Holding On (Hooking Up)
Read Holding On (Hooking Up) Online
Authors: Jessica L. Degarmo
Holding On
By
Jessica L. Degarmo
Jessica L. Degarmo
Holding On
© 2013, Jessica L. Degarmo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Ryan pulled me closer and sighed, a warm sleepy sound that gave me wanton shivers. Probably the best part of marriage, besides the whole security/being with the one you love forever thing, was feeling his lean, sexy, naked body snuggled up against mine every night and waking up to that same lean, sexy, naked body in the morning.
It had been two months since our wedding, and I still wasn’t done marveling over the fact that he was mine forever. It was quite easy to be appreciative of him with his dark hair, brooding bedroom eyes, the smile that made me tingle, the easy way he had with Benjie, his son and my new stepson. In short, marriage was quite a wonderful thing, and I was glad I had gotten over my insecurities and abandonment issues long enough to say, “I do.”
He nibbled my ear and I groaned a little, thrusting my bottom back into his lap, snuggling myself as close to him as I could. He murmured, “Good morning, beautiful,” and moved his mouth down to my neck. His fingers made delicious circles on my stomach and I sighed. Yes, life was good.
I was tempted to stay in bed with my new husband and take advantage of him, but I suddenly remembered that today was a special day. My eyes snapped open and I was instantly awake. The anticipation hurtling through my body was stronger than espresso, and unfortunately, more of a distraction than my husband’s lips on my skin. I pulled away from Ryan quickly, leaping up before we got too carried away.
“Hey, where are you going?” he protested in a husky, sleepy voice, frowning and reaching for me. The sheet slipped low and revealed his rock-hard abs and smooth olive skin.
I groaned in frustration and skirted away. “It’s today, remember?”
“Catie, your mom said she’d call you at noon. It’s eight. We have four hours to kill. Come back to bed.”
“But what if I fall back asleep and miss her call? And besides, I don’t want to sound like I just woke up. What if she thinks I’m a bum who stays in bed all day and decides she doesn’t want a daughter who’s a lazy bum, and—”
He grabbed my hand, pulled me down on the bed and claimed my mouth in a smoldering kiss hot enough to almost make me forget to panic. Almost. I popped back up and started pacing.
Ryan chuckled and got out of bed. He kissed my brow and headed to the bathroom, calling over his shoulder, “Catie, stop it. She’s going to love you. Quit freaking out, ok?”
Yes, I
was
freaking out. After all, it’s not every day you speak with your long-lost birth mother on the phone for the first time.
My first contact with my real mom, Maria DiCarlo, was on my wedding day. My wonderful sensei and father-figure, Isamu Takeru, had located her and told her all about me. She wrote me a letter Isamu delivered to me right before Ryan and I said our vows. I was thrilled and scared all at once, and had I not had other things to worry about, such as not tripping as I walked down the aisle and keeping my best friend Kelly from running off with any of the groomsmen before the reception, I think I would have really have had a meltdown. My birth mother!
It had been weird enough to hear from my now-estranged Gran that I was adopted, and I’d barely wrapped my head around that when Maria re-entered my life.
After the wedding, I wanted to call her, I really did, but the old insecurities I thought I had buried got the best of me. It was frightening to even consider contacting this stranger. It turned out that I was not as forgiving as I thought I was.
Really, I was bothered by the fact that she had gotten rid of me in the first place. A lot of adoptees can rationalize that their birth parents only wanted what was best for them, wanted them to have a better life than what they could provide, and so they gave us the best chance they could. But when it all comes down to it, we were abandoned. End of story.
I honestly wondered if I had always known that my adoptive parents, Shelly and Keith, weren’t really mine. Perhaps that’s where my abandonment issue started, even before they died in a plane crash. Whatever it was, it was deep-rooted and hard to come to grips with.
Ever since I’d learned of her existence, I thought about Maria constantly. I carried her picture in my purse and took it out to study whenever I could. Her eyes were the same violet color as mine; her hair was the same dark brown with natural waves. The laugh lines on either side of her mouth bracketed her wide, even, happy smile. Fast-forward the clock twenty or so years, and that was how I’d look.
But despite how happy I was that she had re-entered my life, I was a little hurt that she could be smiling in that picture. Those faint little laugh lines proved she’d spent a lot of time laughing while her little girl was miles away crying for the parents she’d lost and the parent she never even knew she had.
I knew nothing of my father, and the emails Maria and I had been exchanging over the past month carefully excluded any mention of him. I wondered about that, but didn’t dare to ask. Having a mother again was a gift, and although I still harbored some resentment toward her, I didn’t dare do anything that might forfeit that gift.
