Waiting to Come Home

"Oooh!" Renee jumped as one of Cooper's little toy arrows hit her square in the ass. She turned. "Cooper! Never point that thing at people."

"Sorry Mommy, it slipped." The expression of wicked glee on the boy's face betrayed him, as he lied about his intentions.

"I told him not to do that. He shot Jake too just before you came down," Beth interjected, sternly.

Both girls, standing in the background, broke out in a fit of giggles.

Cooper cracked. "They made me do it!" He pointed at Maddie and his sister.

"We thought it would be funny, Mommy. He shot you right in the butt!" The girls giggled some more.

"And he shot my dad right in the penis!" The giggling was nearly uncontrollable now.

Renee tried to be mad, but the girls' giggling was so infectious, she couldn't quite manage it. She did, however, make sure Cooper went trick or treating as a Cupid without any arrows, but the damage had been done.

Effects

That night, walking together behind the girls and Cooper as they trick-or-treated, standing and watching from the sidewalk as they knocked on doors and harvested their loot, Renee started to look at Jake a little differently too.

Sure, he still seemed a little depressed, but she could also see some sunshine there. He clearly loved his daughter very much and seemed devoted. It was funny how he told Maddie any time she got gummy bears he had to take those out of her bag to pay the "daddy tax," and then he'd turn to Renee and offer to "split the proceeds with her." It occurred to her that people who saw them would likely assume they were a couple, and she had to admit they didn't make a bad looking couple at that, especially now that he'd shaved off his beard.

Yes, she'd revised her opinion of Jake. He became "possibly an interesting man," but she still wouldn't say she was exactly attracted to him. She felt a little sad for him, losing his wife and all, but he was...not her project, she thought. He might be a good guy for somebody else though. Too bad she didn't know any single ladies in this town yet.

Immediately after Halloween night, seeing how everything had gone pretty well, with Cooper getting clean hits from both shots, and their parents actually smiling at each other a few times, the girls were initially encouraged about the potential for success with their plot. But over the couple of weeks that followed, their hopes started to fade. They began to doubt the magic of Cupid's spell. They confessed their disappointment to Aunt Beth.

"These things take time," Beth told them. "Cupid's magic is old. Maybe its potency has worn off a little. Plus you know your mom is a bit of a hard case." Beth also said, "if it's meant to be it will happen," and "you can't be too pushy or too obvious." So the girls tried to be as restrained as nine-year-olds can be. Neither Jake nor Renee had suspected any shenanigans behind Halloween at the time. But they were starting to catch on that the girls were up to something.

"Dad, don't you think Tara's mom is pretty?"

"Yeah, she's a nice looking lady, but I'm not really looking for anybody to date right now, if that's where you're headed with this," Jake replied. He was trying to shut down any speculation, or any incipient matchmaking. A part of him still believed he wasn't ready to date. That was basically his automatic response whenever anyone brought it up. But for the first time, he was starting to question that assumption. He realized Halloween night was almost certainly the best time he'd had since Sarah died.

"Do you think Mom would have liked Renee?" Maddie asked him one afternoon after returning from playing over there.

It stopped him dead in his tracks. "Yes," he replied truthfully, "I think she would have liked her very much." And somehow it hit him: It was like she was giving him permission to move on. Maybe...he half formed a thought, it was at least time to take a second look.

"Do you think Maddie's dad is handsome?" Tara asked Renee.

"He's a nice-looking man, especially since he shaved that beard off," Renee replied, echoing what Jake had said, "but I'm not looking for a boyfriend, if that's what you're thinking Missy." She also tried to close off that line of thinking. She did not like feeling any pressure from others, even her daughter. Her sister Beth was bad enough.

But as she said it, she had to admit that if she was looking for a boyfriend, she could certainly do a lot worse than Jake. She had done a lot worse than Jake. In fact, Jake seemed like the anti-Costas in all the right ways...but she wasn't ready. She didn't need that extra complication in her life right now.

Renee and Tara were only starting to get settled, and she still wasn't sure how long they might stay. Even if they stayed in town, as was looking more likely because she was enjoying working at the restaurant, she wasn't as sure about staying with Beth and Jill, even if they certainly hadn't been pressuring her to move out or anything. In fact, they both told her repeatedly that she was welcome to stay as long as she liked.

