You Turn Away From All the Things That I've Been Trying to Say

This has been a great day. I finally got a management position after working my ass off for months after the Hinder shoot. I pull out of my work parking lot and text Austin to ask him what he wants for dinner tonight. We've been on three dates now and I really like him a lot. I get stopped at a red light and my phone rings in a text message.

"Your choice, babe." It says. I roll my eyes. He is such a man.

I drive to a store and move up and down the aisles, picking up food. I buy two rib eye steaks, asparagus and a bag of potato's and all the other stuff I need to make the meal, being that I doubt that Austin has anything at his house. I pay for all the stuff and take it out to my car and put it in the trunk. When I get back in the car, I text Austin again.

"I'm on my way over with dinner and good news."

It's a ten minute drive from the store to his place, so I get there pretty fast. I go around to the back of my car and pop the trunk and take all my bags out and walk up the sidewalk to his front door, careful not to drop anything. I ring the doorbell with my elbow and wait for him to answer. He throws the door open and I'm kind of surprised. He doesn't look like a rock star right now in his white tee shirt and jeans. He has on a few necklaces, but other than that, he looks like total normal dude. He smiles when he sees me.

"Hey, I thought when you said you were bringing dinner, you were going to have Chinese." He says, taking two bags out of my arms and walking into the house. I follow him inside and shut the door behind us.

"We always have crappy food, so I thought we could stay in." We drop the bags on the kitchen counter and he looks at me.

"So, whats the good news?"

"I got a management position!"

"Oh my God, baby that's awesome!" He gives me a huge hug and lifts me up off the floor a little bit. He gives me a little kiss once he sets me down. Probably the third time he's ever kissed me and I must say, I don't hate it.

"Yeah, I'm happy. I've been working my ass off." I say.

"I know you have. I'm so proud of you." I laugh.

"So, whats for dinner?"

I dig into the bags and bring out the asparagus first. He picks it up and examines it.

"I didn't think you were one of those vegetarian chicks." I laugh.

"I'm not, be patient." He raises his hands in surrender and motions for me to continue handing him food. I take out the steaks next and he checks them out.

"Nice." The bag of potato's comes next and all the other crap I bought.

"OK, so what am I gonna do?" He asks.

"You're going to help me."

"There's a problem with that though."

"What's that?"

"I can't cook."

"Oh Jesus Christ. I can teach you. It's not brain surgery." I tell him. He doesn't look convinced, but he nods his head.

"First things first, we need to preheat the oven." I say and walk over to his stainless steel oven and look over the buttons and push a few.

"You, are going to be making the steaks."

"I think I can do that. Any man can make steak, right?"

"That's what they say, we'll see though." I tease. He flips me off and I hand him the steaks so he can season them.

We stand side by side and I wrap the potato's in aluminum foil and put them in the oven while he seasons the steak. Next I take the asparagus out of the package and chop the ends off.

"Hey Madison, you want a beer?" He asks, opening the fridge.

"Yeah, I'll take one." I say, tossing some salt on the asparagus. He cracks open two beers and sets one down next to my cutting board. I put the pan on the stove and rinse all my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. I grab my beer and look at Austin when I'm done.

"Now what?" He asks.

"Now, we wait for the potato's to get done and then we can start the other stuff."

"Oh shit, then I can show you what I did today." He says and leads me out of the kitchen and to the living room. On the wall, there is a frame hanging. He leads me over to it and I check it out. It's a triple platinum plaque for Hinder's album Extreme Behavior. I smile.

"Nice."

"I finally hung it up. I've had it for almost a year."

"Wow." I move around the room and look around. There are some pictures on the mantle. I frown at one picture of Austin and Jami. I pick it up and look at it and he comes up behind me, takes it from me and looks at it for a second before putting it back on the mantle.

"I need to throw that away." He says, softly.

"You really loved her didn't you?"

"Yeah. But that's the past. I'm over it." I'm not sure how true that is, but I'm not going to push it. I look at the picture again and follow him back to the kitchen.

We get back to work on the food and I start the asparagus and I have him set the table. To my surprise, he doesn't set the small table in the breakfast nook area just off of the kitchen, overlooking the pool. He leaves the room and goes to the dining room, which I only know is the dining room because I've passed by it a few times. To my knowledge he never eats in there. When he comes back in after what seems like a really long time, I show him how to preheat the broiler and he crouches down and opens it up. He's holding both steaks and he looks down at the broiler shelf.

