Worth the Weight (8 page)

Plus, it felt so damn good. His hand kneaded and molded her, pushed her up and squeezed.
She
voiced her approval with a quiet moan and a roll of her hips.

His
hand at her back moved down to her butt and pulled her tight against him. The denim of his jeans was no barrier for his raging erection and the heat of it seemed to burn through Lizzie’s cotton shorts.

“Liz, you feel so good.”

“Mmm, you too. Oh-” she squeaked as
he
found her nipple. It wasn’t difficult, the kiss alone made it pebble and harden against her white blouse. His thumb rubbed circles around the sensitive nub and for just a moment
she
didn’t obsess
over
thoughts about
his hand
on her ass,
and if he could feel cellulite through panties and shorts.

A car door slamming across the parking lot broke their kiss and
Finn
laid his forehead against hers, catching his breath. He looked over her head, over the roof of her car, to see someone in the lot getting into their car.

“Not here. I can’t do all the things I want to you here. Let’s go.” He started to move her away from the door so that he could open it.

“Where do you want to go? We can’t go to my parent’s place, they're home right now.”

He
looked away, towards the water, watched it for a few seconds, contemplating. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gave a quick kiss to her nose. “Let’s go to the beach, that place was always lucky for us.”

“Not as lucky as you would have liked,” she said, laughing. She moved around to the driver side and got in as
Finn
did the same in the passenger seat. He stilled her hand as she went to put the key in the ignition.

“Our luck’s about to change, babe.”

She started the car and pulled out of the lot and onto the main drag. The beach was in Hancock. Her side of the canal. As they approached the bridge, they saw a group of boys walking across on the pedestrian walk.

Finn
slammed his hand down on the dash, startling
her
. “God damn that kid! Liz, you better pull over. I need to get out,”
he
spat out, his anger evident.

“Here? Right here on the bridge?” She got into the right hand lane, and slowed down.

He
glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, right here. There’s no one behind us, just stop and I’ll hop out.”

She didn’t know what to think. What just happened? Had he realized in the time it took to drive to the bridge just how flabby her ass had actually been and decided to jump ship? “Are you coming back?”

He
let out a huge sigh. “No. Not tonight. It’s okay, I can walk back to my car from here. I’ll call you tomorrow. Your parents still in the book?”

At
her
dumbfounded nod,
he added, “I’m really sorry.
I didn’t want our night to end like this.”

“Then why is it?” She steeled herself for the worst, all thoughts centered on her body, and his evident disgust with it
.

“See that group of kids up there? The one with the Lions ball cap is mine, and he’s an hour past curfew.” He left the car and shut the door in one sleek movement. He hopped the barrier to the pedestrian walk and headed to the unsuspecting kids.

To his son.

Finn
’s son.

A horn honked behind Lizzie bringing her attention back to the road. She crossed the bridge and headed, not to the beach, but to her parent’s home.

As she turned up the hill at Bob’s Mobil the bible verse seemed to shout at her.

“As for you, be fruitful and increase in number, multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”

Apparently,
Finn
had followed that advice.

Chapter Five

√
Google
if they still make Brut

√ Pick-up more suntan lotion

√ Call Sybil

“He has a son? Why did we not think of that?” Alison asked.

“I know - duh. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.
And it never showed up online – although not much on Finn did.
Of course he has a kid, nobody’s married for that long and doesn’t have children.”

“Some people are,” Katie quietly whispered.

Lizzie was awash with contrition. “Oh God, I’m sorry Kat, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Step A: Open mouth. Step B: Insert Foot,” Alison said.

“No, no, it’s fine, really. I know you didn’t mean me. And you’re right, there aren’t a whole lot of marriages out there that last that long and don’t produce offspring. Especially in the U.P., home of long winters and large families.”

The women were on the lawn at Alison’s camp. In the U.P., all cottages, cabins, summer homes of any kind were called camps. It was something that Lizzie had tried explaining to her friends in Detroit to no avail. They couldn’t help but picture a ramshackle place with some logs and lots of tarpaper. That was not the case with Alison’s place.

When she’d moved back to Hancock to take her position at Tech, Alison renovated and winterized her parents’ camp on the canal, just outside of Houghton (a fact that the Hancock contingency never let her forget). It was a small, darling Cape Cod, very cozy and just right for one person. It was on the water, which was idyllic for three months of the year, and a heating nightmare for the other nine.

Alison’s two sisters were older, married with children and lived in Chicago and Buffalo, so she was the only one at home. She’d been a change-of-life baby and her elderly parents were to the point where they would soon need to have someone nearby. Her taking over the camp seemed like a perfect solution for the entire family.

Katie lay on a blanket on the ground, wearing a skimpy bikini, looking gorgeous. She was on her stomach and had untied the straps from her top to minimize tan lines. Her white-blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail.

Lizzie and Alison were both in tankinis and had pushed the tops up to get sun to their tummies in the privacy that Alison’s camp provided.

Lizzie and Alison lay on chaise lounges, which they had dragged off the deck of the camp and down to the lawn to be closer to the water. The camp was about thirty yards away from the water. On the right corner of the lawn was the sauna house, which contained a sauna and a changing room.

“I mean, a kid! I don’t even like kids. I’m horrible with kids, always have been. I remember every Saturday night when you guys would be babysitting and I’d think, no way, not me.”

“Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel on this plan of yours, hey Lizard?” Katie asked.

