Can I have some Brown Sugar for my Damper? Chapter 11.

Chapter11.

*Before…

It’s my first time for that kind of kiss from someone that means it as a kiss.
So it’s a good thing when the feelings in your heart are stronger than the feelings in your body right?
We break the kiss and I’m catching my breath and Rudy looks at Sam. “Let’s go get cookin and we can let Morgan finally get to use her tanning chair and get some rest and Sun.”
“I kin grill?”
“Yeah, let’s.”
They leave and Rudy smiles at me and he walks out of the water backwards and his grin gets all teasing and devilish as he’d definitely sporting some serious arousal going on down there and I blush because he’s doing that and it’s pretty obvious if someone looks.
I sink down in the water some more to hide the goofy grin that’s there too because yeah, he’s showing off and stuff but he’s with me and he’s kind of showing off for me.
And that feels just.
Yeah I’m so happy hugging myself right now.

*And Now…

I float there in the water for awhile just doing that.

Hugging myself because I need to, I’m that over the moon happy right now I just need to hang on or just end up acting silly or something.

But really I’m crying some too.

Oh they’re happy tears and I dip under the waves a bit to just you know…

It’s just so…

It’s going from discovering that I was really trans to being in a toxic relationship and then this whole fresh start. Honestly I was never expecting this, or Rudy.

And I’m at that age where that would’ve been okay. I was just going to move along with my life and as long as I had some peace and quiet and could just be myself without all the hassle and drama that would have been perfect.

I was never expecting to fall in love.

Oh…yeah…

I grin to myself and bite my lip some and smile.

I’m in love.

Now there is a realization that really kind of bowls you over when it hits and everything. I’ve been there before or well I’ve thought that I’ve been there before a few times but this is really the first time as my real self and with all of the stuff that that comes with it.

And by all of that stuff I guess that I mean in sort of makes the noise in my head go away, get reduced to what it might actually really be in the grand scheme of things and makes me have these really crazy thoughts like what it might be like to be married and a wife and a step mom and those thoughts might have been scary before.

Okay they’re still sort of scary but in a whole other way.

I mean…Wanting a life is scary stuff.

I swim, well tread water for awhile longer and enjoy my happy thoughts but also the whole ocean thing. It’s my first real dip in the Pacific and there’s that and then there’s the fact I spend my days on concrete floors at the hospital and moving patients for scans and the like so the whole floaty take the stress off thing is welcome.

It feels good and after leaving home so long ago I missed this.

Yes even those little tickle fish and all.

I wade out of the water feeling very self conscious of my lower torso even though I’m pretty sure that all is well and safe and tucked away and then there’s that water feeling of it running off my body, running off the right curves and shapes and even the weight of it pulling at my body is both an experience I’ve never had out of the shower and new to me at the beach.

Rudy smiles at me as I get my towel and my little kit and head for the shower head thing they have here to rinse the salt water off.

I smile back and then he’s quickly attending Sam who turned something to start a grill flare up with the food.

That was likely the sausage.

There’s a couple of women there and a few girls and the like there doing the same thing and I rinse off with them and if there’s something amiss they’re keeping it quiet and to themselves.

There’s a red head there about late twenties and she looks at me up and down like three times.

I sort of look at her too. “Morgan right?”

I blink. Okay that I was not expecting. “Uhm yes and you are?”

“Heather, I worked with you the other day.”

I’m looking and thinking. “I’m sorry, it’s just without scrubs I barely recognize people I work with on the street much less in a bathing suit.”

She nods and she laughs. “Oh that’s the truth I hardly recognize myself out of them. I was in with the fracture twins that cracked up that Ute the other day.”

“Oh…wow boy those two were a handful.”

“You had them for an hour I had them in my department for five.”

“Five…why/”

“Casts had a ward clerk and an aid call in sick.”

“Ouch.”

See usually in a bigger hospital there’s casts done in the ER or there’s a othro clinical bunch that runs a space so that once your break or fracture is scanned and diagnosed and if it’s just run of the mill you get sent to them to do it. This frees up the ER and it helps all the way around since othro does a lots of that work as their work.

