Page 25 of Falling for the Enemy

“Why are you asking me about that?”

“You’re a natural with kids, that’s all,” I told her. “I just wondered.”

It got tense. Alice looked between the two of us, probably not understanding what was going on. She would not be the only one. Why did it feel like Amber was mad at me? Just when I thought that I was starting to understand Amber, I was thrown a curveball and basically reminded that I didn't know anything.

After the tension passed, I did not say anything else about babies. I wanted to be truthful and tell her that I was thinking about it, and not in a way that she was taking it, but as a compliment. I had never thought about such things before and it was surprising, but also exhilarating. The idea that it upset her was hard to handle and for me, it was like a new revelation. For her it was something wrong. The more miscommunications that we had, the more I realized that there was still so much that I didn't know about her that I needed to find out. I wanted to ask her out on a proper date, but it would seem that Amber had her own set of rules. I was good with rules, understood rules and boundaries, but Amber made no sense.

I questioned if she even knew what it was she wanted. By the time we left the park, everybody was happy and tired. Alice talked us into going out for a few moments, and it was just another opportunity for me to spend some more time with her.

We found a place that had a playground and even though I honestly wanted to go jump in the vat of balls, I wanted to get to know Amber better. It was a little late in the game. I could see how the priorities were skewed, but it didn't matter the way it happened, as long as it happened. I was determined to get to know the woman who had changed everything. I went from staying away from women to craving her more than anything and wondering how I had ever lived without her. I didn't want it to be all for nothing and I didn't want it to ruin my chance. There was something special going on and if I had to do things old school, that's just what I was going to do.

23

Amber

“What's on your mind, Frank? You look so serious.”

“Do I?” he asked, not adding anything else but those two words.

I agreed that he did, and Frank said he had a lot on his mind. What that was, I didn't know, but he looked so serious it was hard not to comment. He had this fathomless look, and I was a little afraid to find out what it was.

“Not much on my mind. I'm just realizing now that I don't know all that much about you,” Frank conceded.

I told him that he knew enough, and I thought it would be cute and endearing, but he did not take it that way. Apparently he was being serious, and he looked at me in anticipation, like I was just going to give him my life story just like that.

Finally, I asked him what it was that he wanted to know and when he said everything, I kind of groaned inwardly.

“Most women want to talk about themselves. You can never shut them up, feelings, hard-pressed what-ifs. You don’t want to talk about none of that?”

“I’m not like other women.”

“Obviously,” Frank said with a scowl. Apparently it wasn’t a good thing to be different.

“Let me ask you a question.”

“Shoot. I'm an open book.”

I snorted, that was obviously not true. He was the one who liked to keep things close to his chest. We had been more or less pulled into some situations and I knew if it wouldn't have been that way, I never would have moved in that direction with Frank. At least I didn’t think so anyway. Some of the situations that we were involved in made this deep and fast connection understandable. But I didn’t know much more about him either, besides how he reacted in certain situations. Violently.

“Why do you want to know all of this about me?” I wondered aloud.

Frank got serious for a moment. “I've grown quite fond of you, which is unusual for me. I usually don’t get close to anyone.”

I laughed. “You know that's not really a glowing recommendation, right?”

“No, but it's the truth. You want the truth, don't you?” Frank queried.

I said that I did, but the truth felt like a loaded question.

“In truth, I hope that you will see that we are meant to be together. It also occurred to me earlier that there is so much that I don't know about you, and I want to. Through all the questions, we will become even closer.”

He made sense, even if I didn’t want him to. I was trying to figure out what to do in this situation, but I was flailing around.

“So, what are your questions?”

The first thing he wanted to know was why I had gotten so weird about the baby question. That was not a conversation that I wanted to have, and I probably would have rather fielded a question about my ex or something embarrassing that happened when I was young.

“My ex-husband and I talked about having kids for quite a while. He always put it off, said that it wasn't the right time, and you know, we’re divorced, so now I wonder if it'll ever be the right time again. I’m getting older. I know I have time, but it seems like such a waste now, and I guess I got all in my emotions.”

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