In The Sunshine (5 page)

"How did you end up living with your aunt and uncle?" Matt asked.

"Drunk driver," she said. "My parents were on their way back home from a movie and got t-boned by an old woman running a light."

"Where were you?"

"I was just a baby," she said. "At home with a sitter."

"I'm so sorry, Regan."

"I never knew them, other than through stories and pictures. I can see pieces of me in both of them. It's strange, like I can
feel
them sometimes. But it never lasts. They're like a dream."

Matt reached for her hand and squeezed it. She didn't let go.

"My aunt and uncle did the best they could with me, I suppose."

"There were problems?"

"Not obvious ones," she said. "We didn't yell and scream, if that's what you mean. They love me, don't get me wrong. But raising a kid wasn't in their plans. They were empty-nesters by design."

"Until the accident-- "

"Until the accident," Regan repeated. "I think the day I decided to come to Florida for school they were cheering a little inside."

Ray brought dinner salads and they both thanked him. Regan ordered a seafood pasta dish and Matt went for a steak. They dug into the salad and exchanged smiles.

"Are you going back to Chicago or are you going to find a job here?" Matt asked.

Regan looked past him for a moment and watched as a swath of gulls circled around the shore. They were always scavenging.

"Don't know yet," she said. Regan took a long pull of the Long Island. "I like Florida. I've got some great friends..."

"But?"

"It doesn't feel like home. That's my problem. No place feels like home. I've always felt like a visitor or guest no matter where I was at."

Matt finished his salad and pushed the plate away. "I can see how that would make it tough to make a decision."

"I'm going to have to make one. Schools will be hiring for next year soon. If I don't get resumes out, I'll be subbing and waiting tables again."

Their entrees arrived. Regan picked at her pasta while Matt dove into the steak. Twenty minutes later, they were sharing a generous chunk of key lime pie as the sun started setting. Matt tried to pay for the dinner, but Ray cheerfully refused.
 

"Want to walk on the beach?" Matt asked. He pushed the pie in her direction after a few bites.

"Sounds nice. Make me a promise?"

"Hmm. Can I trust you?"

Regan slugged him in the arm. He looked at her fist like it was an annoying mosquito. "No more talk about the future," she said. "I want to be here in this moment right now. Nothing else matters."

Matt's face turned from playful to thoughtful in a flash. "I promise."

He took her hand as they left the restaurant and walked down to the beach. He removed his sandals and Regan followed suit. They walked along the edge of the shore and waves washed over their feet every few strides.

The Sandbar came into view a few minutes later and Regan knew Emily was working. She wondered if they should stop in for a nightcap or just keep strolling. They walked past a group of middle aged men sitting around a bonfire smoking cigars. Matt inhaled as they went by and smiled.

"What? You smoke those things?

"I've been known to," he said. "Great way to relax after a long shift."

Regan released his hand, turned back and walked over to the men. "Gentlemen," she said. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra, would you?"

A man with salt and pepper hair pulled a mental tube from his shirt pocket, open it and slid out a long, rich brown cigar. He cut the end of it off with a cutting device and then handed it to her. Regan took it and held it up to her nose. She then put it between her lips and leaned toward the man who lit it for her.

Regan had never smoked anything. After a couple of deep draws, she coughed and then blew out a wad of smoke.

"Easy, young lady," salt and pepper man said. "You don't want to over do it on your first one."

"First one?" she coughed again.

The men laughed. Now at her side, Matt took the cigar and took a few puffs of his own. "Thank you, gents."

"Our pleasure," salt and pepper man said. "Enjoy."

They continued their walk down, changing directions back toward the Marlin.
 

"Seriously?" Regan said, waving a plume of smoke away. "I don't get it."

"It's an acquired taste," Matt said.

They interlocked hands again and were within the shadow of the restaurant when Matt suddenly stopped. He dropped the cigar in the sand. He turned and faced Regan and she felt as if he was seeing right through her. Her heart began to race and she felt her face flush.