A sense of panic at giving up everything she’d planned overwhelmed
her
. “Why would I throw in the towel? So he has a kid. I can work around that.” She reached for her totebag to pull out her notebook, but realized she’d left it up on the deck. Damn.

Katie rolled over and tied her swimsuit top together as she and Alison exchanged looks.

“Are we back to that again? You guys not behind me in this?” Lizzie asked.

“It’s not that we’re not with you, it’s just that we’re concerned,” Katie gently said.

“Listen, why don’t you forget about this plan of yours, go back to Detroit, start something up with this Davis guy and just take it slowly sexually. I know it’s been a while for you, Lizard, but it’s like riding a bike. It’ll all come back to you.”

Lizzie shook her head. “No, I can’t risk it. Not with someone who’s so perfect for me as Davis.”

“Risk what? That it won’t be good the first time together? It seldom is. That’s what building a relationship is all about,” Katie said.

Lizzie rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, liking the glide of the suntan oil against her skin. Her voice cracked as she said, “I might not get a second chance.”

Katie and Alison kept quiet, sensing there was more. Damn women who knew you better than you knew yourself.

She
took a deep breath and began, “About nine years ago I met a man. He was working on a political campaign for one of our clients. He came on pretty strong.” She stopped. Alison and Katie had “so what?” looks on their faces. “You have to understand, at that point, men weren’t coming on to me at all, let alone strongly.”

“I find that hard to believe. Sure you were really big, but you were – are – a very confident woman who created her own business and surrounded by tons of men – politicians, athletes, movers and shakers,” Katie said.

Lizzie smiled wryly. “When was the last time you saw a professional athlete or a politician with a huge fatty on his arm?”

“Hey there are men out there that like that. Chubby Chasers, I think they call them.”

“Alison!” Katie chided.

Lizzie half-heartedly laughed at Alison. “I suppose there are, but they weren’t traveling in the circles I was.”

“So, this guy was coming on strong…” Katie said, leading Lizzie back to a story she didn’t want to tell. Had never told the two women to whom she told everything.

“Right. It really shook me at first. But when he asked me out, I said yes. We went out a few times. On our third date…”

“Ah yes, the pivotal third date,” Alison said knowingly.

“What? What’s the third date?” Katie asked, not having been on a third date in seventeen years.

“That’s usually the date that ‘it’ happens,” Lizzie explained.

“That’s when you fuck,” Alison said at the same time.

Katie frowned at Alison and motioned for Lizzie to continue.

She
took a sip of her lemonade, another deep breath, and continued. “Well, it went really well. We went back to my place. Things got pretty hot on the couch, we took it to the bedroom…and…and…” she stopped. Katie and Alison waited. Lizzie tried to just get through it. To recite what happened as if it hadn’t been her in the room. Hadn’t been her who’d suffered the incredible humiliation. “When we undressed, he lost his erection.”

“Jesus,” Alison said as Katie gasped.

Katie collected herself first. “There could be a thousand reasons for that,” she said. “He could have had too much to drink. He could have been tired. Lots of reasons.
It’s happened
to Ron.
He was too tired.
”

Lizzie had told herself that at the time of course.
And t
he next day, as she ate an entire Pepperidge Farm white cake. But she knew the truth. “It wasn’t that he
couldn’t
get it up, Kat. He was rock hard on the couch. I had him in my hand, I knew. It was when…when…when he saw me that he…he”

“Became a limp dick – both figuratively and literally,” Alison said. Lizzie could have kissed her friend for lightening the moment.

“What did he say?” Katie asked.

“What could he say? He was embarrassed, tried to assure me it wasn’t me. But not too convincingly.”

“Well of course not. Because if it’s not you it’s him, and no man’s going to admit that,” Alison said.

Lizzie shrugged. “Whatever
.
We kept our distance and I put the thought of men and sex out of my mind.” She took another sip of lemonade, leaned back onto the chaise and tilted her head to the sun. “Until I met Davis Cummings,” she said quietly.

“Yes, Davis Cummings,” Alison said. “Don’t think that we didn’t put together you’re mentioning this new guy in the Red Wing’s front office and you starting to lose weight.”

“He was what got me thinking that there was something missing from my life, I admit. I mean, I meet this guy and on paper he’s perfect for me. And I knew I didn’t have a shot at being with him. So I start thinking about my life and what I’d accomplished and what I’d missed. That’s when I decided to get my life back.

“Nothing may ever happen with Davis. And that’s okay. I didn’t lose weight for him, I did it for me. He – or the thought of him – may have been the impetus. But if not Davis, then someone else.”

“So, again, why
Finn
?” Katie asked.

“Because with
Finn
, if we get naked and he goes soft, it will hurt, but it wouldn’t be the same as if it were Davis or someone who I really want a future with.”

Katie and Alison seemed to accept her answer, or at least decided to give her a reprieve.
Her
thoughts returned to that long ago night when a man’s lack of erection robbed her of her sexual self-confidence.

She let the sun pound down on her face and allowed herself to just…feel bad. It was a relatively new practice, and one she hadn’t quite mastered. She was anxious for the sauna to be ready so she could sweat all these damn emotions right out of her.

It took five days before
Finn
called. Five excruciating days for Lizzie, wondering whether her plan was dead before it had even truly begun. Wondering if she should call him. If she
could
call h
im. It had taken her thirty-
five
years to ask a man out, where would calling someone who hadn’t called you after a date fit in with
that
timetable?