17. So Uncontrolled
17
SO UNCONTROLLED
“Y ou’re sure I’m not bothering you?” Charlotte asked Amanda two days later.
She’d texted her sister to see how she was doing and Amanda called her a few hours later.
“Not at all,” Amanda said. “Harper is sleeping. Drew is out running errands with Liam and I’ve got the house to myself. It’s perfect.”
“You should be napping yourself,” she said.
“I’m sleeping just fine. Drew is wonderful. He’s been getting up with Harper too and feeding her. We’ve got a routine so I’m getting at least five hours straight and so is he. Then we’ve got a few more hours too throughout the night.”
“I’m so happy you are getting the help,” she said.
“Lots of help,” Amanda said. “Helena is here a lot. Coy and Angel have taken Liam overnight once. Bode and Sam will, even Kayla offered.”
Coy and Bode were Drew’s brothers and their wives. Kayla was one of Amanda’s best friends. Her other best friend, Sidney, just had twins last month.
“You know I’d help if I was close by,” she said. “I wish I could visit more often.”
“It’s a lot for you to get here unless we send the helicopter to you. Which we have no problem doing it if you want to.”
Charlotte was shaking her head even though she knew Amanda couldn’t see it. Drew’s first cousin owned a charter service on the island and the family utilized that mode of transportation a lot.
She’d had her fill of men with money. Though she loved Drew and he didn’t flaunt what he had, it still made her uncomfortable.
Wealth always did. She wasn’t with older men for their money but for their maturity.
How well that backfired.
“It’s all good,” she said. “I’ll try to visit again around July Fourth. That’s a long holiday weekend and the baby will be older for me to play with.”
“Less than two months isn’t much to play with still,” Amanda said. “But I understand what you’re saying. They are so little at this age.”
“I was afraid I was going to break her even though I was used to it with Liam.”
“When it’s your own you feel differently,” Amanda said. “So, fill me in. Anything to report with Foster?”
“So that is why you called me,” she said. “How much time do you have?”
“As much time as you need me to have,” Amanda said. “Harper is a good napper already. I’m sure she’ll be out for two hours and I’ve got my feet up on the deck looking out over the water while I sit in the shade.”
“So jealous,” she said. “That sounds like the perfect way to recover.”
“It is,” Amanda said. “So fill me in.”
“Well,” she said. “I worked myself up waiting for him to come home on Tuesday. I thought about what you said and realized that maybe he was waiting for me to make the next move. Then I got mad at myself for putting so much energy into planning it out. I used to do that all the time and said no more.”
“Good for you,” Amanda said. “I’m going to assume you talked to him?”
“I did. I went to let Marco out and he pulled the leash out of my hand and took off toward Foster’s house after he’d gotten home. I gave chase, but there was no catching him. I only looked like a fool. Having flip-flops on wasn’t the best footwear to be running in.”
Amanda started to laugh. “You’re lucky you didn’t trip and break something.”
“That’s the mother in you,” she said. “But it was a close call a few times. I get to Foster’s and there is my dog sitting on the front step with the homeowner, both looking at me as if I was a crazy woman.”
“So much for planning things out,” Amanda said.
“Exactly. I also realized that I like how spontaneous everything is with us. Or somewhat. This was just one more of those instances. And the first thing he did was apologize for kissing me.”
“Which would have ticked you off.”
“It did,” she said. “Next thing I know, we are kissing again and I tell him to take me to his room.”
“Wow,” Amanda said. “Did he?”
“He did,” she said, smiling and fanning her face. It still made her hot thinking about it. “It was fabulous and so uncontrolled. I mean I was out of control of anything I was feeling, but I’m positive he knew what he was doing. When we were done we talked some.”
“Did it ruin the mood of what had happened?” Amanda asked. “You said he doesn’t talk much.”
“I thought it might, but it didn’t. I wanted to know what we had. That I didn’t normally sleep with men that I only knew their first name.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t know what we had and wasn’t sure we had to put a name on it. He did offer that his parents named him after a fallen soldier who was his father’s best friend. That his mother liked different names or surnames. Foster Mitchell. So I know his name.”
