Kiss Me Cate Pt. 11

We eventually escaped the incredible gravity of the bed and began packing to leave. Within the hour we were in town at our little diner drinking coffee and watching cars go by.

"There it is again." Cate eyed me shrewdly.

"What?"

"That look, something is still bothering you."

I looked out the window and took a deep sigh. I reached across and took her hand which caused her eyes to pop open.

"I get the distinct feeling you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear."

"I was going to wait until we got home, where it's a little more private. You could dispose of the body easier." I added with a rueful chuckle as she put her coffee down and laid her other hand over mine. She lowered her head and raised her eyebrows in question. I took another deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's Charlie." She cocked her head unsure about what was coming. "Charlie is a nickname," I took another deep sigh, afraid at the unknowable reaction I was about to receive, "her name is Carla. Carla Napolitano."

Cate's eyebrows popped up. "Charlie is a woman?" She didn't seem overly concerned at first but light dawned quickly. "A woman you've had a relationship with." She let out the breath she'd been holding and took another, circling her wagons in defense. "So that brings us to what, four?"

"You make four." I smiled wanly feeling that I was edging closer to imminent bachelorhood with every remark. The one thing I took to heart is that she hadn't let go of my hand.

"Well it was bound to happen eventually wasn't it? I mean, what were the chances we would bump into Samar at the gallery?" Her face relaxed as she quirked a smile. I felt relief wash over me and my handed gripped hers a little tighter.

I looked down at my coffee and empty plate and back up at her. "After Karen," I began then stopped, realizing she may not want to hear about it.

"Come on, out with it. It's been bothering you and we'll have it out and done with now where you have the protection of witnesses." She removed her hand to reach for her coffee again.

"Karen moved on, that lasted only a few months I think it was because her conscience was bothering her. I assure you it wasn't because a rather libidinous nineteen year old wasn't having an issue with it." Cate leaned on her palm as she listened. "Mom began to tutor one of her students from the community college at home. Charlie was having trouble with the class work and had come over to the house a few times. Well a few times was all it took to have a pretty co-ed show up at your door before you started thinking about it like any normal teenage boy." I looked out the window then back at Cate to judge her mood, and I couldn't detect any change so I continued. "When you've recently had an encounter with a... mature woman, well as a teenage guy you get a little over confident. I started making sure I was there every time Charlie showed up. I heard her complain about her math homework and dove on the opportunity to help." The waitress stopped by with more coffee and the laid the check on the table.

"I'll bet you did." Cate said, amused.

I laughed. "Eventually she didn't need help with Mom's class any longer but kept coming for help with her calculus. Once she asked me to come to her place because her car wasn't running right and, well, that was that."

"How long did it take your mother to figure it out?" Cate asked. I laughed again.

"Not as long as you would think. Maybe a week? I imagine me wandering around with a shit-eating grin on my face at home, and Charlie being very cool in class may have tipped her off. I don't know. Either way she asked Charlie to come over so they could go over something from class one night. Mom sat us both at the kitchen table and we had a little talk. Despite us both being adults Charlie was asked to seek help with her calculus elsewhere. I was mad as hell, and told Mom. Charlie just shrugged and said she would."

Cate's grip on my hand tightened. "Uh oh."

I looked at her. "Yeah, I moved into the dorms soon after. I needed a little space. Somewhere my mother wasn't watching my every move."

"A little freedom can be a good thing, but sometimes it isn't."

"It was, and wasn't. Charlie showed up a few times and we got to know each other a little better." I cleared my throat. "It was only after a couple weeks that I realized that it wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't going to be my girlfriend. What's the best way to put this? We were both just blowing off some steam."

"Hormones raging." Cate said, a little smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. I nodded.

"That's the truth." I took another deep breath and let it out. "Anyway, I had no idea she had applied to law school in Manhattan and, with our help in improving her overall grades, she was accepted. She moved to the city just after Christmas and finished her electives there before starting her law degree."

"Oh?" Cate looked at me with an anguished expression. "She had no idea?"

"No idea of what?"

"How you felt about her?"

"I wasn't sure how I felt about her."

