"Blue, Without You" - Part 3/3 of a series

This is the third part to my story about one night in the life of a single father trying to go on a date while still caring for his eight-year-old with separation anxiety.  The first two parts are necessary to understand this weeks' entry, but I think you, as the reader, will have a better understanding of my adoration of the characters if you check them out first.
Part 1, titled, "Dependent":  http://grahampatricksmith.blogspot.com/2011/10/brigits-flame-oct-week-3-title.html
Part 2, titled, "Damaged Goods": http://grahampatricksmith.blogspot.com/2011/11/brigits-flame-november-week-1-prompt.html


After I had paid Mrs. Wallace for her time, I sat on the couch with Emer still in my arms.  Charlotte sat beside us.  The woman knew all the right questions to ask about my daughter’s favorite cartoon, and Emer finally started to come out of her shell and answer in sentences that longer than one word.  My daughter still plainly had no interest in the stranger in her home, but, hey, it was a start.

By the time the credits of the show started to roll, Emer’s cheek was rested against my shoulder and she was seconds away from sleep.  She looked like an angel.  “I’m going to put her to bed,” I whispered to Charlotte.  Emer tried to mumble something in protest, but her eight-year-old metabolism had run its course for the day.  A few minutes later I had Emer in her pajamas and tucked into her side of the bed. 

“When’re you coming to bed, daddy?”  She asked, squeezing her teddy bear.

“Soon, honey,” I told her just before I kissed her forehead.  “Good night, Emmie.”  Emer mumbled the best good-night she could as she rolled over, and I took a wistful glance at my daughter before heading back into the living room.

“She’s beautiful,” Charlotte told me as I joined her on the couch again.

“Thanks,” I replied.  I sighed and sent Charlotte a sideways glance as I practically deflated against the couch.  She scooted closer to me.  “You want a beer?  I have Hoegaarden.”  I asked her. 

 “Ooh, beer snob,” she commented with a sly smirk.  “If you had offered me anything less, I might have been insulted.  You can’t get me liquored up on cheap booze.” 

“Look who’s calling who a beer snob,” I retorted, imitating her smile. I stepped to the fridge, pried the lids off of two bottles of beer, and returned to the couch.  Charlotte held it with one finger around its neck, like an old pro, and stretched her feet across my lap on the couch as she took her first drink.

The events of the night rolled over in my head again.  “Thanks again, Charlotte, for coming back here with me,” I told her.  “I’ll be honest; when you asked if you could meet Emer, I was nervous.  She’s sort of… discriminatory when it comes to me bringing a woman home.  Specifically, she never likes any of them. I’m really sorry if she said anything that offended you.” 

“Just how many women do you bring home?” She asked.  My jaw dropped and I sputtered like an idiot for a few seconds, but then she laughed and her eyes softened as she lowered her bottle.  “Relax, I’m just teasing.  Your daughter is a wonderful little person, David.  She couldn’t offend me if she tried.  I don’t blame her for wanting you all to herself.” 

I smiled and tentatively laid my hand on Charlotte’s bare ankles.  She jumped a little from my cold palm, but then smiled as I caressed the smooth skin of her feet and legs.  Her eyelids fell and she took another drink from her beer as I touched her.  “So, Pinkie Pie is your favorite character?” I asked.

“We both like to party,” Charlotte cooed, laughing a little as she set her bottle on the floor. 

I allowed my fingers to walk their way along Charlotte’s leg, to her knee.  She made no move to stop me.  “Oh, do you now?” I said in my most smooth voice. 

Holy cow, was I out of practice.  How many years had it been since I had tried to seduce a woman?  Two?  Three? 

My fingers touched her thigh, and a need awakened inside of me, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in ages.  Come to think of it, how long had it been since I had been laid?  I had very nearly gotten lucky on a date about eight months ago, but a frantic call from Mrs. Wallace about Emer having a panic attack had sent me running home. 

I wanted Charlotte.  Badly.  And, if my skills at reading women hadn’t completely atrophied in the time I had been celibate, it looked like she wanted me, too.

 I leaned down to her, and she sat up far enough to wrap her arms around my neck and pull me into a kiss.  Just as I thought they would be, her full, heart-shaped lips were warm, and excellent for kissing.  As her lips parted and her tongue appeared, the bestial need inside me howled to be released.  I pulled her closer to me with more strength that I thought I had in my right arm.  My left was still on her thigh.  The two of us wallowed in the kiss, each one drawing on the emotions of each other, and my hand crept ever further up her leg. 

“DAD-EEEEEEE!”

Emer’s voice shattered the mood like a baseball through a picture window.  My limbs seized as adrenaline filled them when my daddy-defenses instantly kicked in.  Charlotte slipped from my arm and bounced on the couch, her eyes wide with surprise. 
“DAD-EEEEE!  WHERE ARE YOU?!” 

My mouth worked uselessly for a second as my brain caught up to reality.  The urge to run to my baby girl’s side and the need to be with the woman on my couch fought for control.  Charlotte blinked for a few seconds, then a defeated smile crossed her face and she chuckled. 

