It Pours Read online

  “Er…” A young man carrying a pizza box walked up behind Charlie Grace. His face was flushed and his neck was reddening. “I’ve got a pizza deliver here.” He reached around the stone statue that was my mother.

  I placed the palms of my hands firmly against my eyes and pushed in with force in the hopes of blocking out the scene that was playing out in front of me. Nope. Everyone still stood in place. My only assumption was Mo was as frozen behind me as the two in front of me.

  I took the box from the boy and handed him the folded bills. “Keep the change.”

  He scurried away without another word.

  Charlie Grace blinked before she looked back and forth between my face and the one that must have been over my right shoulder. “Rayne, there’s a half dressed woman standing behind you.” She looked back at me. “And you’re hardly dressed yourself.”

  All I could do was step aside to allow her in and hopefully close the door before my neighbors saw the chaos unfold before them. “I suppose you should come inside, Mother.”

  “I’m not sure I want to do that now.” Her fingers whitened as her fist tightened on the purse strap.

  “You’re not one for scenes, Mother. Please let’s not change that now.”

  She pursed her lips as she stepped pass me, leaving the overnight bag at the door. I wheeled the bag inside, closed the door and turned. Mo’s outfit, which had caused a much different reaction in the pit of my stomach, was now the highlight of the scene that could very well be the collapse of my life as a known straight woman. I leaned the bag against the wall and came to stand between Charlie Grace and Mo as they gazed at each other.

  “I’m going to go get dressed.” Mo’s voice cracked.

  “Yes, I think that would be a novel idea, young lady.”

  “Mother,” I said sternly and then looked back at Mo. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you go back to the bedroom?”

  “Back to the bedroom. What the hell is going on here, Rayne?” Charlie Grace let her purse fall with a thud to the floor.

  Mo looked between us before retreating down the hallway into the back room.

  “Mother, please calm down. Let’s talk.”

  “Talk? You want to talk?”

  “Yes, I would like to talk. Can we go sit down?” I pointed to the sofa in the living area.

  “No we cannot sit down. There is a half-naked woman in your apartment. A half-naked woman that obviously knows her way to your bedroom. And more importantly it seems you’re just as naked as she is.”

  “Can we get off the subject of our clothing and onto why you pop in on me since we’ve barely talked in the last couple of weeks?”

  “I don’t see that as being the topic at hand, no.”

  “This is my home. I’m a grown woman. I can live and do in my own home as I wish. You came unannounced.”

  “Oh, please excuse my ill manners. I didn’t know I had to call and ask my daughter permission to come see her.” She put her hand over her chest as if she was appalled I had made such an accusation.

  “Don’t get dramatic.”

  “Me? Me get dramatic? Look at your hair.” She flipped my bangs between her fingers before I could move my head out of her reach.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Well look at it. You cut it so short and then bleach these ridiculous looking highlights. Is that her? Is that her influence?” She pointed down the hallway to the closed bedroom door.

  “I can wear my hair however I want.” I tightened the loosening robe around my waist. It was that or slam my hand down on the table in front of us, which would have given her a real reason to call me the dramatic one. I would not give her that pleasure. This was my house—my life.

  “Is Miss I-don’t-wear-clothes the reason you called off your engagement? Does Grant know about her?”

  “No, she isn’t actually and no he doesn’t. Couldn’t you give me a little credit that maybe he isn’t being completely honest here. That maybe he isn’t an innocent victim. That maybe all of this is not entirely my fault. Every time I called you all you could do was say how I hurt him. How this was all of my fault. Have you ever considered maybe there is more to this story?”

  “You are sleeping with a woman, Rayne Amber Storm. Please tell me how you can twist this around to be anything but a result of your own actions and therefore entirely your fault.”

  “Whatever, Mother.”

  “I’m sorry, this is somehow Grant’s fault? Or hey better yet, maybe you can turn this around to being a result of my bad mothering.”