"You felt something. I know you too well for that." Cate paused. "She sounds like a free spirit, a libertine. I don't mean that in a bad way." She squeezed my hand.

I laughed. "We've often said that this wasn't her time. She would have been more at home in the '60s or '70s, free love, peace rallies, that sort of thing. When she came home we talked and hashed it out. In some weird turn of events she's turned into a good friend. She was there when I said I was going to put my software out there to see if someone would be interested in buying it, and she stopped me before I got ripped off. She created our partnership of which she gets twenty percent. A number I thought too low, but she insisted since all she was doing was the legal stuff, registering copyright and trademark forms and setting up a business for me."

"So the two of you never picked up where she left you off?"

I shook my head. "We both knew it wouldn't work for either of us. She knew I wanted more, she wasn't ready for that."

There was a pregnant pause. "So she's about my age?"

I laughed, then sighed. "I do believe you mentioned that I had a certain affinity to fight above my weight class?"

Cate grinned broadly at that. "You take wobbly, unsure fledglings and nudge them out of the nest, turning them into strong capable women."

"I'm such a cad."

"You're not, and that's what makes you an attractive prospect to us old women." Cate added with a laugh.

"If you're an old woman, I'm never going to survive our honeymoon." Cate bit her lower lip and raised her eyebrows at me, the smile eventually broke into a laugh. We were both quiet for a few minutes. Cate gave my hand a squeeze.

"Feel better now that you've got it off your chest?"

"Very much so." I said laughing and let out my pent up nerves with it.

"What am I up against then?" She closed an eye and peered at me critically.

"What?" I asked.

Cate grabbed her phone and started tapping away, unhappy with the results she continued tapping. Her eyes went wide as she thumbed the screen. "Is this her?" She turned the screen to face me and there was an image of Charlie smiling wearing a business suit. It looked like some sort of business profile image, but that was definitely her. I nodded. Cate just set the phone down closed her eyes and shook her head with a sigh.

"What?" I asked baffled at first, then it dawned on me just as Cate's eyes began to bore into me.

"Did she have to be a super model? Don't you attract any plain, average women other than me?"

I started laughing. "You think you're plain and average? The only difference between the two of you is that Charlie has a tan, owing mostly to genetics I imagine. How quickly you forget the rapt attention you respect from a room full of students. The entire department in reality."

"They're just desperate for any female attention." The petulant tone of her comment surprised me.

I leaned down to see her face as she hung her head, fingers to her her temples. "Who's wearing the ring?" I asked.

"Why? Did she say no?" Cate snapped back. The shock was palpable as I sat back in my chair. "Oh my god. I'm sorry Dylan!" Her face was screwed up in anguish as she latched onto my arm. "I didn't mean that. I'm so sorry."

I stood, tossed some cash on the bill and walked out of the diner.

"Dylan!" She shouted at me. I could hear her footsteps running down the sidewalk after me and I stopped. "I'm sorry!" She was right behind me and I could tell she was crying. "I don't know what came over me." She added softly. "I'm... I got jealous. I didn't mean it." I felt her hand touch my back, tentative to see if I'd shrug away. I leaned back into her touch. She grabbed my shoulder spun me around and leapt into my arms. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She kept repeating it in my ear.

I let out a little snort of a laugh. "Now do you see why it was bothering me? I just knew I'd better tell you before Friday." I felt her balled up fist thump me gently on the back. "As soon as this sale goes through I'm going to offer to buy her out."

"No, don't do that. I'm sorry I'll shake it off. Don't change anything for me." I held her away from me.

"Everything I do is for you Cate, everything. If you feel this way then I will do what's necessary to change it so that you don't feel like this anymore."

"No it wouldn't be fair to you."

"Fair? What does fair have to do with it? It was sheer force of will that kept me from hitting your friend Samar where he stood when he started the sarcastic comments. That wouldn't have been fair, a felony maybe." I added with a little laugh as I brought my hands up cupping her cheeks and kissed her. "I'm only asking the same restraint from you."

"Maybe we should set them up together." She said laughing and sniffling at the same time.