“Did you search him?” Amanda asked.
“No. I don’t want to. He’s not the type to be on social media and that is where I would do something like that.”
“Where did you leave things?” Amanda asked.
“We talked a bit more.” After they’d had sex again. She could have gone for a third time and that only shocked her more. “He’s younger than me. That was the big stunner.”
“You said you’d never date anyone younger than you,” Amanda said, laughing. “You thought he was older than you by a few years.”
“Yeah, he found it funny. He’s thirty-two. So only a year. But he doesn’t act it. Just goes to show that I had my head in the clouds on perception and dating.”
“I think when you were in your twenties it wasn’t a hard stretch to think someone a year younger than you was immature, Charlotte.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m trying not to beat myself up over that. Or the wasted years with a horrible dating history. I made those decisions and I can own them.”
“That’s right,” Amanda said. “You did make them. You chose those men. As far as I know, no one abused you, right?”
“God no,” she said. “I would never tolerate that. It’s more that I wasn’t taken seriously and not made to feel worthy of them. Their ideas and mine of relationships were completely different.”
“What is Foster thinking now?” she asked.
“I have no clue,” she said. “And since I said I’m not looking for something, it works out.”
But he did joke that she was the old one in the relationship .
Relationship could mean friendship. Neighbors. Partners. Significant others.
Too many things and she wasn’t about to get herself worked up just yet trying to figure it out.
Which was another new thing for her.
“It’s as I told you before: you know what you need to know. And now you know some more. Whatever you two are doing, it seems to be working for you.”
“It does,” she said. She debated adding this to the conversation but wanted her sister to know that Foster had a lot of good traits too.
“When I was gone, Landon showed up at my house.”
“What?” Amanda asked. “How do you know? Did he reach out to tell you?”
“No,” she said. “Foster saw him looking in my window and stopped to ask if he could help him.”
“Did Foster say who he was?”
“No. I don’t think so. Landon pretty much dismissed him and he drove away. I was going to block him and Foster told me not to. That it’s easier to keep a trail of things if I needed it.”
There was silence on the other end. “Do you feel unsafe with this? I’m not sure how I feel about this myself,” Amanda said.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t want to even tell you and worry you. I told you because I wanted you to know I feel completely safe because of Foster. I know he’s right there and he told me to tell him at any point if Landon reaches out again or if he stops by. He even offered to put a doorbell camera on the house for me.”
“Did you take him up on it?” Amanda asked.
“I did. I have a camera in the front and the back of the house. This way if Landon comes back, I can see him and talk to him through the cameras without seeing him.”
Foster hooked that all up for her yesterday when he got out of work and showed her how to use it. It might be annoying that her phone went off every time she let Marco out, but at least she knew it was detecting people on the property.
“Did Landon reach out to you again since he was at your house?”
“I texted him on Tuesday to say I knew he was there and to leave me alone. This morning he texted back that he missed me and only wanted to see how I was doing and where I lived. That he can’t believe I’m happy in that little house and it’s nothing like what he could give me.”
“Jerk,” Amanda said.
“One of many words used for him. I didn’t reply. I did tell Foster that he replied. I texted him a screenshot this morning.”
“So you did exchange phone numbers then too,” Amanda said, laughing.
“Yes,” she said. “We did. We have plans to go on his sailboat on Saturday. I’ll text you before I leave and drop a pin in my phone just in case you don’t hear from me again and I’m making time with the fish at the bottom of the bay.”
“Charlotte,” Amanda said sternly. “That isn’t funny at all. Now I want to look into Foster.”
“Don’t,” she said. “I’m only joking. I’ve never felt more safe and comfortable with a man in my life. I can’t explain it to you, but it’s there.”
“Then it’s time for you to finish writing your story,” Amanda said.
“Why do I have to finish it?” she asked. “I’m just getting started.”