Page 42 of Born To Be My Baby

"Gloria, what do you want to eat and drink?"

She cleared her throat. "I'd like a cup of coffee and a piece of pie."

He laughed. "Pumpkin?"

She giggled slightly. "Yes."

He grinned, winked at Mina, and left the room.

She turned back to Mina and stared into her eyes. Mina reached forward, slowly so as not to cause pain, and took Gloria's hand in hers. "Do you still love him?"

Gloria scoffed. "How could I? We barely know each other at this point."

"Do you love that he's here and knows about me?"

"Love?" Gloria shrugged. "My feelings are all over the place, Mina. I've missed the hell out of him for all the years he's been gone. Every time I looked at you, my heart hurt all over again. But he's been so solicitous last night and today. I know he's hurt beyond belief at what's happened. I don't know how I can ever make that up to him. I know he's still handsome and my heart still beats rapidly when he looks at me. I know I'd love for us to get past this and perhaps start all over. But I don't know what that looks like."

Mina's eyes looked over her head and past her. Gloria spun around, immediately sorry she did because her muscles rebelled. But Sean's face had a look on it she'd never seen before, and it took a few moments for her to realize he'd heard her.

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Sean slowly stepped into the room. He swallowed the knot that had grown in his throat. She wanted them to get past this. She didn't know what it would look like. He didn't either, to be honest. And he meant what he said when he told Mina that every time he touched her, he was both happy and sad. How can a person be so torn?

And then this ridiculous accident happened, and the reporters, and that stupid makeup girl blew everything up, and they didn't even have private time to talk about any of this. That's what they really needed. Probably here wasn't the right place.

But then again, putting it off, well look what happened last time.

He looked at Gloria. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. I just forgot to ask you if you still drank your coffee with cream and sugar."

He saw Gloria swallow and take a deep breath. She twisted her fingers together in her lap. "I just take creamer now, no sugar, you know, middle age weight gain and all."

He swallowed again and nodded. "Okay, glad I asked. I'll be right back."

He turned, his body felt wooden, and he felt like time was in slow motion as he walked down the hall. He better get that psychologist sooner rather than later.

Also, something he knew was that he had songs just running themselves through his head and he knew he'd have to get to the Barn tomorrow and work with Jami on some of them. Or maybe he'd spend some time working on them tonight at home after Gloria went to sleep. He needed to get some of these words out of his head because what he knew right now was it was hard to focus on anything. And he needed to focus on everything. He needed to focus on what their path was going forward. He needed to get with Tony and find out what their next tour schedule was and what was going on next. He needed to get these words out of his head so he didn't forget them, but also they were already writing their next album. And the way he felt right now, he knew he could throw every ounce of passion and feeling and energy into any song he wrote today. And he needed to figure out how he and Mina were going to move forward. He didn't even know where she lived. Somewhere outside of Tampa, which really wasn't the worst. He was in Blossom Springs and that was only about an hour from Tampa, so proximity wasn't an issue. But when he was on the road, it might be.

And to be quite honest, Monday when Gloria met with the network, she might be out of work, so that might change things for Mina, also. But there was no sense making decisions on supposed-to, and might-be, and could-be. And tomorrow he wasn't going to find a family psychologist since it was a Sunday, certainly not tonight, Saturday night. Suddenly, he didn't feel all that hungry.

That lasagna Olivia made was fantastic and held them off for a long time. He'd get some coffee and maybe something light to eat and perhaps after they had a couple words and some time to chat a little, he'd feel a little bit better about eating something.

But right now, the thought of food was unpleasant in his stomach. And that was unusual for Sean West. That boy ate. It had been kind of a joke in the band. He was always munching on something, snack food, or the like. But as Gloria mentioned, he was fifty-two now, and middle-aged, he noticed that the pounds came on a little bit faster than they used to.

And it wouldn't kill him to cut back on the junk food. And time marches on. He entered the cafeteria, glanced at the case where the main courses were. The menu above boasted Salisbury steak. Just reading that made his stomach quell. And then the smell, while it wasn't a bad smell, made his stomach lurch a little bit more.

He quickly moved on, found a pumpkin pie with whipped cream on it for Gloria. He didn't feel like he wanted to eat anything like that. But he saw a cup with gelatin in it. He thought maybe he could nibble on that. He moved to the coffee station and poured two cups, creamer in both. And then he carried his tray to the register and paid for their food, such as it was. Plastic forks and napkins were at the end of the counter. He grabbed some of those and then began carrying the tray back up to the room.

His phone rang, and he didn't know how he was going to answer it. So he stopped in the main atrium area, set the tray on a table, and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"West." Laughing came over the other end. It was Jami.

"Hey, Sean, how are you doing? Sorry I haven't called before this. Tony updated me a little bit. But I just wanted to check in for myself. Are you okay?"

“Why are you laughing?”

“You obviously didn’t see my name on your phone and answered, ‘West’.”

He filled Jami in on all the goings on, what had happened, and where they were at in this moment. "But, Jami, I've got words and songs flying through my head right now and if I don't get them out of there, I'm going to go insane. So I think I'd like to come out to the Barn tomorrow. If you're busy, that's fine. But I'm going to go to the Barn and sit in the studio a little bit and see if I can get some of these words put to music. We'll see what we've got here."

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