Misunderstood

Dinner with Mike and Eric lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, although it shouldn’t have surprised me after my long dinner with Eric the night that I came to the city with Jordy and Nick. As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant Mike asked told the girls to go with Eric, he was riding with me. “We need to talk,” he told me and then said, “You were going back to our place anyway, right?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I replied but one look at the girls told me that they wanted to visit with Mike and Eric a little longer.

Once the girls and Eric were on their way, Mike and I got into my car. “So have you made up your mind yet?” He asked before I even had time to do up my seatbelt.

“Mike!”

He started to laugh, “You should’ve seen the look on your face Anna!”

“It’s not funny,” I started my car. “It’s going to take longer than a couple hours you know.”

“I know,” he said and apologized. “You know what would be funny though, calling Jordan up and telling him he was too late, you already met someone else.”

I gasped. “That wouldn’t go over well.”

“No,” he admitted, “But it would be funny at first.”

I hesitated for a moment but in the end I had to agree with him, it would be funny but Jordan wouldn’t think so. “He’d kill you,” I stated as I slipped my car into drive only to slide her back into park a second later. “Ok, why did you want to ride with me?” I looked at him. “I know it wasn’t just to make jokes about telling Jordy he was too late.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It wasn’t. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?” I raised a brow, curious because Mike never wanted to talk to me about anything. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well,” he brushed his over his pants. “I want to know what you have been saying to Natalie about Eric and me.”

I blinked; surprised that he would asked that. “What do you mean? I didn’t say anything to her.”

“No?” He turned to me. “She said you told her to ask me.”

I frowned, wondering what he was talking about when I suddenly remembered how Natalie wanted to know what she was supposed to call Eric; she wanted to call him ‘Uncle’. “Mike,” I shook my head slightly. “It wasn’t a big deal, she wanted to know and I didn’t have an answer so I told her to ask you, you would know.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with it? Getting her to ask me?”

“No,” I scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with her wanting to know what she should call Eric. I would’ve thought you would have been happy that she was curious because it means she thinks Eric is a good guy; Natalie just doesn’t go around wanting to call every guy she meets, ‘Uncle’.”

“Uncle?” Mike looked really confused. “What the hell are you talking about Anna?”

“Natalie asking if she could call Eric ‘uncle’,” I told him. “She asked me if she could call him that because you two were together and I told her I wasn’t sure…” I trailed off because he looked a little pale. “Mike, what’s going on?”

“That’s what she wanted to know?” He asked quietly.

“Yes, what did you think she wanted?”

“Oh God,” he sat back in the passenger seat and groaned. “Natalie started out asking me if boys could marry Anna.”

“Oh,” I gasped. “Mike…”

“I thought she was asking me if Eric and I…” he groaned again, this time leaning forward to hit his head off the dash board. “Make no wonder she gave me this funny look when I told her I wasn’t going to talk to her about it and if you wanted to know, then you could just mind your own business.”

“Mike…” I couldn’t get any more than that out, I was laughing too hard.

“It’s not funny Anna!” He jumped and looked at me. “She was looked like she was going to cry…” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it…”

“Mike its ok,” I said once I regained some composure. “Just take her aside when we get back to your place and tell her that you misunderstood, she’ll understand.” He nodded silently and I reached for the gear shift to put my car in drive. Pausing, I smiled at him. “So for those who want to know -?”

“Mind your own business Anna!”

I laughed, “What? The possibility of seeing you in a tux declaring your love for Eric in front of family and friends, isn’t my business?”

“Just drive,” he snapped at me.

“Ok,” I chuckled as the car moved forward.

Beside me Mike was staring out the passenger window, mumbling to himself. I’m not sure what he was saying but I did catch him saying, “…and Jordan thinks he can handle her? Ha!”

A couple hours later, the girls and I were resting comfortably in our hotel beds. Natalie and Lindsay were sleeping soundly; they barely made it to bed before passing out. Cassie and I, on the other hand, we were still pretty much wide awake.

“Aunt Anna?” Cassie’s voice whispered in the darkness. “Are you still awake?”

“Yes,” I rolled over to face towards her bed. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” she sighed. “I was thinking about Ben and the message he left.” When we had gotten back to the room, the message light was blinking on the phone; it seemed that the phone call we got as we were leaving was Ben. Basically his message just said that he was calling to say ’hi’ and he just wanted hear Cassie’s voice. “Do you think something happened? He sounded a little upset, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know Cassie; I thought he sounded more sad than upset.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Maybe. I just wish I could call him.”

“I know you do Cass but it’s late and you know his parent’s won’t appreciate it if you call him right now.” She had tried to call his cell but it went to his voice mail. “There’s nothing you can do until morning.” Instead of saying any thing, she sighed deeply. “Look Cassie, stop thinking that it’s something bad. Ben said he wanted to hear your voice, maybe he misses you? You guys did just get back together and were planning on spending all day with each other yesterday.”

I could see it but I could feel that she was smiling, there was that happy tone in her voice when she said, “Yeah maybe he misses me.”

“Of course he does,” I whipped my pillow out from under my head and gently swung it her way, she squealed when it hit her. “Now go to sleep,” I laughed.

“You too,” she told me. “You need your beauty sleep for your breakfast date tomorrow.”

Around 12:50, I was still wide awake. I didn’t want to be but my mind wouldn’t shut down long enough for me to get some sleep; I was thinking about Mike and what he mumbled to himself in my car about Jordan thinking he could handle me. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it but my mind had taken his seemingly innocent words and put a naughty spin on it. That’s right, I was wide awake thinking about how it would be between Jordan and me in bed; I was very surprised that the thought of being naked with him didn’t weird me out.

When 1:30 rolled around, I was completely turned on and no closer to sleep; I decided I had enough. Pushing back the sheets, I grabbed my cell phone and quietly made my way to the bathroom.

“Ah!” I groaned as blinding white light flooded the room after I flicked the switch on. “Thank God for dimmer,” I said with a laugh as I lowered the lights to a soft inviting level. Leaning over the tub, I turned on the water, testing and adjusting the taps until it was the desired temperature before tugging the tub.

Turning from the tub, I flipped open my cell and with a couple presses of a few buttons, I was into my text message menu. I knew I could call him; it would probably be faster and ensure he replied but for some reason, I didn’t.

“It’s almost 2 in the morning and I’m wide awake.”

I sent the message, placed my phone on the vanity and picked up my brush. I tried not to obsessively look at my phone as I brushed my hair and then pulled it back into a messy bun.

Forcing myself to turn away from the vanity and my phone, I checked my bath water, added some bubbles and then started to remove my clothes.

I was about to slide my panties down over my hips when my phone beeped to tell me there was a new text. Smiling, I quickly picked up the phone and read his reply.

“I’m awake, I think. Call me Babe.”