Previously…

“Rudy, you shouldn’t have come over and woke him up and everything…I’d be…”

I’m stopped by him kissing me…he just walked up and tilted my chin up and kissed me with the most romantic, longest best kiss of my entire life.

“I wasn’t leaving you like the way you were, I’m a single dad Morgan... He’s used to it…see he’s already back to dreaming. Got anything to drink?”

The little guy’s conked out already and he’s snuggled into one of my sweatshirts that was left on the couch and my heart does this thing…and I feel this feeling in my insides that makes me want to smiley-cry.

“Sure I’ve some red in the fridge.”

It’s the first time I’ve had Chicken Treat…better than KFC, I like the pineapple fritters that came with the food and good fries. I’m not sure that red wine goes with take away chicken but…it’s all I had in the house.

I get some plates and he lit some of my scented candles and we sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.

I’ve never really had this before…I’m not sure what to do next.

And Now… Chapter 7.

I’m not sure if things would have turned out like they did that night in a perfect world but they sort of did. We talked and ate and Rudy just stayed all night and he kept me company and he even ended up taking me to bed.

No, as much as part of me wanted him…I think there wasn’t any chance of that going on with his little boy there with us.

Actually Rudy cleaned up the leftovers and like I said he took me to bed and the little guy with us and he even slept outside the sheets that night and in his clothes but he took those strong builder’s arms of his and wrapped the around me and he held me really tight and close.

It had been a long, long time since I had anyone hold me in a caring and loving way. Way too long and I know I cried on him during the rest of that night and when I did fall asleep I never budged until nearly eleven the next morning.

I think though that and the early stuff with the house is how things got really started with us. Sort of started…I don’t know were still in the friends but more thing but without the sex.

Rudy finished with my place the week after that and there really wasn’t much of a reason for him to stay around except for him calling me and asking how I was doing and then offering to show me around to this spot or to that one.

Oh yes and I smacked him good and hard for him teaching me about “Grog and Plonk.” I went to a welcoming staff party when I started two weeks ago at The Mater and actually called a decent Shiraz…plonk…They sort of stared at me then laughed as they thought I was making a joke.

I’ve paid him back for that by haranguing him “En Francais.” He has no idea what I’m saying but we were getting some stuff for our picnic in Coles and there was a couple of Vietnamese girls there who got what I was saying and we three had a giggle.

He blushed…he knew we were talking about him and didn’t know what we were saying but he blushed anyway.

He has that Irish blush, that one where all the blood seems to rush to their head as they get really red.

Making a guy blush and get all self conscious is way more fun than I ever thought that it could be.

I miss him like crazy after him being there at my place all the time. Works been helping with that since it’s so big a place and spread out that two weeks in and I’m just getting used to the building that I’m in.

I’ve spent some more money than I planned on too. I have a stationary bike home now and a rowing machine and I bought an old styled bike with no speeds and the lovely basket in the front and a rectangular one in the back to just meander around and pick up odds and ends.

The food here is too good sometimes and I really love some of the heavy stuff. It makes me happy. I know I should be all diets and rabbit food but that doesn’t make me happy. A nice bit of really well made pie crust with a filling with slow cooked veggies, meat and stuff takes me back to stuff my grandmother used to make. I’m used to rich, thick, heart foods heck Montreal can kill with it’s restaurant fair. Butter and cheese, Fois gras…and poutine are all just so healthy.

Though I never liked meat pies there. They add spices to it that’s baking spices to them and to me it’s a bit of me being fussy.

Make a meat pie make a meat pie…not a minced meat pie, I like both but not a lame attempt in the middle.

But the other food here is just killer. I’m a sucker for great seafood and it’s all over the place here and I like ethnic foods here and there are way more ethnic places here to eat than I thought.

Actually there’s a lot more different people down here than the outside…no North America thinks. I had this whole thing of the whites and the aborigines but there’s all sorts of Middle easterners and Afrikaners and I swear from India on eastwards makes at least fifteen percent of the population here.

It’s actually a lot like home, like Montreal but without the Cititude…yeah Montreal has a city attitude. You’ve heard Toronto thinks it’s the center of the universe. Montreal just chuckles. Of course they do they’re Anglais…and all at the same time Montrealers are Montrealers before being Quebecois.

But it’s hugely multicultural there and they love it.

But Brisbane is Aussie friendly, fun…people seem to always be having fun here and it’s spread out, not so cramped and there’s other things.

Like I’ve woken up able to smell my lawn and the trees and the hint of ocean in the air.
It’s actually a very clean town.

It’s been good and yet Rudy and I are…it’s more than friends I think.

But he’s got Sam, that’s his son and that’s a lot of stuff to consider right there.