  I let my back fall into the opposite wall of the hallway. “I didn’t say that. I never said that. This is me. This is who I am and who I’ve always been.”

  “Who you are? So, you’re gay all of a sudden?”

  “Not all of a sudden.”

  “So little Miss Hot-to-trot is going to be my son-in-law? Is that what you’re saying? You hear that little Miss Hot-to-trot.” She raised her voice. “Are you going to be my son-in-law now?” She started to walk down the hallway toward the bedroom.

  I grabbed her arm above her elbow to stop her. “Leave her alone, Mother. She has nothing to do with me and you or even Grant. She never tried to come between us or ask me to make any changes where he was concerned.”

  “Oh, she just fucked you.”

  I felt my eyes widen to the callous tone of her foul language. I couldn’t remember a time I had heard her ever use that word before. Much less did I ever imagine she would use it in such a way toward me.

  “Well, that makes it all the better doesn’t it?” Just as quickly as the vulgarity had flown, she returned to the southern belle accent and tone.

  “I think you need to go.”

  She picked up her purse and gave me the hardest look I had received from her eyes. “Yes, I think I should.”

  ***

  Several minutes passed before I could walk into the bedroom. I hated the fact Mo had not only been a witness to Charlie Grace’s worse side but she had also had a portion of it directed at her.

  “You’re not staying?”

  Mo looked up from her duffle bag. “I think it would be best if I didn’t. Don’t you?” She turned back to the bag and shoved a pair of folded jeans into it.

  “Actually, no. I don’t.” I leaned against the doorjamb. “I was hoping you would stay.”

  Mo stopped her packing and sat hard on the edge of the bed. “Rayne, that was a bit much you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think I want to be here when she gets back.”

  “She won’t come back.”

  “Ha. I somehow don’t think all of that is over yet.”

  “Oh no. It’s not.” The crumbled white linen behind her was a sore reminder of the time we had lost with Charlie Grace’s surprise visit. Even without her consciously knowing, she was playing a hand in the demise of Mo and me. “She’ll wait for me to come to her. She won’t come back here.” She won’t have to.

  Mo bent over to put on a sock. “I’ve never really had to deal with the whole parent issue.” She put the other sock on over her toes. “Mine were gone before my being a lesbian was an issue and well.” She ran her thumb underneath the band of the sock and patted the side of her leg.

  “You’ve never been the girlfriend type to have to deal with it before either.”

  Mo sat straight up but looked at the wall instead of me. “No, I haven’t.”

  I sat next to her on the bed. “I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend or do any of what you just saw because of me. You know that, right?”

  “I know.” She traced her fingers down the finger recently bare of the white gold engagement ring. “This never bothered me. I mean it didn’t change us.”

  “I know.” I kicked at her duffle bag with my big toe. “And it doesn’t have to change us now.”

  “Did you do it for me? Break off your engagement because of me? Because of what you wanted or hoped would become of us?”

  “Well.” I leaned back
on my elbows. “Not because of you per say but in a sense because of this.” I motioned between us. “A part of the reason is because of the feelings I have when I’m with you. I knew with S…I knew before that I was a lesbian. Knew but didn’t accept.” I slid my hand across the comforter to rest on top of hers. “With you, I accepted.”

  She sat there—motionless.

  I brought my hand tighter over the top of hers and let her fingers fill my palm. “Mo?”

  Motionless.

  “I don’t want you to go.” I squeezed her hand with each word to emphasize my deepest desire for her not to leave in this moment or in the ones to follow.

  The painful tug at my heart was beyond evident with the way her hand didn’t turn to hold mine. It was in that moment I knew definitively she meant more to me than a physical answer to a long sought out question. She had gotten in. Not to the degree Sam had found her way to my heart, but in nonetheless. I dared not tell her it was more than sex to me. I dare not tell her I had grown deep feelings for her. Not now.

  Instead I continued to plead with her. “Mo? Please. Please stay.”

