Restoration of Love (6 page)

     She was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine with Carlos spread across the bed at her feet watching TV. Nikki took a deep breath and said, “Carlos?”

     “Yeah, baby,” never taking his eyes off the television.

     “I need to talk to you.”

      When he heard the seriousness in her voice, he turned off the TV, sat up and turned to face Nikki. “What’s wrong, baby? It sounds important.”

     “It is to me,’ Nikki spoke softly, looking down at her hands.

     “Then it is to me, too.” Carlos lifted her face with his fingertips.

     “You know that the time we have spent together has been wonderful. You have brought so much joy into my life. I love the fact that you have taught me that life doesn’t have to be so serious all the time, that sometimes we need to just be spontaneous. You’ve taught me how to laugh at myself when I screw up and to not be so hard on myself. And as happy as I am to have learned that, there is still a part of the old Nikki left and that part has to know the direction in which her life is going.”

     Carlos looked confused. Maybe she should just stop beating around the bush and tell him what’s on her mind.

     “Carlos, I’m not a kid anymore. I need to know where things are going with us. What is this? I need …”

     “Control,” Carlos finished her sentence.

     “No, that’s not what I mean at all. I just need to know that this is not just fun and games for you.”

     “Is that what you think? After all the time we’ve spent together, you still think that I’m playing with you, Nikki? Is that the kind of man you think I am? You think that I am just hitting it and when I get tired of you that I will just move on? Let me tell you something, because apparently I have not made it plain enough. Nikki, you are the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing when I go to sleep at night. I talk about you all the time to my best friend, Paul. So much so that he gets sick of hearing about ‘my woman’ this and ‘my woman’ that. I haven’t lied to you yet and I’m not about to start. Before we met, yes, I’ll admit I was out there. I wasn’t wild, but if a woman wanted to get with me, most of the time I didn’t think twice. Before you came along, I wasn’t interested in seeing a woman in a serious way. I had my job, school, and friends to hang out with. Life was good or so I thought. Then I saw you at that club, sitting there looking so beautiful, dismissing all those brothers trying to hit on you, and I knew that I had to meet you. Yeah, if you were the type that just wanted to hit it and quit it, I won’t lie. I would have said yes just to get with you, but you never would have heard from me again. But, you were more than that. You had respect for yourself and you made me respect you, too. Any man can see that you’re something special, Nikki. Whether or not I am in your life, you hold on to that and never let it go. You hold it, protect it, and keep it right here next to your heart,” Carlos said gently placing his hand over her heart. By the time he finished speaking, Nikki felt a warmth building in her heart for Carlos that she hadn’t felt before.

     “So you think of me as your woman?”

     “Out of everything I just said to you, that’s the only part you heard?”

     “Yes,” Nikki said with the innocence of a child.

     “Have I answered your question, Ms. Control Freak?”

     “In more ways than you know.”

     “Come over here, crazy woman, and give daddy some sugar,” Carlos said, wrapping his arms around her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

     Carlos made the transition of Brandon leaving the nest much easier for Nikki. Although she missed her son terribly, Carlos took up a lot of the time that Nikki feared would be lonely, empty hours. In fact, the time went so fast that, before Nikki knew it, it was time for Brandon to come home for Thanksgiving.

     She decided that right now would probably not be a good time to introduce Brandon to Carlos. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of Carlos or their age difference. She thought she had come to terms with that and decided that if anyone, including her mother, had a problem with it then it would be their problem. However, with Brandon, it was a little different. After all he had been through with the divorce, she just wasn’t ready to put this on him just yet.

     On the one hand Nikki wanted to shout to the world about her relationship with Carlos, but another part of her wanted to keep it just between them. She felt it was just easier to avoid repercussion at this point.

     So, Nikki would wait to bring Carlos and Brandon together. Maybe Christmastime would be better. However, the problem was that Carlos kept asking about Brandon and when he would get to meet him. So, when he overheard Nikki talking to her mother about Brandon coming home for Thanksgiving, he naturally said, “So, I’ll finally get to meet the other man in your life.” Nikki smiled, but didn’t respond. As Thanksgiving drew near, Carlos continued to drop hints about meeting Nikki’s family and she meeting his. She grew increasingly concerned about how she was going to handle this situation.

   Nikki was cutting up potatoes to go along with the roast she was preparing for Sunday dinner, when Carlos came up behind her and put his arms around her. He gave her a squeeze and said, “Oh baby, that looks so good. But, I think I’ll steal a piece of this chocolate cake over here. The roast won’t be done for a while.”

     “No you won’t. You’ll spoil your dinner.”

     “Yes M’am,” he said obediently, licking chocolate off of the knife he had already started to cut with. “Speaking of dinner, you haven’t said much about Thanksgiving dinner. I was hoping that you and Brandon would be able to come over and meet my family.

     Not now, Nikki thought to herself. I really don’t want to get into this right now.

     “Well, honey, I don’t know. Don’t you think that Thanksgiving is a rather personal time? Do you really think it’s a good time to bring two new people to play ‘meet the family’?” She pretended she was busy wiping the counter so she did not have to see Carlos’s reaction.

     “Whose playing?” Carlos said, stopping to look at her. “Nikki, is there something wrong? I’ve noticed that every time I mention meeting your son and you meeting my family, either you remain quiet or you change the subject. Now stop playing me and tell me what’s going on with you.

     “Carlos, I just don’t know if it’s the right time. I mean holidays can be pretty tense and having new people drop by…I just don’t think it’s the right time, that’s all.”

