Only three chapters to go…We are coming to the end of the serial romance “Our Love is Here to Stay”. I hope you are enjoying the story. I would love to hear from you about both the story and the concept of serializing it. Meanwhile, if you want to own the eBook, it is not available for purchase on Amazon and other purchase sites.
“What do we do now?” Patty couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice which was rising in an unattractively shrill manner. “What if I’m not here when you get back?”
“It’s a month or two, Patty, that’s all,” Matthew reassured her, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “I’ve been gone for weeks before and you were always here when I returned. Always. I will be back as soon as possible.”
“I know you say that,” she accused, pointing a finger in a scolding manner, “and I am sure you mean it, but we have no control here. I’m scared.”
Matthew took her in his arms to comfort her, but Patty felt no comfort. Last Thursday he told her that his assignment was over and he was going back home. Ever since then she had been tossing, turning and crying – crying all the time but unable to explain why to anyone else.
Her mother suggested a doctor, her father recommended a vacation. Her work performance was slipping. Patty was terrified to leave the city, afraid of changing whatever it was that resulted in her being able to be with Matthew in their time warp.
“Don’t cry, honey,” Matthew begged her for the fourth time tonight. “You look so beautiful. That’s a new dress, right? I love the floral print.”
“Don’t change the subject on me, Matthew Herrington,” she commanded. “Yes it is a new dress, but your wiles won’t work. I want to know when you will be back.”
“Let’s dance,” he suggested. She gave him a scowl, thinking he was trying to distract her again until he added, “I just want to hold you in my arms.”
“Well, how can I argue with that?” she responded coquettishly, flashing the first real smile as hof the night. They held hands as they walked toward the dance floor, stopping to say hello to a few friends along the way. Now that Matthew was a regular, he knew everyone in Patty’s crowd by name, knew the wait staff and management, and the boys in the band, who always played extra slow songs for the couple.
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She stepped into Matthew’s embrace. It felt like coming home: secure, warm, natural. How would she go on not knowing when or if he would return? She felt the tears forming and looked up at Matthew’s handsome face with shimmering eyes.
“Honey,” he warned her “if you keep crying I will have no choice but to kiss away those tears.”
“Here? On the dance floor?” she taunted him.
“Right here where everyone can see.”
Patty had lost several friends since meeting Matthew six months ago. The talk that they ignored in the early stages of their relationship had given way to rumors and innuendo that had destroyed her reputation and relationships. At first she had been upset, but she grew a thicker skin with each passing week.
“Go for it,” she told Matthew, proud to have found a way to use another of his twenty-first century phrases. “Make it a good one.”
Matthew didn’t disappoint, pulling her tight against his muscular chest, lowering his head and taking her lips with his. He shifted his head to a slight angle for better access, resting his hands scandalously low on her back and teasing her with his tongue. Her blood heated in an instant, leaning into him for strength, wanting to be closer, to be naked against this man. She wanted to be the scandalous floozy her friends accused her of being.
Little by little, the couple had allowed themselves to increase their kisses, unable to keep their hands off each other any longer. She had lost all sense of place and time, just wanting his exploring hands on her aching breasts or between her legs where she was moist and throbbing. She was still embarrassed when she remembered that it was Matthew who stopped them from doing something shameful, not her.
“Remember where we are, Patty,” he reminded her in a low, husky voice, ,putting space between them and adjusting the obvious bulge in his pants. “We have to stop.”
Feeling desperate, aroused and hungry for more, Patty had suggested the unthinkable. “Let’s go in the men’s room. Who will know?”
“We will know, Hon. And so will the whole world if you get pregnant. How the hell would you explain that?” Twice Matthew had considered taking Patty to the men’s room and finishing what he started. Both times they had discussed birth control. She had not been offended, surprising herself by her willingness to consider the possibility of sex outside of wedlock.
