Choose Me (The Me Novellas) (12 page)

I gasped. “You did?”

“Yep. Chatted about what was going on. He told me he was planning to come, I told him I thought it was a good idea. You needed him.” He took another sip of wine. “Of course, then Yuri decides to up the ante by laying the guilt trip on you. I
might
have called and told Andy that. While he was at the airport. Just so he was in the know.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “When? We were with each other the whole afternoon!”

Lance looked at me in mock horror. “You didn’t follow me into the men’s room, did you? At the zoo?”

I rolled my eyes. “Unbelievable.” He’d been gone for less than five minutes and had somehow managed to sneak in a phone call while I was watching birds.

“Hey. Did it for you,” Lance reminded me. “Because I love you. And because, honest to God, I need a little romance to go with all of the sex in my life.”

Andy’s head shot up, eyebrows raised.

“He writes porn,” I said quickly.

When that garnered an even more surprised response, Lance clarified. “Erotica, dear.
Erotica
.”

“Whatever.” I turned to Andy. “Thank you. For coming. For being here.”

He nodded and smiled. I stared at him, grateful and amazed by my good fortune. He loved me. Unconditionally. He supported me. Unconditionally. He wanted me to be happy. No strings attached.

And suddenly I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’d made the right decision. The only decision.

EIGHTEEN

First class seats were decidedly more comfortable than coach. I settled into my seat and accepted the complimentary rum and Coke the flight attendant handed to me.

I turned to my seat mate. “Cheers,” I said.

Andy touched his plastic glass to mine. “Cheers.”

“I’m glad they could upgrade you,” I told him. “I would have sat back in coach with you if they couldn’t have.”

“And I wouldn’t have let you,” Andy said. “Everyone should fly first class at least once.”

We watched as people filed through the plane, making their way back to their seats. I wanted them to hurry. I wanted to get home.

“You OK?” Andy asked.

I smiled at him. “I’m fine. Why?”

He shrugged. “It was a big decision. Just want to make sure you’re OK with it.”

I reached for his hand. “It really wasn’t that hard,” I told him.

It was a partial truth. Yes, the decision itself had been agonizing. Yes, I'd wondered if I'd made the right choice, marching into that bathroom and stuffing the contract back into the envelope, unsigned.

But then Andy had shown up. And instantly, I knew. I'd been right.

He frowned. “How the hell can you say that? You just walked away from a hundred thousand dollars. A sure thing.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. I stroked the top of his hand with my thumb. “I don’t need that sure thing. I don’t want it.”

“No?” he asked, his voice doubtful.

I shook my head. “No. Because the most important sure thing is sitting here with me. You. Us. There is nothing bigger or more important than that. Not now. Not ever.”

The frown stayed on his face. “But the money. It really would’ve helped. You could’ve stopped doing the greeting cards and focused solely on your paintings.”

“Doing the cards isn’t so bad.”

“You complain about them all the time, Meg.”

“I’ll complain less then.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

I knew that. I knew exactly what he meant. And I appreciated what he was saying, what he was willing to give up for me.

“You wouldn’t have to choose,” he said. “You could just paint.”

“You don’t get it,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I already did choose.”

His face screwed up with confusion. “What?”

“I know I had a choice,” I said, wrapping my fingers into his. “I know I did. But not everything’s about money. This was an unexpected opportunity. There will be others. And if there aren’t, so be it. I can live with that.”

Concern settled into his eyes. “You can?”

I nodded. “Yeah. But I can’t live without you.”

The concern softened and he squeezed my hand tightly. He leaned over and kissed me softly. He pulled back and stared into my eyes.

I touched his cheek. “I choose you.”

THE END

SAVE ME

the companion novella to CHOOSE ME

ONE

Seeing my parents sitting on my couch was never a good sign. I could count the number of times it had happened since I’d officially moved from my bedroom upstairs into the basement apartment. None. None was a number I liked. One was a number that made me suspicious.

I dropped my backpack on the round bistro table that served as my dining table.

“
Uh. Hi,” I said.

My parents sat close together, their knees touching. Mom had her hands folded in her lap, a bright smile pasted on her face. My dad was thumbing through the latest issue of Cosmo, his eyebrows furrowed. In horror, I wondered if he was reading the cover article:
His Burning Sex Need: Satisfy the Craving Your Man Won’t Admit To
.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottled water. “What are you guys doing here?”

There were firm rules in place to our living arrangements. I’d graduated from high school four years ago. To save money, we’d agreed for me to live in the basement as opposed to the dorms or my own apartment. The rules were simple: it was to be treated like my own place. They’d call before they came down. They’d knock. They’d respect my privacy. In return, I agreed to offer the same courtesy for going upstairs. Oh, and I’d also agreed to no all-night parties and to not turn my level into a brothel—Dad’s request. No brothel meant less income, but I figured it was a fair compromise.

“
We have some news,” Mom said. Her smile moved from bright to beatific.

I hadn’t seen her this happy since my junior year, when they’d decided to adopt a baby from El Salvador. We’d just sat down to dinner, a Mexican feast of burritos and enchiladas.

“
A what?” I’d asked as my fork clanged on the wooden table.

“
A baby,” my mom repeated. She speared an enchilada off the platter and transferred it to her plate.

“
Why?” I asked.