But short staffing makes backlogs and even a ward clerk or an aid slows things. Especially the clerks when you have either a new clerk or a nurse doing it instead and ward aids they do everything that helps with flow in a department and they work really hard too.

Losing two would make the whole thing just effing drag and drag like hell.

She nods and we both step out of the way of some younger girls who give us the looks that you can only get from teenagers who are wondering why you’re even there or something like that.

I grin at heather and she grins back and I dry off and open my little pouch and take out a brush and comb and mirror and get myself back in order and stuff and there’s a look of want at my stuff from the tens but I offer both to heather as I start to re-apply sun screen.

“Thanks, so how are you settling in?”

“Pretty good, it’s been a process with the move and things that cropped up with my brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Matt, he was killed in a MVA and of all the people who knew me or were family he was never a shit-bag about my transition.”

“Oh shit hon, I’m sorry to here that, you came down to take care of things?”

“No, that was already done and everything before that except Matt left me everything he had here.”

“Everything?”

“House, and I was next of kin on his insurance.”

“Why? I mean if you don’t mind me asking?”

I look at her. “Honestly Heather I don’t know, we were sort of close when we were younger but that wasn’t much and it was the old me and then well I moved and then he moved and we never saw each other again.”

“Did you write and e-mail?”

“A little, mostly once or twice a year and Matt never owned a computer he had all the x-box stuff but no computer. So we sent gifts and stuff and wrote letters for the holidays and stuff.”

“Sending stuff’s good I’d like something’s from Canada.”

“And I liked the things that he’d send too, pictures of things he did and places he worked and postcards and stuff or like art. It was special since he really was the only one who actually bothered and I’d send him things too like food from home but also some of the local stuff.”

“Local stuff?”’

“Junk food, maple candies when it was in season but things like bagels from home…uhm Montreal and smoked meat, cured Atlantic salmon stuff he could share with his friends and stuff like that.”

She’s smiling. “That’d be really nice. I’m not that close to my family either they’re kind of a bunch of Bogans and they have this whole idea that I’m all stuck up for not wanting my kids to get hauled down either.”

“Bogans?”

“Rednecks.”

“Oh….I totally get that parts of my family were like that with me too even before my transition. It wasn’t a manly thing to do it was kind of like being a nurse.”

I do air-quotes then look at her. “Not that there’s a damn thing wrong with nursing.”

She nods. “Oh I know, they see what they want and think what they want…I just want better for my kids it’s why I moved here.”

“Family can suck.”

Heather gets a look on her face and there’s more there, a bunch of it and she just sort of nods. “Yeah…nothing like blood to think that being sociopaths and stuff’s excusable…sorry.”

“No…heck no, you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe some time.”

We’re disturbed by two kids a boy and a girl running up and they’re wet and stuff and they’re going over and over again. “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom…can we go to Maccas? Can we go to Maccas?”

And I’m…well stumped. “Maccas?”

Her daughter crows. “Mac Don nalds”

Heather’s looking like she’s kind of under the pump about it and I look at her. “You and the kids want to join us?”

She looks surprised. “Us?”

I point over to Rudy and Sam and say. “We have lots extra really.”

She bites her lower lip. “Are you sure it looks like you’re having a day.”

I nod. “We are but days are better shared with friends right?”

She still looks like she’s on the fence. “No traffic, no pick up round abouts.”

She sighs and she gives me a sheepish smile. “Okay…as long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

We get the two kids sort of and we walk and they sort of run over and Heather’s looking him over.

“Not bad, you worked fast.”

I blush. “Well he’s my builder.”

“Oh, well tradey lads can be a lot of fun.”

I nod. “I think it’s more than that though.”

She looks at me and I sort of shrug. “He cares, and he knows and he doesn’t care about that.”

“Well that a plus, have you/”

I shake my head. “No, not yet but I’ve been really close to wanting to.”

“Would he?”

“No idea, but he’d likely wait.”

“Well that’s good too.”

I nod. “He’s special.”

Rudy looks over at me and he stares at us and then it seems to occur to him that we’re both talking about him and he starts to blush in that good way.

