Blooming (18 page)

“Hi Jen, I’m
glad your coming, you’ll love the cabins it’s such a happy place, plus if Sean
and Seb come it deflects people from fussing over me all the time. The more
people that go the better it will be for you too, less interrogation from the
oldies.”

“OK, I don’t
think I have much choice,” she said

Todd nodded
his head agreeing with her.

“Will you see
if Ben can come?”

“Ben? Oh, of
course that’s a good idea, how big is this place anyway, how’s it going to fit
all these people?

“You’ll see,”
Lily said.   

****

Two days
later, the motley crew arrived at Herrington Lake, Kentucky in two hired SUV’s,
Jen & Todd in one and Sean, Seb & Ben in the other. When Jen quizzed
Todd about not having his own car he simply said he preferred rentals, that way
he was always driving a new car, better yet if he could go on foot somewhere
that’s what he preferred.

Jen and Ben
had both made tense company for their travelling companions on the drive out.
Jen at the prospect of meeting Todd’s parents and Ben because he was getting
his head messed up trying to figure out how to act around Lily.

The cabin’s
consisted of three single story log buildings dotted around the grassy lake
shore with their own dock, Jen thought it was about the most beautiful spot
she’d ever seen and she knew Lily was right you couldn’t help but feel better
here, like all your problems were simpler.

Todd came
round and helped Jen out of the car. Her ribs were already feeling a lot better
and her ease of movement almost back to normal, but he’d grown very fond of making
sure she felt cosseted.

The cars had
no sooner driven up than the middle cabin’s door opened and Lily ran out in
shorts and a t shirt; she gave Todd a quick hug and then caught Jen in an
embrace that nearly stole her breath away, “thank you Jen, thank you so much
for what you did,” she whispered in her ear.

“Careful with
her she’s still got lots of bruises,” Todd laughed.

Jen was relieved
to see Lily looking a lot better and sporting a light tan, as she returned the
girl’s hug she realised Lily had spotted the boys over her shoulder and felt
the taller girl stiffen slightly.

Ben definitely
looked good, Jen thought. All dirty blond and stubbly and pretty hunky without
his coffee shop uniform, he walked up to Lily and gave her a soft hi and leaned
in to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for inviting me.”

She smiled
shyly at him before she was swamped by Sean and Seb, Sean almost barrelling Ben
out of the way in order to get to her.

Jen smiled at
them all feeling content at the happy scene and then heat coursed through her
palm as a strong grip encompassed her hand and tugged, “Come see where we’re
staying.”

She followed
Todd who was single-handedly managing both of their bags, he cracked open the
door of the left hand cabin and sighed happily, “This is ours.”

“Just ours?”
Jen gulped, “just you and me?”

“Yep - Mom,
Dad and Lily share the middle one, and the boys are in the end cabin.”

“Is your mom
ok with us sharing?”

“Well I
suspect she knows I haven’t been a virgin in quite some time.”

Jen shifted
on her feet uncomfortable at his choice of words and he could have kicked
himself.

“It’s nothing
to be ashamed of,” he said tilting her chin up.

“Is there more
than one bed in here?” she asked, casting her eye around the space.

“No we’re
sharing.”

“Oh boy,” she
shivered.

He smiled and
she felt her toes curl up, hell he was such heaven to look at, “stop thinking
again, I’ve got it all in hand, come and meet my folks.”

Hand in hand, they entered the
middle cabin and Jen rebounded in shock when a huge shadow crossed the room to
them.

Crikey holy
hell and she thought Todd was big. A deep bass laugh greeted her shocked
expression, obviously he was used to having this effect on women and a big hand
came out and shook hers.

“Jennifer Harris,
this is my dad Marshall,” Todd laughed.

If Todd said
he was six three, then by her reckoning Marshall had to be at least six five
and built every bit like Todd, except he was blond and blue eyed, sort of an
even more gorgeous Robert Redford if he’d been a football player not an actor.

“Good to meet
you sir.” Jen felt like a munchkin beside the two of them, they took up so much
space she didn’t see his mom approach at first.

