28. Share With Me
28
SHARE WITH ME
“ W hat’s going on?” Hyde asked when they were in the stairwell. “You don’t normally come up to visit without one of us knowing.”
“I needed to stretch my legs,” she said. “And I don’t like to get in the habit of just stopping in. I mean we are working and need our space.”
“True,” he said. “But that didn’t answer my question either. It’s written all over your face that you’re bothered by something.”
They got out of the stairwell and then walked out to the patio. It was close to seventy even towards the end of October.
“You’re probably hungry,” she said. “You should have grabbed something to eat. I already ate.”
“I’m not going to fade away,” he said. “I didn’t bring anything and was going to get something in the cafe on the first floor anyway. I’ll grab it on the way back.”
“Go get it now,” she said. “I’ll just stay here and hold the table.”
“You’re avoiding,” he said. “You follow your lunch rules to the letter so you don’t go over a minute and have little time left now. You came to see one of us without telling us so that means there is something going on, but you’re hoping you can use the excuse you need to return to your desk. Not happening. Tell me.”
“I don’t want to vent to you,” she said. “That makes me no different than my mother.”
“From everything you’ve said in the past, you’re nothing like your mother, but I’m going to guess you had some conversation with her?”
Tori took a deep breath and let it out. “Yep. I’m not sure why she has the ability to work me up like she does.”
“Guilt,” he said. “We have it in all forms. You’ve got yours and I’ve got mine. Share with me.”
“When you put it that way with that cute grin of yours, how can I resist?”
“You think I’m cute?” he asked, angling his head.
She looked around at the people outside enjoying the nice weather on their lunch. No one seemed to pay attention to them.
“I think you’re hot,” she whispered. “Unlike all the men I normally go for.”
Here they went again.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I’m learning it’s not. Planning isn’t always the way to go and in this case, it’s working for us. I’m insecure or was with us in the beginning, but I’m not now. I don’t want you to be either. Do you still feel as if you’ve got to prove something to me?”
It’s not what he thought they’d be talking about, but it was nice to bring it up.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Do I think things creep into my head now and again? Sure. I think that is only natural.”
“The same,” she said. “Which brings us to now. My mother called me.”
“I assumed as much,” he said.
“She doesn’t call often. Normally I get these long texts that take me forever to read with a ton of typos. I actually like it better when she emails as there are fewer mistakes for me to figure out what she is saying.”
He laughed. “I’m sure it’s pretty much all the same, typos or not.”
“It is,” she said. “But she called and it wasn’t her lunch hour. So I went into alert mode that something was wrong. She was crying on top of it.”
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“She’s fine. And will be fine. Some guy that I didn’t know she was dating for the past month told her she was moving too fast and wanted to take a few steps back.”
“How did you not know she was dating someone when she told you everything?” he asked.
It seemed to him when Emily’s name came up, that Tori’s mother always shared more than she should.
“She says I never ask. I always ask,” she said. “But all I get is the negative stuff. So maybe I don’t ask as much anymore. Then she gave me some crap that I told her to text and email to vent so that meant the negative stuff. As if it was okay to unload on me so she didn’t on her employers or coworkers or new guys in her life.”
“Didn’t you tell her to do that so that she didn’t get in trouble at work again?”
Tori sighed. “I didn’t do it for her to dump it on me. I told her to write it in an email and then most times you just feel better getting it off your chest, then she can delete or save it in a draft. She never does. She always has to send it.”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that. It’s not as if Emily wasn’t doing what she was told and Tori seemed to enable her mother a lot.
They’d had this conversation a few times.
“But you don’t have to read or reply,” he said. “Do you always?”
“I skim it and then rarely reply. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if there were signs in there that she’d harm herself or anything like that.”
He frowned. “Has she ever done that?”
“No,” she said. “And I get it. It’s a lot. So here she is sobbing on the phone that she’s taking care of him, cooking his meals, and doing his laundry. He’s staying at her place more because it’s closer to his job.”
“Sounds like he wants someone to take care of him, which I find funny since you always say your mother needs someone to take care of her.”
“I did too, but then she told me Dan was ten years younger than her. He pays for everything, and in her mind, this is the trade-off. But her lease is up soon and she hates her place. I’ve gotten that much out of her emails lately. She suggested she move in with him.”
“After a month?” he asked.
As much as he loved Tori, there was no way he’d move in with her after a month. Not even a few months. He wasn’t so sure they might not fight again on stupid things like who left the top off the toothpaste.
Not that they fought much anymore, but he didn’t want to risk it either.
A few nights a week and taking it slow was working for him.
He hadn’t even lived with Shana and they dated for almost two years. They’d just started to talk about moving in together.