“I need to think about it,” she had responded. “But I think you should buy the – you know – just in case.” Her face had flamed with heat and infused with color. If she couldn’t talk about it, how would she ever go through with it?
Their next birth control conversation was filled with disappointment. Matthew had been to the drugstore, but when he came into The Green Mill, his pockets were empty. He tried a second time with the same results. Like his phone, what he bought in 2015 wouldn’t transport to 1950.
She could never, ever buy them in 1950 to solve the problem. She would die of embarrassment. “The pharmacist knows me. He knows my family. I’m not married. How could I ever explain?” she confided to Matthew. “It would be too shameful.”
So she had settled for groping in the shadowy booth, getting as excited and as frustrated as Matthew was, but going no further than that. Tonight, she felt desperate, considered going much further with no protection. Thank god his cooler head prevailed. She had a bad feeling about the future – that this was goodbye.
How would she move past this? She was madly in love with Matthew. She had thought early on that she loved him, and now, six months later she was sure of it. His quirky phrases made her laugh. She loved his willingness to research that time before he was born, learn more about the future just so he could share it with her. She hung on his words he wove magic tales that were more fantastic than any science fiction stories. His handsome face, powerful hands and wondrous kisses inflamed her body and warmed her soul.
Patty wanted, more than anything, to have a future with him, to marry Matthew and have his children, but she was realistic too, feeling beyond fortunate each Thursday to discover that he was still there, in her life for another week. This felt too good to be true, and Patty had learned long ago to be suspicious of myths and legends. In truth, when she was away from Swing Night at The Green Mill, this entire situation felt like a fairytale, a fairytale that could never have a happy ending.
She was a strong woman and she would bear his departure even as she prayed for his return. But she was not stupid. She planned to do everything she could tonight to entice him back sooner. She would grab every moment she could with this amazing man.
“Slut,” she heard someone say under their breath, shaking her equilibrium and immediately killing the romantic moment. Matthew’s head shot up from the kiss, and he missed a dance step, avoiding her toe by barely an inch.
“Who said that?” Matthew looked around, fire in his eyes. She knew he was spoiling for a fight. He hated that people thought less of her for being with him, but she had reassured him she didn’t care. He once stopped kissing her for a whole week, but capitulated when she flirted and cajoled him to embrace her again.
He told her that in 2015 people kissed in public all the time. “Let’s pretend it’s 2015,” Patty suggested each time he hesitated to hold her or press his mouth to hers in hot kisses that she craved the other days of the week. “We are grown ups. Let all these people think what they want.”
Matthew was aware he was hurting Patty’s chances of meeting a nice man and settling down. He spoke to her of it often, including now, as he moved to leave the dance floor, hand in hand. Her friends had turned their backs – some friends, and the rumors even reached his own ears.
He told Patty of a night in the men’s room when a bunch of guys were trashing her. They called her ‘fast’ or ‘easy’ and speculated on just how far she would go. Their eyes grew wide and their mouths formed an alarmed O when they realized Matthew was in their midst. Matthew made a fish face when he imitated their surprised countenances for Patty. He repeated the incident as a cautionary tale, but all she did was laugh at Matthew’s fish face.
“Matthew, ignore them. It doesn’t matter. Just dance with me,” she begged, pulling him back onto the small wooden floor. “Hold me tight and dance with me.”
They finished the dance, although she felt the tension in his shoulders and understood he still wished he could hit someone. The moment was spoiled for them so as soon as the song ended they returned to their seats, sliding into the dark booth. Matthew slid an arm around her shoulder but she shrugged it off, turning to face him squarely, a serious glint in her eyes.
“What can you and Jonah do to get you back here sooner?” she queried with no preamble. “I have a bad feeling. I think anything more than a few weeks is risky.”
“Sweetheart, you’re overreacting. It will be fine.” Matthew was placating her, but Patty had this rock lodged in her chest – dark, overwhelming fear. She needed him to understand, but how did she explain what she saw as a sign when it was just a feeling? Oh hell, why not believe in premonitions at this point? They already believed in time-travel.