When he leaned in to kiss her, she met him halfway and their lips touched for the first time. She drank him in as if his embrace was a kind of magic elixir. When Matt tried to pull away from the kiss, she reached around him with her right hand and gently nudged his head back.

Regan didn't want it to end.

Back at Regan's apartment, she brought her computer quickly to life and found a playlist of smooth jazz. A Chris Botti piece drifted from Bose speakers that provided surround sound. Matt took a seat on the couch.
 

Regan's heart was still pumping hard. The outside world had gone away and now it was just her and this man she felt an overwhelming attraction to. Every fiber in her being wanted him, but her head was telling her otherwise. Matt was a great guy, anyone with eyes could see it.

The reality was that he would be leaving on a plane back to Detroit in a little more than a day. In years past, she wouldn't have allowed things to go this far. She had done the long-distance relationship thing in high school and it, of course, didn't work.
 
Coming off of Eddie, the thought that Matt might by a quick rebound romance had crossed her mind.

Regan poured white wine into a pair of heavy tumblers and made her way over to him. She looked at his thick legs and her eyes closed for an instant. One foot was on the floor and Matt's other leg was straddling the couch as his body was turned to face her. His left arm rested on the back of the couch with his hand supporting his chin. He looked comfortable, she thought, and wondered what was going through his mind.

"Our wine glasses are dirty," Regan said. "I hope you don't mind drinking chardonnay like this."

Matt took a sip and shook his head no. She sat down beside him and took a long drink of her own. His eyes looked intense and warm. It sent a wave of heat through her entire body. Regan sat her drink on a sofa table, and leaned into him for another kiss.

One turned into a dozen and she felt herself melting with his strong arms around her and his hands caressing her back. She took his wine glass, sat it next to hers and then perched herself on his lap, pinning him with her knees pushed into his hips. She unbuttoned his shirt and her hands was on his chest in seconds.

So strong, she thought. So sure of himself. Regan kissed him deeply and then Matt pulled away long enough to start nibbling on her neck and kissing her softly behind the ear. That was it. She had to have him.
 

Regan somehow managed to pull herself away and then took his hand and jerked him off the couch. She smiled and led him away, her heart feeling as if it would burst through her chest at any moment. Half way to her bedroom, Matt stopped and pulled her to him. He kissed her with enough passion to make an ice-princess' knees buckle and then stopped.

"As much as I want you," Matt said. "We can't. Not tonight."

Regan yanked at his hand again, like a little girl in a candy shop with her daddy, but he didn't budge. Her eyes pleaded with him. When she saw his mind was made up, she dropped his hands and then ran her own hand through her hair. She could feel the heat leaving her body and confusion flooding in.

"I don't understand--"

Matt reached for her, but Regan wasn't having it. "Please, don't be angry. I just think--"

"What? I want you, you want me. What is there to think about?"

An audible sigh escaped from him. "A lot. I just think we're moving too fast."

Anger replaced confusion and Regan saw red. "I thought you were a big boy, Matt," she screamed. "You're going to go Eagle Scout on me now? Why the hell did you come into my apartment? You couldn't see where this was leading?"

"Look, I'm sorry. The easy thing would be make love to you, consequences be damned. That's not me, Regan. You're right, I shouldn't have allowed it to go this far."

"
Allowed?"
she repeated. "Like it was all up to
you
. Get out of here. Get the hell out of my apartment."

AT HALF PAST SIX THE NEXT MORNING, Matt’s cell phone chimed with a text message from Wade.
 

"Details please," it read. "Please tell me you scored?"

The last thing he felt like doing was rehashing his date. "Not awake yet. Call me later."

"Oooh. I'm interrupting something," Wade wrote. "Next day sex. Sorry, dude. Chat later."

Matt didn't respond. He set the phone on the night stand and stared up at the ceiling. Had he done the right thing with Regan? If it was the right thing, why did it feel so wrong? Would he ever see her again?

The final few minutes of their encounter played through his mind as if it was on a self-repeating loop. He kicked the covers off his body and double-timed it to the shower. Steam quickly filled the tiny bathroom and he stepped in, his mind feeling as foggy as the adjacent mirror.