Halloween night had been nice though. She remembered that after trick-or-treating, when they got back home and shared a glass of wine while the kids divided and traded their candy, Jake had pretended to arm-wrestle Cooper for his share. Then Jake smiled at her when he let Cooper win. That smile gave her a tingle. She knew she was a big girl, a girl who hadn't been laid in an awfully long time, so she didn't put too much significance into that tingle, but there was no mistaking it, she definitely felt it, and for the first time in a long time she had been in the presence of a real man she actually knew when it happened, not just fantasizing over some movie star or hot customer in the restaurant.

"Mommy, can we invite Maddie and her dad for Thanksgiving dinner? Maddie said they were going to have Thanksgiving alone." Tara asked the question and, of course, had to throw in the kicker. For Renee, a girl from a big, extended family, leaving someone alone on a holiday was basically unthinkable.

Big Thanksgiving dinners were something of a tradition in Renee and Beth's family. The day itself was always huge at the restaurant, but ever since she could remember, even though it cost them a little money, their practice had been to close by 7:30 p.m. and try to have the guests out by 9:00. Then, after all the guests had gone home, they assembled family and friends for an old-world style late supper.

So Renee checked with Beth and issued the invitation to Jake and Maddie. The more the merrier! Cleanup can wait for the morning! It was a family tradition, and one Renee had missed in the years she was away. She'd brought friends when she was Tara's age, and so had Beth. Of course Jake and Maddie were welcome to come.

Persuading Jake was a little bit harder, but Maddie's enthusiasm was a powerful incentive, and a big, raucous family dinner certainly seemed less sad than what he had planned for the two of them alone. Jake's sister and her family had taken them in for every family holiday since Sarah died, but this year they were traveling to her in-laws, and although Jake and Maddie were invited there, the thought of a 150-mile drive for dinner was not too appealing.

Jake remembered Halloween night with Renee and her family. Funny thing was, as he thought back on it, the memories of everyone else kind of faded out, even though he knew they had all been there. He found himself remembering Renee's smile, Renee's laugh, and her eyes. My God those crystal clear pale grey eyes! He never felt like she was flirting with him. He didn't feel like she had sent him any signals at all, just a normal mom of Maddie's friend, but for the first time since his wife had passed, Jake realized that he was definitely...interested.

He remembered that his initial impression of Renee was that she was merely OK-looking, probably a little bit prettier than average, but certainly not a head-turner or anything like that. Now when he thought of her, especially ever since Halloween, she seemed much better looking. He still wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed it at first.

He remembered how back when he was in school the guys used to say a girl automatically got two points better looking (on the famous ten-point scale) as soon as she liked you. Was that it? Was that what was going on here? Even if the thought of Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of people he mostly didn't know seemed like a drag, the opportunity to see more of Renee would be a good opportunity to put it to the test, to see if there might be some chemistry between them.

As it turned out, Jake enjoyed the dinner more than he expected to. It was fun to see Renee in her element, with her sisters and parents and cousins, telling loud stories and laughing. They made him feel welcome. He was surprised how comfortable he felt. He and Maddie weren't the only non-blood relations there. He liked her dad, who clearly took justifiable pride in his extended family and the business he built and the gathering he had earned and made possible through a lifetime of building, maintaining and providing.

They introduced Jake as simply the father of Tara's friend. Nobody directly made him feel like they were pushing him toward Renee. He did see Beth talking to their mother, and looking his way. An aunt and a cousin gave him a lingering look too. But the funny thing was, he didn't mind it. Even without really feeling anything from Renee, specifically, he thought how nice it could be to be part of a family like this, if not this one, then at least a big, beautiful, unruly, but still obviously loving family like this.

Renee noticed. She knew Beth and her cousins were not so subtly pushing her towards Jake. He was a nice-looking single man of a similar age with a good job. A little bit of that was inevitable. It didn't have to mean much of anything, even if Tara—and Beth too—had dropped a few comments since Halloween. They weren't obnoxious about it, maybe only a little because she was sensitive to their meddling, but she was also surprised to realize that she minded it less than she thought she might.

