Traditions Ch. 04

I know this seems odd. Your probably wondering right now why i resubmitted the same chapter. Well...I gave it the wrong title. Originally it was chapter six. Obviously...its not. So I submitted it again to avoid confusion.

The past month had been a very enjoyable one for Cheyanne. While her days were filled with classrooms and work, her nights were spent in the arms of her Irish man. Whenever enough time was available, they both would step out of their normal routine and spend a couple of hours together. Cheyanne seemed to really enjoy those moments she spent with Declan. He would take her out and show her parts of the city she had never really taken an interest in before. Everything to her seemed more exciting and new, partly because she now had somebody to share it with.

On top of it, Declan had proven to be such a gentleman. Whenever he had enough time off from work and the gym, he would always go out of his way to pick her up from her afternoon classes and take her to work at the café. She couldn’t thank him enough for it.

On the rare occasions that he would talk about his personal life, he would always let her know about how his training was going. When she had first heard that he frequently competed in tournaments, she had become concerned that she would have to deal with the many injuries that came with the job. But listening to him talk about how dedicated he was and how hard he worked reassured her that she didn’t have to worry.

Even though he didn’t like to talk about his own life, he was always interested in learning about her life back home. He liked to listen to her talk about her life back home and her family. From what he had heard, she had grown up in the same, modest two stored home for most of her life and that her parents had worked normal nine to five jobs. It was interesting to hear that she only had one other sibling, a sister. Declan grew up in a house with five other children. He had suspected that she was probably very lonely as a child, but Cheyanne had told him that she and her sister were very close growing up. She couldn’t have imagined growing up any other way.

It was the beginning of December now, and Cheyanne was glad that she no longer had to worry about her classes anymore. She had passed her exams with flying colors and was in a celebratory mood. But first she had to go to work.

It had now become normal for Declan to come by her dorm and take her to work after classes. Most of the time he was in town for a client and would swing by for her in case she was running late or had been asked to take another shift. Now it was just routine for him to come before she left for work.

Stepping out of her building she quickly scanned the parking lot before her eyes fell on the all familiar truck that she had gotten used to seeing. A small smile spread across her face as she took in the tall figure approaching her. She didn’t know how, but Declan seemed to grow even more handsome every time she saw him. Today he was wearing a black sweater and denim jeans, with a dark jacket over his shirt.

“It’s cold.” She said through clenched teeth. She tried rapping the thin sweater she had tighter around herself to keep out the cold, but it failed to keep out the cold weather. She was a little unprepared for the sudden snow fall they had received over the last week. White Christmas’s in Dallas are few and far between. Whenever the weather did surprise them with a little snow, it usually would be gone the next day.

“That’s cause you need a thicker jacket, silly.” Pulling her into his embraced, Cheyanne rapped her arms tightly around him and soaked in his warmth.

“Ah, that’s so much better.” She spoke into his chest.

“Mi God, you’re shivering.” He said with a smile, careful not to let his amusement leak out.
She grunted. “How often does it snow around here?”

“Pretty often,” he didn’t bother to conceal his chuckle at her disappointed face. “We usually get a good couple of inches during the winter months.”

“No.” She grumbled pulled herself closer to Declan. Running her nose across his collar bone, she was able to take in rough manly smell of him. “You smell like sweat and grass.”

“I did just get back from a job ya know.” She continued to rub herself against him, making Declan extremely aware of how tempting her body was. Leaning down he gruffly whispered in her ear. “Do ya like it?”

“Um hmm.” She nodded and looked up at him. “I love it.”

“Hmm.” She was now rubbing her hands across his chest, and Declan loved the way they glided over him. “Good.” Leaning over her, he lightly grazed his lips over hers, before wrapping his hand in her loose hair pressing his lips to her.

Declan loved the way her plump lips would move over his. Today he could tell that she had put on her favorite lip gloss as the hint of angel food cake teased his taste buds. His tongue teasingly played at her lips before he forced them open. He couldn’t help but let out a small groan when he felt her small tongue press back against his. There were day’s he’d swear that the woman in front of knew just what to do to drive him crazy.

