Breaking All The Rules (Book 1 - Second Chances Series) (6 page)

“I remember,” I confessed, pausing reflectively. I also remembered his attending the wake and funeral, the amazing flowers he sent to the house and the huge donation he made in my father’s name to the cancer center. “You were extremely generous.”

Ethan smiled reminiscently. “That was just money.” He tilted his glass back and forth and I thought he had the strongest looking hands I’d ever seen. He cleared his throat and pulled me from the thoughts I was having about those hands. “I wanted to make you smile, but you’d been home for over a month and every time I saw you all I saw was your pain,” he paused as if reflecting.  “Smiling after the death of a parent is a tall order, but it broke my heart to see you so heartbroken.” He took my hand in his and leaned closer. “I never had a chance to tell you this, but I really appreciated the fact that you attended my games at Southern.”

My breath caught in my throat. I had no idea what he was wearing, but his cologne had been made for him, because the aroma coming from his pores was sensually perfect. He was making me nervous. I slid my hand from under his warm touch. “Everyone in Garrison was at your games.” I recalled how sick I’d been on the way home, so I hadn’t been back with the crowd that gathered once a month to travel by bus across the state of Georgia to Southern University for Ethan’s soccer game.  “I only made it to one.”

His lips curved into a lazy smile. “True, but I remember you being at both my games at Monmouth University during my senior year. I mean I know you were in New York, but central Jersey was a good haul for you. That was special.” He nodded like the memory made him proud. “I told my teammates you were my future wife.”

“What?” Attempting to hide the fact that I was blushing, I raised my glass to my lips and held it there. “Why would you’ve said that?”

“Because you looked good in those stands.” He laughed. “My teammates would ask me, ‘What’s up with that hot older chick coming to see you?’ I admit I stretched the truth a bit.”

I slapped his arm. “No you didn’t. What did you say?”

He smiled wide and attractive lines fanned out around his eyes. “Nothing too bad. Just that I’d had a crush on you in high school and now you were interested in me.”

“You know you should be ashamed to admit this, don’t you?” I felt heat rise to my face. Embarrassed, I covered it. “You men talk worse than women.”

Ethan pulled my hand away from my face. His expression became serious. “That was a little more than talk. It was wishful thinking.” 

The waitress interrupted and placed a glass of iced tea in front of him. She also refilled my glass, smiled at him again and moved to a neighboring table.

“Anyway, you were in New York. I graduated and was off to Europe.” The look on his face revealed that had been a happy time for him. “I was hoping you’d come to my going away party, so I could tell you how much it meant for you to be in Jersey, but you were a no show.” He tapped his long fingers on the table a few times. They caught my eye. He had nice hands. I remembered how he’d stroked the piano last night. I raised my eyes to his and sensed my not attending his party had been a disappointment to him.

I cleared my throat of the guilt I was suddenly feeling. “I had a big wedding that weekend. I wanted to celebrate with everyone. Garrison was so proud of you. I was proud, but that wedding put my business on the map. It had been planned way too far in advance for me to hand it off.”

He frowned. “No sweat. I was mature enough to understand that,” he said. “Plus, I knew Terrance was still sprung on you.” He chuckled.  “Then when your dad got sick, my cousin worked his way back into your life.” He raised his glass and took a long sip. “And for what?” He shook his head. “So, he could tell you he was too country to ever leave Coweta County?”

In an effort to keep the pain of that to myself, I lowered my eyes to my iPad again. “That was between us.”

“I suppose it was, but I lost respect for him then. Here he had a chance to be with an amazing woman and he was going to throw it all away to stay up under his mama’s skirt.”

I returned my eyes to his. “He had a good job.”

“It was weak. He could have given you guys a chance. The plant wasn’t going anywhere. His father could always get him on there if he came back to Garrison. Besides, if he hadn’t been in the way I would have made my move.”

I sat back and crossed my hands over my chest. “That would have been a waste, because I have rule about dating younger men.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t do it.”

Ethan raised his hand to his heart. “I’m so disappointed. What kind of a rule is that?”

A humming sound came from inside his pocket.

Glad for the interruption, I waited for him to answer his phone, but he didn’t seem to have any plans to. I asked, “Aren’t you going to get that? It might be your girlfriend.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend, but I do have voicemail, so tell me why you don’t date younger men.”

Suddenly feeling a little silly about my answer, I shied away from his gaze. “I never want to be called a cougar and I don’t ever want the man in my life looking younger than me.”

Ethan chuckled and threw his head back. “Stop the madness woman. Black don’t crack, and for the record, you don’t look a single hour over twenty-eight.”

I worked hard to be as diva divine as I was, so I was flattered, but I wasn’t going to let it show. I shook my head. “I live in New York. You live wherever you land, so we don’t need to have this ‘not happening dot com’ discussion.” I stood, looked at my watch and said, “I need to meet with the florist.”

He stood with me. “We’ll continue this conversation at dinner.”

I reached for my check. “If you plan to talk about this at dinner then let’s go ahead and cancel.”

He took my hand and pulled the slip from it. “I’ve got this.” He let his eyes sweep my body. “I promise. No more stories about how I’ve been in love with you since I was ten.”

My heart was racing. This was the first time in years I felt like I had weights in my heels. I couldn’t move. He’d actually paralyzed me with those eyes. I cleared my throat and pulled myself together. “I’ll be ready at six,” I replied, forcing myself to move. That was some serious flirting. I left the restaurant with a ding in the air above me and a little more pep in my step.

I was ridiculously excited about seeing Ethan again. It was only five thirty and I was showered, dressed and putting on makeup. Technically it wasn’t a date. We were hanging out, keeping each other from being bored to death in Garrison, and taking my mind off the only wedding that I’ve ever not wanted to plan.

