I have never been so completely bored in the course of one day in my entire life. Nick and I sat at the airport in Atlanta for five hours waiting for a flight that was available and wasn’t cancelled that could get us back to Los Angeles. We barely talked. Hell, we barely looked at one another. We were both uncomfortable and needed to get away from one another as soon as possible – for a few hours at least.

The flight was dreadful. I slept most of the way and woke up once with my head of Nick’s shoulder. It felt nice but awkward in a way. I’m not sure why after last night we’re being so weird around one another. It’s strange in a way.

Now, I’m sitting outside my parent’s house, debating on going in. If I go in, what the hell do I say? If I don’t go, what do I say to my father Monday at work? He knows that we came home today and he is liable to come over to my place.

Before I could think of anything else, I was standing at the door, attempting to knock. I didn’t know if I had the courage or the strength to. Oddly enough, I didn’t have to knock, the door opened on it’s own.

“Erin, why are you just standing out here?” my mother asked, looking at me. I stared back at her in return. “Your father just talked to that Nickolas guy and he said that you came home.”

“Yeah, it took a while because of a hurricane but we’re back,” I replied, walking into the house. I looked around, noticing that everything seemed quiet. In fact, it was too quiet.

“Your father had to run to over to your sister’s for a minute and he’s on his way back now,” she said. I looked back at her to see a concerned look on her face. That was the first time I had seen that look since I told Daniel that I wouldn’t marry him. In fact, that was one of the few times that I had ever seen her look concerned about me. “How was your trip?”

“Fine.”

“Did you meet… her?”

“Yeah,” I said. I sat down on the sofa in the living room and stared at a family portrait that was taken almost ten years ago. “She told me how you tried to pay her to have an abortion and that Dad paid her more so she decided to give birth to me but what she really wanted to do was have the abortion.”

“Does that upset you?” I stared at her in disbelief. Did she think that it made me happy?

“Considering how our relationship has always been, it didn’t surprise me,” I said, looking down at my jean shorts that I had on. “It just hurts me that’s all to know that I came out of that whole situation and that neither of you wanted me and that only Dad did.”

“You have to think about where I was coming from. My husband impregnated another woman and not just any woman but someone that worked for us, in our home,” she said. I just looked away. “I wanted the whole situation to be over with so that we could all get on with our lives. I never wanted her to have an abortion because I hated you.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to believe that now.”
“What does that mean?”

“You hate me,” I said, staring at her. “You have always treated me differently and have always been so critical of all the things that I do. You didn’t want me to go work for Dad and you wanted me to go off and marry Daniel and I’m not ready to marry anybody. You say that I’m your daughter but you don’t act like it. You act as if I’m some foreign exchange student that you helped raise.”

“I don’t hate you. I just want you to have a good life, that’s all. If I hated you, I would have never adopted you as my own and I would have left your father for doing that to that woman,” she said. I rolled my eyes, looking away. I didn’t believe her. “You’re the youngest and you’re the baby. I always wanted to have another baby after Tabitha but I couldn’t because I had so many complications while I was pregnant with her that I had to have a hysterectomy. I just treat you the only way that I know how to treat you.”

“The only way you know how to treat me?” I asked, somewhat shocked and insulted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that’s how my mother did me. She was critical of everything I did and every guy I dated because I was her baby. I was the youngest out of my brothers and I was the only girl,” she said as I looked at her. “I dated several guys before I met your father and my mother thought the same of me that I said about you that night at dinner. I just think Daniel is a good young man and that he’s good for you.”

“But he’s not the one that I want to spend the rest of my life with,” I said, looking away again. I was feeling uncomfortable for the simple fact that we were having a heart to heart conversation for the first time since I started my period when I was ten. “If you hated how your mother treated you, then why do you treat me that way?”

“Force of habit I guess,” she said, laughing. I didn’t think it was very funny. “She was worse than I am on you. She was critical of everything I did, but I knew that she loved me even though she never told me to my face but in a letter that was in her will when she died. That’s the only time that I can remember that she told me that,”

“You’ve never told me that.”