I was just getting in from work and hitting my days off. I’m full time so 38.5hours a week buy the union and I do twelves so that’s three shifts a week mostly with a fourth every five weeks. It’s actually pretty much standard for most places and I can say that I really, really love having four days off.

Anyway I was just getting in and had my shoes just off and the phone rang.

“Ello-Qui?” Years and years of living in Quebec I’m permanently accented now.

“Morgan what are you doing love?”

“Jus got in Rudy, taking my shoes off.”

“Y’got plans fer the weekend?”

“Laundry and some housework but maybe checking out the trains.”

“Y’can do that later, I have the weekend fancy a trip to the beach?”

“God…actually yes. I’d love that I haven’t been to a beach in years.”

“Orright we’ll do the weekend seeing a few then.”

“Okay, are we picnicking?”

“Sounds like a plan but I might bring my camp stove with.”

“You can cook at the beaches?”

“Suttons does.”

“Okay that sounds great.”

“Feel like going shoppin then?”

“Oh…yeah, I need a bathing suit.” Well more than one and more than that but he’ll find that out at the mall.

“We’ll be over in an hour luv that good enough?”

“Qui-sure-d’accord.”

“God I love that accent woman.”

I blush a bit over the phone and bite my lip. “Yours too mate, I’ll see you soon.”

I really have just enough time before Rudy gets here to shower and then pick out something to wear…really nice lingerie…Yes I think I do like Rudy that much and I go with a nice halter top in pink and a pair of Capri’s and some thongs…uhm flip flops back home.

I’m just getting my hair mostly blown dry when I hear Rudy’s truck pulling into my yard. I get my bag and meet him at the door.

“B’jeur Rudy.” I say with a smile as he was just about to knock and he’s smiling and staring at my chest. Not too long but it’s there and honestly I like it, I did spend money to get this reaction. Some women might complain about it, I might too but at the same time I want to be seen as the woman I am and it’s part of the deal.

Besides when a person you like’s doing it, it makes it all different.

“Howdy Morgan.” He’s smiling at me with that grin he seems to be born with.

“Howdy? Do you guys even say that?”

“No, not really but I like it.”

“Oh well it suits you but you should have…”

He sort of cuts off what I was going to say buy slipping one of those straw cowboy hats on and he looks damned cute in it, like I feel that funny yum-yay flutter in my stomach. He offers an arm and I take it letting him lead me to the truck.

“You’re in a good mood.”

“I’ve the weekend off and got a fair bonus t’go with it fer doin a bit of my above and beyond on a raised bed bunch of gardens.”

“So you thought of me?”

“Naturally.”

Really? I’m looking at him. He gives me this look and it’s like he’s reading my mind because he says.

“I actually think about you a lot Morgan.”

“You do?”

“Kind, smart and beautiful of course I do.”

“Rudy…” I’m blushing badly but I’m smiling.

We walk to the truck and Sam just about kills me with a flood of hormonal mommyness when he gets out of the truck all small and super cute and he holds the truck door open for me…

I’ve got a so big lump in my throat and I…. “Merci Sam…”

“It’s sokay, you’re a nice lady. M’da likes you lots.”

I’m blushing and so is Rudy too and I slip onto the seat as ladylike as I can and he closes the door for me. He comes around to the other side with his dad and he climbs into the back of the truck it has one of those little bench back seats.

God he so has Rudy’s smile and the same hair too though it’s shaggy looking and in his face a lot.

Ow…my maternal feeling are just…yeah.

Rudy drives us down to Queens and the Coles store there and we all get out and Sam’s all charged up to get the shopping cart. I can vaguely remember being like that at his age. We let him steer while it’s empty enough for him to handle it and I’m.

I’m happy, okay we’re…we’re whatever we are but this is normal on a whole level that I thought that’d never be for me. I’ve done more grocery shopping actually in the store here than ever in Montreal. Sylvie was very much one of the urbanites that went online to order things, mostly take out but we went out a lot too.

It’s been a long time since I’ve shopped or cooked and I like doing it now.

I like the things I find in the store here and it’s pretty much normal stuff but they have their own like names for the kinds here. Like I get a bag of Rose apples and that’s just the name of the variety but they look like a Courtland from home. Yes I am girly enough I bought them just for the variety name.

And just neat stuff like Silverbeet, that looks like Swiss Chard to me. It’s still pretty neat to me still.

Actually produce here tends to be pretty well priced. Iceberg lettuce is on so I get some of that for a dollar a head and we get potatoes and cabbages and things for salads and such to take to the beach…actually beaches this weekend.

Rudy wants to take me touring and I have no problem with that. It’s been forever since I’ve been to a good beach…actually never as the girl I am now. Pools a few times but there’s no beaches worth anything around Montreal and home.

