Suddenly, a future with Mickey struck me with blinding clarity.
I had Cliff Blue. I’d paid for it in cash. I’d made it all me.
But Mickey lived in his childhood home he worked hard to keep. It was older, more worn, more lived in, friendlier, more welcoming. It was a family home in a very good neighborhood.
My home was a multi-million dollar show home that I’d made suitable for a family.
If this worked, if we had a future, the decision would have to be made and Mickey wouldn’t want to give up his home, where he grew up, a home he worked a job he hated to provide for his children, and then move them all in with me.
That was just the beginning. Life was life but some of the ways life could sock it to you, I would never feel.
If I had a leak in my roof, I’d hire someone to fix it. If a storm washed half of Cliff Blue into the sea (God forbid), I wouldn’t blink at rebuilding in so far as flying Prentice Cameron from Scotland to oversee it was done correctly.
There were birthdays and Christmases and special occasions where I’d have to curb my generosity and my ability to give it. And if we blended families, this would not only be for him and his children, but to keep things fair, my children as well.
And each time, he’d know. He’d feel it. He’d understand to keep an even keel, my kids would feel it.
And that would eat at him.
It was then I understood why people like me partnered with people like me. Why my mother drilled it into my head at every opportunity just what kind of man I needed to find.
Conrad had fit that bill not only because he was a neurosurgeon who made an excellent salary, but because he came from money. His family was not as wealthy as mine but they were far from hurting. Like me, he’d lived a privileged life and had his own trust fund. He started his practice without crippling student loans to repay because his parents had paid for every penny of his education.
Before I made the decision to move on with Mickey, I needed to know down to my soul that I could give him what he needed and I could accept what he could give me.
It was then I thought of waking up in his bed in his masculine bedroom in his family house in a very nice neighborhood, doing it with Mickey making love to me.
Sure, his fireplace was not as stylish as mine and my daybed would not match his furniture.
But I’d go to sleep in Mickey’s bed with Mickey and wake up with Mickey. A Mickey I hoped was falling in love with me. A Mickey who would never cheat on me. A Mickey who teased me and annoyed me and got me deals on cars I didn’t need because I could afford to overpay. A Mickey who protected me, and even when we were fighting and the sex started rough and distant, it was fabulous and we ended up connected in more ways than just physically.
I had had the partner I was supposed to have and he nearly destroyed me.
And it shook me tremendously to understand that if the good I got from Mickey kept going, got better, I’d give up everything to keep it.
This shook me because the problem with all of that was convincing Mickey to believe it and getting him past any concerns he had about sacrifices I was willing to make to have a man at my side who truly cared, who looked out for me, who I enjoyed annoying me, who made me laugh, made me happy and who was phenomenal in bed.
“Amy,” he called when I didn’t speak.
“Do you understand that will always be just what I need?” I asked.
“I think that’s dawning on me.”
“If this works,” I whispered, “I get to go all out for Christmas. Birthdays, we keep it real. I don’t want to one-up you or make you feel anything but good about what we give the kids and I don’t want you competing with what we give each other. But Christmas, just Christmas, I get to go crazy and we can say it’s from Santa.”
“Crazy in the sense checkin’ off more than a few items on a wish list is a crazy where I can deal. Crazy in the sense you buy each kid a Porsche and take us all on a family cruise of the Caribbean on the staffed yacht you buy me, no.”
“Do you want a yacht?”
“Do you know how steep Magdalene Harbor slip fees are?”
“No.”
“Just sayin’, no, I don’t want a yacht or even a dingy, I gotta pay slip fees and it sits there with me not usin’ it because I’m busy working, with my kids or fuckin’ my woman.”
I started giggling but stopped abruptly and called, “Mickey?”
He didn’t answer. He just tightened his arms around me.
So I kept going.
“I have a lot. I can have most anything I want. But there are only five things in the world that mean so much to me I’d do anything to keep. Auden. Olympia. Lawrie. Robin. And now…you.”
He moved then, sliding me off his cock and shifting to fall back at the same time turning me so when he was on his back in the bed, my weight was on him, chest to chest.
He slid his hands into my hair on either side to hold it away from my face.
“She didn’t,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
“She didn’t do anything to keep me.”