“Yes I have. I guess not recently but all the time when you were little,” she said. “I might not show it very much but I love you. I don’t want you to think of me as this heartless bitch who wanted to kill you as a baby. I wasn’t happy about the pregnancy the whole nine months but when she had you, I saw how beautiful you were and I was happy.”

I was trying everything I could to hold my tears back. I didn’t want her to see me cry. I didn’t want to cry period but I couldn’t help it. The tears started falling from my eyes. Before I knew it, she was leaning over to hug me.

I felt weird. Maybe it was because I had not hugged my mother since I graduated high school or the fact that she was actually acting like a real mother now. Maybe she had a wake up call when I decided to go visit my birth mother. Hell, maybe my father told her to act like that.

I didn’t know what was going on but I did know one thing: she finally felt like a mother to me.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up the next morning in my old bedroom. I ended up spending the night, talking with both my mother and father late that night. My father refused to let me drive that late after my long day so I stayed over for the night. It was the first time that I had actually slept there since I moved out for my first year of college.

We had a pretty good talk about everything. It was almost like a group therapy session in a way. We talked about things from the past, the present, and the future. We all decided that we would get together once a week for a family dinner and actually be a family for a change. My mother and I also agreed that we, along with Tabitha, would go do something together once a month. She wants us to go to a spa next Saturday for the day.

In a way, it makes me happy that our family is taking this little change to heart. Maybe things will end up being better from now on with all of us? I guess the truth coming out about everything has helped things in a way. There are no more secrets and no more lies.
Well, except for one secret.

“Good morning sweets,” my father said that morning as he walked into the kitchen. I sat there at the bar, watching Sylvia as she began making a chocolate cake that my father had asked her to make the night before. “Staying for breakfast?”

“I ate a little while ago,” I said, smiling as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “So I didn’t say anything last night but Nick told me about his idea of me being the spokesperson for the new line and promotions.”

“Great idea isn’t it?”

“I always wanted to be the spokesperson in a way,” I said as he smiled at me. “I think I’ll definitely do that.”

“Nickolas is a smart young man isn’t he?” my father asked. I smiled, nodding my head as he looked at me. “How was your trip with him besides the obvious?”

“It was okay,” I said, looking down at my orange juice. “Did you know he had a daughter that he takes care of?”

“Yes I did. That’s one of the things that I admire about him. That shows responsibility and I like that,” he said, sitting down next to me. “And I also was thinking about what you asked me one day.”

I froze. God, did he actually remember that?

“Yeah, what about it?” I asked nervously.

“I wanted to make it clear again that I don’t want anything happening with you two,” he said, looking at me with a serious look on his face. “I know that you two get along very well and maybe after this line is finished with if you are both still interested in each other, but right now, I don’t think it’s a good idea Erin.”

If both of us were still interested? Does that mean that Nick had talked to my father about possibly going out with me? Does that mean that behind his huge brick wall that he’s built up since finding out that I was his new boss’ daughter, that he really is interested in me more than he let’s on?

I had to find out.

#

I did a little investigating work. Well, I didn’t put on my Inspector Gadget jacket or anything, but I went by the office and looked in the personnel files. I wanted to find out where Nick lived so that I could stop by and visit him and ask him myself if he had talked to my father about us.

After a little digging, I found his address and saw that he didn’t live that far from me at all. He only lived two miles away in an apartment building that I almost moved into myself once. I also found out that his middle name is Carson and that alone cracked me up.

Now, I’m standing outside of his door, waiting to knock on it. I need to go ahead and knock before someone opens the door like what happened with my mother the night before. Finally, after a few minutes of thinking, I knocked.

Nobody answered, so I knocked again.

“Hi,” a guy with dark hair and gorgeous blue eyes said as he opened the door. “Can I help you with something?”

