Chapter 70: Chapter 70

VI step off the elevator and he is there waiting for me, dressed in a snazzy shirt and tight jeans to boot. His muscles look way too big for the shirt threatening the integrity of the seams.

“If I didn’t already have Michael!” I compliment him in an overly flirtatious manner.

He takes a step closer to me so now he is totally in my personal space and with those puppy dog eyes and his really deep, super sexy voice he asks, “You would?” He reached his arms around my waist quite presumptuously.

“Let’s just say, I would be swallowing more than my dinner,” I entice. He stares into my eyes like I’m a twelve-ounce Sirloin and he hasn’t eaten in weeks, and I stare back at him, “A comeback elude you?”

My mouth parts slightly and he starts looking like he’s going to kiss me. Close enough to smell his perfume and feel the heat of his body, he’s about to swoop down for a kiss when I quickly turn my head so his lips land on my cheek. I super teased him, “You can wipe that pissed off expression from your face, you’re the one who threw me back into the sea! Let’s go get dinner I’m starving.”

“Sure, where?” he grunts.

“In the hotel, I don’t feel like going out.”

“We could do room service,” he suggests. “We can really talk when we’re alone.”

“Let’s not, and say we did,” I joke. “The hunger in your eyes is making me nervous.”

“It should. Okay, hotel restaurant it is.”

The waitress takes our order and then we review our list while waiting for the food, “How should we approach this?” I ask.

“Well, first I’d like to tie you up,” Scott said salaciously. Just the memory of Scott going all fifty on me makes me have to reposition myself in my chair. “Oh, you like that?” he notices “Is it making you wet?”

I ignore his question, and start putting his initial next to half the items on the list and mine on the other half, “How’s this?” I asked handing him the copy.

“I don’t want you doing the Village by yourself. I think we should do it together.”

“Why?”

“It’s not safe.” “Sure it is safe.” “No, it’s not.”

“Okay, we’ll do that together. Is the rest of it fair?” “More than,” he agrees.

Scott flags the waitress down, “Can I order a drink?” “Sure,” she said looking at him, “what would you like?” “I’ll have a Long Island Ice Tea.”

“And you?” she asks glancing at me.

“The same, please.” She sticks her pad in her back pocket and the pen she used, in her hair as she walks ever so slowly to the bar.

The waitress returns placing our drinks out before us with a small bowl of peanuts. Scott picks his drink up off the table and says, “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” I pried.

“I’m going out for a cigarette, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Since when do you smoke?” I can’t see anything but stress driving him to that. He thought it was a disgusting habit.

“Since my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer,” he snaps. “Pardon?”

“Stage 4 breast cancer.”

“Oh my God, Scott, I’m so sorry.” “Thanks,”

“Is she going to be okay?”

He doesn’t answer. He turns his back to me and leaves the restaurant, which I guess is my answer. I google the prognosis while I’m alone. There is a 22 percent chance she will live past five years.

He comes back to the table smelling of smoke, his eyes watery and his drink half gone, “Are you okay?” I ask.

“Listen Isa, it’s not your problem, I shouldn’t have told you.” “Why not? We’re still friends”

“I can’t stomach pity.”

“She’s my mother-in-law, and you’re my friend, nothing I do is out of pity.” “Was your mother-in-law, until I managed to fuck up the best thing in my life.”

“Water under the bridge now,” I said taking a rather large sip of my drink, “how is she doing right now?”

“They’re starting palliative chemotherapy treatments, hoping it might help her live a month or two longer. Isa, it has spread all over,” his brown eyes fill with tears. I reach out and cover his hand with mine. I stroke his shoulder with the other hand. He looks so lost, I wished I could take all his sorrow away, while my heart melts for him. He was so supportive for me when my dad died.

“I’m so sorry, Scott.”

“Don’t be, and as much as I hate Michael, I have to admit he’s been very understanding about all this.”

“He knows?”

“Of course. I told him I would be taking her to her appointments before I accepted the job. If he wasn’t okay with it, I wouldn’t have accepted.”

“I didn’t know,” I admit.

“Michael’s a prick, but he’s professional, and he knew I told him in confidence.”

“I guess,” I said finishing the last of my drink.

The waitress laid our pot roast with baby potatoes and carrots before us and Scott asked, “Can we have two more please?”

