Never Close Enough (2 page)

Porter

   This was so typical of his mother.  She was always volunteering him for projects or favors for friends, especially if the friends were pretty women.  It didn't matter to him that Ella was pretty, or even beautiful.  He noticed her small frame and how her blue eyes locked on his when they shook hands.  He noticed the way she smelled like vanilla, but it didn't matter.  He wasn't looking for a relationship; he was never looking for relationships.  Sure, he'd had his fair share of women, especially when he was younger, but he'd never felt the need to date anyone seriously.  He never felt compelled to be in a relationship and only considered dating the few women he had because he knew his mother desperately wanted him to be married, and she wanted grandbabies.  None of the women ever stuck though, and the longest he'd been with one woman recently had been merely a couple months.

   “So, wha
t's the address of your rental?” He asked.

   “Oh, um, I'm not sure.  I will look it up right now.”

   Porter rolled his eyes in the dark, knowing she couldn't see him.  He saw her fumbling with her phone and tried to hide his annoyance.

   “Ok, here we go
.  It's 2358 Elm St in Lincoln City.”

   “Alright, that shouldn't be too hard to find,” he said.

   “Thanks for driving me.  I'm sure this isn't how you envisioned spending your Friday night.”

   “It's no problem.  But you should really carry jumper cables
with you, so you don't end up stranded.”

   “You're right.  I shouldn't rely on the kindness of strangers,” she said with a little edge to her voice.

   “I guess you're lucky I am a kind stranger and not some lunatic who happened to be at the right place at the right time to take advantage of you,” he snapped.

   “Oh, well thank my lucky stars!  I do say, you're a regular hero,” she said, her voice oozing with sarcasm.  “Look, I've had a pretty rotten day and I don't need you lecturing me.  So either take
me to my rental, or I can get out and walk the rest of the way.”

   Porter thought about arguing further, but decided to save his breath.  It was only a few more minutes to her place, and then he could leave her in peace, and it wasn't her fault that his m
other was always trying to set him up with women.  They traveled in silence the rest of the way, and when they found her place, he pulled into the driveway threw the truck into park.

   “Do you need help in with your bags?”

   “Um, no.  Now, I just have to figure out how to get in.”

   “What do you mean? You don't have the keys?”

   “No, I don't have the keys.  I found this place on the internet and the owners told me in an email that they keep the key hidden on the property. I just have to find that email real quick.” 

   “Let me get this straight,” Porter said, irritated.  “You are traveling alone, without jumper cables, taking rides from strangers, unaware of the address of your rental, and without any keys to get it?  Are you out of your mind?!”

   “Excuse me?” she gaped at him, pissed off that he would talk to her that way.  “I have keys, they are just hidden out there somewhere,” she gestured out the windshield of his truck.  “According to this email,” she said, pointing at her phone, “they are under the potted flowers on the back porch.”

   Porter said nothing, but opened his door and jumped down from his truck.  He stomped through the rain, up the steps of the front porch, and around to the back.  A few seconds later he returned and headed towards the
front door.  He then saw her grab her bags and she met him at the front steps.  He opened the door, fumbled around for a light switch, found it and turned it on, but nothing happened.  He flipped it up and down a few more times, somehow hoping that it would start working after a few tries.

  Porter let out a frustrated growl, “I don't suppose you know how to turn on the electricity, do you?”

   “Not exactly,” Ella said hesitantly.

   "How can you be so irresponsible to get yourself into this situation to
begin with?" Porter nearly shouted.
"Listen," Ella said, turning towards Porter matching his annoyance in her tone, "I didn't plan any of this! Today is my birthday.  This was supposed to be my getaway. My boyfriend was supposed to be with me, handling all of these details.  It's not my fault that I found him having sex with someone else not four hours ago. He decided to abandon our relationship to have crazy-bendy sex with that slut, and it looked like better sex than we'd ever had together.  So tell me how fair that is?”  Ella took a deep breath in, seeming to for her next verbal assault.  “I am sorry if helping me has been an inconvenience for you or I haven't lived up to some standard of responsible behavior. I was just trying to get away from what seemed to be my life falling apart!"  She was breathing heavily, and he could tell she was trying to hold tears back.  Seeing her that way shifted something inside of him.