“Charlotte,” I said, my breath huffing as if I had just run a marathon.  “Charlotte, I… I….”

“Go to her,” she said with that beautiful, placid smile.  From the couch she stretched as far as she could and stroked my cheek gently with her fingertips.  “She needs you.” 

I blinked stupidly again, wondering if I should make an excuse for being cock-blocked by an eight-year-old or unapologetically run to my daughter’s side.  Still smiling, Charlotte motioned for me to go just as Emer cried out again, “DAD-EEEEEE!” 

After I meandered from beneath Charlotte’s legs I trudged to the bedroom and opened the door.  Inside I found my daughter sitting cross-legged on the bed and clutching her teddy bear to her chest.  The bedside lamp basked the room in yellow light.

“I woke up and you weren’t here,” Emer said.  She batted her big, blue eyes at me.  “I thought you were gone.”

I did my best to resist my little girl’s siren’s song.  “I’m still here, honey,” I told her, brushing back a silken strand of her golden hair.  “Why don’t you try to go to back to sleep?  I’ll be to bed soon.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around her teddy bear.  Its limbs splayed out like she was going to squeeze it in half.  “I can’t sleep without you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. 

As it does so often where Emer is concerned, my heart broke, and she became that much more difficult to resist.  “How about I get you a glass of water?” I asked.  “That might help you get to sleep.” 

Her little forehead knotted together, clearly displaying her distress, but she replied with, “Okay.” 

When I left the bedroom, I found Charlotte standing by the door with her shoes and jacket on and her purse in her hands.  I froze so quickly that my socks slipped on the hardwood floors.  “Charlotte,” I managed to choke.  “What’s going on?”

For a moment everything I thought Charlotte might have been, every positive vibe I had gotten from her that evening, turned into a spear and stabbed me in the heart.  But just as the cold feeling started to creep into my chest, she smiled her beautiful smile again and stepped to me.  “Maybe we should call it a night, David.”

“But…” I stammered.  “But I’m just getting her a glass of water.  Then… then we…”

She laid her hand on the side of my face, and the tension that had been building in my shoulders was gone.  “It’s okay, David.  She’s wonderful, and you’re wonderful.  And right now, she needs you.  Let’s see where things go from our next date.”

I visibly shook.  “Wait.  You’re not breaking up with me?  This isn’t our last date?”

“No, goofy!”  She laughed.  “Why would it be?”

 I rolled my shoulders.  “More than one woman has turned tail because of how dependent Emer and I are of each other.  I thought you were going to be one more on the list.”

She slipped one arm around my waist and I wrapped my arms around her back.  “I am not most women,” she whispered. 
“Thank God,” I told her, just before I leaned down and kissed her again.  Just before the two of us stepped away she lowered her hand and grabbed my butt fiercely. 

She popped up on her tiptoes and whispered, “Next time, dinner will be at my place.” 

Brigit's Flame - November, Week 1. Prompt: Introduction. Title: "Damaged Goods."

This is the follow-up piece to a short story I wrote about a week ago, titled, "Dependence".   Reading the first isn't necessary to understand the second, but I feel that the characters are really defined in the first.  The first piece can be found here:  http://grahampatricksmith.blogspot.com/2011/10/brigits-flame-oct-week-3-title.html

Maybe it was the wine.  Maybe it was the Muscles Josephine I had ordered.  Maybe it was Dean Martin crooning softly through the sound system.  Or maybe it was just her.  No matter what was to blame, I was having a wonderful time. 

“Did you have any cute patients this week?”  I asked Charlotte as I took the last sip from my glass.  Charlotte was a veterinarian, I had learned on our first date. 

“Two Saint Bernard puppies,” she said with a smile.  She, too, took the last drawl from her glass of wine, and it showed in her quickly-reddening cheeks.  “The Bob Barker standard: neuter, flea and tick prevention.  But you should have seen how they whined when I put the cones around their necks!  It was precious.”

Charlotte was precious, too.  She was short – shorter than any girl I had ever dated, at 5’2” – and she had beautiful, full lips that made a perfect heart shape as she puckered to raise her wine glass to them.  When she remembered that it was empty she laughed at herself, and gorgeous dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth.  When she set down her glass and turned two blue, hazel-ringed eyes at me, a lock of her sandy-blonde hair fell in front of her face. 

“I wish I could have made it in to see those little guys,” I replied.  “Emer would have loved them.  She wants a dog so badly.”

The waiter stopped by our table with the bottle of wine, and Charlotte and I each took an eager refill.  When the waiter left she turned those beautiful eyes back to me.  “Do you realize you’ve done that all night, David?”

  

I swallowed my sip of wine, but didn’t set down my glass.  “What do you mean?  Done what?” 

She smiled dreamily and her eyelids lowered pleasantly.  “Brought Emer into every line of our conversation.”

My cheeks suddenly warmed, and I looked shyly to the top of the table.  “Oh.  Um.  Have I really?” 