Saint John’s on the Bay of Fundy and while there are some nice beaches they’re a bit of a drive. Between a summer job and stuff I went about maybe three times a year in high-school.

I’m going to enjoy this.

Rudy gets meat and by meat I mean lamb chops and chicken parts and some steaks. Me I get some ground lamb and ground beef since I want burgers. I love a good burger and while I’m into it I get some pickles and some pretzel buns but I get some tomatoes and onions too and we get a few other things just that whole shopping for a beach weekend thing.

I look at Rudy. “Have you two had supper yet?”

“No luv I was planning on taking us out.”

“I’d rather cook if that’s okay with you?”

“Us fellas turning down a free home cooked meal, no much of a chance of that.”

“Good so what’ll we have?”

Sam’s of course mentioning all the kids stuff like chips or chicken and stuff like that. Rudy’s telling him that he can have that stuff all the time but this’ll be special.

“We can do that.”

“What Morgan?”

“Chicken and Chips. I like that too.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I get some more chicken parts and I buy some spices and I get some corn starch and some rice flour and a can of coconut milk.

We stop and get gas/petrol once we’re done because they have a discount thing if you buy so much at the store which I’ll have to remember and I’m smiling because as we’re fueling up he’s got Sam in his arms holding him up high enough so he can squeegee the windows of the truck off.

Then I have a few things to get for my beachwear and I send the boys to rent some DVD’s to watch. I head into Lorna Jane first and David Jones at the plaza and get a few things that I think will fit and look nice and daring. My bits are at the whole point where a simple tuck and something tight and getting revealer’s not really an issue for me.

Yes I am still getting my surgery, I do really want that and to get on with my life. I’m not hating that part as much as it’s not really part of me, or who I was really and it’s just that last part of a self identity that I never really felt. My peg was meant to be a hole.

Sigh…yeah but I am girly enough that the whole shopping and getting some cute things picks me up and I get some cute other stuff to go with it like beach towels and a couple of sunhats and some sunglasses and there was this awesome pashmina wrap that I just had to get…okay…I see the boy’s and Rudy’s staring at me.

“Holy…Morgan didja leave anything there fer the other girls?”

I grin. “Yes, there’s lots there I just needed some basics is all.”

“Basics?” Oh he has that guy look like girl logic just shorted something out a little in his guy brain.

“Yes, I didn’t have anything to wear for the beach so I got some things.”

He smiles and shakes his head and takes my bags and Sam has the bag from the movie place they went to and we head back to my place.

It takes a bit to unpack stuff and I get things going in my kitchen I’m going to do things up for our weekend as well but I start with getting some pots of oil on the stove and boiling some of the potatoes to make potato salad then I start my chicken since that’ll take the longest.

I take the chicken bits and wash them off first and then I marinate them in the coconut milk. It adds a different sweetness to the chicken and it’s something from home…well Montreal that one of my fave Caribbean places used to do.

I get the cornstarch into a bowl and then in another bowl I take four cups of self rising flour and a cup of the rice flour and mix them together. The rice flour adds this wonderful crunch to the chicken that’s the only reason I use it. Then to that I add a tablespoon of sea salt, two of black pepper, one of turmeric, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder then a pinch of dried thyme and marjoram, powdered ginger…just a small pinch of that and another small pinch of cumin. I mix everything together though really well and then I take an egg and pour off the coconut milk into it and a handful of the breading mix and whisk it into a light batter.

So first the chicken gets dusted/rolled in the cornstarch so the batter will stick really well and then into the thin batter and from that into the spiced flour and from there onto waxed paper on the counter.

I like to give the coating time to rest and get really stuck to the chicken. It doesn’t take too long to let it sit either just long enough for me to get it all coated and the chips cut and the boiled potatoes off and draining.

The chicken comes out amazing and there is just enough coconut oils in there that the coating gets really flaky, it’d fall apart without the egg batter but it’s really good and there’s just enough play between that coconut sweet and the savory elements that it’s really good.

When the last of the chicken’s cooking I drop my fries then and I make just package brand chocolate pudding for desert.

The boys are watching that Will Smith version of Karate kid while I’m cooking and it’s just so much fun to have this going on in my house. It feels alive in here and I feel alive too.

I pretty well get it all timed out and things turned off by the time they’re putting on the second DVD something called Prince of Persia and I’m just bringing it all into the coffee table in baskets with paper towels and some paper plates and a bottle of ketchup.

The boys look up at me and they actually cheer at the food. (Blush.)

I sit down with them and Rudy looks at me. “This smells an looks amazing Morgan. Thank you…”

Sam misses it with a mouthful of chips but I certainly don’t when Rudy leans over and kisses me sweetly on my lips.

Oh….oh…wow….