“Jennifer I’m
so glad you could come, I’m Bernadette but please call me Bernie.” She was
swept up into a hug, and for a minute she tensed up, struggling to deal with the
unexpected physical contact. She wasn’t good at interpreting the correct social
greeting for any given situation so instead she simply forced her body to relax
and accepted the hug.

Bernie seemed
to understand what she was thinking and whisked her into the kitchen away from
the boys.

“My husband’s
quite a looker isn’t he?” she laughed. “I’ve been fighting off other women’s
intentions towards him my whole adult life, luckily for me he’s definitely a
one woman guy.”

“You’re a
very good looking family.” Jen sighed without realising it.

“What a nice
thing to say, thank you,” Bernie said with genuine pleasure in her voice.

Bernadette
Baker was the source of her children’s wicked green eyes and Todd’s dark
velvety hair. Although possibly it required a little help these days, but if so
it wasn’t obvious. A similar height to Lily she looked to be in her early
fifties and had a trim athletic figure in tight jeans and a slash neck top.

“We thought
we’d just have a late picnic dinner on the tables out back, if that suits
everybody?” Marshall boomed, bringing the ragtag posse of his children and
their friends in behind him.

Jen marvelled
at how easy she blended in amongst these people, as they all helped carry out
bowls and plates and dishes chock full of delicious smelling food, this didn’t
look like any casual picnic she’d ever seen.

When they
were all seated Marshall stood with a beer in his hand, “I would just like to
propose a toast celebrating all of us here together and my children, who make me
so very proud every day. It’s been a very strange and painful time for all of
us but it seems things are about to take a turn for the better with the help of
some very new friends and some old very gay ones,” everybody laughed. “So thank
you all for everything you are and everything you’ve done and for coming to
spend some time with us, oh and also to my very hot wife for keeping all of our
heads on straight – honey I think we did a pretty good job on our kids,” he
said laughing.

There were a
few hear hear’s and laughs before Bernie pulled her husband back to his seat,
her face pink with happiness and embarrassment.

Jen caught
Todd’s look opposite her, he rolled his eyes.

It was a
fantastic evening, they all ate too much. Todd and Marsh, as Bernie called him,
argued about the best way to build a fire before Sebastian made them both look
like amateurs at it. More wine and beer was drunk and at some point Lily
brought out a radio and people started coupling up and dancing.

Just as Todd’s
gaze lit on her and he began making his way over, his dad made his move and
without asking swept Jen into his arms and spun her feet off the grass with a
laugh.

Laughing at
his son’s petulant scowl, Marsh looked down and swaying her about said “How ya
doing down there?”

“I’m doing ok
thank you,” she was pleasantly tiddly.

“I just want
to say in private that I really appreciate you being there for Lily,” he put up
his hand when she tried to interrupt, “none of you were responsible for what
happened, I’ve had a hard time convincing Todd of it but he’s not to blame and
neither were you. Shit happens in life – granted it was some very serious shit,
but it’s how you deal with it that matters.”

Jen let it
sink in, his words echoing inside her skull for more than one reason.

“I’ve got to
say thank you for looking out for Todd too. I saw what happened at the
restaurant, you saved Todd’s life. We both know he could have killed that
asshole, I would have too in his place, but you paid a pretty heavy price.” He
lifted her cast hand and kissed her fingers in a gentlemanly fashion, and now
she understood where Todd got his smooth moves from.

“That’s it I
can’t take it anymore get your hands off my woman,” Todd mock growled, coming
up behind her his breath sending shivers down her spine.

Marsh backed
off laughing and gave her a little bow, but his eyes betrayed the solemn
sincerity of what he felt.

“Wow I never
thought I’d meet a man hotter than you,” Jen teased Todd as he pulled her
close.

“Well you’ll
just have to make do with me - he’s spoken for,” he gestured at his mom and dad
starting to smooch it up across the way, then he bent his head and kissed her
neck softly and whispered, “I know you don’t mean it anyway.”

“I don’t know
– I figured something out just now,”

“Yeah what’s
that?”

