The Convertible - Kiss from a Rose

He put on his hat as if he were leaving, but then stopped again. "You know, Mrs. McLean, when I said you were a handsome woman, I was only telling the partial truth. You're so damned beautiful, you could melt snow off a roof in December. Whatever those sons of bitches did to you, don't lose sight of the fact you're still the prettiest woman in Oklahoma County."

I stepped up close to him and put my hand on his chest. "Thank you, Mr. Mason, it's nice of you to say that. You are a real charmer, but the last man I got involved with was a charmer as well. I just can't do it again.

I'll tell you what though, if it's some companionship you want, how about if you meet me at O'Toole's coffee shop tomorrow at 9am? I'll let you buy me a cup of coffee and a cheese danish. It's just breakfast, but if I'm the beauty you claim, at least it will get the local tongues wagging, won't it?"

He smiled, tipped his hat and said, "I'll see you there."

After Ed left, Uncle Norman came outside. "I couldn't help but overhear, Rosey, you're meeting up with Ed Mason?"

"Yes, nothing serious, just a cup of coffee."

"Well, you're a grown woman Rosey, you do what you want, but I don't think Ed's your type. He's the best damn farrier in Oklahoma, but he's kind of set in his ways. You're a strong modern woman, but Ed's still living in the 1950s. Your Aunt Ro and I used to have dinner with Ed and his wife Irma once in a while before she passed. I'll just say theirs was a very traditional relationship. He wore the pants and ruled the roost, and Irma danced to his tune. He loved her, sure, but everything was by his rules."

"Thanks, Uncle. I'll be cautious. It's just coffee, after all."

The following morning, I decided to dress up a bit, just for a change from my usual jeans and work boots. I wore a red sundress with a nice flower pattern and a pair of white mules. I arrived at 8:45, and Ed had already arrived, waiting at a table. He stood up as I approached the table. He was wearing a clean buttoned-up dress shirt, khakis, and a nice pair of leather loafers, not typical attire for a man who shoes horses for a living.

"Good morning, Mrs. McLean, you look wonderful." There were four men seated at the table next to ours having a discussion, and he snapped, "What the hell's the matter with you boys, don't you have any damn manners? Say good morning to the lady!"

The four men looked up in shock. They tipped their caps and mumbled, "Good morning, ma'am."

I took a seat and reached for a menu. "No need for that," Ed said, "A real gentleman always orders for a lady companion. I ordered you coffee, a short stack of blueberry pancakes, and a side of bacon." Well, that was frustrating, I only wanted coffee and a pastry. However, Ed smiled as if expecting some kind of praise, so I indulged him.

"That sounds lovely, Mr. Mason, thank you."

The waitress brought our breakfasts, and we began to eat while making small talk. Aside from an update about Big Ben's progress, I didn't have a lot to say. Fortunately, Ed had a lot of opinions on many subjects and, unsolicited, proceeded to share them. Uncle Norman was right, Ed was definitely not my type. I found most of his opinions to be diametrically opposed to my thinking, but I was his guest and so didn't bother to argue.

I started hoping for something to interrupt Ed's oafish diatribes, like a runaway semi or an incoming Russian ICBM, but fate had something a little less destructive in mind: Russ Evans.

I heard his voice behind me, "Hello, Rose."

I couldn't believe it. Simultaneously relieved and angry, I blurted out, "Russ! What are you doing here?"

Russ was standing next to the table, his hands jammed in his jean pockets like a shy teenage boy. "I'm sorry if this is a bad time, Rose, your Uncle Norman told me I could find you here. I was hoping to speak with you for a few minutes, but I didn't realize you were meeting someone."

Trying to gloss over the awkwardness of the situation, I introduced them. "Ed Mason, this is Russ Evans. Russ is someone I used to date, but then he decided I wasn't good enough." Yeah, OK, that last bit was snarky, but I was still mad at Russ.

"Russ, Ed is a friend of my uncle, and we're having breakfast. You happen to be interrupting, and it's very rude," I scolded. I'd never seen a man wither like a plant too long without water, but that's what Russ looked like now.

"I'm sorry, Rose, but I really need to talk to you. Is it OK if I wait back at the ranch?" Every cell in my body was screaming to take Russ in my arms and comfort him, the poor guy, but I resisted.