Today was the day we’d picked to reach out and speak to each other. I headed to the closet to figure out what to wear. After all, this was a special occasion. And yeah, we were only speaking on the phone, but I wanted to look nice, regardless of the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see me.
As soon as I thought about our upcoming phone call, my stomach clenched once and eased. I was terrified and elated at once. It was a weird sensation, like my insides were being drenched in hot and cold water in turns. If I had to deal with all this myself, it was a sure bet I’d be reduced to a quivering heap on the floor. But miracles do happen, and finally, I didn’t have to face this momentous occasion alone. Ryan would be here for me. He’d always be here for me, which was still something I was having trouble believing. It seemed too good to be true. Yet here he was and as he constantly told me, here he’d stay.
I got my outfit planned and hopped in the shower, hoping I would be able to distract myself from the upcoming excitement. It was impossible to think about anything else! As I washed my hair, I remembered that Maria had the same wavy locks and I wondered what products she used. As I got dressed, I thought about Maria’s figure; was she as long in the waist as I was, and did she have trouble finding jeans that fit right? What colors suited her skin tone best? Were her eyes really the same shade of violet?
No place was safe from my musings. Countless questions bounced around inside my head and rendered me useless for anything productive. Did she walk like me? Talk like me? Was she as tone-deaf as I was? Did that stop her from singing in the shower?
The questions continued as I made my way to the kitchen to make some breakfast I’d probably be too nervous to eat. Did Maria have any food allergies, or was the allergy I had to bananas from my father’s side? Did she like pasta? With a last name like DiCarlo, she had to have some sort of Italian blood in her, didn’t she?
As if these frantic musings weren’t enough to completely drive me nuts, my overwrought brain kept thinking about the father I still knew nothing about, and whether or not that would change after today.
Was it asking too much to want both of my parents back in my life? Was my father even alive? Did he know I existed? And why did Maria very carefully refrain from mentioning him in any of our correspondence? I had no idea, but if I got up the nerve, I was going to ask her. After all, I had a right to know.
My hands shook as I wielded the butter knife on my toast. As I finished, it practically jumped out of my hand and clattered to the counter. I’m a brown belt in karate, and normally my reflexes are lightning-quick and my hands steady, but not today. I smiled ruefully. Yes, I was a nervous mess. I was no longer even remotely hungry and I had to force myself to take that first buttery bite.
Ryan entered the kitchen as I was finishing up my breakfast. The clean, masculine smell of his cologne and his freshly-scrubbed skin reached my nostrils and made my mouth absolutely water.
I smiled at him with a wicked leer and said, “Hi, handsome. Come here often?” I winked at him and he returned my grin with a rakish one of his own.
“Every day. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” He stepped to my side and wrapped his strong arms around my waist, nibbling my neck and sending sexy chills racing up my spine.
“I live here, remember?” I said, moaning a bit as his teeth lightly grazed my ear.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right. That’s why my grocery bill’s so high.”
“Ha ha. You eat more than I do,” I reminded him as he turned from me and poured himself a mammoth bowl of cereal, topping it with about a pound of sugar and a gallon or so of milk. “Hungry this morning?”
“Yep. Making love to my wife every night burns up a lot of calories.”
“That just means we’re doing it right,” I told him with a self-satisfied smirk.
He shot me a sexy grin. “Damn straight. Benjie still asleep?”
“Yep.”
“You wanna go burn some more calories?” he asked with a wink and wolfish smile.
I smiled back at him, momentarily tempted, but shook my head. “No. Don’t distract me. I’ve got to be on top of my game today.”
He sighed and shot me an exasperated smile. “Sweetheart, she’s going to love you.”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “She got rid of me once. What’s to stop her from doing it again?”
Ryan sighed again. I was making him do that a lot this morning. “Honey, give her a chance. You have no idea what was going through her head when she put you up for adoption. For all we know, she could have been forced to do so under extreme pressure or some other awful dramatic circumstance. Promise me you’ll give her a chance to explain before you pull out the inner crazy?”
“I will. I’m just not sure how to be with her. What if I get angry? What if I can’t control what comes out of my mouth and I insult her? She’ll hate me."
“No, she won’t. I’m sure she’s prepared to handle your anger. Think about it from her side for a minute. She’s going to talk to the daughter she gave up for adoption twenty-nine years ago. Don’t you think she’s played this conversation over and over in her head about a million times? Don’t you think she’s spent the past month rehearsing what she was going to tell you and how she was going to say it?”
“And what if I am the product of some awful thing? How can I face her when all I’ll think about is how I’ll only remind her of something bad that happened to her? I’ll die of guilt!”