“How I didn’t
recognise you from the Bravura ads. In those commercials you had a lot of blond
streaks, seeing your dad must have twigged my memory,”

“I’m losing
masculinity points by the day aren’t I? First you find out I used to wax, now
the bleach, not my fault on this one honey, modelling agencies pay for your
name and public profile and then set about trying to mould you into something
else. In the name of full disclosure you should also know there was fake tan
and baby oil involved.”

“No way!”

“’Fraid so, I
would have done almost anything to bag that pay cheque.”

Jen pulled
away and pretended to be repulsed for a second and then smiled,”Nah it’s no
good, as much as I’d like to be freaked out by your metro-sexual past it’s not
working, but just to be clear I still like you best as you are now.”

“Good,” he
growled. Jen shivered as his breath tickled her then laughed when Sean and Seb
swept past, she’d never seen gay men dancing together outside a Police Academy
movie.

Todd pulled
her in close and wrapped his arms tight around her upper back, he didn’t lean
down to her merely pulled her against his chest, where she fit contentedly, her
arms linked about his hips loosely.

Todd looked
over to where Ben and Lily sat on the porch of her cabin they weren’t even
close to touching in any way but they looked intimate somehow, maybe things
were going to be ok.

The two of
them were the last to call it a night. Jen stole a glance at her watch it was
almost 1am and for the first time in her life, well outside of a hospital
anyway, she was going to share a man’s bed.

At some point
during the last few days Todd had bought her some very cosy fleece pyjamas,
totally unsexy but she liked the fact that he was thinking of her comfort. When
she came out of the bathroom wearing them he was already in the bed, his top
half was naked, and if past form was anything to go by maybe his bottom half
was too. He calmly watched her as she approached.

She didn’t
say a word as she climbed in beside him, his eyes never left her and as soon as
she tucked into his side his arms came around her.

“I’m glad you
came out here with us, I love this place. It’s important to me that you love it
too.”

She nodded,
unsure what else to do.

“I don’t
bring many people here, it’s kind of my little bolt hole that I like to keep
mainly for family and close friends, I’ve only brought a girl out here once
before,” when he saw Jen tense he realised his mistake, she wasn’t ready to
think about him having a past.

“So what do
we do now?” she said, trying to change the subject.

“I don’t
know, right now the reasons I had for not seducing you immediately just don’t
seem to hold up anymore, but at the same time it feels like it shouldn’t be
just yet does that make sense?”

“If you need
to ask me for guidance then you really are in trouble,” she smiled tightly.

“I think that
what’s going on between us is serious hopefully and I’m nervous not to scare
you off. This is about more than just sex and getting the deed done,” he leaned
over and stroked a length of hair back behind her ear.

Jen rolled
onto Todd’s front and looked into his eyes and without properly understanding why;
she suddenly got really really angry. Without speaking she got back up and
snatched a pillow off the bed and moved to go into the living room.

Todd jerked
up, “Where are you going?” he said with some dismay.

“Well if you
think I’m sleeping next to your stark naked body all night not knowing whether 
or when something is going to happen, you’ve got another think coming. I can’t
wander round in limbo not having any clue what the next move is, I’m not a fly
by the seat of my pants girl. I need you to tell me where I stand,” she pointed
at him in furious frustration. “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with
you.”

She was fully
aware she was being unreasonable, but first he’d intimated about his ex
girlfriend presumably sleeping in this bed and no doubt knowing exactly what
she was doing, then he had seriously pissed her off with his enforced
gallantry. It made her feel like she wasn’t as desirable as he claimed
otherwise he wouldn’t be worried about a few healed over bruises or a cast on
her arm. Jeez it was going to be on her arm another 6 weeks possibly, there was
no way she was going to play guessing games for that long.

“I’m sleeping
on the couch,” she yelled

Todd made to
get out of the bed to stop her and she fixed him with a glare, “no you step out
of that bed naked I’m going to expect you to follow through on it all the way,
you understand me?” She emphasized the last three words, the mantra they’d somehow
adopted with each other.