Cheyanne couldn’t help but get lost in Declan’s arms. With the way he was kissing her, and the way he was holding her, she had completely forgotten about the cold.

Lately, their meeting’s had been getting pretty intense; with their lips never leaving each other for a more than an hour. Any other time, Cheyanne would love to get lost in the moment. Unfortunately, she did have some place to be.

“Dec…Declan,” she spoke between kisses. “I…I have to be…At work…in ten minutes.”

He pulled back an inch. “Then that gives us nine minutes to do this.”

“Dec-,” Before she could get another word in, Declan silenced whatever protest she had with his lips.

Getting her hands in front of her, she gently tried to push him away from her. With his arms tightly wrapped around her, Cheyanne’s gentle nudges across his muscled chest barely registered. Eventually, Declan released her lips and began placing light kissed across her cheek and down her neck. Leaning her head back just a bit, Cheyanne appreciatively gave him more access to her throat. She couldn’t help but revel in the attention Declan was giving her at the moment.

“Dec…Declan please, I have to go. I can’t afford to be late today.”

With a heavy sigh, he finally relented and released his hold on her. “Fine. Hurry up and get your fine ass in the truck.” With a light smack to her bottom, Cheyanne quickly shuffled to the other side of the car and jumped into the passenger seat.

Since it normally took Cheyanne ten minutes to get to work on foot, the two easily arrived at the small café in no time flat.

After opening the door for Cheyanne, Declan quickly entrapped his woman in his arms again.

“You see, now you’re early for work, which means we could have had more time to do this.” He gave her a small lingering peck to her lips.

“Yes we could have. But if we had, I would have never made it to work.”

He smiled at that. “Yeah, guess your right about that one. But I guess you’re just going to have to make it up to me this weekend.”

“This weekend?” A little lump began to form in her throat.

“Yeah, their closing the gym down for the holiday, so I figured you and I…”

“I can’t.”

Confused, Declan pulled back a bit. “Why not?”

“Well the thing is… I’m going to be out of town for the next couple of weeks.”

“Really?” He was a little confused as to why he was just hearing about this now.

“Yeah.” She paused for a second and let the information she surprised him with soak in. When he didn’t respond she took it as a sign to continue. “See, even though I talk to my parents all the time I still kind of miss them; and since I wasn’t able to go and visit them for Thanksgiving, I figured it would be a good idea if I went and spent my winter break with them.”

“The whole winter break?”

“Well, yeah.”

He pulled back further and stuck his hands in his pocket. “But that’s…”

“Four weeks. I know.”

Declan cursed under his breath. He could feel another headache coming on and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“And you conveniently failed to mention this to me because?”

“Trust me I didn’t mean to keep this from you like it was some big secret. It’s just been a crazy couple of weeks.” When he continued to stare at her she sighed. “Come on, you know how crazy it’s been. I know it’s not a good excuse…”

“Your right it isn’t.” He snapped.

“But it’s the truth. And besides,” she said, “it’s not like you share everything with me.”

Declan straightened a bit. “Excuse me?”

“Oh please, don’t act stupid.” She huffed and crossed her arms.

“Well for arguments sake, let’s just pretend I’m stupid. What is it that I don’t exactly share with you?”

“Everything!” She said, throwing her arms out. “Come on Dec, let’s be honest here. I barely know anything about you. Okay, sure you may not be a complete stranger to me, but I hardly know anything about your personal life.”

“You don’t need to know everything about my personal life. It’s personal.”

“Maybe not everything, but I’d at least like to know something. Something like what you would do on a normal Tuesday morning or what dinner with your family is like. Now that I think about it, in the entire time we’ve been together you’ve never once even talked about your family.”

“That’s because it’s none of your business.”

“I’ve told you about my family. How is it any different?” Cheyanne’s voice was starting to rise, causing a few passer-byes to take notice.

“It…It just is.” He fixed a few nosey people with some hard stares before turning back to her. “Will ya keep your damn voice down. People are starting to stare.”

“I don’t give a damn.”

“Fine!” He didn’t go out of his way to pick her up to have to deal with this shit. Walking to his side of the car, he opened the door and paused. “I’ve got plans tonight, so you better find another ride home.”