“Matthew, your sweet talk is not going to work. I have a bad feeling and it’s real. I just know it. You need to come back sooner. We cannot take a chance.”
“Patty, I am not sweet talking you. I would not risk what we have for anything, but I have so much to do to get things set up with Jonah. I can only quit my job if we get this new venture moving. If I am my own boss I can work from Chicago. If I can’t quit my job, they can send me anywhere. You understand that?”
“Of course I understand that,” she parroted. “But why so long? You are estimating six weeks or more. It’s too risky.”
“We have meetings scheduled. We need signed contracts with our first clients – the good news is that we have clients lined up. We need office space, furniture and a bit of cash on hand. That takes time. And I have to give at least two weeks notice.”
“Can’t you give notice while you do all that other stuff?” It made perfect sense to her. Why could he not see that?
Matthew blew an exasperated sigh through his lips. “Patty, love, this is hard for me too. Jonah and I have a plan. We have worked it out to complete in about six weeks and then I will come running back to you and a lovely Chicago autumn. You can teach me more steps of the Lindy Hop when I get back,” he offered.
“I don’t want to teach you the damn Lindy Hop,” she blurted, then covered her mouth in horror. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak to you that way. I am just so scared.”
She ducked her head, pressed her face into Matthew’s chest and inhaled the scent of him deep into her. Would she need to hold that scent for the rest of her life? She tried to shake off the bad feeling but it wouldn’t go away.
Matthew wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss atop her head. “It will be fine. Write me letters while I am gone. Tell me everything you are doing, thinking, feeling. I don’t want to miss a moment. No detail is too small. Then I will read them all when I return.”
Lifting her face for a kiss she whispered, “If I have my way, you will be much too busy doing other things to read.” She pressed her lips to his, softening her firm frown for a light kiss that quickly deepened with their passion. Patty clung to Matthew, forcing the kiss to go on and on when he might have pulled away. She had an awful feeling this kiss would be their last.
It was getting late. The crowd was thinning and she knew that Jonathan would step to the table shortly to notify them they had ten more minutes. The bouncer had taken to giving them a warning after he embarrassed them and himself by interrupting a particularly heavy petting session one evening not long ago. She still blushed at the memory when she came into the club each week.
If her premonition was correct, Patty had only a few more minutes to build a lifetime of memories. Fighting back the tears that threatened again, she held fast to Matthew’s hand, peppering his face with small kisses, whispering “I love you” and just staring at him. She was engraving his image on her brain, accompanied by the feel of his biceps under her fingertips, the scent of his shirt – sweat and man – and his hair, which smelled of a gel she wished she could buy and save for when he was gone.
She hung on every word, on the low timbre of his voice, hard to hear over the last of the music. “Sentimental Journey” would be their last song and she knew that it would make her cry every time she heard it after tonight. She ran her hands over his shoulders, down his arms, drew lazy circles on the backs on his strong hands. She touched his cheek, resting her hand there and then kissed him again, pouring all her emotion into that one kiss. She communicated her desire, hot and close to the surface, and an enduring love that shimmered and glowed in her.
He pulled away from the kiss reluctantly. She saw that he finally understood her desperation. She could see the fear in his brown eyes mirroring her own.
Jonathan arrived, he had missed his ten minute warning and they were out of time. “Sorry Mathew. Sorry, Patty. You two have to go now.” He moved his large body away on silent feet and left the lovers alone for one more minute.
They slid from the booth and Matthew handed Patty her cardigan sweater, wrapping it gently around her shoulders, moving her hair aside to place a soft kiss on her neck. She turned in his arms and pressed hard against him. Her arms remained at her sides. She feared if she held him now she would never let go. The fear had grown to certainty. She knew she would never see him again.
“I’ll be back soon,” he told her one more time. “The time will fly by.”
“I’ll wait, Matthew. I’ll wait forever.”