   Porter didn't know what to say. She was obviously upset, and he wasn't sure how much
of that anger he was responsible for, but he wanted to make it right.  He might not be the world's friendliest person, but he wasn't an ass.
   "Look, Ella, I am sorry,” he said, running his hand through his damp hair.  “I had no idea any of that was going on. I don't know what's wrong with your boyfriend, but he sounds like an idiot if he'd do anything to mess things up with you.  And I'm sorry for yelling about the cables and keys. I guess it just bothers me thinking about what could have happened if I hadn't been around."
   But that was the strange thing.  It did bother him, more than he was comfortable with. He wasn't used to worrying about anyone and he didn't usually go out of his way to help anyone besides his mother. But the idea of some schmoe off the street driving Ella home and helping her into her house made his blood run fast through his veins. For now, he was just glad he had been around when she needed him.   “Let’s go inside.  You can sit down and I will get the power on for you.”

Chapter Two

Ella

  
Ella was ready for this day to be over.  She sat quietly on the couch in the living room, alone in the dark, trying really hard not to crumble into tiny shards of blubbering female.  She would have plenty of time for a formal breakdown; she just needed to hold on to her sanity for a few more minutes.  The lights came on suddenly and she heard Porter's footsteps coming up the stairs.

   “I found the fuse box and got everything turned on.  You should be good to go here,” he said as he stood at the
threshold from the basement to the kitchen.

   “Thanks again, for everything.  I am sorry I got a little crazy out there earlier.  It's been a rough day,”  Ella said, trying to hold back tears threatening to break free.

   “Forget about it.  Sorry you're having an awful birthday.  Listen,” he started slowly walking into the kitchen, heading in her direction. “Tomorrow, if you'd like, I could get my cables back from Bob.  I’ll take you back to your car and give it a jump.”

   “No, Porter, really.  You've don
e enough.  I appreciate it but I can figure it out.”

   “The way I see it, I sort of owe you for snapping at you outside. I shouldn't have done that and I apologize.”

   Ella didn't really want to take him up on his offer.  After everything that had happened she was a little embarrassed that she had thrown a grown-woman tantrum and wanted this whole experience to be behind her.  She gave him a weak smile and said, “Thanks for that Porter, apology not necessary, but I accept.  I will figure everything out tomorrow.  I have bothered you enough.”

   Porter looked her directly in the eyes for a short moment, looked out the window towards the ocean, and then headed toward the door.  “If you change your mind you can always call my mom at the bar.  She will get me
a message.  Her number is listed, so you should be able to find it if you need it,” he said as he came to the door.  He reached for the doorknob, opened the door, and then turned back to her.  “I hope you enjoy your stay here, Ella.  And I hope you realize while you're here that any man who cheats isn't worth the tears you will likely shed over him.  You're a beautiful woman and it's obvious that he's made the mistake by taking you for granted.  So try not to spend too much time being heart broken.”  He pulled the door all the way open and walked out into the rain.  Ella walked him out of the house and down the porch steps, manners always winning out.  She watched him back his truck up and then pull it out onto the long driveway.  Once his truck was out of sight, she turned to go back into the house.

    Ella looked at the beautiful house and felt a wave of sadness.  This was supposed to be the romantic house where she and Kyle found each other again.  She had specifically chosen this house because it had a g
orgeous wrap-around porch with a swing that faced the ocean.  When she had found the house online she had imagined spending nights on that swing with Kyle, drinking wine, holding hands, watching the sunset.  Now she was pretty convinced she would be swinging alone, but still drinking the wine.

