Page 55 of Wait For Me

“What was that, Star?” Aunt Viv asked with her eyes wide in mock surprise even as they twinkled in amusement.

“Um, I thought Uncle Mack was in here too, sorry.” I turned to leave and go back to my room, but Bagger scrambled out of his seat and caught my arm.

“Star, I’m sorry that Missy threw her drink at you and ruined our dinner.”

I turned to him, looked him in the eye, and then laughed. “I don’t give a fuck that your little girlfriend decided to get catty with me.”

“Then why are you so angry right now?” He still hadn’t let go of my arm, so I snatched it away. “And she’s not my girlfriend,” he tacked on as he glared down at the loss of contact as though I’d just assaulted him.

“Why am I angry? Let’s see, I was assaulted in a restaurant while on a dinner date with you. You didn’t ask if I was okay, help clean me up, walk me out of that place, or do anything except give all your time and attention to the bitch who assaulted me. I wonder why I’m angry.”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“No, that’s what happened.”

“Star, that’s not…” He stopped mid-sentence and just stared at me, as he no doubt replayed everything in his mind. When he didn’t finish after a couple minutes, I nodded my head.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Now, I already said I’d have my lawyer draw the papers up again. I’ll let you know when they’re done and you can pick them up from his office. There’s really no need for us to meet again.”

I could have sworn I heard Aunt Viv say, “Damn,” but I was too busy walking away from Bagger to care.

“Star, wait!” He called out to me.

“What? You have time for me now?” I sassed.

“It’s not like that and you know it. You’re right, I should have handled that differently. It’s not like I have a whole lot of fucking experience doing the right thing with women. She was the first one I ever even dated exclusively.”

“Well, that experience was fitting then, because she’s still the one you’re giving all your attention to.”

“That’s not fair,” he growled.

“Life’s not fair,” I shot back.

“Who am I standing here arguing with?” He yelled at me as I turned to leave again. “Whose house am I standing in? I left about two minutes after you did. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to get out of the shower so that I could apologize and make sure that you were okay. I’m sorry that I didn’t do a better job with that initially. I guess, in a weird way, I thought I was doing the right thing by putting that bitch in her place. I can see where you thought it was something else though.”

There was a stubborn part of me that didn’t want him to be right, but I’d grown some over the years, and I knew that wasn’t the case. I was so used to people disappointing me that I looked for it now, before it became enough to hurt me.

“Come on,” I finally said to Bagger as I reached out for his hand. “Let’s go have a talk.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Aunt Viv called out in her teasing tone.

“I’ve heard what you do lately, I think we’ll be okay!” I shot back at her.

“Oh my God!” She squealed as Bagger laughed beside me.

“That was mean,” he whispered.

“No, it wasn’t. She’s probably sitting in there proud as a peacock right now, texting Uncle Mack to find out when he’ll be home.”

“I’m glad she’s doing better,” he admitted quietly. “We were all worried about Mack for a while there.” When I gave him an odd, questioning look, he shook his head. “Not that we didn’t worry about Viv too. It’s just that we all worried Mack would go completely off the rails if anything happened to her.”

“You’re probably not wrong. That was a big concern of mine too.”

“Whatever your reasons, and I know it was to do with your aunt and uncle, I’m fucking glad you came home, Star.”

I spun around and locked eyes with him before bumping my bedroom door with my butt so that I could pull Bagger into the room with me. “Can we skip the talk and go straight to the making up portion of the night?” I asked with all the fake coyness I could convey.

“Fuck, Twinkles! I’m all for the making up part, but do you really want to do that in Mack’s house?” I cringed a little which made the gorgeous man in front of me chuckle. “How about we talk a little, make out like we should have years ago, and then put the breaks on for tonight. Tomorrow, if you’re not busy, you can come to my place for dinner so there won’t be any surprises and we’ll see where things go from there.”

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