Angrily, Ed declared, "Look son, are you deaf or just stupid? The lady said you were interrupting us. If you decided she wasn't good enough for you, you sure as hell got no damned business being here. Now run along before I get up out of this chair and kick your ass. I may be 67, but I damn sure still got enough strength to break you in half."

OK, I was pissed off now. There was no justification for rudeness or threats, especially with a man I - well, I didn't know how to describe it, but I wasn't going to stand for this kind of behavior. Calmly and clearly, I said, "Thank you, Ed, that won't be necessary." Then I looked at Russ, and his face was almost pathetically sad. I spoke to him now, gently, "Russ, if you insist on talking to me, I'll be back at the ranch late this afternoon." His face brightened, and he quickly left.

Chalk it up to me still being angry with Russ, but I could have told Russ to meet me at the ranch in an hour. Cruelly, though, I wanted him to wait for me, giving me more proof how he thought I was worth it.

Ed snorted in disgust, "How old was that kid?"

I snapped back, "He's 35, divorced with two children. He's hardly a kid."

Ed laughed, "He's 35? That's still too damned young for you, Rose. People would laugh at you if the two of you were dating. It's almost scandalous." Ed may have been laughing, but I saw nothing funny about it at all.

In a voice as cold as a walk-in freezer I said, "Are you saying I'm old, Ed?"

Ed sat up now, in fear he'd offended me. "Oh, no, no, no, you're not old, Rose, you're just too old for him. He's too damn young to be your husband. How's a wife supposed to love, honor, and obey if her husband is young enough to be her son?"

Obey? Really? I'd heard enough, it was time to go. I told Ed, "I have to go now. Thank you for the coffee and conversation, but I have things to attend to." I left quickly, before Ed could say anything else to piss me off.

Truth be told, as I was getting in the car I was anxious to get home and see Russ. I was still upset with him, but seeing him just now made me realize how much I still missed him. Damn it!

When I pulled up in front of Uncle Norman's ranch house and got out of the Triumph, Russ was waiting. He opened the door for me.

I chuckled a bit, and teased him, "The last time you touched my car, it didn't end well for you. Are you sure you want to run that risk again?"

Russ wasn't smiling and didn't reach for me. I guess I'd taught him a lesson the last time, which I was now regretting. At this point I would have welcomed having his arms around me.

His voice was deferential as he quietly greeted me, "Rose, you look amazing. You're even prettier than the first time I saw you." At those words, I was amazed at how this man could be such an idiot, yet still sometimes say just the right thing to make me shiver inside. I was tempted to kiss him, hell, I wanted to kiss him, but the hurt from the awful dinner with Kayla was still fresh in me. I wasn't going to cut him any slack. That didn't mean I couldn't be gracious, though, I still had my manners.

"Thank you, Russ. That was a kind thing to say. You look thinner, have you been keeping well?" In all honesty, if I were being completely truthful I would have told Russ he looked like shit. There was no need to kick him when he was down, though.

His voice actually shaking a bit, he responded, "Rose, I miss you so much. These days I don't feel much like eating, and I don't sleep well."

I almost felt sorry for him, but then I remembered how he let Kayla insult me and my anger flared up. "What about Kayla? Why isn't she taking care of you? After you threw me under the bus in front of her I'm surprised she didn't take you back. That's what you want, isn't it?"

A look of horror crept over Russ's face, the same one that he wore when Kayla and I were trading insults at Gusto's, the same look he wore when he picked her over me. My fury from that night was now returning with a vengeance. I felt my own eyes start to well up with tears as the hurt returned, and I tore into him again.

"First it was Bill throwing me aside, then you did, Russ. I'm done with being taken for granted and done with being someone's second choice. You made it clear I wasn't good enough to be your first choice, so you can go straight to hell."

Russ tried to interject, "It wasn't like that, Rose. You've been my first choice ever since I met you. My only choice."

It was all I could do not to slap him now, and I raised my voice, "Stop with your damned lies, Russ! If that were really the case, you wouldn't have humiliated me in front of your ex-wife! If that were the case, when I left, you wouldn't have just let me go, you would have come after me. But you didn't, did you? You just let me go like I wasn't important. You can go straight to hell, Russ Evans!"

"Rose, the thing with Kayla, it was a horrible, awful, terrible mistake. When I told Gary what I was about to do, he warned me not to, but I was too stupid to take his advice. He was also the one who warned me not to marry Kayla in the first place, but I was so in love at the time I didn't listen to him then, either."