   Ella closed the door and felt a little confused about the one-eighty Porter had done.  On the drive over he had seemed like she had been a huge annoyance to him, and now he was giving her relationship advice and co
mpliments?  Weird.  It was sweet of him, but it caught her off-guard.  She locked the door and headed back into the living room where she had left her bags.  She looked at the clock over the mantel, nine o'clock.  It was late enough that she didn't feel like a total loser for going to bed and she really couldn't find a good reason to be awake any longer.  She took her bags up the stairs and walked all the way down to hallway to the master bedroom at the end.

   She walked in and all her sadness came rushing
back.  The four poster bed with white chiffon curtains cascading all the way to the floor was exactly as she had seen in the pictures.  It was such a romantic bed and it had been her every intention to spend many hours in it with Kyle. She had daydreams since booking this house about the two of them loving each other there, talking about their future, remembering why they were with each other.  She sat on the bed and gave in to the quiet sobs that she'd been holding in for the last hour.

   She leaned all
the way back on the bed, covering her face with both hands.  She rolled on her side and pulled her knees to her chest, as violent cries racked her body.  She cried at first because she was confused.  What had she done wrong?  Why did he need to sleep with someone else?  As she cried, she remembered walking in on them and her confusion turned into anger.  Why hadn't he tried to talk with her before he cheated?  How long had he been sleeping with her?  Was she the only one?  Ella immediately felt ill.  She hadn't even considered the possibility that he'd been with more women than just the Flexi-Whore. 

   She thought very seriously about calling him and having this conversation with him.  But knew she would just be a crying mess and she didn't want him to kno
w how upset she was.  She wanted to be calm and collected when they spoke, and not give him any indication of how truly wrecked she was.  Besides, what could he really say to her at this point?  All she wanted was answers, because the resolution was clear: they were over.  She loved Kyle but she would never stay with a man who cheated on her.  She had enough self-respect to know that he had given her up when he'd decided to be with someone else, but that realization hurt as well.  He'd chosen someone else over her, consciously or not.

  She cried for the loss of the relationship.  She cried for the betrayal.  She cried for the hopelessness she felt that anything would work out the way she'd planned.  She got up from the bed, opened her suitcase, and pulled o
ut a nightgown.  She went into the master bathroom and as her sobs started to subside and she readied herself for bed.

   As she came out of the bathroom, she went out onto the attached balcony.  She noticed that the rain had let up, and although she could
n't see any stars, she could hear the ocean.  She closed her eyes and listened hard for the rhythm of the waves coming onto the shore of the beach.  She knew from the web page that the house was very close to the water and she was grateful that at this very moment.  The steadiness of the surge of the ocean was calming her nerves.  It gave her a little satisfaction to know that there were things in the world she could always rely on, like the ocean.  The constant give and take of the tide, and although the waves move away from you, they always come back.  She felt she could be steady like the sea; even though there were storms and swells, she could find her rhythm again.

Porter

   Porter had no idea why he'd said those things to Ella.  He'd meant them; he
just wasn't use to words popping out of his mouth that he wasn't prepared to say.  She probably thought he was some weird, manic man who swung like a pendulum from totally irritable to charming and sweet.  He hadn't meant to come across that way.  He could feel that she was on the verge of a major breakdown and he wanted to try to ease some of her pain.  Hell, he'd wanted to stay and hold her through her sobs.  But he knew that was an irrational compulsion and that she would think it more than a little weird for some stranger to want to hold her while she cried over her boyfriend.  But he's be damned if he didn't feel a pull towards her.

   The way she had looked when he had come up the stairs from the basement, vacant and still, but so beautiful, had almost
caused him to stumble over his words.  He knew it was time for him to go, but wanted to find any excuse to see her again. That alone made him wary of his judgment.  She was beautiful, but his need be near her, to see her again, was not a feeling he was familiar with.  So he threw out the lame offer to help her get her car running again and she'd declined, like any sane woman should.  He was having a hard time getting past the idea of not seeing her again.  She might not be looking for someone to help her, but he was going to see her again, if only to be close to her.