     “Nikki, does your son even know about me/”

     “He knows that I am seeing someone very special.” In one respect, Nikki had not totally lied. She had told Brandon that she was seeing someone, but she had not gone into details and only laughed along with Brandon when he joked that old Mr. Miller at church had finally gotten his mom to go out with him. “That’s why he was always offering to take me to all those football games,” Brandon had teased. “I knew all along he was trying to get next to you. Well, go on with your bad self.”

     Luther Miller was one of the head Deacons at their church and had to be every bit of seventy years old. His wife had died some years earlier and, like Brandon said, he had taken a special liking to Nikki. She had always graciously refused his invitations, but he just never gave up asking. At least Brandon knew his mother wasn’t sitting home alone, and if her son felt better thinking that she was seeing Mr. Miller, what harm could it do? She figured that she would let him get used to the idea that she was dating, and then she would tell him it wasn’t the Deacon.

     “Nikki.” Carlos’s voice brought her back to the present. “Does your son know about me or not?”

     “No, not exactly.”

     “Not exactly? What the hell does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

     “ First of all,” Nikki said looking him directly in the eyes, “Do not ever speak to me in that tone again. It means that I haven’t told him yet. I didn’t want to tell him over the phone and I’m not sure that springing this on him the first time he’s home from school is a good idea either.”

     “Springing this on him? You act like what we’re doing is illegal. Nikki, he’s not a baby anymore. He’s a grown man. And I would be willing to bet that he is glad that his mother has found someone who makes her happy and that she is not sitting around counting the days until he comes back home. So, I guess the idea of your coming to my mother’s is out of the question, too?” When Nikki said nothing, Carlos walked back into the living room and grabbed his jacket off the couch.

     “Where are you going?” Nikki said following him.    

     “ I have to go. You know what?” Carlos said, turning around to face Nikki. “You joke around with me, call me your ‘man/boy’ and as much as it hurts me every time you say that, I don’t say a word. But, you above anyone else should know that I am a man. You are so worried about what everyone else is going to think and say, but at the same time, you keep telling me how you are your own woman. You think that I don’t notice when we go out that you still feel insecure with me and that you self-consciously check out everybody just to see if they’re staring at us. Let me tell you something, baby. People are so busy living their own lives that they could give a rat’s ass about us. Nikki, I have tried every way imaginable to prove to you that this isn’t just some passing fling with me, but you know what, girl? I’m getting tired, very tired. You’re the one with issues, Nik, not me.”

     With that Carlos walked to the front door and slammed it as he stormed out. Nikki, surprised at Carlos’s sudden outburst, wondered how long he had been holding all that in. Of course she wanted the two most important men in her life to meet. But, Carlos didn’t understand. Her relationship with her son was valuable and precious to her. She was certain that he would be happy that she found someone, but would he be happy that that person was barely a decade older than him? Carlos had to back off and give her time. He was mistaken to think that she was ashamed of their relationship. But, he was correct when he said that she wondered what people were thinking about them, especially about
her
, when they were together. And, yes, she did feel sometimes that people were staring, wondering what that old woman was doing with that young boy. If there were young women around, she always wondered if they were making a play for Carlos. She had been so caught up in the way she felt that she never stopped to think how she made Carlos feel. But, ashamed of their relationship? No, she wasn’t ashamed. Or was she?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

     It had been a couple of days now since Nikki and Carlos argued and she had not heard from him. She told herself that she would give him time to rethink some of the things he said since she knew that most of it was out of frustration. But, after a few more days went by, she found herself missing him more than she thought possible. She missed his daily calls at work to see how her day was going and talking to him before she went to sleep at night if he wasn’t with her. Tia’s words came back to haunt her, “Nikki, have you gone and fallen for that boy?” At that moment she realized that she would have to stop referring to him as a boy. He had proven to her that he was anything but a boy, and not just in bed. She also knew that she had to call him and admit her true feelings for him. Tonight.

     Nervously, Nikki picked up the phone to dial Carlos’s number. What if he refused to answer her call? She had never seen him so angry. To her relief, he answered on the third ring. “Hello,” he said, sounding out of breath.

     Nikki took a deep breath before speaking. “Before you say anything, I am so sorry and I hope you can forgive me. I’ve been thinking about everything you said and you are right. I am self-conscious about what others are thinking when we’re out together. But, that’s my issue and I’ll have to deal with it. But, what I can’t deal with is the fact that you and I are not speaking. Carlos, I know that I am not the easiest person to get along with and there are some things from my marriage that I have allowed to seep into our relationship. And baby, yes, yes, I am scared about how you are going to feel about me six months or even two months from now. I’m scared about what’s going to happen with us. But, nothing scares me more than the thought of losing you.” Nikki hesitated before she continued, but decided at this point that she might as well go for broke. “Carlos Ruiz, I think that I’m falling in love with you. With all my craziness and my insecurities, you have found a way to break down a wall that I have had up for a very long time and yes, I am scared as hell.” There. She finally said it.

      It seemed like an eternity before Carlos responded. “You know,” he started slowly, “Since that first night that we made love and I watched you lying there sleeping next to me, I have wondered to myself, ‘how am I going to tell this beautiful angel that I loved her? How will I tell her that and not scare her away?’ Baby, I do love you so much. That’s why I get so crazy when I think that you are about to throw away something so precious. Nikki, real love isn’t something that you find every day. Yes, we’ve got problems and issues to work out, but don’t throw it all away without even giving it a fighting chance. See baby, I need to know that you are with me here, that you’ve got my back. I need to know that I am not in this alone. So… am I in this alone?

     “No, Carlos, you are not in this alone,” Nikki said, speaking through tears.

      “And you’re not going to wimp out on me at the drop of a hat?”