“You know I did use to walk here before you came along. I’ll do fine on my own.”

“Cheyanne I don’t want you walking out at night by yourself.”

“Tough shit.” And with a flick of her hand that she turned around and headed into the café.

Declan stood there fuming as he stared at her retreating back. Just what the fuck had gotten into her. Why the sudden need to know more about his family? Things had been going fine just the way they were. Then, all of a sudden, she needed to know what type of family man he was. Oh hell fucking no. That was not how their relationship worked.

Then how does it work. He thought to himself .Cursing under his breath, Declan finally got into his truck and pulled out into traffic.

After hanging up her sweater on the coat rack, Cheyanne quickly shuffled around the counter and made a bee line towards Ginger. She couldn’t help but laugh as she watched her friend struggle with the blender.

“How the bloody hell do you work this thing?” She said throwing up her hands in defeat.

“Ginger. Relax. It’s just a blender.”

“Oh, I know. Trust me. I know how to work a blender. But this bloody high tech contraption is getting on my friggin nerves. There are at least five different settings on this thing that I have never even heard of before.”

Cheyenne sighed. The blender, along with a few other electronics in the café, was recently upgraded to a more high tech model. The owner brought them in hoping they would bring in more customers and increase efficiency at the café as a whole. So far they’ve only proven to be a pain in the butt for some of the less technologically savvy staff members.

“Here,” she smiled. “Let me.”

“Thank you, love.” Ginger graciously step back from the cursed machine and leaned back against the counter.

“What were you trying to make?” Cheyanne asked as she looked at the contents of the blender.

“Some sort of caramel vanilla frap bean thing.”

“Ok, give me the order.” Looking at the order on the slip of paper Ginger had, she quickly went to grab the ingredients and began fixing it. Opening the lid of the blender she peaked inside and took a sniff the concoction. “Whew, oh yeah, that smells.”

Ginger laughed at Cheyanne’s face. “I don’t know how you kids drink this stuff. When I was your age, we use to drink coffee one way. Dark, black, and hot.”

The comment made Cheyanne roll her eyes. “Come on Ginger, you barely into your mid-forties. You’re not that much older than me.”

“Yeah, well I’m starting to feel that way.”

They both shared a laugh and then quickly went to work finishing people’s orders. The dinner rush would be coming in soon, which Cheyanne actually looked forward to for once. It was the perfect distraction she needed. She didn’t want to have to think about Declan at the moment. Really, though? How could he not realize how closed off he could be? And then the way he snapped at her when she asked about his family. He was being completely unreasonable. But she didn’t need to think about him right now. She just needed to think about work. Nothing else. Just work. Yep, she wouldn’t give Declan a second thought-

“What are you thinking about?”

Shit.

“Huh,” She turned to Ginger who was leisurely leaning on the counter waiting for her order from the kitchen to come up.

“I asked you what you were thinking of. You seemed sort of distracted.”

She sighed. “Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

“Hmm, does it have anything to do with that fine man who dropped you off?” Ginger gave her a knowing smile.

“Hey, is my order almost ready.” Cheyanne shouted through the kitchen window.

“Oh no missy, you’re not getting out of this one.” Taking hold of her arm, Ginger lead Cheyanne from behind the counter. “Hey Jerry,” she shouted to a guy preparing drinks, “me and Annie are heading to the back for a bit. Watch the front for us will you.”

Jerry nodded his head and waved them off. Maneuvering their way towards the back Ginger pulled Cheyanne into the ladies bathroom and locked the door so no one could barge into their conversation.

“Now tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing is going on,” she shrugged and looked away nervously, “me and Declan just had a…small…misunderstanding.” Hopefully she sounded convincing.

Ginger wasn’t buying it. “You know as well as I that if you two really had a misunderstanding, you wouldn’t be as fidgety as you are now.”

Cheyanne relented and sighed. “I know, I know, it’s just…”she grunted. “He is just being so unreasonable.”

Ginger raised her eyebrow in confusion. “How so?”

Cheyanne didn’t really feel like retelling the whole argument but knew that there was no way of getting around it. “My trip home was brought up on the way here…and I had yet to tell him about it. Suffice to say that he was upset about it, and rightfully so, but then he had the nerve to get snappy with me when I brought up the fact that he conveniently doesn’t share things with me either.”