“I know,” she said. “So he gets cold feet. I think he’s just using her and my mother never sees that. But she brought that up yesterday morning and he comes over after work and says that she’s moving too fast and they need to slow down. She wasn’t sure what that meant and asked when she’d talk to him again. He said a few days.”
“Okay,” he said. “Not so horrible. Giving them each time to think things through.”
“That’s you and me because we are logical.”
He laughed. “Have we always been logical?”
“No,” she said. “Which I get now why you laughed. But my mother is never logical. To her, what she did last night after he left from gathering his things after work, was check out his online dating profile. Did I mention that is how they met?”
“No,” he said, smirking. “Let me guess. He’s active again? Or did he never take it down?”
“He was inactive while dating her but then within an hour of leaving her place, he was active and marked single. So yeah, he blew her off and didn’t even have the guts to tell her that.”
“Sounds it to me,” he said. “And you had to be an ear for her or is she asking to move here again?”
“No,” she said. “She was going on about not having money because he led her to believe that they’d be living together and to her that meant he’d be paying the bills.”
“Was that an actual conversation or an assumption?” he asked.
“No clue,” she said. “I didn’t ask because to me it’d only bring up more things I didn’t have time to listen to. It doesn’t matter. He’s on the market now looking for his next target in mind.”
“Does she always end up in situations like this?” he asked.
“Pretty much. Then she said she called in sick and I warned her not to do that too much. She doesn’t need to get fired.”
He couldn’t imagine micromanaging a kid like this let alone a full-grown adult in another state.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“She said she wouldn’t. But she’s venting a lot on her job again too. I’m trying to ignore it. I’ve got her bills set up for autopay. Not much I can do and I’m not floating her money I won’t get back. I’m positive she put that out there to see if I’d do it and when I don’t offer, she’ll figure it out.”
He was glad to know there was some limit to this.
But he wasn’t stupid enough to voice that either.
It wasn’t his business if she gave her mother money to help support her.
“Was there more to it than this?” he asked.
Tori seemed as if she was hedging.
“She said something that bothered me.”
“What’s that?” he asked. “My family always says things that bother me and I just move past it.”
“Your family isn’t like mine. Trust me. When I commented on being surprised that she was going to move in with someone after a month, she said I don’t get it. That I never date and when you find someone you like you want to be with them all the time.”
“Do you believe that?” he asked.
“I’m afraid to answer this,” she said. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“I like you are thinking of that, but don’t worry. I want you to answer how you feel. You always did before and I’m going to feel like shit if you can’t be who you’ve always been.”
“I know that,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I think these were things I was going to say to Raina and I wouldn’t have had to worry. I didn’t even want to tell her what was going on. I just wanted to talk to her so that I can be reminded what a normal family is like.”
It was the sad way she said it.
That she didn’t want to burden anyone else with her worries or problems.
“I don’t want you to hold back from me,” he said. “That isn’t what people do who love each other. And if you’re afraid to say it, I’ll say it first. I don’t think anyone should rush to move in together, but that is their choice. I’ve never lived with a woman full time. Just splitting our time at each other’s places.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “We agree.”
They both laughed. “See. But other people rush to live together. I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to do it. Or even do it with you. But neither of us is at that point, don’t you think?”
“Not even close,” she said. “I love you and all, but I want to know more of your bad habits and I think you’d want to know more about mine. We can get there if we want but at our own pace.”
“Yes,” he said. “Our pace.” It just occurred to him that her mother said Tori never dated. “Did you tell your mother about me?”
“No,” she said. She put her hand up. “Don’t get mad and I won’t get defensive. Let me explain first.”
He wasn’t mad, but he was hurt. “Go on.”
“The whole call was about her. It always is. She never asks me about my life or what is going on. I think she figures everything is perfect with me or maybe she doesn’t care. I don’t know. But since I’ve lived here, it’s been this way. I volunteer little because she gets sarcastic and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Taking the easy way again,” he said.
“Hyde. I know you don’t want to fight any more than I do. I said that to you in a weak moment and don’t need it thrown back at me.”
Which was wrong of him to do.
“See,” he said. “This is why we are nowhere near living together. You needed to talk to someone and I’m working you up. Sorry.”
“Let’s recalibrate. I appreciate you taking the time to let me talk more than I can even express. I wasn’t going to say a word to you, but it’s like you knew something was wrong.”
“It was all over your face,” he said. “You don’t hide your feelings well even when you think you do.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever thought much of it because my mother never looked or cared. And I’ve never been close enough to anyone else to worry if they saw them.”
“Well, you’re close enough to me. I saw the signs and I figured it out. I’m glad you told me what happened and I’m sorry if I’m being judgmental.”
“Just a little,” she said, pushing her chair back to stand up. “And you need to get back to work and so do I.”
He worried maybe they hit one of those bumps in the road just now when he was trying everything he could to avoid that.