The water poured over his body but it didn't wash away his thoughts. He could see the hurt in Regan's face when he closed his eyes. Jen crept into his mind, too. Was that why he pulled away at the last second? Some misguided sense of loyalty to his ex-wife?

Matt stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He wiped a portion of the mirror clear with a hand towel and then sifted through his travel bag until he found his electric razor. He shaved away a night's worth of grunge, but still felt dirty when he was done.

What would he do with his final day at Cocoa Beach? Should he try to contact Regan or just show up at the Sandbar for lunch? She said she would be working. But how fair was that? Why put her in such an awkward spot? Hadn't he done
enough
already?

His thoughts were a jumbled mess. Florida was supposed to be a stress-free getaway, a marker by which he could put the past squarely in the rearview mirror and move forward. Now this. It was a complication he hadn't bargained for, yet he had to deal with it.

Later, he thought. At the moment, his stomach was growling for food. Perhaps sustenance would help bring the situation into focus. Matt threw on a pair of jean shorts a grey Michigan State t-shirt with "Spartans" splashed across his chest in green. He jumped in the rental car a few minutes later and wandered around town until he found a Waffle House.

Waffle House was to the Sunshine State as Coney Islands were to metropolitan Detroit. There was one on every other corner. He decided on pecan waffles with a side of country ham. He had downed a cup of black coffee before the waitress had finished taking his order and she refilled his cup with a smile.

His thoughts inevitably drifted back to Regan as he sipped his java. He looked out the window and watched the traffic go by. The world, he knew, didn't give a whit about his problems, nor would it slow down. He actually didn't want it to - normalcy was what he longed for.
 

Feelings? Feelings were hard and complicated. Work was straight forward and he wished he were back at the station drinking his coffee in preparation for another day of patrolling the mostly quiet roads of Novi.

The waitress sat his breakfast before him. He tore off a chunk of the ham and followed it with a piece of waffle. He savored the sweet and salty combination. That's what Regan had been, he decided. Sweet and salty. Perhaps it was why he was so attracted to her in the first place.

He could tell from their introduction at the Sandbar she was spunky. She didn't take any guff. Despite her spitfire attitude, she was also very womanly in the way she carried herself. She was extremely attractive and knew how to handle it without being self-absorbed or predatory.

The waitress came back to fill his cup for a third time. "You, alright, hun, you look a little lost," said the woman, who appeared to be her late thirties or early forties and a veteran of the Breakfast Wars.

"I am," Matt said. "How do I get to Orlando from here?"

"Well, that's an easy one," she said. "Just hop on 528 West and follow the signs. Going to Disney?"

"I was thinking about Universal Studios."

The waitress smiled and patted Matt on the shoulder. "You'll have a ball. The Harry Potter ride is the best. That's in the Islands of Adventures, though, not the old park."

He nodded as if he had researched the topic thoroughly. In truth, he hadn't decided until she had walked up. It was running away from the problem, he knew. Part of him felt like a coward. The thought of melding into an ocean of people and riding a few coasters in the process was too enticing to pass on, however.

"Got it," he said. "Islands of Adventure."

"Nice day for Universal," she responded. "Gonna be a hot one, though."

If she only knew, he thought.

More than a day had passed since Regan had kicked Matt out of her apartment. She had called off work the next morning and stayed in her room most of the day, refusing even Emily's shoulder to cry on.

Today? Different story. She was up at 6:00 a.m. and finished a couple loads of laundry by 8:30. In a few hours, she would be back at the Sandbar for the lunch shift. She thought she might ask Connie about working dinner, too.
 

Emily rose promptly at nine and Regan made both of them ham and cheese omelets. To her credit, Em didn't bring up her date with Matt, knowing her well enough to let it rest for a week or a month, whenever she saw fit to talk about it.

After coffee, the roommates quietly cleaned up the breakfast dishes, and went about their own business. Regan changed into her favorite jeans for work, a Sandbar t-shirt and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She was out the door at a quarter passed ten and at the bar and grille fifteen minutes later.