New Man Pt. 07

Isaac came by eventually and wanted to get to know Rupert. Tina caught me with a smile, and said, "Want to take a quick walk with me out back, get some fresh air?"

"Sure." To Isaac, "Be right back, bud. I'll let you know before I head out."

"Okay!"

Tina and I headed out to the backyard into the chilly night. The pool was long covered for the winter, and we skirted around it. "It's good to see you happy, Tina," I said.

"You too. Your girlfriends, that's such a crazy situation. I wouldn't have guessed you'd wind up with two, let alone five."

I laughed. "Me either. And they're all terrific to Isaac. He asked them today if he could call them Aunt. They all agreed, even Jenna. She's the..."

"Kind of emotionally distant one, right?"

"Yeah, that's it," I said.

"That's great." She stopped me close again to the house. "But Lionel, tonight you seem so apprehensive. What's going on?"

"Ah, you know, just... awkward, being around your family."

"And it has nothing to do with Morgan?"

I froze. "Uh. Sorry. What?"

Tina smiled, but it was a pained thing. "She's told me a lot. About how you've kept in contact with her."

"No, Isaac, he... uh, she offered to talk to him and..."

"Honey," Tina said, "it's okay."

"Tina, it's not... I... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on, you've been looking sidelong at her since she was nineteen or twenty and you noticed she had boobs." She laughed at my sour expression. She wasn't wrong. "It's okay. I think she cares a lot about you too. You two, you'd be very good for each other, I think."

"She's married."

"Yeah. To Douglas." Tina said the name as flatly as I did.

"That doesn't change a thing. She loves him, and that's... that's all there is to it. She's great for Isaac."

Her smile lessened. "Lionel."

"Okay, I'll admit, I do think she's... she's everything I could want. I mean, she loves Isaac, and she's kind, and just, just good-hearted."

"Stop."

I ran a hand through my hair. "What do you want me to say, Tina? You want me to admit it? All right, fine. Yes. I'm in love with your sister. All right? I'm crazy about her."

"Douglas, no!" Tina shouted.

A hand on my shoulder. Douglas spun me. I was too slow to realize what was coming until his fist crashed into my face. I didn't go down. It wasn't much of a punch. My hand rose to where he hit me. But I wasn't paying Douglas any attention. Not a bit. My eyes were only on the beautiful brunette behind him, hand rising to her lips.

I turned to Tina, and weakly, I said, "Isaac. Watch over him until Sunday. Okay?"

She nodded, mute. "Hey, asshole," Douglas snapped at me. Tina stepped between us, blocking the door long enough for me to step inside and storm through the house. Isaac looked up at me from his chair beside his grandpa. I came to him and kissed his forehead.

"I gotta go, okay? Morgan and your mom are going to spend a few days with you, and then we'll hook back up on Sunday."

"Dad? Are you okay?"

I nodded. I didn't like lying to Isaac, but sometimes it's what you have to do.

* * *

You're probably hoping for some big romantic gesture to happen that Sunday, but it didn't happen. I drove to meet Tina, Rupert, and Isaac at a sprawling chain café near the airport, and despite my heart wishing otherwise, Morgan wasn't there. She hadn't called or texted since I blurted out that I loved her, and I knew in my heart I'd blown things.

Tina rose from the booth to greet me. I kissed her cheek and assured her I was fine. She hadn't told Isaac what had happened, but he looked worried anyways in the way kids have of picking up on their elders' emotions.

"Dad? Is everything okay?"

I had practiced this some with Tina, and smiled at him. "Yeah. I had a little bit of a blow-up with your uncle Douglas the other day. It's all okay now."

"Oh," he said. "He seemed kinda upset all weekend."

"I'm sorry," I said, meaning it. "That was my fault. Not yours."

We ate together, and Rupert, God bless him, kept up a great stream of jovial conversation. He discovered sometime that weekend Isaac liked ghost stories, so he was telling us about a haunted mansion down in New Orleans. The story toed that excellent line between being scary enough to captivate Isaac, but not so scary as to give him nightmares. When we settled up our tab, I told him, "You really missed your calling as a writer."

He beamed, and Tina elbowed him. "I told you, you should look at publishing it."

"You really have a book?" I asked, surprised.

He nodded. "It's just a novella, really."

"Send it on, man. I'd love to read it."

He blinked at me. "You're serious?"

I chuckled. "Absolutely. You know, I gotta admit, I thought this, meeting you, was going to be weird, but you're a heck of a guy, Rupert."

"Thanks. It's really been a pleasure." He looked between Tina, Isaac, and me, and said, "Well, I'll just go out to the car and give you all a minute, okay?"

Tina kissed him, and Isaac gave him a hug. At the last, it was the three of us, the original trio, and I pulled Tina to me for a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth. "I mean it. I'm glad you're happy, Tina."

"You too," she told me. She hugged Isaac tight, and knelt down to look him in the eyes. "Baby, I know me and your dad divorcing hurt a lot. I can't take that pain away from you. But it sounds like there's a lot of love in your life." He nodded, and she cradled him to her. "That's good. That's good." She sniffed and pulled back, brushing at his cheeks with her thumbs. "Take care of your dad, okay?"

"Okay, Mom," he said solemnly. "I'm... I'm sorry I get mad sometimes."

"Oh, baby," she croaked, and hugged him again, kissing his forehead, kissing his cheek. "No, no, don't apologize for that. It's okay, it's okay to be mad. Just remember, it's not other people's fault. Your dad and I, we just... we just needed to find our happiness. Okay?"

He nodded. Tina squeezed his hand, rose up, and hugged me again. And then, quick as she could, she hurried out, not looking back.

* * *

Every night that weekend, I watched one or two of the videos. Some of them were solo efforts, but Jenna and Yvonne sent me a particularly tasty video of the two of them on their hands and knees, faces to the camera. I couldn't actually see what they were doing to their pussies throughout most the video, but I knew from the start and finish they had a pair of wand vibrators playing at their pussies and buds, moaning and whimpering how much they missed me.

With Isaac staying a couple rooms away and my parents upstairs, I popped in an ear bud and watched that one again. Or started to, anyways. I heard the car pull up but didn't think anything of it. A minute later, my mom knocked on my door. "Honey? You, um, you have a visitor. It's... it's Morgan."

I was on my feet and out of bed in a moment. I hurtled past my mom and down the stairs like the house was on fire. Wait, that's a terrible analogy. If the house was on fire, I'd hope I wouldn't run past my mom or leave my sleeping son behind. Or for that matter, the leftover bacon from that night's BLT's.

She was out on the front porch in a white down jacket and a thick beanie pulled far down her head. Her cheeks were rosy red and beyond her was a car I vaguely recognized as one of her friends'. The passenger side door was open.

I stepped out onto the porch and reached out to hug her. She was stiff in my arms, almost immobile, and said quietly, "Lionel."

"I'm sorry," I said, pulling back. I expected her to tell me she couldn't. That this was over. That she was going to cut away from our lives.

Instead, Morgan looked down at our feet, and asked me very quietly, "I have one question for you." She looked back up. "Was it true?"

After a long moment, I nodded. She let out a soft, long breath, and quick as a bird, leaned up to kiss the corner of my mouth.

And then Morgan was gone.