I laughed at that. "Why would you do that to Charlie? You don't even know her yet."

"Can we go home now."

"Let's go." I held her away from me and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I brushed a tear from her cheek, took her hand in mine and turned us towards the car.

When we got home Cate pulled me to the bed and laid down wrapping me around her like a blanket and cried. I thought about what had happened and understood why she was angry. I was pretty upset meeting Samar but this seemed like more. I wanted to ask but I wanted her to relax more so I held her until she quieted.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." She rolled over onto her back next to me and I kissed her forehead.

"That was the most frightened I've ever been in my life." She said looking up into my eyes.

I cocked my head. "I don't understand."

"Promise me you'll never walk away from me like that ever again." The tears began again streaming down her cheeks into her hair.

"I just needed some air. I wasn't walking out on you Cate!" I held her close and she trembled in my arms.

"Promise." She said between sobs.

"I promise Cate. I will never walk away from you again." My tears joined hers in her hair. I held her until the trembling stopped and she was breathing normally. She unwrapped herself from me and excused herself to go wash her face. When she came back she had the box of tissues in her hand. She climbed back on the bed and sat cross legged at the foot. Her expression was pained and she wouldn't look me in the eyes. I sat up, leaning against the headboard and watched. She swallowed and took a deep breath.

"I have something to tell you as well." I felt myself freeze in abject fear. The afternoon sun glinted off the fresh tear as it slid down her cheek. I wanted to stop her, to reach out and take her in my arms again but her body language forbade it. She sat at the foot of the bed looking down at her lap. She took another deep breath. "The whole story of Neil O'Hara."

"Cate, you don't have to..." She shook her head.

"No, please let me, it's important that I tell you. Well it is to me." She reached over and grabbed hold of my leg and gave it a rub. "I'd just started at the university. I'd never thought much of boys up until then. Gangs of uncouth animals they were, or so they seemed to me." The corner of her mouth lifted and she squeezed my leg. "I'd had no experience, but it didn't seem to be a problem. I wasn't exactly drawing them like flies." She let out a little chuckle. "There were the usual crowds, occasionally I'd get teased or harassed when walking between buildings but I just kept my head down and moved on. One day a group of rather brash boys decided to block my path. I started off rather angry, then I realized my situation and got scared. One of them separated from the group and came over to me and turned on his friends." She swallowed and took another deep breath. "He told them off and said he'd walk me to class. I'd had no idea at the time that it was all set up." She laughed. "The hero play. His friends acted the mob and he came to the rescue." She shook her head and looked out the window for a moment. "Well I fell for it, rather hard. He was a charmer, good looking, sweet at first. We started hanging about together. He asked me out and I accepted. I started feeling for him very deeply, and I thought he felt the same." She let out a deep sigh. "Oh, maybe a month or so in we did the deed. It hurt like hell the first time. He assured me that was normal and it would get better. I was fairly certain he was right because the few girls I knew didn't go on about how much it hurt, only about how annoying it was that was all the boys wanted." She took another deep breath, I just sat and listened. She needed to get it off her chest, like I did. "Well the girls weren't wrong. It soon became the focus of our dates. One night we were both rather smashed, it was probably a Friday night after class, and we'd gone up to his room. We didn't have any protection but he said it would be okay." She smiled ruefully. "I wasn't aware enough, sober enough to stop things before they started."

Cate looked up at me then, eyes slate gray and teary in the fading light. "It only took the one time." She pursed her lips and looked down at her lap again. My mind started racing at the implication. Cate looked up at me again and my expression caused the corner of her mouth to lift again. "Got you thinking now. Don't I?" I began to lean forward and she held up her hand, pointing at the headboard in effort to have me relax. "When the course of nature didn't begin a week or so later I knew I was up shit creek. I think that's how you put it. I ran to the nearest druggist and got one of those test kits. That made it official. The blow up we had over that. He offered to marry me though I had no belief it was on account of love, not at that point. He straight up blamed me for it as if he weren't present for the act." Cate's voice turned angry. She looked up at me. "I'd had ideas, plans, none that included being a parent at nineteen. I told Neil in no uncertain terms that I was not going to marry him because of it, and he did something unexpected. He took me in his arms and held on to me as I cried." Cate looked up at me, fresh tears slid down her cheeks. "That was the first time I had ever felt someone besides my family cared about me. It was a bit, surprising." She looked down again. "When I had calmed down we talked over what we would do. We gathered up what money we had put away and crossed over to the UK." She went silent. Then softly she said. "We ended it."

