Lemon Truffles - Love Instantly (9 page)

Angela exhaled a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding in relief. “Of course, you know I always have time for my baby.”

She opened her personal email then, since Zoe knew not to send anything to her work account unless it was an absolute emergency, and was downloading the paint file Zoe had sent her when she heard Jayden’s excited voice on the line. “Hi mommy! I drew a picture for you. Did you see it yet?”

“
Hi Jayden. Actually I’m opening it now.”

“
Where are you? Are you at work?”

“
Yes baby. You know this is where I am every day when you stay with Miss Zoe.”

“
Oh good. Then can you bring that nice man so he can watch
Yo Gabba Gabba
with me tonight?”

Angela wasn’t sure what had prompted all of this coming from Jayden suddenly, but then again who really knew or understood the intricate inner workings of preschoolers? She also wasn’t sure how to answer him, but as she was about to say something, anything in response to Jayden, she became aware of someone else’s presence beside her. With the way her body responded to that proximity, she knew it could only be one person.

Of course her son’s picture chose that exact second to finally finish downloading and pop open. Jayden had drawn a picture of himself, her and a stick figure man she had a feeling was supposed to be Cheng. They were all smiling and standing next to a square shape with a red blob on it. She was pretty sure they were all happy in the drawing as they watched one of Jayden’s favorite TV shows.

Slowly she turned to look over her shoulder. Cheng was staring at her intently as though he was awaiting her answer as eagerly as Jayden was. She knew intuitively that he’d heard their son’s excited, high pitched voice, especially with the high volume on her phone. Damn broken volume button. She slowly turned back around and closed her eyes, willing her pulse and breathing to both slow down so she could think. Knowing she couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer, she finally replied as her son prompted her with “mommy?” Almost as if he’d had to remind her so she didn’t forgot he was still there. That was laughable. As if that could or ever would happen.

“
Yes baby. I’ll bring him so we can all watch
Yo Gabba Gabba
.”

“
Yay! Okay, I’ll see you later. Bye mommy.”

As she turned back to look at her son’s father, who still maintained a bit of a tight posture, Angela knew for sure. Heaven help her, but she was in trouble.

~

Cheng should have felt happy about this situation. Ironically, his son had made the first move when indecisiveness seemed to have plagued both Cheng and Angela, causing them both to have tied hands, thereby guaranteeing their inaction. Cheng had been allowing Angela to have space in order to figure out what she wanted to do. He had also been preparing himself mentally for if she ultimately rejected him.

His hormones and thoughts were in disarray right now though as he drove to her house. Sitting next to her during what felt like a marathon meeting earlier had been sheer agony. She smelled so feminine, so soft and sweet like night blooming jasmine. He’d wanted to slowly run his fingers up and down her stocking covered leg until his hand could disappear under her skirt and between her thighs... He’d actually spent most of that meeting being quite uncomfortable and trying to hide his hard on.

Now at his own child’s behest, he would continue to be forced to spend time in the presence of the very source of his hellish anguish. Cheng sighed in frustration and ran his fingers through his hair as he was now stopped at a traffic light. He wanted to convince himself when he agreed to this meeting that he was simply doing what would be in Jayden’s best interest.

He didn’t want the nagging thoughts that felt an awful lot like an ulterior motive to detract from the time he would spend with his son. If he were being honest with himself, he could admit that he was not a damn monk though and his attempts at feigning such were failing miserably. He still hadn’t been able to divorce himself from desire at all, much less keep himself from the one woman he really wanted.

In preparation for eventually spending time with Jayden, Cheng had spent time looking at his son’s photos and videos at least a few times every week. Truthfully, he’d found that one of the reasons keeping his distance from Angela was so hard was because it also meant spending even more time away from his only child. He hadn’t been actively focused on it, but his desire to have a family had grown exponentially, especially since he’d found out how much time he’d already missed being a part of Jayden’s life.

Maybe this is what happened to people once they were in their thirties – the ache to be a part of their own family bit and sank in hard. They finally thought about their long term futures with the desire to be settled at least to some extent becoming downright relentless. Then again, his own immediate family of origin being gone might have something to do with his specific increasing need to start his own family now too.

Cheng’s mother had died of pancreatic cancer seven years ago and his father, who was significantly older than his mother, thirty years her senior in fact, had died of natural causes about a year later. Cheng didn’t really allow himself much time to think of them these days, but he missed his parents, especially his mother. That was probably another one of the main factors in why working through things with Angela and being able to see Jayden was so important to him right now.

Although things being so unsettled between him and his son’s other parent was continuing to make everything extremely complicated. He also didn’t want Jayden to keep thinking of him as just some random nice man from his mom’s job. Cheng wanted Jayden to know who his father was. However, Cheng didn’t have much experience dealing with small children.

How did he broach such a delicate matter with a four year old? He laughed as he envisioned a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker revelation moment between the two of them. Well, at least Cheng hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

In preparation for tonight, both Cheng and Angela had left work earlier than they normally would have. This was to say, that it was only 7:00 pm now as he found parking on Angela’s street, instead of after 9:00 pm. Cheng knew this meeting had more significance than any other high stakes business meeting he’d ever had in his life and he was super nervous. Other than the items Angela had emailed him about a month ago, the only real prep he’d had for spending time with his son was doing a Google search to find out just what the hell
Yo Gabba Gabba
even was.

Cheng rang the doorbell, still uncertain about what to expect this evening. When she opened the door, Cheng could tell that Angela had showered and changed. Now, she looked at home, comfortable and relaxed, lounging in a black stretch velour zippered hoodie and matching pants.

