A Baumgartner reunion

“Are you kidding me?” He opened his eyes and laughed. “No way. Not for a minute.”

I grinned and squeezed my pussy muscles tight, making him groan. “I didn’t think so.”

Chapter Nine

“Janie?”

I should have just turned around and walked away. That’s what I told myself when I opened the bathroom door and found her sitting on the edge of the tub, tears streaming down her face. But I couldn’t do it. I’d spent years wiping away her tears, and in spite of her new apparent loathing of me, I couldn’t just turn those feelings off like flipping a switch.

“Go away,” she said, sniffing and wiping at her tears, shaking her head as I came in and shut the door behind me.

“Is it Brian?” I sat next to her on the side of the marble tub, looking at her in the mirror, head down, long blonde hair hiding her face. “Sweetie, I am so sorry. I wish-”

“Henry told me.” Janie shrugged, still not looking up. “He told me about how you saw Brian and Liz in the bathroom at Captain Tony’s…” I nodded, pursing my lips. “I’m really sorry.”

“He was just someone to have fun with on vacation anyway.” The tone of her voice told me that wasn’t exactly true and the pain on her face emphasized it when she looked up and met my eyes in the mirror. “I don’t care.”

“Oh Janie.” Instinctively, I slid my arm around her and pulled her to me. To my surprise, she didn’t resist, resting her head on my shoulder with a shaky sigh.

“I wish I could make it all go away…”

“Yeah, well I wish you hadn’t gone away in the first place.” Her words were angry and bitter and I winced. What could I say to that? I didn’t have a chance to form a response, because she was talking about. “We used to have so much fun.” She sighed, surprising me again by snuggling closer, reminding me of how we used to do this all the time. God, we had always been so close…

I nodded. “I loved babysitting you guys. You were…just like family.”

“You were like the older sister I never had.” She lifted her head to look at me. Her eyes were the same, just as blue and bright and beautiful. “I was just at that age, you know, right before puberty? I looked up to you. I wanted to be just like you.”

I smiled, brushing her hair away from her eyes. “I’m actually glad you’re not.”

“I hated you for leaving.” Janie looked away, shaking her head, her jaw tight. “For a long, long time.” She was quiet for a few moments.

“And now?” I asked, hesitant to say anything really, to break the spell. I didn’t want her to stop talking, to go back to being the angry Janie I didn’t recognized.

She glanced sideways at me and frowned. “I guess I’m still a little mad.”

“Well, you know…” I pulled her close again, taking her hand in mine. ”After that vacation we spent here in Key West, your mom and dad decided to hire Gretchen as your nanny, and I…well, I had to go live my own life.”

“But Ronnie, you never even called!” She met my eyes in the mirror and they flashed with anger. “You never answered my letters, you never even sent a stupid Christmas card! All those years, and all of a sudden, it was like, we didn’t exist anymore to you…”

I felt tears stinging my eyes, and I realized, in my selfishness, what I’d done. She’d just been a kid. How was she supposed to understand the motivation of adults? She certainly couldn’t have understood the shame and fear that had come up for me around the time I’d spent with her parents and with Gretchen. All she knew was that I’d left without even saying goodbye. I’d abandoned her. No wonder she was so angry with me.

“It was wrong.” I turned and cupped her face in my hands like I used to when she was young and I wanted her full attention. “And I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”

“Why?” she whispered, her face bewildered, her eyes filling with tears, too.

“I just want to know why.”

Oh god. Why? I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t explain how that vacation had awakened things in me, parts of me I never knew existed, how being lovers with her parents had changed me, irrevocably, forever. How I’d wanted to run away from it-I knew that now, that I’d run away. I spent almost a year with Gretchen before I left her for some guy-any guy, no one special-because I was too afraid to admit I wanted more.

And TJ had known. Somehow he had known. That realization came to me in that moment and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. He’d known my secret all along, that Doc was right-my capacity to love was too great to be bound by one. I had always wanted more, and I’d deprived myself, force-fed myself a diet of monogamy and in the meantime, wasted away…

“Was it because of what happened between you and my parents that summer?” Janie’s question brought me out of my reverie, and I looked at her, trying to decide what to say.

“I really wish you guys hadn’t found out about that…”