“Really?” I said as I raised my legs over the seat of the bike, “Okay, walk over to the booth and ask for a rider ticket and a passenger ticket, and pay for them. Then see if they keep staring at the bike, or if their eyes follow you,” I said as I reached for my wallet.

“You got it, boss,” she said as she accepted the $50.

As she walked across the lot, the majority of the people who were gathered around talking watched her. When she reached the booth, several people walked up to her side or along the edge of the bench and stared. After a few seconds, a few of the men were talking to her. I began to feel slightly jealous, and then the guilt set in. I felt bad for having her walk to the booth alone. I wiped my hands on the thighs of my jeans and began walking briskly toward the booth to save her from the threat of the horny bikers who were surrounding her.

As I got closer to the booth I noticed a familiar bike with a familiar asshole, and very familiar bitch standing beside it. Chloe and Bart were burning holes through me with their eyes as I got closer. As I stepped beside Rain, Chloe continued to stare.

I tapped Rain on the shoulder. As she turned around, I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her deeply. As I pulled away, she looked at me with a face filled with surprise.

“What…uhhm, what was that for,” she asked as she wiped her lips with her finger.

I pulled her close to my chest and whispered into her ear.

“I’ve been waiting almost two months to work up the courage to do that,” I said.

“Oh Lord,” she sighed.

And, considering how kissing her made me feel, oh Lord was a pretty damned accurate statement.

ETHAN

Although the poker run was fun, I wondered if kissing Rain at the point in time I chose to was in my best interest. She made no comments to the contrary, but her actions for the rest of the day left me feeling she didn’t enjoy it near as much as I had. As a result, I spent the entire day acting as if it didn’t happen. She was her normal playful, joyous, and appreciative of everything self, but sexually forward or receptive to my nonchalant comments for the remainder of the day she was not.

Initially, I wondered if my timing was just off, but later considered the fact she may have seen photos in my room of Chloe, and recognized her standing to the side of the booth with Bart. The thought of Rain thinking Chloe prompted the kiss out of spite, even though in some respects that was what had happened, sickened me. As a result, I discarded all of my old photos of Chloe, and was making an honest effort to move on with my life and proceed along a new path of having a clear mind and a clean conscious.

Now, as I gazed at the ceiling above my bed and studied the shadows the street lights cast against the concrete, I recalled the night Rain slept in my bed and we spent the entire night talking. What I wouldn’t give for a lifetime of having her by my side. Something about being in her presence made all of my thoughts of inferiority simply fade away. She was no doubt a very special woman, but something about her was calming, and almost magical. Having her beside me on that night allowed all of the feelings of my past disappear and only Rain and thoughts of her remained.

After some serious thought, I decided maybe I simply needed to take a step backward, be a more conventional person, and ask her on a date. All women liked to be taken on a date, and I believed if I explained myself, and expressed my lack of expectation regarding sex, she may agree not only to go, but she might do so with a more open mind and far less wonder regarding my intent.

Now feeling like nothing short of a fool, I decided I would just do that, ask her on a date. All I needed to do was decide the when and the where, and go from there. I tilted my head to the side, gazed through my bedroom door, and into the living room. A flicker of light from the second floor on the carpet in the center of the room let me know Rain was still up reading. Since she moved in, she spent more time reading than anything else.

It pleased me that she enjoyed reading, and I wondered what she read when she stayed up odd hours of the night doing so. Filled with regret for kissing her without warning, and potentially ruining any chances of making the advancements with her I hoped to make in the future, I rolled over, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

RAIN

Ethan’s kiss didn’t disturb me, but it caught me off guard. I wondered how much differently things would have been if he had kissed me a month before he did. It isn’t necessarily the events in our life which determine the path we walk upon, but the sequence in which they unfold. The exact same events, placed before us in a different order, alter the outcome of our life drastically.

I sat and wondered what I would choose if I was able to rewind the clock and place events in certain order, yet be forced to live with the outcome. After shuffling things around in every imaginable way, I decided I didn’t have the ability to choose, and the exercise was futile.

Frustrated, I covered my head with the pillow and tried to be grateful for what I had. Try as I might, I could not stop thinking of Ethan, and how he made me feel safe. In his presence, I felt as if nothing or no one could harm me. He provided me unique feeling of comfort I had never felt before, and doubted I would ever feel again.

After considering my feelings may be a result of having not had a father in my life, I dismissed the thoughts, and decided he was nothing more than a man who was slightly older than me, and more capable than any other man I had ever met when it came to matters of making me feel secure and safe. His dreams and aspirations in life were no different than mine, and I admired him for sharing them with me.

Trying to think of living my life without Ethan or Cade made my head hurt, and I eventually chose not to think about it at all. I removed the pillow from my face, stared up at the ceiling, and recalled the night I slept in Ethan’s room without sleeping. We had stayed up all night talking until the sun came up the next day. I had never slept with a man all night before, and even though we hadn’t slept, I looked at Ethan, and would always look at Ethan, as my first male sleepover.

The more I tried not to think about it the more I thought about it. I compared the differences between Cade and Ethan, and wondered which one would be better for me in the long run. In a perfect world, a combination of Ethan’s considerate nature and tough persona, coupled with Cade’s neatness, nurturing qualities, and innocence would make the perfect man for me.

As I was well aware of the fact I couldn’t combine the two men into one, I wondered if it was possible that I loved them both, and if so, if it was probable I could in fact love them both. As I considered my options, and fought with my feelings, I eventually grew tired and fell asleep to thoughts of having them both at my side.

RAIN

As an adult, I had never had the benefit of asking an outsider or a friend for an opinion. My decisions were always made based on what I thought was best for me, and they landed me without a job, home, money, or family. Even though I wouldn’t consider or describe myself as a fool, I felt pretty comfortable admitting I had made some rather foolish decision in my lifetime. Now, having the luxury of being able to say I had multiple friends in my life, I decided I would lean on one for some much needed advice.