She also wore black flip flops that showed off her cute, hot pink pedicured toes, a drastic change to the severely professional attire she always wore to work and he liked it. He again felt her lure pulling him in, giving him the intense desire to hug her, but he managed to ignore it.

“
Hi, please come on in,” Angela told Cheng as she stepped back so he could pass. He removed his shoes and left them on her porch before entering her home.

As soon as he stepped through the door, Jayden came running forward. “Yay! Hi mister. I’m glad you came. I knew you would. Do you want to watch TV or see my room first?” Cheng glanced nervously at Angela, who only smiled casually and shrugged.

It seemed that they were both now at the full mercy of their son. Before he got dragged into his four year old’s world too completely, Cheng opened a small gift bag he’d brought with him. “We can do whichever one you’d like to do first, but before we go, I brought a few things for you and your mother.” He then presented Angela with an assortment of chocolate truffles, exported from Hong Kong. He had a feeling she’d especially enjoy the lemon truffles the best.

“
Thanks,” she said quietly as she took the small package from him. He enjoyed that giving her such a small token could make her flush with such tremendous pleasure. He couldn’t help but wonder what her reaction would be if he were presenting her with a ring instead…

Before he got too caught up in that fantasy, he pulled a small box out of the bag and handed it to Jayden. The boy opened the little hinged jewelry box to reveal a miniature hand-crafted jade dragon pendant attached to a thin twenty-four karat gold double stranded rope chain. “Cool! Can you help me put it on?” Jayden asked after he’d attempted to remove it from the box.

Clearly flustered that he was having such a hard time getting the dragon chain out of the box, he silently handed the opened lidded, black velvet covered box back to Cheng. In turn, Cheng dutifully accepted the box back and removed the jewelry from its container before sinking down to his knees behind Jayden to attach the chain to his boy’s neck. As he latched the clasp, he caught sight of Angela watching him.

Her gaze appeared to be approving, but when they caught and held each other’s eyes for what must’ve been too long, she looked away first. Angela was likely embarrassed to be caught staring at her baby’s father. Cheng was getting sick of sneaking glances at the woman who’d already given birth to his son. The very idea seemed ridiculous to him and he knew that Angela was going to have to make a decision soon.

They both knew the ball was in her court since he’d already put what he wanted all the way out there… Before Cheng could dwell on that and ended up saying something that would undo all his disciplined efforts during the last month, he distracted himself by reaching back into the bag and pulling out the last gift he’d gotten. It was a small plush toy, a rendition of one of the characters from
Yo Gabba Gabba
– the red one with the bumps and one eye.

Jayden’s whole face lit up again. “Muno!” he exclaimed as he took the small toy in both of his hands. “Thank you! He’s my favorite.”

Cheng smiled and ruffled the boy’s curly hair with one hand. “You’re welcome. So what’s next?”

“
Um, let’s go see my room. Then we can watch the show.”

“
Sounds good. You go ahead and lead the way,” Cheng said as he stood again from his squatting position. He followed Jayden, but glanced back over his shoulder to see what Angela was doing. She was simply following them up the stairs soundlessly. A tiny, almost amused smile seemed to barely touch her full lips. Cheng wondered what was in store for him now.

Angela wasn’t sure why she’d been so worried about this evening. After all, Jayden had actually requested his father’s presence here in their home tonight. Cheng also wanted to get to know their son better and so far, so good.

The two guys seemed to naturally have an affinity towards one another, which wasn’t that unusual given that they were father and son. So while Cheng was discovering all about the characters that populated Jayden’s favorite TV shows, books and movies, not to mention getting caught up on all the daily happenings of preschool, Angela snuck away. Cheng was handling himself well and was already playing with Transformer action figures before Angela even made it out the door.

She rested the back of her head against the wall in the hallway. What was she doing? Procrastinating? She had finally made a decision today that she wanted to discuss with everyone tonight. She was just waiting for the right time. She hoped she was doing the right thing and that everyone could live with her choice.

She continued down the hall and went to her master bedroom suite. She could hear Jayden’s shrieks of laughter drifting out from his bedroom as she prepared some things in her own room.

~

As it turned out, having a little boy was fun, absolutely exhausting and well, kind of cool. Cheng had fallen right into a natural role as soon as he and Jayden had gotten into his son’s room. He had noticed when Angela slipped out to give them time alone together, but it was fine with him. Cheng told Jayden stories that he knew from his childhood, where he’d heard international fairytales.

Though he’d been born in Shanghai, his father had been a Chinese dignitary originally from Macau, so Cheng had spent a good deal of time away from China as he’d grown up. He’d been to England, Australia, the US and even various parts of the Caribbean before his father had finally settled into a very cushy government job in Hong Kong. By that point in time, Cheng had been twelve years old, so he’d retained a lot of his cosmopolitan ways from his days globetrotting with his parents.

Having been an only child where he was frequently moved around had at times been both fatigue-inducing as well as isolating. Even once his family had settled in Hong Kong, there were a lot of times that he found he just couldn’t really relate to the other local kids. Many of them hadn’t traveled very far outside of HK and they weren’t as into global happenings as he was, which often made him feel like an outsider. Being well traveled and understanding global context had paid off though when he’d decided to go into the business world.

Yet the social difficulties of his childhood where his father was frequently off working and his kind, gentle, generous mother had often been his only companion had left a profound impact on Cheng’s adult life. Cheng couldn’t help but think that in some ways, he and his son actually shared similar upbringings as he stared at Jayden now. His boy was jabbering on and on about his Disney’s Cars’ books at the moment.