Ginger nodded. “I can see why that would upset you.”

“Thank you. I mean, how hard could it be for him to just talk to me.”

Ginger paused before speaking. “Maybe he has a good reason not to.”

The statement surprised Cheyanne and caused her to straighten. “What do you mean? Why would have to hide things from me?”

“Well, you do know that he’s a gypsy.”

“Yeah.” Cheyanne just shrugged her shoulders. From her friend’s tone of voice and nonchalant attitude, Ginger could tell that Cheyanne didn’t fully comprehend what exactly that meant for Declan.

“Listen love, I know you haven’t been here for very long, so I know this is probably all new to you. But there’s something you’ve got to understand about gypsies and travelers. They’re a lot different then you and me. No listen…” she raised her hand to stop the protest she knew was coming. “I don’t mean to say that we should treat them any differently because they act different. It’s just that there uniqueness causes people to think that way; that they don’t somehow belong with the rest of us. Even now you’ve got whole cities trying there hardest to kick gypsies out of their own homes, only to have them forced back into the city. It’s all in an attempt to make them conform to society.”

“Declan’s family, the Irish Traveler’s, their lives are based on old traditions and high morals that date back hundreds of years ago. But with all the changes that are being made in the twenty first century, they’re having a hard time trying to adapt. Their culture is slowly dying out and they are trying their best to keep it alive any way they can, even if it means they have to secluded themselves and keep the rest of the world away.”

Cheyanne stood there and let her friend’s words sink in. She had never really taken the time to understand what being a gypsy really entitled. Now she had been given a crash course on the subject and was finding it to be a bit overwhelming. Cheyanne was shocked to find out how harshly criticized they all were. It was just blatant discrimination, is what it was. Upon hearing all of these things, Cheyanne was finally able to realize just how little she knew about Declan and his life.

Walking over to where Ginger stood, Cheyanne turned and leaned against the wall, allowing herself to sag against it.

“So…what you’re basically telling me is that Declan chooses to keep secrets from me, because he feels like it’s the only way to protect his family.”

Ginger shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying…”

“Then what are you saying, Ginger? Because right now, I’m still having trouble trying to figure out why Declan feels like he can’t share anything with me. Why can’t he just talk to me like he would with any other person?”

“Because you’re not just any other person.” She said.

Cheyanne shook her head and cast her eyes down to her feet in frustration. “I don’t understand.”

“I know that, love. And it’s not exactly the easiest thing to explain either. But trust me when I say that, if he could, he’d have no trouble telling you his whole life story. You see that’s what makes you so special. Gypsies never go out with non-gypsies. It’s just too much of a culture clash. But for whatever reason, Declan chose to break tradition… for you. My only guess is that he doesn’t want to tell you about his family and such because he doesn’t want anything to come between the two of you. He doesn’t want you, the person he cares about, to start judging him like any other person would.”

Cheyanne stood there for a moment, not saying anything, only thinking back on everything that had happened. She inwardly groan when she though back to the conversation she had with Declan. To him, she must have sounded like any other judgmental person he’d have come across on the street, quickly sputtering out questions in an attempt to pry into his secretive world. God she felt horrible, and stupid.

“I’m such an idiot.”

“It’s okay, love. Everything’s going to be alright. You two just had, what you would call, a lover’s spat. It happens to all of us.” She lightly patted her shoulder. “You both will get over it. But you both better get over it soon. It would be bad for you two to leave things unsettled before you left for home.”

“Yeah, your right.” Cheyanne said. “I’ll apologize after work.” Straightening herself, she reached for the knob and opened the door to the bathroom. Just before they walked out, Cheyanne turned and looked at her friend. “Say, how’d you know so much about gypsies anyway?” She quirked.

“I lived next to a gypsy family growing up. They were lovely people actually.”

****

At nine thirty, the small café closed and Cheyanne had just finished cleaning up and was readying herself to leave.

“Hey Ginger, I’m heading out.”

“You sure you don’t need a ride home?” Ginger shouted from where she was cleaning a few glasses.