I was sixteen. They were done with kids. Diapers. Toddlers. All of it. At least that’s what I thought.

“
There are so many children in need, dear,” Mom said. She slathered sour cream on top of a burrito.

“
Aren’t there some a little closer? Like in, say, North America?”

“
Your dad and I have researched this,” she said. “The adoption rate in El Salvador is so low. And those poor children! They live on the streets if they’re not adopted, you know.”

We’d just finished discussing poverty in my Global Connections class and I wanted to point out that millions of the world’s children lived on the streets. And I was pretty sure they weren’t all located in El Salvador.

“
Okayyyy.” I grabbed a handful of tortilla chips from the opened bag on the table. “So, when is this going to happen?”

“
Soon,” she promised. “Right, Hank?”

My dad looked up from his newspaper. “What?”

“
The baby. From El Salvador.”

His expression cleared. “Yes. The El Salvadoran child. What about it?”

Mom waved her fork in the air. “I was just telling Katie our big news.”

He nodded. “Oh, good. Yes. Very exciting.” He buried his nose back in the paper.

For the next six months, we ate Mexican food four times a week. Mom and Dad bought Rosetta Stone and spent their evenings learning Spanish. Mom started a scrapbook titled Baby Es. When I asked if they’d found out the identity of the baby they were adopting, she’d said no.

“
Baby Es is Baby El Salvador,” she explained as she pasted in pictures of a maraca-themed layette she’d found and printed from some web site. “I was tired of calling it It.”

“
You just did,” I pointed out.

“
Well, forever more, the baby will be called Es. Until we find out what it—I mean, what his or her name is.”

And we did. We called the baby Es. And we waited for over a year before their application was rejected and my mom’s hopes were dashed.

They’d been deemed too old to be viable candidates for adoption.

But maybe a different country had different rules.

I sat on the edge of the armchair and took a sip of water. “Adopting another baby?  Maybe an entire family this time?”

“
No. Better.” I thought my mom’s face was going to split in two, her smile stretched so wide.

“
Better than a baby or entire El Salvadoran family?”

I couldn’t think of anything that would qualify. She loved babies. She’d already started hinting that Ben and I should get married. Not that she liked him very much. She didn’t. But she did like babies. And I was pretty sure she was ready for me to start providing them. I just wasn’t sure I was ready for that. And I was more than sure Ben wasn’t.

“
Yes.”

“
OK. I give up. Tell me.”

She scooted closer, her butt cheeks barely on the sofa cushion. “Hank, put that down,” she said, swatting the magazine. Dad reluctantly lowered it and tossed it back on the coffee table.

She turned to me. “We’re moving.”

I gaped at her. “You’re what?”

“
Moving!”

I shook my head. “What?”

Maybe I hadn’t heard her correctly. Ben and I had gone for a quick dip at the lake yesterday—a  warm late-April day pretty much demanded a lake visit since they’d only just unfrozen a few weeks ago—so maybe there was water in my ears. Or brain-eating amoebas.

“
Remember the Paulson’s?” she asked.

I nodded. Mitch Paulson worked with my dad at the accounting firm. He’d retired a few years ago, just before my dad had, and moved to Florida.

“
Well, Mitch has started a second career. He’s a motivational speaker.”

“
Mr. Paulson?” I squinted, trying to picture it. Small man with a receding hairline and a paunchy stomach. Pencil-thin mustache, a beak of a nose. Fondness for Hawaiian shirts.

“
Yes. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“
Sure,” I said. I must have misheard her. I didn’t know how Mr. Paulson becoming a motivational speaker translated into hearing my mom say that they were moving.

“
He’s put together this tour,” she said. “A whole bunch of resorts in Florida. It’s actually a show of sorts. Some comedy, some music—but all with a positive message. A motivational message.”

“
OK.” I was tuning out. I’d definitely not heard her correctly.

“
Anyway, he’s asked your dad to perform,” she said. “To go on tour with him.”

I dropped the water bottle. It landed with a loud thud on the carpeted floor. “What?”

I was beginning to think my mom had suffered a nervous breakdown. She’d been going through pre-menopause for years. In hindsight, I was pretty sure that was the reason for the whole baby adoption obsession. Maybe insanity was also a symptom. Because she wasn’t making an ounce of sense.

“
The band, dear.”

My dad played in a band with other retirees at the local American Legion. He played guitar and sang. And he was good. But, like, American Legion good. My dad going to play on a concert circuit was the equivalent of my mom going on tour to belly dance. She’d taken classes last year at the local community center and we’d suffered through her end-of-the-year performance. She toyed with going on to the next level and Dad and I had both breathed a sigh of relief when back spasms put an end to her exotic dancing career.

“
But
…
why? How?”

Either she didn’t hear me or she chose to ignore me because she didn’t answer either question.

“
Your father is so excited,” Mom gushed. “Over the moon, really.”

The only thing Dad looked over the moon about was the Cosmo magazine on the table. He was staring longingly at it.

“
So you’re moving? To Florida?”

“
Yes. Isn’t it exciting?”

So they were moving and I was going to have the whole house to myself. That didn’t sound horrible in any way.

She nodded. “It’s really amazing how all this has worked out. Like it was meant to be. I mean, we found renters in less than a day. Renters who will be perfect–”

I cut her off. “Renters? Wait a minute.”