles.  I was slowly regaining my breath from all the laughing and horseplay.  Christian propped himself on his elbow and put his tickling hand down onto my hip.

“Hi.”  He says softly as he smiles that smile that would get any girl to swoon for him.  Honestly, it got my heart beating faster when he pulled it out on me.

“Hi, back.”  I say, letting a residual laugh out of me.  I felt the thumb of the hand on my hip rubbing and the warming sensation from almost a week ago was starting to return.