But outside of Conrad showing and being a jerk, the kids had decided their own custody schedule, and since our hostile conversation, Conrad hadn’t said a thing. They’d even both brought clothes to keep at my place because they were at Cliff Blue as often as they were with Conrad and Martine.
I liked floating on those calm seas. I didn’t want to rock that boat.
I kept telling myself that Mickey was a good guy and there was nothing even in my wildest conjuring he was likely to do to make my kids not accept him.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t worried.
I fought down the urge to phone Mickey, call dinner off and reschedule in six months as I finished pulling the chicken, mixed it with the barbeque sauce and put it into the oven to keep warm.
I turned to take in my house and heard soft music playing. It wasn’t my choice of dinner music, it was rock ‘n’ roll, but the John Mellencamp type of rock ‘n’ roll that wouldn’t put you to sleep and sounded good turned down (though, that didn’t mean it didn’t sound better turned up).
I also saw the bar was set. I’d contacted the furniture company and the dining room table was coming, but it wasn’t going to arrive until later that week, so we were eating at the bar. Pippa had done as I’d asked and even filled my pretty new pitcher with ice water.
The candles were lit. The lighting was a shade up from romantic.
All was perfect.
Except I should have bought flowers.
“I should have bought flowers,” I mumbled.
“Not sure, but since your dude is a dude, he probably doesn’t give a crap if you bought flowers,” Auden, sliding on the stool opposite me, told me.
He was right.
I smiled at him, lifting a hand to tuck my hair behind my ear.
It was then I realized I’d forgotten to put earrings in.
“Shit! I forgot earrings!” I cried, this exclamation being far more dramatic than the situation warranted.
“According to the microwave you have two minutes to accomplish that mission, Mom,” Pippa teased. “Since your jewelry isn’t in Calcutta, thinking you can pull that off.”
I gave her a look that was half smile, half glare as she grinned at me then I moved, saying, “I’ll be right back.”
Auden got in on the act, calling to my back, “We’ll try to survive without you.”
I hoped they’d have to wait years before they had to do that.
I hurried down the hall but I’d nabbed my phone before I left the kitchen in the unlikely event Mickey called me, told me he had 24-hour pneumonia, but not to worry, Florence Nightingale had resurrected to care for him personally, though, alas, he could not come to dinner with me and my children.
This didn’t happen.
But after the third pair of earrings I put on (the first, diamond studs, they were big thus too flashy and too expensive; the second, long hoops that nearly reached my shoulders that Alyssa had talked me into buying, they were too disco; the last, a fall of beads and tiny gold leaves, just right), my phone rang.
I looked down at it on my bathroom counter and my neck muscles got tight when I saw it was Conrad.
Considering he might know what tonight was for Pippa, Auden, Mickey and me, and if he did the odds that he was calling was to ruin it for me were high, I didn’t answer.
However when I’d decided on earrings number three and did a mini-spritz of perfume (that day, I decided on the one Olympia had chosen for me) and I heard my phone chime it had a voicemail, curiosity got the cat.
I picked it up, went to voicemail and listened to Conrad’s message.
“Amelia,” he said tightly. “I’m hoping this call came in prior to your evening’s…festivities.”
He knew what tonight was for the kids and me.
“However,” he kept talking, even on voicemail sounding like he was doing it while having his nails pulled out by the roots, “things are busy at the moment and I had some time to call. There are some things we need to discuss. If you’d please call my secretary, we can set a meeting. Have a…good evening.”
He then rang off but as I was listening my phone chimed with a text. This too was from Conrad and it was his secretary’s name and number.
I stared at it wondering what we needed to discuss. I also wondered why whatever that was needed to be discussed face to face. And last, I stared at it thinking that we actually didn’t have anything to discuss face to face and I would share that via text the next day after I survived the trauma of the next few hours.
I walked out of my bathroom and was heading down the hall when the doorbell rang.
My steps faltered as I experienced a mini-heart attack.
“I got it!” Auden called.
I then experienced a not-mini-heart attack.
Even in the throes of a life emergency, I rushed down the hall seeing Auden strolling to the door and I did this feeling my pulse jumpstart and do it way too quickly.
I got to the mouth of the hall and stopped dead because Auden had the door open and Mickey was standing there looking all that was Mickey, wearing another nice shirt, this one plaid in a muted red and brown against a cream background, jeans and boots.
He was also carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers.
Again, my heart stuttered as my cheeks flushed and I fell a little bit deeper in love with Mickey.
I did it wondering how that saying came about considering falling in love didn’t feel like falling.
It felt like soaring.
“Hey,” Mickey greeted, not having looked at me, his focus was on Auden.
My son puffed up his chest a little and straightened his back, not yet as tall as Mickey and I didn’t know if he would get there, but he was claiming all the height he had in the face of all that was Mickey.
“Hey,” Auden replied.
“Flowers!” Pippa exclaimed happily, skip-dashing toward the door before she stopped, turned to me and beamed.
My girl liked her flowers and Mickey thinking of them was a good thing.
But Mickey bringing a bouquet that huge, to Pippa, was a major statement that spoke volumes.
“You wanna let him in, kiddo?” I suggested to Auden, forcing my body to move forward as Mickey looked from Pippa to me.
He smiled, big and beautiful.
I smiled back, hoping I gave him the same thing.
Auden stepped out of the way and Mickey walked in, coming right to me as I met him halfway.
When we stopped, he put a hand light to my hip and bent deep, touching his mouth briefly to mine.
When he lifted away, he murmured, “Hey.”
“Hey back,” I replied quietly.