Chapter 10
Ten
“You not eating enough.” Michael’s mother heaped spaghetti and meatballs onto his plate. “You going to waste away, Michele.”
Michele. Mee-kay-lay . Only his mother used his given Italian first name. He’d changed it in elementary school when the boys had realized it spelled a girl’s name in English. After a bloodied nose and black eye, he’d had enough.
Francesca Moretti prepared the best spaghetti and meatballs in all of Chicago, in all the world, probably, but today, they tasted like sawdust to Michael.
“I’ve only lost a few pounds, Ma.”
“That’s not like you. Now eat.” She shoved the plate closer to him.
He twirled spaghetti on his fork and brought it to his lips. Yep, still sawdust.
“Now, you tell me what’s wrong,” his mother said, sitting next to him.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“When my son lose weight and no eat my spaghetti, something’s wrong.”
Michael regarded his mother, a little plump now, but still a beautiful woman at sixty years old. He’d never understood why his father had left. Once grown, Michael had helped her out as much as he could. His whole sugar mama idea had been as much for his mother as it was for him. Once he was too old to dance and model, how would he make a living? How would he help take care of her?
“You spend two days at home and no eat.”
He took another bite of spaghetti. “I’m eating.”
“Why you not on the road?”
“I took some time off. They’re training a few new guys and they didn’t need me right now.”
Truth was, the new blood was younger, buffer, and hotter. Michael had overheard one of the managers commenting on his love handles. So losing a few pounds was a good thing. Hell, he hadn’t even been trying.
“You meet a girl, Michele?”
A girl. Was this really all about a girl? Stacy still haunted his mind. All he’d wanted was a woman who would take care of him in exchange for his companionship. Should it have been that difficult to find? It wasn’t like he was broke. He had some savings. He even had a small house. He’d had relationships here and there, but never anything permanent, never anything real.
Not like what he’d had with Beth.
No, he wasn’t looking for that. Love meant heartache. First, his father abandoned him, and then Beth.
Nope, never again.
“You know how I feel about women, Ma.”
“Yes, I know you like women, just don’t want to marry one.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
“You getting old, Michele. Where my grandbabies?”
“Getting old! Damn it, Ma, I hear that every day in the industry I’m in. I don’t need to hear it from you.”
“Don’t you use that language with me, Michele.”
“I’m sorry, Ma. I truly am.” There went the Catholic guilt again. No one got to Michael like his mother did. “But you asked me where your grandbabies are. You know the answer to that. Your grandbaby is in the ground. With Beth.”
“I know you love Beth.” His mother smiled, and the tiny wrinkles around her dark eyes softened. “I love Beth too. And that baby she carry. But that long time ago, Michele. Time to heal.”
“Like you healed? You never got over Dad leaving.”
His mother’s dark eyes sank, her lashes fluttered closed. “Your papa leave me and you. He young, strong, and healthy, and he leave and never come back.” She opened her eyes, locked her gaze with his. “Beth no leave you.”
“The hell she didn’t.”
“She die, Michele. She no leave on purpose.”
He knew that. But still her memory pierced his heart. Their child would be eight years old now. He often wondered whether he’d have a son or a daughter, whether he or she would have Beth’s soft blue eyes, his thick dark hair.
“I see the look in your eyes, Michele. The sadness, the love. I not see that since Beth die.”
He scoffed and twirled more tasteless spaghetti around his fork. “You’re seeing things, Ma.”
“I know my son. I know what I see.”
Michael shook his head. He could deny it no longer. Stacy had gotten under his skin, into his heart, and into his soul.
“Okay. There’s a woman.”
“I know.”
“She’s a writer. I met her at that conference I went to a few weeks ago.”
“What’s her name?”
“Stacy.”
“She not love you back?”
“No. And I can’t blame her. I made some stupid mistakes. I thought…I thought I knew what I wanted. I went there looking for a woman.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I said I went there looking for a woman. I just didn’t bank on finding someone I cared about so much.”
“Why you look for a woman if you not want to care?”
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He could never explain the sugar mama concept to his mother. She wouldn’t understand. Hell, he no longer understood. What had he been thinking? He was many things, but a user of women had never been one of them. He’d been a womanizer after Beth, yes, but the women he bedded had always gotten what they wanted.
Getting old in an industry that focused on the young sometimes led to desperation. He’d seen it before. Too bad he hadn’t recognized it in himself. But hell, was he any less desperate now? His appetite was nearly nonexistent, and he’d been whacking off like an adolescent to Stacy’s image in his memory since the conference.
If only he could go back, do it all over…
But would he have met Stacy otherwise, if he hadn’t been searching for an older woman who might be willing to take care of him?
No, he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have been looking for a woman at all. He would have made do with the scads of women who threw themselves at him, who meant nothing to him.
Stacy wouldn’t have been one of them. She was too shy, too inhibited.
Aw, hell no. She’d proved she could get over that. She wouldn’t have thrown herself at him because she had too much class. That’s the kind of woman she was. Classy. Like his mother. Like Beth.
“You going to answer me?”
“Sorry, Ma. I went looking for a woman for all the wrong reasons. I see that now.”
“And what you find?”
“I found someone amazing. Someone who lights up my world.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She’s beautiful, and smart. She’s amazing. She’s older than I am.”
“How old?”
“Forty-five.”
“So what? That still young enough to give me grandbabies.”
Michael couldn’t help but chuckle. “You do have a one track mind, Ma.”
“Michele”—she scooted her chair closer to him, cupped both his cheeks in her soft hands—“as much as I want grandbabies, I want you happy more. If this woman can make you happy, I don’t care if she a hundred years old. Can this woman make you happy?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Why you not with her then?”
“I screwed it up.”
“Then fix it.”
He chuckled. If only if were that simple. “I don’t think it can be fixed, Ma. I tried.”
“You love her?”
He closed his eyes, gripped the edge of the table. “Yes,” he said, his heart opening, freeing what he’d locked inside for so long, since Beth had died. “I love her.”
God, how he loved her. Her incredible big brown eyes, her silky auburn hair. He loved her shyness, yet how her inhibitions seemed to cease to exist at opportune times, like when she’d told him her breasts were real the first time they met. He loved how she’d fought him tooth and nail about sky diving but then how her face had lit up as she’d described the experience later. He loved how she kissed him, how she’d painted his hard cock with chocolate sauce and then licked it all off in the best blow job of his life. He loved how perfectly she fit into his arms when they danced, when they showered, when they made love.
“I love her,” he said again softly.
His mother touched his forearm, but her gentleness didn’t extend to her face. Her features were taut, her lips pursed. “Try harder. ”