Tsunami Across My Heart Read Free Page B

mentioned that there had been other women he saw on his trips, or at his home, but he never gave much detail and I wasn’t willing to interrogate him. I more or less ignored the information, while really I shouldn’t have. David continued to call and cry about our loss, but while I still loved David, Eric was the one I hoped to move forward with.
    Eric didn’t offer to pay for my trip, and I’d hoped he would demonstrate he wanted me to see him by offering. I think he paid for half and he felt that was modern and fair, and a few months later I flew out to see him.
    My Southern sensibility expected something different, but living in Southern California as he did, I think Eric expected that I’d be a little more modern in my approach to romance. I let it slide.
    My flight was mostly uneventful, but it was the first time in my life I’d been west of the Mississippi River . I watched the landscape become less lush, less green and more arid the further west we went. I ached to be in his arms again and I couldn’t wait to see his gorgeous face.
    He greeted me at the airport just as I was entering the baggage claim area, just as breathtakingly handsome as ever, he slid his hand into mine and took my bag. Our stride was easy and in sync from the first step. I felt as though I were home with him. We drove to his house right away, and I was cold from the wind, hot from the sun immediately. I’ve never liked California for that reason. The weather and the temperature, the climate, all were too changeable and unpredictable…not unlike my newfound lover.
    Eric took my bag into a spare room and showed me where I could keep my things. I dropped my flimsy skirt to the floor to change into something warmer right before him. Barely before I unzipped my bags to change clothes for those strange hot cold winds, we were standing in that room with my legs wrapped around his naked waist hastily making love, unable to even restrain ourselves long enough to walk from one room to another and lie down on the bed.
    Back then and it seems so very long ago, my body was not very sophisticated in its sexual response. I didn’t know how things worked and so much of what was sexual was highly romanticized by me. It was the setting that was overwhelming or the colors, or just being with him. But sex definitely translated to love on my part, while I think Eric was used to having his way with women quite frequently.
    At lunch, immediately after our passionate and creative embrace, he revealed to me that he had not exactly told me about how his relationship with Elaine, his local romantic interest, was much more active than I realized.
    “Marissa… I need to tell you something. I realize I should have mentioned it before you came here, and it is probably selfish of me not to have said something before…”
    “What is it Eric?” I had a feeling of trepidation, of course.
    “I think I mentioned to you that I’d been seeing someone at home at the time we met. Do you remember my mentioning Elaine to you?”
    “Yes. I remember.” I hadn’t really given her much thought, and honestly, he wasn’t telling me what he was doing on the days he wasn’t calling in a way that would make me feel that Elaine had more significance to him than I did.
    “You know I’m crazy about you Marissa, but we’re living very far apart. And while we’re seeing each other soon after I was in Atlanta , this time we don’t’ know when we’ll see each other again…”
    I didn’t have anything to say to that. I probably would have walked to California to be with him.
    “I’ve been seeing Elaine a little more frequently lately, but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to cancel coming to see me.”
    He’s seen her more lately, and he isn’t prepared not to see her when I leave. So, we weren’t going to go to some of the places I’d thought we might. While I had thought I’d see his life, not just spend time with him and that it would be our private