  Mo’s expression said everything. It was more than her leaving the moment. She was leaving the situation. She was leaving me.

  “You’re not just leaving today are you? You’re leaving…leaving.”

  She stood from the bed and turned her back to me. “Rayne. I…” She walked across the room to sit on the floor next to her boots. She slipped on a boot, pulled the laces tight but left them untied. “I’m not girlfriend material. It’s not who I am. I never asked you to be anyone other than who you were. You can’t…it’s not right for you to ask that of me?”

  “Did I say that was what I wanted from you?”

  “No, but look at everything. You cancelled your engagement. And now you have to deal with your mother. Just think about what is down the pike for you. This is the tip of the iceberg.” She tugged tightly at the laces again and then tied them in a bow. She pulled her jeans leg back over the boot and played with the hem. “You’ll look to me for support. You’ll want me to be here. You know I never stay long in one place.”

  I knelt in front of her feet. “Mo, I’m a big girl who can take care of herself. I’m not asking you to do anything but keep it…keep us like we are.”

  She said nothing nor looked up at me. She pulled at her other pants leg to slide the other boot on.

  I placed my hands on her bent knees as she worked with the laces of the boot. “I’m not asking for us to grow into anything. I’m not asking us to change at all. You go and come as you do. We get together when you’re in town. That’s all. I’m not asking you to be anything other than what you want to be.”

  “You’ll want more,” she said under her breath. “They always want more.”

  A stinging reminder of the women who had shared her time before me. I swallowed hard. “Then shame on me if I do but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  She rested her chin and cheek on her hand as she propped her elbow on her knee. I was lost in the whirl of emotions in her eyes. She cared more than she wanted. I saw it there.

  “Mo?” I traced her chin with my finger. “Meredith? Please. I’m begging you.”

  She raised her eyes and focused over my shoulder instead of keeping our eyes connected.

  “I’m here. I’m right here telling you I want from you no more than you’re wanting to give me. I won’t push. I won’t pull you into anything you don’t want.” I leaned my head to the side trying to force her eyes to meet mine. “You have never…not once asked anything of me. Never asked me to change or be more than I was ready for. That made me so comfortable to be around you. So at ease to be myself. All I am asking for is a chance to be that for you.”

  She stretched her hand up to brush the bangs from my eyebrows. “That’s all I ever wanted you to be.”

  “And that’s all I want you to be with me. Don’t you see?”

  “See what?”

  “You may not ask me to but what if I care too much for you that I will want to. What if I’ll be pulled to be with you? And then I fail you miserably about the time you start to depend on me. I don’t think I could take it. You’re more than sex to me, Rayne. That alone was something I was having a hard time dealing with but this? This with your mom and your whole life change. With this I know I’m in over my head. I’ll only disappoint you.”

  “You won’t. I promise you won’t. I’ll take whatever you can give me. Just like you did of me.”

  She brought our lips together, softly taking my bottom lip between hers. Her tongue was timid against mine. Her kiss was gentle. The passion it once held was gone from her lips. It was goodbye.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly against my lips. “I can’t.”

  I followed her to the door but knew I couldn’t kiss her again. I couldn’t feel the last of her lips upon mine, knowing they were to be the last of our shared kiss. She didn’t try either. I watched her shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh before she stepped fully out of the door. She kept her back to me as she walked down the driveway carrying her large duffle bag across her shoulder. She didn’t look back when she climbed into the cab nor did she look out of the window as it drove away.

  Crack.

  Chapter 23

  The quintessential Charlie Grace had not answered calls nor texts after she left the apartment. I suppose my own stubbornness prevented me from leaving a voicemail. I dared not leave a message that she could play over and over as a way of holding something over my head. I could only hope time away from me…from the truth of me was giving her the clarity she sought. Or perhaps it was the calm after the storm she yearned to master. No matter which it was, she was not responding. Which was why I knew it wasn’t her knocking at the door hours later. She would never take the first step. Not Charlie Grace. The knock became persistent…nearly recognizable.