"It sounds like Mouse married the smarter brother, then."

"I know, I know, I thought because of the kids, you and Kayla would have a nice chat at dinner and get to know each other. When it fell apart, I froze because I didn't know what to do. By the time I came to my senses, you were gone. You stopped taking my calls and texts. I tried to apologize at Gary and Mouse's wedding, but I apparently screwed that up as well."

"Russ, it's nice of you to tell me this now, but the time to do something about it was at the restaurant, and you didn't. You knew what a vulnerable state I was in after Bill left me, and promised you'd never humiliate me, but that's exactly what you did, and left me to cry all by myself."

Then I accused Russ of what I'd been fearing all along, "All the time we were together, you wanted me to say that I loved you. Well, I was right not to, wasn't I? It would have been one-sided, because you didn't love me, you loved Kayla. You were just using me as a bed-warmer, you selfish prick!"

Then I asked him the tough question: "If you were me, would you forgive you?"

Russ stood still for a second, as if he'd been asked to solve an equation involving thermodynamic properties and couldn't get his head around it. Finally, he simply whispered, "No."

There was nothing else left to say. We stood there for a few minutes just looking at each other. My eyes had tears in them, his did as well, but it seemed we'd reached an impasse.

Finally, it was time to end this showdown. I told him, "You need to leave now." I was done, it was over.

Russ didn't seem to agree, however. In a last act of desperation, he risked another knee in the groin to take a step towards me, pleading, "Rose, please, I've been an idiot, and I'm terribly sorry I hurt you. I really love you, I swear! I realized what Gary's been telling me all this time was true; Kayla shouldn't be running my life; it should be me."

I was stunned. That was the first intelligent thing that had come out of his mouth since the dinner with Kayla. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope after all.

He wasn't done. "Starting right now, I'm not letting her interfere anymore. It's like you said, she threw me away, I didn't walk away from her. I know I've messed up twice now, but it's you I love, Rose, I promise! It killed me seeing you with that other man. Please, before you get serious about him, give me another chance. Please Rose?"

Tears were running freely down his cheeks; he was genuinely feeling something. It made me remember how Bill never cried in 30 years, not once, the heartless bastard.

Russ was tenacious, I'll give him that. I would have thought after all he'd been through and how awfully I'd treated him as punishment, he'd have moved on. Any normal man certainly would have. Yet, here he was, begging for yet another chance. What man in my life had ever begged me to forgive him and actually meant it? Just him.

If I was younger and naïve, I might have taken him in my arms and forgiven him, then taken him home and engaged in a marathon of sweaty make-up sex. But I wasn't either of those things, I was a cynical middle-aged woman that was still hurting. I couldn't - I wouldn't - take that chance and blindly trust him again, not without more convincing.

I wasn't totally unsympathetic. Russ had been chasing after me even after I'd been so awful to him, so he must have been feeling some small degree of regret. Impulsively, I reached over and pulled him to me, wrapping my arms around him. I felt him hesitantly put his arms around me as well, unsure of what was happening.

Trying my best to be soothing, I told him, "Russ, the man you saw me with today was a friend of Uncle Norman's. I agreed to meet him for coffee, but that was it. There's been no one else since we split."

He sniffed, and asked in child-like disbelief, "Really? No one at all?"

I sighed. As cute as he was, he still had no clue about women's emotions. "Russ, I've only been in love with two men in 49 years; my ex-husband, whom I despise, and you. Do the math - that's an average of once every 26.5 years. I don't fall in love very often. Believe me Russ, Ed Mason is not and never will be competition for you. No one could be."

Then, I surprised both of us by kissing him softly on the lips. As I pulled away, I whispered, "Damn you, Russ, we were so good together, why did you have to ruin it?"

He stood there, then stammered, "Wait, I'm confused. Earlier you told me you weren't in love with me, and just now you said you were! What are you saying, Rose?"

I gave a deep sigh. "Truth be told, Russ, I don't know myself. At this point, we're both confused." I couldn't bring myself to tell him my body wanted him in my bed, but my heart kept reminding me how much he'd hurt me. This was awful. I needed time to think.

"I'm sorry, Russ, you need to go now. I'll call you later," was the best I could do.

After Russ left, I found Uncle Norman in the living room drinking a beer and watching a baseball game on TV. I asked, "Uncle Norman, why did you send Russ to the diner this morning?"