“Is Nick here?” I asked, wondering if I had the right apartment after all. Then he opened the door more and I saw that he had Katie in his arms. Her blonde curly hair had a little pink bow in it and her blue eyes were sparkling like brand new diamonds in a jewelry showcase room. I knew then that I had the right place. “You’re his roommate right?”

“Yeah, I’m Jay and you are?” he asked as I smiled. “You’re that Erin chick, aren’t you?” I nodded my head and he laughed. “Come on in. He was in his room getting ready but I’m actually late for work.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for keeping you,” I said as I put my purse over my shoulder. “I was just wanting to stop by and talk to him –“

“Oh no, it’s fine. Just have a seat or something but I need a favor,”

“Sure, what?”

“Hold her until Nick gets done. We haven’t child proofed the place yet and he’ll have a cow if I put her down with all of these sharp edges,” Jay said, handing Katie to me. I held her out, looking at her as he laughed. “What are you doing? She’s a baby, not a dead animal.”

“I’ve never held a kid before,” I said as he walked up, showing me how to hold her.

“There, hold her like that. He’ll be done in a few minutes. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” Jay said as he walked to the door. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” I said, looking at Katie as Jay walked out of the front door. I started to wonder what the hell I was doing in a guy’s apartment holding his child. She was a beautiful baby but, what the hell was I doing holding her? She started to look as if she was going to cry and I became nervous.
“Shh, don’t cry.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Nick asked. I turned around, seeing him standing there in nothing but a pair of jeans. His hair was wet and wild looking and he had the most confused look on his face. Then I noticed his arm band tattoo on his right arm. Damn. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Your roommate just left for work,” I said, looking down at Katie. “She’s a cute kid.”

“Thanks,” he said, walking over to take her from me. “So what do you want, I mean, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you that I had a long talk with my mother last night and then both her and my father,” I said, watching him as he looked at Katie. “I think my mother and I worked out some of our problems and with my father also. I think things are going to be okay from now on.”

“Well that’s great Erin,” he said, smiling at me. “Couldn’t that have waited until tomorrow?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose so but I wanted to ask you something,” I said, walking closer to him. “Did you ask my father about us going out?” He froze. I already knew my answer. “Because, well, I was talking to him about you and the idea for the promotions of the new line and he told me that after this line is over with that if we are both still interested in one another that we could go out. He wouldn’t have a problem with it then,”

“He said that?”

“Did you ask him?”

“Fine, yeah I did ask him. Is that so bad?” he asked. I watched him as he walked to Katie’s swing and putting her inside. “He made it clear Erin, so really we don’t need to keep going over this.”

“I just wanted to see if you asked him. I’m not going to go against his wishes. I just had one of the best nights with my parents and I’m not going to betray him now,” I said, watching him as he moved his eyes to meet mine. “I just wanted to come ask you that and do one thing and leave and we’ll be nothing but co-workers.”

“What?” he asked. I walked closer to him with my body almost next to his. His eyes were locked in mine and I looked as his lips for a split second before pressing mine against them. I began to kiss him softly until he began to kiss me back.

The kiss became deeper and more intense when I noticed that our tongues were basically massaging one another. I felt his hand move to the side of my face, cupping it. I knew that I had to stop it. I only wanted to give him a little kiss but how could I stop something so good?

“Nick,” I said, moving my lips away from him. “Your daughter is right there.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at her and then back at me. “I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

“Right,” I said, smiling. I turned around, showing myself out of his apartment and shut the door. I knew that I had just made another impression on him. He didn’t want to stop kissing me. Hell, I didn’t want to stop kissing him either but I felt weird with his daughter sitting in her swing watching us as we tongue wrestled.

I did mean one thing I said. I was going to try my best not to go against my father’s wishes. I always wanted a nice family that I could bring a guy that I liked home to meet my parents and not have them act hostile or evil to me or the date. Hell, if I had a nice family and nice home life, maybe I wouldn’t be so terrified of commitment? Maybe I would want a family of my own.

Maybe that’s why I’m like that.