“Sure,” she said as she turns and walks unhurried back to the bar. We end up closing down the restaurant and staggering back to our rooms that night. It was our first friendly talk, long overdue. When I got back to my room, out of habit I checked my phone forgetting I had Michael’s. There were two missed calls from the office, I assume they were for him, so I didn’t return any of them, it was too late. I texted mom telling her about Sara and then got ready for bed.

We start at the crack of dawn, going our separate ways. I have my errands, Scott his. When we finish that night, we meet back up at the hotel restaurant and do a repeat of the night before minus the talk about his mother and plus a whole bunch of laughing. We are downing the Long Islands like they are water, Scott being a big guy can handle them, I on the other hand, not so good.

I wear my favorite black dress with these new heels I bought at Payless before the trip. I shop like a peasant on a princess’s salary. It’s something I haven’t got used to yet. Anyway, it is closing time at the restaurant, and Scott holds his arm out for me like the gentleman he is. I take it and we head to the lift and everything is fine until the hotel carpet starts doing my head in and then everything begins to spin. My body gets really hot, and I know I’m close, “Scott,” I groan. He looks down at me with a grin on his face, “Yes?”

“I’m going to be sick,” I slur.

“Hold on, we’re almost at my room,” he encourages while scrambling for his card in his back pocket. He gets the door open in the nick of time for me to go running into his bathroom. I lose my balance, slide on his tiled floor, land on my ass with the toilet bowl between my legs like I did it on purpose.

“Oh My God! Are you okay?” he asks laughing. “It’s not funny,” I scramble to get up on my knees. “Your heel broke,” he notices.

I feel my hair being grabbed as my dinner comes back out into Scott’s toilet. It’s lovely. I have chunks of veal with baby potatoes and string beans repeating on me in a horrid acidic vomit that manages to come out my nose and mouth in tiny chunks. It finally slows down into a dry heave where my stomach makes these large movements desperate to rid itself of all its contents. All I can do is thank God that it is only Scott seeing me in this humiliating scenario rather than Michael.

I get up and flush the toilet, “I’m going back to my room to clean up,” I slur.

“Go clean up, but you’re not sleeping alone.”

“Pardon me?” I ask giggling. “Who died and made you boss?”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, you can sleep here, or I’ll sleep with you.”

“Ya, no!” I take the remaining part of my heel off and walk as dignified as I can with one leg four inches shorter than the other. Oh, the embarrassment of it all! When I get back to my room, I clean up and change, hoping not to speak to the tidy bowl man for a second time. Its close though. I resolved to never have another Long Island forever. I didn’t notice Scott follow me into my room until after I came out of the bathroom. I brushed my teeth three times and blew my nose the same amount, but I still couldn’t get that vomit taste to go away.

He looks at me with concern, “I won’t stay overnight if you don’t want me to, but I’m staying until you fall asleep and I feel you are okay to leave alone.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” That night, I didn’t check Michael’s phone. I talked to him twice already, and he said he was going to be tied up in meetings until late that night. I stretch out on my princess bed above the covers and get emotionally drunk saying things I sort of wish I could take back. I don’t remember any of it, but Scott has no problem reciting everything to me the following morning at breakfast.

“What did I say?”

“You don’t want to know,” he smiles.

“Tell me!” I warn.

“Are you sure?”

“Please.”

“Okay, but just so you know, I am not making any of this up.”

“Okay, go ahead,” I encourage.

“You said that a part of you wishes we are still married.”

“Did I say married specifically to you?”

Scott looks surprised by my question, “No, I just assumed.”

“Don’t assume anything. What else did I say?”

“Forget I brought it up,” he says trying to stop the conversation in its tracks.

“What did I say?” I persist.

“That you wish you had my baby.”

“Oh my, anything else?”

“Just that I’m still the love of your life.”

“Fuck off! I did not say that,” I laugh.

“You did, just before you fell asleep.”

“Did I say your name?”

“You didn’t have to Isa.”

“Just take it with a grain of salt Scott, I was inebriated, not in my right mind.”

“Damn it Isa, it was so honest and sobering,” he says seriously, “you’re with the wrong guy, you should be with me.”

“Let me be the judge of that. If I said all that to you, what did you say to me?”

“Just that I need you back in my life, any way I can have you. You complete me, and I was a fool for not knowing it.”

My head is throbbing, “I’ll take those aspirins you offered me.”