Jake seemed to fit in with her family. Costas never really did. She could tell they secretly made him feel uneasy. She didn't sense that with Jake. He also impressed everyone by being only the second man she had ever known, besides her father, who could apparently appreciate the indecipherable charms of a pickled kumquat (a delicacy literally everyone else she had ever known found to be absolutely revolting).

Renee didn't think he'd been faking it to impress her father, but if he had, well...then more power to him for pulling it off. Her dad never said anything, but she knew he was never impressed with Costas. That was just one of the many warning signs she should have seen back then, but she had been young and headstrong. Now she was not so young, and she was full of doubt.

Was she lonely? Beth had accused her of it. Renee wondered if there might be some truth to that. She told herself she was too busy to be lonely. But was keeping busy just a way of pushing down the loneliness? Probably. There were moments now when it did hit her, often after seeing or hearing about Jake. And there he was, again and again it seemed, becoming familiar, becoming an agreeable presence. It was like life's algorithm kept popping him into her suggestions.

Lucky for Jake, the ability to eat revolting things without betraying true feelings was his secret super-power, one he had developed over holiday get-togethers with his own cousins growing up. Renee's big family brought out the old skills in him, along with the old desire to do stupid stuff just to maybe impress a girl. And it worked; it made her laugh. Jake was growing to really love the way Renee laughed. It warmed him.

Jake and Renee didn't talk so much that night as they simply seemed always aware, even in a crowded room, of where the other one was and what they were doing, like an invisible force was loosely binding them together. As they left, he thanked her sincerely for the invitation. She told him, sincerely, that she was very glad they could come, but almost all of their communication that night was non-verbal. That night, alone in his bed, Jake seriously considered asking her out. Renee, alone in her bed that same night, for the first time, seriously wished that he would.

How might he open that door? Although he thought Renee might accept, of course he couldn't be sure. He certainly didn't want to mess anything up for Maddie or do anything that might get in the way of her friendship with Tara. Any true friend is a gift, but especially at an impressionable age, having a "best friend" can be one of the greatest gifts of all. For a girl who had lost her mother, Jake felt that friendship for Maddie was probably even more precious. He was determined not to jeopardize that.

There's no hurry, he thought. They had plenty of time not to rush things. Maybe after the holidays if he could think of a nice, low-pressure way, he would see if Renee might be interested in getting to know him better "that way." In the meantime, he couldn't help it. He began to fantasize about her.

There were a couple of these fantasies that he couldn't shake. They kept coming back to him. There was one where they took the girls camping to a spot he knew by a lake, and then after the girls were asleep they snuck out to skinny dip in the lake and make love by moonlight next to the campfire.

There was another one where he'd come home and find her naked in his shower, and another that he usually had when waking up where she simply entered his room saying "Quiet. The girls are still asleep," and then she pulled off her dress to reveal nothing underneath as she crawled into his bed, just as natural and easy as you please, as if they'd been together for years.

It was funny. He remembered thinking at first that Renee wasn't his type, and knew he'd always preferred curvier girls before, but now, her body seemed like the perfect type, and nothing got him harder than thinking about making love to that body, and the woman who owned it, over and over again.

Renee had fantasies too. She dreamed they went riding in the country and he kissed her when they stopped under a tree to feed apples to the horses. A particularly vivid fantasy came over her one day in the restaurant. She daydreamed that Jake made false reservations for all the tables just so they could be there alone. They shared a bottle of wine and then snuck off to the women's bathroom where he ate her out to two violent orgasms. Then he fucked her senseless bent over the sacks of vegetables in the walk-in cooler.

But that was fantasy. Renee and Jake both knew that in reality they had never even yet been on a date. Although they had suspicions, they also had no real evidence that the other one was even attracted to them.

As Christmas grew near, Jake and Renee ended up sitting together for the kids' holiday program at school. They didn't go together. Jake got there first, and when he saw Renee and Beth walk in he waved, and they came to sit next to him. Sitting there, Jake had the strongest impulse to hold her hand, so strong that he almost did it before he realized that in fact, he hadn't yet asked her out. They didn't have that kind of relationship, no matter how much it had been starting to form in his mind. It shocked him the extent to which he'd almost momentarily lost touch with reality, he was so caught up in her spell.

