Page 32 of Heartsick & Lipsticks
“Is she boy crazy?”
“Not yet, or at least not that I know of. Her friend Jenny is, though.” Jenny was like my bestie, Ri; they had a different boyfriend every week.
“Does she play any sports?”
“She’s a competitive cheerleader, and she’s going to do speech and debate next year.”
Her eyes began to blink heavily. “Is she a daddy’s girl?”
“He’s not in the picture.” It was the answer I always gave when asked about Callie’s dad.
“Oh, that’s probably for the…” Naomi’s words trailed off as her eyes closed. Within a minute or so, I could tell by her breathing pattern that she’d fallen asleep. As I stared down at this woman with whom on paper, I would have nothing in common, I related to her in a way I’d never related to anyone else.
I still hadn’t told Callie the whole truth about her father. She knew that he was a professor of mine and that he had a family. But she didn’t know that I wasn’t the only student he’d had an affair with. I hadn’t known that until Callie was a year old. I got an email from a woman who claimed he had seduced her five years earlier and that she wasn’t the only one. There were over a dozen of us.
She wanted to formally complain to the president of the college and have him fired because there was a no-fraternization policy for faculty and students. I’d been so overwhelmed with school, work and a baby that I’d never responded back to her. I still felt guilty about that sometimes. I should have done the right thing, but I just hadn’t been able to face that at the time.
Thankfully, a few years later, I found out he had been terminated. Every blue moon, I googled him to find out where he was. Last I checked, he was divorced from his third wife and teaching at a junior college in Florida.
I knew that one day Callie would probably go looking for him. Just like Naomi wanted to protect Nick from knowing the truth about his father, I wanted to do the same. But that wasn’t realistic. The best thing I could do for her was to make sure she knew who she was and that she had a strong sense of self before she was faced with knowing what sort of man he was.
I waited for about ten minutes to make sure that she was settled before I quietly lifted the tray of food and tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open behind me.
My phone was synced to Naomi’s monitors, so if there was any issue, I’d be immediately alerted. As I moved down the hallway with the tray in my hand, I wondered what Nick’s side of the story that Naomi had told me was.
He was just a kid when he went to see her. He had been in care his entire life, and when he’d gone to see his mom, she hadn’t answered his questions. He went back, and she refused to see him. Then, twenty or so years later, he takes her in and gives her the best care money can buy.
Was he really that forgiving?
From the little I’d listened to on his podcast, he didn’t seem forgiving at all. His cohost always seemed to err on the side of giving second chances, whereas he was ready to cut someone off at the first sign of disloyalty or distrust.
Was that truly who he was, or had he learned to be that cutthroat to survive? My heart ached for the little boy who grew up without the love of a mother. And for the young man who went to the prison to finally meet her, only to be turned away. And for the man who allowed that mother, who not only hadn’t answered his questions, but had turned him away multiple times when he had gone back to see her, to spend her final days in his home with him and her granddaughter.
I walked into the kitchen and found that man standing at the island. He was lifting a cookie to his mouth in gray sweatpants and nothing else. His upper body was gloriously naked, and the dimmed light from under the cabinets highlighted each and every line and curve of his chiseled torso.
This time, he didn’t seem at all shy about his state of undress. His eyes locked with mine, and the intensity in them caused my knees to go weak.
“Sorry, I just needed to drop this…” I walked to the kitchen, praying my noodle legs would support me.
It was the second time I’d seen him sans shirt and the sight had not diminished in potency. Butterflies flitted low in my belly and had me feeling like the popular ’80s Madonna pop hit, “Like a Virgin.”
My body acted like I’d never seen a shirtless man before. But in fairness, Nick wasn’t just any man, he was more like an Adonis. A Greek god of mythology.
Nick moaned as he chewed and then swallowed the bite. “That’s the best cookie I’ve ever tasted.”
I grinned. It was nothing special—just a chocolate chip cookie. I kept my head down as I rinsed the dishes. I sensed more than I saw Nick walk past me. Out of my peripheral sight. I watched as he casually stopped and leaned his lower back against the counter. He wasn’t standing particularly close, but he radiated so much sex appeal that there was a disturbance in the atmosphere. I could feel the shift in particles in the air from his nearness. “Parker said you made them from scratch.”
“Yep.” I could hear my heart pounding in my head over the sound of the water as I stared at my hands cleaning off the plate.
“How is Naomi doing?”
“She’s okay. She asked about you.”
“She did?”
I nodded. “I told her you stopped by.”
He was quiet for a moment before saying, “You don’t have to do that.”