As if she could tell I was thinking about her, Janette entered the room and plopped down on my bed. She looked tired and her feet seemed to be a bit swollen. She stood all day at the salon, but she’d been home for hours and they’d been up the entire time.

“Where are y’all going to eat?” she asked.

“A new place in town. Palermo’s,” I replied, thinking I’d kill two birds with one stone and check the place out as a potential spot for her bridal shower party.

“I heard that was nice. Terrance and I were planning to go, but he’s been so busy working lately that he’s hardly had time for dinners out like that.”

“Really? Is the plant that busy?” I asked, misting my hair with a moisturizer.

“Not at the plant. He’s trying to get some business off the ground and he hasn’t shared the details with me yet. That’s why our money has been kinda short too.”

I raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t imagine marrying someone who was starting a business that I didn’t have the details about, but I wasn’t my sister. She would go with the flow assuming Terrance wouldn’t have them in the poor house.

“I appreciate you pitching in and paying for stuff for the wedding. Don’t think I don’t know it’s costing you a lot. I promise if things take off with Terrance’s plans, I’ll pay you back with interest.”

I didn’t respond to that. We both knew that money had never been repaid between us, no matter how big or small, but I did stop and meet her eyes making sure mine held a smile. Janette seemed so tiny and fragile, much tinier than she ever had when we were growing up. Maybe I had been wrong to go to New York after college. I’d left her all alone and now here she was pregnant before marriage. That wasn’t what our father would have wanted for her. I was certain it wasn’t what she wanted for herself. I had promised to take care of her, but instead I had abandoned her to go live my dreams. I hadn’t even invited her to come live with me once I’d gotten established. I rationalized that she was safer in a small town like Garrison, surrounded by people she knew than in the big city of New York with oftentimes unfriendly strangers.

She stretched out on my bed. “You know you need to watch Ethan. He can be a bit of a canine when it comes to the ladies.”

“Really.” I tried to keep my interest out of my voice. “I didn’t know he had that reputation.”

“How would you? You don’t live here anymore.” She reached for a novel I had been reading, looked at the back cover and continued her warning about him. “Anyway, he didn’t have that reputation before he went all over the place and became worldly. He’s been overseas with Spanish and Italian women. I follow all the blogs.”

“French and Spanish.”

“What?” Janette asked.

“He played in France and Spain, so it was French and Spanish women.”

Janette shrugged as she should have. I had a horrible habit of correcting her on facts, not because I wanted to be right, but because I wanted her to be right. I reasoned it was a big sister thing.

“Spanish, French. It’s all the same,” she said. “I’m surprised he still dates black women.”

“He was dating that supermodel. What was her name?”

“Concei?” Janette sucked her teeth. “She doesn’t count. She’s from Kenya.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Kenyan’s aren’t black?”

“You now what I mean. She’s worldly like him.”

I shrugged, applied lip gloss and lie down across the bed opposite my sister. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by worldly. Worldly as in not a resident of Garrison or worldly as in spiritually, but because I was feigning indifference I didn’t bother to ask. “It doesn’t matter what kind of women he likes. It’s not a date. We’re just old friends having dinner.”

“Good,” Janette replied nonchalantly. “Supermodel competition could make you crazy and besides you’re too old for him anyway. He’s younger than me.”

I nodded. “I’m aware of that.”

“You don’t want to get a bad reputation in your hometown for being a cheetah that’s running around with a younger man.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s cougar.”

“Huh?” Although Janette should have been able to figure that one out, she looked confused.

“It’s cougar when you date a younger man, not cheetah.”

She shrugged. “Some kind of fast tail cat.”

“Cougars prey on younger men. It doesn’t really apply if you’re just dating or in an actual relationship.”

Janette rolled her neck and grunted. “I know you not laying here trying to justify dating Ethan.”

I didn’t think my sister who was marrying my ex had the right to impose restrictions on me. “I’m not dating Ethan,” I said, sharply. I took the temper out of my voice. “I’m just clarifying what a cougar actually is.”

Janette dropped her head on a pillow and closed her eyes. “Well he don’t stay put for long no way, so he’s not hardly worth having folks whispering about you.”

I wondered if my sister had considered that the only reputation she should be concerned about at this point was hers. She was the one who was unmarried and six months pregnant, not to mention planning to parade herself down the aisle in white. If folks were going to be whispering it wasn’t going to be about Ethan and me. 

“I guess I could be wrong about him. He might be trying to settle down,” she said. “He’s been here a long time. He’s never hung around Garrison this long. Maybe he’s seeing somebody that we don’t know about.” She was thoughtful. “Maybe someone in Atlanta. I bet it’s a celebrity. There are lots of reality T.V. stars in Atlanta.”

We were silent for a moment. I, knowing why he was here, and she clearly not.

“Even if he is trying to settle down, I know you aren’t trying to date nobody who ain’t saved,” she added. “Daddy would roll over in his grave.”

Now she had my attention. Ethan had grown up in the church. I’d seen him get baptized and take communion like the rest of us. “What makes you say Ethan isn’t saved?”

Janette opened her eyes and turned her head towards me. “He’s not. He hasn’t been in a church since high school.”

“How would you know that?”

“His uncle is a preacher. Whenever he comes home he doesn’t go to Mount Moriah. It’s pretty obvious. Besides, Terrance told me he wasn’t. Something about his mama dying when he was young.” Janette grunted. “It always amazes me how some people use stuff like that as an excuse. I don’t even remember my mama, but I’m not blaming God for it.” She sat up and fluffed out her hair.

I was thoughtful about that point. “I guess people handle things differently.”

Janette shrugged. “That’s why he pimped out that house. Nobody can stay in Pastor Wright’s house without going to church.”