On their drive home, while Tara and Cooper distracted each other in the back seat, Beth remarked to Renee, "I think that boy's got it bad for you."

"Jake? What makes you say that?"

"Just the way he looks at you. C'mon, Ren, you must have noticed."

"I have noticed a little. I've wondered, but he's never said anything to me. Has he said anything to you? To the girls?"

"Not that I know of, but I'll ask around, if you like."

"Yeah. Don't be obvious, but see what you can find out." Then after a pause, "Funny, there was a moment there during the program when I thought he was going to hold my hand."

"I'll see what the girls know, but if you're interested, you don't have to wait for him to make the first move, you know."

"I know. Just see what the girls say, please. Okay?"

The next day when the girls were over, Aunt Beth cornered them over an after-school snack. Renee should have known that delicate was not Beth's style.

"Hey girls, remember your plot to play Cupid for Renee and Maddie's dad?"

"Yeah...?" that got their curiosity up.

"Has he said anything lately?"

"Like what?"

"Like anything about Renee?"

"He always asks how she is when I go over there," said Tara.

"And what do you say?"

"I just say she's good. Or she's fine. Or she's going out Christmas shopping, stuff like that. Oh, I did say she said she's gonna ask Santa for a case of wine and a pack of batteries."

Beth laughed, "You didn't..."

"Yeah I did. Was that bad? I heard her say that to you just a couple days ago. I thought it was funny. Wine doesn't take batteries."

"No that's not bad, sweetie, that's perfect."

"I thought they were both 'not ready for a relationship' right now. Is something going on?"

"I think maybe it is, sweetie. I think maybe it is. I told you to be patient. Let's just give it a little more time and see if we can't maybe give them a nudge."

"How about it, Maddie? Does he say anything else? Is he acting any different?"

"He's pretty much the same. He's spending more time in his room though, and sometimes when I wake up in the morning, his door is locked. He just said it's Santa Claus secrets and he'll be out soon."

"Hmmmm."

That night Beth reported back what she'd learned.

Renee took the bait. "Let's find out what they're doing for Christmas. Maybe it's like Thanksgiving and they're alone. We can't have that can we? If so, we should invite them over here."

"No. We can't have that." Beth smiled. They decided Beth would call with the invitation.

Jake's pride wanted to refuse the invitation—he was still thinking about waiting until after Christmas to make any move—but Maddie wanted to go. Naturally Jake didn't want to disappoint her, and despite his pride, he really couldn't think of anyplace he'd rather be than wherever Renee was.

"Thank you very much for the kind and thoughtful invitation. Maddie and I would love to come spend Christmas Eve with you. I'm sure the girls will have tons of fun."

"I might make you try my eggnog."

"You never know. I might even enjoy it."

Renee wouldn't admit it, not to Beth nor to anyone else, but she was very happy Jake was coming over.

The evening was, to Jake, surprisingly cozy. It was only he and Maddie, Renee and her kids, Beth, and Jill. Renee and Beth's parents weren't due to come over until late Christmas day. The kids played upstairs, while the adults chatted and played cards over snacks, and spiked eggnog, as they helped Jill taste test her recipe for hot buttered rum until it was perfect. In all the little tastes and filling and refilling of glasses, they kind of lost track of how many they had.

Eventually, they settled down to watch It's a Wonderful Life and a much too comfortable Jake fell asleep on the couch. Renee fell asleep too, on the opposite end of the same couch. Beth and Jill threw blankets over them, put the kids to bed, and then turned in themselves.

Renee woke up a couple of hours later in the middle of a very good dream, the kind so good you want them to continue. In her dream she was reclining on an opulent couch while two large, muscular bare-chested men wearing red, gold-trimmed vests slowly fanned her with giant feathers. She slowly realized she felt so perfectly relaxed because there was another man there, with his face between her legs, who had just provided her with a thoroughly satisfying orgasm for the ages. He lifted his head and she realized that man was Jake! That's when she woke up.