Chapter 9

September faded into October, then October to November. The fall days rolled by quickly for Brian as his friendship with Alexa grew. She was the first person-- really the only person-- that he’d let into his life since his wife had passed away. It was comforting when he looked at Alexa and her eyes didn’t bleed with pity and sorrow for what he’d lost. To Alexa, he wasn’t Brian, “the Backstreet Boy who lost his wife”, or Brian, “my good friend whose wife tragically passed away”; he was just Brian. When they were together, he let the sadness that had surrounded him for so many years finally take a backseat. It was when she left his side and he was completely alone in the home that he had once shared with his wife that he still felt immeasurably guilty.

He felt guilty for starting to feel good again. He felt guilty for spending time with a woman other than his wife. He felt guilty for letting Hayden slip from his thoughts for long moments at a time. His head continuously told him that he shouldn’t feel guilty. He had done nothing wrong and no matter how badly he felt about it, his wife really was gone and she was never coming back. His heart, however, would scream in opposition, yearning to hold onto Hayden with every beat. His heart would achingly argue that it wasn’t true, that she hadn’t really been on that plane and that she was still coming back someday.

Still, there was no denying one simple fact. He was intensely physically attracted to Alexa. Some days, his muscles ached just to know how she would feel in his arms. At night, a new set of dreams began to mix in with his faithful recurring nightmares. They were of him and Alexa, sweaty and grunting wildly on a set of red silk sheets in an Eden-like garden. White flower petals drifted down around them as he did things to her that could make a grown-man blush. They would come to a climax together with a final thrust. He would shudder as she moaned his name. Finally, as their bodies began to relax, he would place soft butterfly kisses along her collar bone as she ran her hands through his hair. She would kiss the top of his head and whisper softly into his ear, “I love you.”

When he awoke from that dream, Brian would immediately jump out of bed no matter the time and into an ice cold shower. As the water ran down his body, he would begin to cry uncontrollably. The day after, he could hardly look at Alexa without blushing.

Weekly dinners together had become a Tuesday night ritual. They would take turns bringing pizza, Chinese food or some other bad-for-you type of takeout to each other’s houses. Some nights they talked about things of little to no importance and others, they talked about religion, politics, love and loss.

One Tuesday in October, Brian was having a particularly difficult day. It would have been his seven-year wedding anniversary. Naturally, he was broken up inside, so he didn’t answer the door when Alexa rang the doorbell. The entire day, Brian had stayed in bed with the curtains drawn. With the house as dark as he could make it, he attempted to sleep the once-happy memories away. Alexa, however, wasn’t having it. She wasn’t going to let him feel sorry for himself. She walked around the house to the back patio area and let herself in through the unlocked back door. She marched up to Brian’s room and made him get out of bed. Together, they sat on the floor as Brian played Hayden and his wedding video over and over. Silent tears fell down his cheeks the entire time. As Alexa watched from her place on the floor next to Brian, she didn’t throw around clichés about moving on and being happy. She didn’t say a word. She was just there. Since that night, Alexa didn’t chance ringing the doorbell. Instead, at exactly 7 o’ clock, she walked right in through the front door. Tonight was apparently going to be Greek-themed. She walked in with two large plastic bags full of food from the local Greek restaurant, Skorpios. When she walked in, Brian met her in the foyer and smiled as she struggled to close the door behind her. He shut the door and took the bags from her hands.

“Are you expecting company? Or are you just really hungry tonight?” Brian asked laughingly as he surveyed the amount of food that littered the bags.

Alexa laughed and shrugged. “I wasn’t really sure what you liked so I got a little bit of everything. Oh, and…” She paused to pull a DVD case out of her purse. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It seemed appropriate.”

Brian shook his head and chuckled softly. They walked into the living room where Brian set the food down on the coffee table while Alexa put the movie in the DVD player. After pressing play, she turned around to take her place on the couch and noticed a suitcase leaning against the staircase banister. “Are you going somewhere?” She asked, nodding to the suitcase.

Brian turned around to see what she was referring to, then nodded slowly. "Oh," he replied, suddenly remembering his trip. “Yeah, I’m obligated to go to Kentucky for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh,” Alexa replied, feeling slightly disappointed. Jenny had flown home for the holidays earlier in the week. For some reason, she hadn’t thought about Brian being gone, too. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow. I come back on Sunday. What about you? I was surprised that you didn’t fly back with Jenny a couple days ago.” Brian replied, taking a large bite of his grilled chicken pita.

Alexa shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere. I used to have Thanksgiving with Jenny’s family, but her parents recently moved to Florida, so I don’t see that much of them anymore.”

Brian looked at Alexa sadly. The thought of her spending the holidays alone killed him. Right after Hayden died, he had begged to spend Thanksgiving alone, but when he didn’t go to his family in Kentucky, his family had come to him. At the time, it was torturous having his mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law hanging around feeling sorry for him. He watched the couples’ stolen kisses and warm embraces with envy. As he thought about it now, he was thankful that they hadn’t let him spend the holidays alone. A lot of dates had been ruined in his life--Valentines Day, Hayden’s birthday, his wedding anniversary—he was grateful that his family wouldn’t allow Thanksgiving and Christmas add to that list. “What about your sister? You two seem close. What is she doing?”

“I’ve told you that her husband is a politician. He’s the state representative for Maryland. They’ve got all kinds of charity events and volunteer work that they do. Thursday night they have dinner at this fancy White House party.”