It makes heather and I both laugh and we head over to the coolers and the basket and start taking stuff out to set up for the beachside meal and everything.

I’m unfurling the table clothe with a smile and Sam’s with the twins or their with him and Rudy and he’s letting them have a go at the tongs and they’re all fascinated and stuff and heather takes the other end and helps me and we do one of the things we used to do home and that’s take a staple gun and staple the four ends of the table clothe to the picnic table and I just look and smile.

Rudy and Sam, Heather and her two…family maybe and the start of maybe friends.

We get the food done and we have a bit of everything, salad and potato salad and mine goes over really well or the old, old recipe from home does and that’s just the one with then boiled potatoes and then there’s diced sweet onion and canned peas and chunks of hard boiled eggs and you use mayo or Miracle whip if your home with a couple of table spoons of sour cream and some celery salt and black pepper and a bit of mustard.

I have the leftovers of the ones from the other night too and some of my leftover fried chicken which the three kids demolish and Rudy’s doing a sort of a sampler with the local beef in a couple of really nice looking steaks and then the local lamb with burgers well he’s actually doing sliders and stuff and then there’s the sausages and there’s of course hot dogs which you’d think would be sort of the same as home but they taste different here and I’m used to a whole different flavor even if they’re the nasty factory stuff.

I actually cook a really, really mean or amazing boiled hot dog.

I’m a Mon-re-aller and we do Le-hot dog really well.

It’s actually turning into a lot of fun as the kids take breaks between food to play on the cool playground here at the beach while we watch out for them and stuff our own faces and listen to the local radio and talk, kids, school stuff hospital stuff so I’m not left out and food as we’re talking about stuff like Saint John and Montreal and the stuff I grew up with there and ate and things and the stuff we have home that’s not here and the two of them talking about stuff that they have here that Rudy wants me to try.

You ever have one of those really great days?

We even took a sunning break from things as Rudy took stuff and made a place for the kids once run out and stuffed to crash in the back of the truck and stuff.

An afternoon walk on the beach up and down and beach combing a little. I have my first baggy of shells and smoothed down beach glass and Rudy actually had a baggy just for using a stick he found and speared the odd bit of trash as we went and Sam and them helping.

We made some sand castles and things and Rudy took the boys while Heather and I had Tara and she and I’ll have to say me too had a nice little bit of just girl time as we did more sunscreen and we brushed and combed out our hair and stuff form all the moisture and beach wind and we just sat and sunned as girls.

Supper we met a few more parents and stuff and I have a bit of a burn even with the sunscreen and we all sort of talk and end up pooling some of our resources it’s kind of surprising because there’s a few people ith the whole plan was a bit of beach and swimming and a pack of hot dogs without buns on the public grills with their kids and honestly there was a couple of teens that looked like that was the whole meal plan as they arrived on bikes.

Rudy kind of got it together as the kids showed up with some of the other kids and some they knew from school I guess and it just sort of snowballed.

And honestly it was just leftover of ours and pooled packs of hot dogs and other things but we all just sort of gathered together.

We left shortly after dark was starting to be a thing and the mosquitoes decided they didn’t care about the beach air and must of smelled us all well fed and decided to do the same.

It was a really, really good day.

Even just driving home and with Sam falling all over me completely worn out and asleep and mumbling it was perfect.

We stop at my place and Rudy get’s my things and dishes and he carries them for me and I can’t help but to look back at Sam still in the truck and part of me does this sigh.

Rudy sets the things on the counter and he looks me in the eyes and he kisses me.

“We have time right?”

I nod.

“It’s just I don’t want to rush this, not with how good this is and Sam.”

I nod and swallow. “I get that. I really do and I want to whole thing Rudy, even the waiting.”

He has this soft look on his face. “I know that this whole single dad thing’s not what you’re used to Morgan.”

“No, but the thing is Rudy you’re both worth it, you’re both worth the wait.”

It’s true, with the way that he wraps his arms around me and the crossing of them settling into the small of my back and then he’s kissing me long ans slow and sweetly.