“It’s okay,” she replied.  “I understand.  She means a lot to you.”  Charlotte laid her hand gently in the middle of the table, and I tentatively laid my hand atop it.  She made no move to retreat. 

“She’s means more than a lot to me,” I said a soft reply.  “She’s my whole world.  When her mother left, it left her broken.  She was so hurt, and every time I leave her she has this little look in her eyes like she’s afraid I’m not going to come back.”  Finally I raised my eyes to Charlotte.  “And even the thought of her feeling that way makes me want to wrap my arms around her and protect her from everything the world could ever throw at her.  It feels like my purpose in life is to protect that little girl.”

On our first date, I obviously hadn’t gone fully into the story of Emer’s mother, Amanda, leaving us.  I had kept the conversation simple, only telling Charlotte that I was a single dad.  It was only our second date, for crying out loud!  Did I want to scare her off?  I might as well have told her that I would never have time for her and she shouldn’t even bother with me.

Charlotte stroked the top of my hand gently with her fingertips.  “When Emer’s mom left… Emer wasn’t the only one that was damaged, was she?”

 Why was I paying so much money to see Dr. Sparkman?  A veterinarian had analyzed me and my daughter after only two dates, and she hadn’t even met Emer yet.  All it had cost me was the cost of dinner and drinks.

Though there was no happiness in the gesture, I smiled and shook my head a little.  “I guess not.  I’m sort of having a hard time recovering from it, too, even though it’s been three years.”

She raised her palm, and as if on instinct mine followed.  Our fingers laced and then rested comfortably back on the table.  “I’d really like to meet her, you know.”    

When I finally looked up to her, I noticed the small diamonds in her ears.  The silver chain that hung around her neck positioned its blue pendant, which matched her dress, seductively between her breasts.  A hint of red had crept across her chest and collar bone.  My God, she was so beautiful.   

Her smile was infectious.  It seemed that she could always find an excuse to smile.  “There still might be some homemade pizza, if you’re hungry.” 

Charlotte finished her glass of wine.  “No, thanks.  I ate the whole appetizer myself, remember?” 

We both laughed.  I finished my glass of wine, paid the bill, and then Charlotte and I left the restaurant, arm-in-arm, with plenty of time to catch a few episodes of My Little Pony before Emer’s bedtime. 

When we arrived at my house, I found Mrs. Wallace sitting on the couch quietly working on a knitting project while Emer lay in the floor, a coloring book and an entire pack of crayons spread out before her.  My Little Pony was playing on the computer, and even though it looked like my little girl wasn’t paying attention I knew that she could tell me exactly what episode she was on and exactly what was happening.  They both looked up at the sound of the door opening.

Mrs. Wallace greeted me with a hello and started gathering her things.  Emer leapt up from her spot on the carpet and charged at me full-speed.  I barely got to my knees in time to take my little girl into my arms, and I cradled her beneath her bottom and clutched her to my chest. 

Yes, I had been apart from her for a little more than an hour.  But I still missed everything about her; he smell, her weight, the sound of her voice.  Of course Charlotte was right about Emer not being the only one that Amanda damaged when she left. 

I spun once with my baby in my arms, and when I faced the front door again I found Charlotte, who had entered behind me.  Emer noticed her, and the little blonde girl almost instantly buried her face shyly into my shoulder. 

“Dad-eeeeee…” she mewed into my ear, plainly distressed. 

I kissed the top of my daughter’s head, which seemed to calm her a bit.  “Emmie, this is Charlotte,” I whispered, loud enough for Charlotte to hear.  “Will you welcome her to our home?” 

Emer squeezed me tighter, as if she could possibly bury herself deeper into my shoulder.  “Hi,” she peeped.

“Hi, Emmie,” Charlotte said in her most welcoming voice.  She was quick; I hadn’t explicitly told her Emer’s nickname.  “I’m very happy to meet you.” 

I bounced Emer’s weight in my arms a little, and the girl tried to rub her face deeper into my shoulder.  “Dad-eeee,” she whimpered softly.  “Why is she here?” 

As much as she tried to hide it, Emer was loud enough for the whole room to hear.  If her comment had hurt Charlotte’s feelings, she didn’t show it.  Instead she gently approached Emer and said, “I heard that you like My Little Pony.  Which pony is your favorite?” 

Emer clutched me a little less tightly, but only a little.  “Twilight Sparkle,” she murmured. 

“Really?”  Charlotte asked.  “Why do you like Twilight Sparkle the best?”

“Because she’s purple and purple is my favorite color,” Emer said, a little louder than before.

“That’s why I like Pinkie Pie the best,” Charlotte replied, taking another tentative step toward me and my daughter.  “Because she’s pink, and pink is my favorite color.  That, and because she likes to party, because I like to party, too.”        

Had I let it slip that Emer liked My Little Pony on our first date?  If I had, had Charlotte been reading up on the show so she would have something to talk to Emer about?

Charlotte glanced at me with a twinkle in her eye when she mentioned partying, and a little smile played at the edges of her lips with her double-entendre.

Ladies and gentlemen, I might have found a keeper.