  Mo?

  I almost tripped over the back of the couch on my way to the door. She had come back. She didn’t want to see our end any more than I wanted it. I knew there was more behind her eyes than what her words were telling me.

  I pulled open the door. “Mo, I’m so glad you came back. I know we can work this out.” Hand still on the knob, I stared, frozen.

  Grant stood in the doorway. He was solemn and had quite visible tear-stained cheeks. They shimmered under the glow of the porch light. His shoulders were taut as if he was desperately trying to hide the sobbing. He looked as if inward sobs were threatening his body to collapse at the doorway. Yet he left his feet firmly planted on the door mat. They were the cement to keep his statue preserved.

  “Is it true?” He lowered his head. He made no attempt to come in.

  Dammit, Charlie Grace!

  “Grant, please come in.”

  “God dammit, Rayne! I asked you if it was true!” His eyelids were lowered over his eyes as he squared his look at me.

  With a shaky hand, I reached for him. “Please come in. Let’s talk inside. Please.”

  He followed the pull of my hand but let his feet drag across the door frame as he stepped inside. The door closed behind him, and he collapsed against the door, weeping. The back of his head rested against the wood.

  “Rayne, please tell me it isn’t true,” he said in a rough, broken voice. “Please, God. Tell me you love me. Tell me it isn’t what she saw.”

  I had never seen him cry…never like this. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time I had seen a man give in to the emotions that would cause tears such as these. My reserve, my strength was mangled right along with him. I let my own tears flow. I cried for all of the things building inside of me: the stress of finally accepting who I was, watching the look of disgust on Mother’s face when she too saw who I was, following the woman who had helped me not only accept being a lesbian but also made me feel okay with it, and now standing across from a man who would be, at least in the short term, destroyed by the realization of what I had hidden for so long. The tears, strong as they might
be, weren’t enough to blur the vision of the man hurting at my own doings. A man I did truly love. There was a distinct difference between being in love and loving. I loved him and feared I always would. Yet I knew I would never love him the way he wished I did.

  “I do love you, Grant. I do.” My voice matched his. “I’m so, so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “So you fuck her behind my back?” He slid down the door onto the floor. “What, Rayne? What? Are you like gay with her or something? Or was this like some college sewing wild oats thing?” The anger of betrayal was evident in his tone. Anger that was surely spurred by his hurt. “What did I do wrong?” he said barely above a whisper.

  I knelt down in front of him. “Grant please, let’s not do this…not like this. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not you, don’t you see. It’s me. This is all me.”

  He didn’t look up to meet my eyes. “What does it mean? Is it over? I mean I know you cancelled the engagement but I thought that was because of New York. I thought New York was what you meant when you were saying we wanted different lives. I thought it was only about New York.”

  I slid around him to sit next to him against the door. “I have always felt something inside. Something that I couldn’t explain to anyone, even myself.” I rested my head against the hard wood of the door. “I had no idea what that meant until I met her.” I knew he would think the woman Charlie Grace had reported to him and that was fine by me. “I never meant for it to happen like this. I swear to you. I was looking for answers without truly knowing I had questions.”

  “Is any part of it because of New York? Because you were mad at me for wanting to go there instead of home.”

  “What? No.”

  “Because I don’t have to go, Rayne.” He looked at me with hurt behind his eyes. The tears were building again. “I won’t go. We won’t go. If it means losing you, I’ll go back to Louisiana with you. I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do.”

  “No.” I put my hand on his forearm but felt his muscle twitch to my touch. I let my hand fall back in my lap. “It’s not that. It’s not New York. And why? Why would you do that to keep us together? A couple…a loving couple…would want each other to live their dreams.” I rubbed my moistened palm against my jeans as I tried to carefully choose my words. “We grew, Grant. We grew into different people. We weren’t expecting to find the directions we found but they are here and we can’t deny it. Now that we see the paths in front of us, we can’t look away to pretend they aren’t there.”