I couldn't sit still any longer and slid to the end of the bed and took her in my arms. The tears flowed in earnest down my shoulder again. Once she gathered herself again she kissed me.

"It doesn't matter any more. It's in the past." I whispered.

"It is, but I'm not finished. He, he stopped calling, coming around. When I found him with his mates he acted if he was being bothered. I thought he cared but it was all a show. I'd never felt so betrayed. He started seeing someone else. I was crushed. I nearly failed out of school because of him. I'd attracted the attention of one of his chums who started nosing around to see if I were ready to move on only to hear that Neil had told him off saying, 'That field is a little too fertile to plow mate!'" Cate swallowed hard. "When I found him, well you know that part of the story already." She said with a laugh which came out as a hiccup. "I put him in the hospital, as Laura told you. I'm still secretly proud of that, don't tell anyone will you?" The corner of her mouth tugged upward again. "Once he got out and rehabilitated he came looking for me. I heard tell that his chums had warned him off because of my Da and they kept him away from me for a while. One night I happened to cross his path in the pub. He was pissed, drunk," she clarified, "and angry. He asked to talk to me, outside. I didn't want to and shook him off. Someone tried to come to my rescue and I saw a fight was about to break out and I said I'd go, trying to prevent it. We went out and round the corner into the alley and he pinned me to the wall, told me how I'd ruined his life. Word had gotten around that I'd taken him down and all of his chums laughed at him for it." Cate slowly reached a hand up to her face and held her cheek. Her other arm went around her stomach. "He hit me. Broke my nose, punched me hard in the stomach and kicked me a few times when I was on the ground." She ran a finger down her nose. "Luckily it healed well and didn't look broken a few months later."

"Where is he now?"

"He's no longer an issue. Anyhow I think he got his due." She ran her finger down her nose again.

"Your dad?"

She shook her head.

"No he got in with the wrong crowd and things went awry. He's not getting out of Mountjoy for a few years yet."

I tilted my head and Cate understood the unspoken question.

"Mountjoy is a prison. He got caught up with a group that was dealing drugs, someone got killed. I was a bit surprised when I'd heard because he didn't seem the type." She added the last wistfully.

I waited to see if there was any more to the story but Cate had gone quiet, her eyes focused on the past, unseeing of the present. I reached out and laid my hand on her thigh, her hand went to it and took it firmly in hers, her trance broken. She let out another deep sigh.

"I loved him, and I thought he loved me." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

I nodded. I wanted to ask if that's why she was so frightened at first, and realized that she had been protecting herself.

"Cate, you know I love you."

She nodded, blinking back tears. She unwrapped her legs and crawled around behind me where I sat on the foot of the bed and wrapped her arms around me. "You're very different. I haven't doubted you since you ever, despite my fearful misgivings. It's just that once you've been hurt like that, you become wary of getting close to someone again. I never got that close to Samar, we were just friends."

I took hold of her hands where they crossed my chest and leaned forward, standing up carefully so as not to drop her. She let out a whoop and laugh as I carried her down the hall to the kitchen. I leaned back and she stood but didn't let me go at first.

"I think you're dehydrated from the loss of fluids." I'd finally found a blend of cold tea that she would drink, considering the summer temperatures. She was even a fan of the lemonade blend I had made recently.

"Sit, I'll get it." She released me and stepped around me and opened the refrigerator.

I let her and sat down with a sigh. "This has been a weird day."

Cate chuckled as she poured. "Thought you were the only one with worries?"

"Well mine were a little more immediate as you'd be looking across the table at mine in a few days." I looked up at her as she turned around and set the glasses down. "I'm sorry Cate, that you went through all of that." She sat and reached out her hand taking mine.