“Your brother-in-law is Lance something or the other, right? That really young guy, only a couple of years out of college? He won state representative in a big, unprecedented way?”

Alexa nodded, proudly.

“Yeah, they were talking about him on the news the other day. He was sending a message out begging his sister-in-law to visit him on Thanksgiving.” Brian smirked as Alexa swatted him with a couch pillow.

“I’m not invited to the White House,” She laughed. “It’s fine. I’ll be with them for Christmas.”

Brian paused thoughtfully. “You should come home with me.”

“What? No way.” Alexa shook her head. “Your family doesn’t even know me.”

“That’s never mattered before.” Brian shrugged. He almost couldn’t believe that he was asking her to come two states away with him to spend Thanksgiving with his family, but the idea actually kind of excited him. He wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer.

“Well, it matters now.” She laughed again. No way am I going to turn into a tri-state deceitful bitch, Alexa thought to herself mournfully, though she kind of wished that she could accept his invitation. The thought of spending Thanksgiving with Brian and his family warmed her insides, but deep down she knew that she couldn’t go with him. It wouldn’t be right.

“Come on! It’ll be fine. I could use the company driving all the way up there-”

“And you’re driving!” Alexa exclaimed. “No. No way. Nothing that you can say will convince me to get into a car with you for that long. Just going through Atlanta with you is scary enough.”

Brian laughed. “It’s not that long of a drive. 6 hours maybe.” He leaned back against the couch and rolled his head toward her. “It would make me really happy if you came. Otherwise, it’s only going to ruin my holiday to think that you’re home alone on Thanksgiving.”

Alexa rolled her eyes. “It will not. Besides Brian, how weird is that? It’s like you’re bringing a date home. Everyone will make a big deal out of it.”

He hadn’t really thought about it like that, but still, it didn’t matter. He knew that if he went to Kentucky alone, he would miss her terribly for the next five longs days. The realization that he really just didn’t want to be without her both frightened and excited him. “It won’t be like that. I’ll call my mom tonight and let her know that I’m bringing you with me. She’ll be excited.”

“I don’t know, Brian.” Alexa bit her bottom lip. Apprehension was written across her face. Against her better judgment, she was starting to cave in. “I would feel like I was imposing and-”

“That’s crazy. I asked you to come, you aren’t imposing. You’re being ridiculous. No one wants to be alone on a national holiday.” Brian paused, waiting for her to respond. When he could see that he almost had her convinced, he continued. “If I have to, I’m going to go across the street, pack your suitcase for you and throw you into my car.”

Alexa blew a fallen piece of hair out of her face and knew that she was beat. There was no way that he was leaving here tomorrow without her. Part of her was flattered, another part was terrified. “Couldn’t we at least fly?”

Brian stared at her with a blank expression on his face. “I don’t fly.”

Alexa sighed and nodded her head. “I know.”

“Besides, Aly, it’s only-“ He stopped and knitted his eyebrows at the smile radiating off of Alexa’s face. “What?”

“You called me Aly.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but you’ve never called me that before.”

Brian shook his head and laughed. “Whatever. What I was going to say before I was interrupted by that smirk on your face is that it’s only a six hour drive. It’s not worth the money to fly.”

“I get it. It’s fine. We’ll drive. Just be gentle with me, otherwise, my sister will murder you.” She laughed as Brian rolled his eyes again.

“I’m not that bad of a driver.”

“Eh,” Alexa replied, shrugging one shoulder. “He said, she said. So, where are we staying?”

A wide grin spread across Brian’s face. “Well, I was going to stay at my mom’s house.”

Alexa shook her head violently from side to side. “No. That’s my stipulation. If I go with you, we stay at a hotel.”

“Deal.” Brian replied quickly and chuckled to himself.

Alexa looked up to the ceiling and sighed playfully. “You didn’t want to stay your mom’s house anyway. I feel used.”

“Good,” Brian joked. “That’s how I like my women.”

Alexa rolled her eyes and laughed. “I guess I should go home and start packing then. So much for ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’.”

Brian got up and extended his hands to help Alexa off of the couch. As she stood, his hands lingered in hers for a moment. He let go quickly and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and followed her to the foyer.

As she was heading out the door, she turned to Brian. “So, what time do we leave tomorrow?”

Brian smiled, knowing how much she was going to like his answer. “6 a.m.”

“Ugh,” she groaned with a smile. “I really hate you sometimes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Brian watched her begin down his porch steps. Without thinking, he grabbed onto her arm before she was out of reach. He didn’t want her to go. He knew how he was going to feel as soon as he shut the door. He wanted to avoid that feeling for as long as possible. He wanted to feel good for just a little while longer.

She turned around expectantly, shocked by the looked in his eyes. “What’s up?”

He let go of her arm sheepishly and looked away from her burning gaze. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m really glad that you’re coming home with me.”

Alexa laughed softly. “Once the introductions are over, I’m sure that I’ll be glad, too.”

Brian watched as Alexa finished descending the stairs. Once she was safely inside her house, he closed his front door, walked into the living room and threw himself down onto the couch with a sigh. Suddenly, he was starting to regret asking her to make the trip with him. His insides were burning with desire for her. He knew that the feeling was not one that was going to go away easily.

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. When his eyes reopened, he was face to face with the wedding portrait that was in its place on the mantle in front of him. I’m sorry that I’m so weak, he prayed silently to his wife. I’m only a man.