Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“I can’t say I know you very well, but that doesn’t seem very much like you. Your boy. You’re very outgoing.”
“Matt’s not like anybody, except…”
When Tom trailed off, she prompted, “Except?”
He didn’t want to say it, but he did. “His Uncle Corey. He’s a lot like Corey.”
Her brows drew down over her eyes. “Corey? Corey Szabo?”
“Yes,” Tom said shortly.
“I sense you two aren’t the best of friends, like he is with your wife.”
“I tolerate him. She adores him.”
“Which is why you tolerate him.”
Tom nodded.
She smiled at him again.
Then she announced, “It’s at this juncture I’m going to say something I don’t want to say. Because I want to meet your wife. I’m a fan of her work, she’s a very talented actress, but also, it’s beautiful, how your face changes when you speak of her. And I want to meet the woman who would make a man like you look like that when she’s in his thoughts and on his lips. I want to meet your children, they sound wonderful. I want to know you more, I want to be your friend, Tom. I want you in my life. But I’m afraid we’re not going to be friends, you and I.”
Tom was so stunned by this unexpected and unwanted declaration, he felt his body jerk with the blow of hearing it.
“Sorry…what?” he asked.
“I’m attracted to you.”
Tom said nothing.
“Very,” she added a modifier.
Tom remained silent.
“I know you won’t go there,” she carried on. “I certainly won’t go there. But it’s such that it’ll hurt. And I suspect, the longer I know you, the more that ache will grow.”
“Jesus, Mika,” he whispered, the compliment registering warmth, but the loss of her coated that warmth in a cold that was bitter.
And he barely knew her.
But she was just that phenomenal.
She shrugged.
He didn’t like this decision. “I would never, and if you would never, then…”
“Tom.” She wrapped a hand around his forearm, her fingers long and thin with tapered, perfectly lacquered nails at the tips. “I’m already half in love with you. This night has been perfect. Let’s have it, having become friends, and staying friends, all that happy, with none of the hurt.”
“You’ll find somebody and then we can—”
“I’ve found a lot of somebodies, but not one like you.”
She let him go, took hold of her Mary Pickford and held it his way.
With no choice, he lifted his vodka tonic.
And he didn’t like it, but he did it.
They clinked, and with it, before they really began, their end was struck.
And Tom understood the ache she meant.
Because she was attractive, even if he wasn’t attracted to her in that way.
But he still missed her now that she was gone.
* * *
A year and a half later…
He had to force himself to wait a whole week.
Then he used the number his agent acquired for him and called.
It was not a surprise she didn’t pick up.
He left a message.
It was a surprise that, within an hour, she called back.
“Tom?” she asked after he said hello.
“Honey,” he whispered.
He heard her breath catch, then he heard the sobs.
She wasn’t hiding it and she wasn’t holding back.
He knew her, but he didn’t.
Still, he knew that was so very Mika.
It took a while, but finally, through sniffles, she said, “He wielded drumsticks, not a racket, but he was like you.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Mika.”
“I’m pregnant, Tom.”
At this news, as a husband, but mostly as a father, he felt a vicious burn sear through his innards.
“Shit,” he bit off.
“No one knows. I’m only ten weeks along.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“She’ll never know her—”
Her voice cracked, and she lost it again.
He waited, his throat tight.
Genny walked in while he did.
When he glanced her way, with one look at his face, his wife knew who he was talking to and she came right to him, fitted herself to his body and wrapped her arms around.
In his ear, Mika got it together again.
“It’s incredibly lovely you called.”
“Of course. If you need anything—”
“The only thing I need is him, so…”
“Yeah,” he said gently.
“Be happy, Tom.”
“It doesn’t seem like it now, Mika, but it’s good he left you with her, or him. Trust me, it’s the best thing in the world.”
“I already know that. And it’s a her. That’s what he wanted. So she has to be.”
“Right.”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Chin up.”
Mika said nothing, no reply, no goodbye.
She just disconnected.
Tom looked down at his pretty wife with her sad eyes as she stared up into her husband’s face.
“Is she a mess?” she asked.
“Yes,” he stated the obvious.
Her gaze slid to his chin as she mumbled, “I can’t even imagine.”
He couldn’t either.
Pete “Rollo” Merriman, the drummer for The Pissed-Off Hippies, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone hit the truck in front of him and the cargo of steel sheets lashed to the back had come untethered.