He chuckled, "Ha! He come up to the house looking for you, looking like he didn't have a friend in the world. I told him to set a while and he poured his heart out to me, and dang it, I felt sorry for him. Plus, I thought the waitresses at the diner would enjoy a little melodrama, it'd give them something to gossip about. How was your breakfast with Ed? Did he bewitch you with his pretty talk?"

"Not hardly, Uncle. Ed's a nice enough man and very polite, but you were right about him. He's too rigid and old-fashioned for my tastes. Plus, he threatened to kick poor Russ's ass. Violence doesn't impress me."

Uncle Norman shook his head, "Rosie, that man Russ has got it bad for you. While he and I was talking, he told me how his ex-wife messed with his head and managed to get between the two of you." I had to give Russ points for being honest.

"Did he tell you how much he hurt me?"

Norman nodded, "Ohhhhh, yeah, and he's carrying a ton of pain and regret for it. He wants to make it up to you, but he has no idea how. I got to admit, when it comes to women, that man is damn near clueless."

I snorted, "You said it. Russ can be as sweet and charming as hell; I think that's just his personality. When it comes to women, though, usually he can't get out of his own way. If I weren't so damned angry about what he did, I'd feel sorry for him. He humiliated me, Uncle Norman, and after how Bill treated me, I can't forgive that."

Norman shook his head and sighed deeply. "Rosie, you know I love you and I'll always support you, even if I disagree with you. Well, this is a situation where I disagree. His crazy ex-wife got into his head, and mixed his emotions like a frog in a blender.

Yeah, he messed up and he damned well knows it, but it wasn't deliberate or malicious. Like I said, he's clueless about women, especially a strong woman like you." He paused, then gave me what I'd been missing all these weeks. "You know who wasn't clueless, Rosie? Your ex-husband Bill." A hateful look crossed Uncle Norman's face. In just that glance I could see there was no love lost between them.

Uncle Norman shook his head in disgust, "I never could quite put my finger on it, but I never trusted Bill. Now I know the reason. He was a handsome and sly dog who completely understood women's emotions and played you like a fiddle for 30 damned years." Then Norman's expression softened.

"Your guy Russ, now, he's a different story. He's a nice guy and a good father, and he wants you so bad he can taste it. No matter how hard he tries, though, the poor guy just can't ever seem to get it right."

Norman turned and put his hands on my shoulders, "Rosie, my darling niece, you're not in your 20s anymore. Your chances for a happy life are dwindling. Open your eyes, there's a chance right in front of you. Russ wants to make you happy, all you have to do is say 'yes'. And before you go off on some nonsense about age differences, don't even start with me about that shit. Your Aunt Maureen, God rest her soul, was 11 years older than me, and we had a fine life together."

I sat down because this was a lot to take in. Uncle Norman went on, "Love is funny stuff, Rosie. It makes its own damned rules. Russ loves you; if he don't give a shit about your age difference, neither should you."

As usual, Norman was making sense. Damn it, how was he always so right about everything? I felt myself getting choked up as I listened.

"Let me just say again, Russ is not Bill, not at all," he continued, "if you give him another chance, he's going to work his ass off to make you happy for the rest of your lives. When you go to bed tonight, please think about it. That's all I ask."

Having said his piece, Uncle Norman stood up, drained his beer, and turned off the TV. Patting me on the arm, he walked towards the door. "I noticed some of the barbed wire on the fence facing the road needs mending. This baseball game is boring, so I think I'll go see to it," he said, "then I'm going into town for a VFW meeting tonight so don't wait up for me. See you tomorrow, Rosie," he called over his shoulder.

That night I couldn't sleep so I just laid in bed thinking about Russ. I'd been mad at him for so long I hadn't realized how much I actually missed him, but tonight I did. I remembered our first time together, how gentle and caring he was. Bill was always physically great when we were together, but tenderness was something he didn't engage in often. Every time I'd been with Russ, he was tender and caring, like... like he really loved me.

Closing my eyes, I reminisced about the times Russ and I had made love. My ex-husband loved to fuck long and hard, but it was often mechanical. Russ wasn't like that. He was like a conductor, and my body was his symphony orchestra.

I moved my hand down between my legs and began to caress my vagina in gentle circles, then began to rub my labia a little harder, starting to enjoy the sensations coursing through my body as I recalled his gentle technique.