"Tongs." He says. I stand up and grab a set of tongs and trade him one of the steaks for the tongs and he takes one steak and places it on the broiler. He takes the other steak from me and puts it on the broiler and closes it up.

"How do you like your steak, baby?" He asks.

"Medium rare, please." I take a swig of my beer.

"That's how I like mine. I'm telling you, were a match made in fucking heaven." I laugh at him. We stand there for a few minutes and he opens the broiler and flips the steaks.

"See, you're a pro."

"I'm not bad. I haven't cooked a steak in years. Now I'm into the microwave."

When dinner's done, we put everything on two plates and take them to the dining room. I smile when I see the dining room. He's got the lights dimmed and candles going. There's a bouquet of flowers on the table. We sit down.

"Very nice decorating, Winkler."

"Thanks."

"Where did you get the flowers?" I ask.

"My housekeeper brings them in every week. I don't really even notice them usually, but I saw them and I thought they would work in here."

"Housekeeper, huh? I wondered how you keep this house so clean." He laughs.

"It's not because I'm a fucking anal person, that's for sure."

I take the first bit of my food and I smile when I see him watching me. I pretend to gag a little bit and he frowns.

"Well, you might want to stick with the microwave Austin." I joke. His eyes widen and I start laughing.

"Relax. It's wonderful." He smiles.

"I was worried it sucked." I shrug.

"If it did, we would have scrapped it and ordered pizza. Not a big deal."

"You're a lot more relaxed than a lot of other girls I've dated. If dinner sucked they would have bitched and moaned and it would have ruined my evening."

"I'm pretty low maintenance." I say.

"I like that about you. Nothing worse than a high maintenance woman."

We eat the rest of our meal, having a good conversation and sometimes not talking at all. It's nice to not feel pressure to keep up a conversation all the time. We both stand up and take care of our dishes and get another beer. I get a text from my sister as were walking into the living room that says she's out with a guy on a date and she won't be home until late. I text her back and tell her I'm at Austin's. I go back into the living room and sit down on the couch next to Austin.

"What was that?" He asks.

"My sister. She's on a date and said she won't be home until late. But I'm not worried about it because I'm here, so no big deal."

"What movie do you want to watch?"

"Your pick." I say and settle in and take a sip of beer. He stands up and goes over to a cabinet and looks over the DVDs on the shelf.

"Gone in Sixty Seconds, Walk The Line, Step Brothers?" I laugh.

"You are such a man, I'm surprised you didn't say The Hangover."

"I haven't gotten that one yet." He laughs. He pulls a case out.

"I did just get Crazy Heart though. I haven't watched it yet, but some friends of mine have said it's amazing."

"Let's watch that then. I haven't seen it either." I say. He takes it out of the case and pops it into the player. He hits some buttons on the remote and turns the surround sound on. He plops back down on the couch next to me, throwing his arm over the back of the couch behind me, like men do. We watch the movie and when it's over, he stands up and takes it out of the player.

"That was cool. What do you want to do now?" He's wide awake and wired for sound and I must say that I am too.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?" He sits down next to me, a little closer this time.

"I can think of one thing." He says softly, and he kisses my lips softly at first and then a little deeper.

"Austin." I say.

"If it's too soon for you, I understand."

"No, I was just going to say, we should go upstairs." I smile. He takes my hand and we stand up and he leads me upstairs to his bedroom. He closes the door behind us and comes over to me and we kiss again. I push him over to the bed and he sits down. I take my white long sleeved shirt with embellished shoulders off and drop it on the floor. He takes me in. I unbutton my jeans and they drop to the floor so I'm just standing there in my white bra and panties. He stands up and pulls me into him and kisses my lips and trails down my throat and my chest. I pull his shirt up over his head and drop it on the floor with my clothes. Once his clothes are gone we lie down on his bed and I watch him as he kisses my chest and my stomach, trailing down to my hip and then coming back up, teasing me with his tongue. He finally slips my bra off and cups my breast in his hand while he kisses my lips. And then he's inside me and I moan his name softly in his ear. I never expected him to be so gentle. When were done, I lay with my head on his shoulder and he strokes my arm lightly with his fingers.

When I wake up in the morning, I'm alone. I listen to hear if Austin is in the bathroom or something, but I don't hear anything, so I roll out of bed and walk into his walk in closet and look around. I grab a black and gray pinstripe shirt that looks like the one he wore on our first date. I put it on and button only a few buttons. I put on my panties and check myself out in the bathroom mirror. My hair is falling around my face in soft waves and I have a very serene look on my face. I walk down the stairs and turn into the kitchen. Austin is in there, with his back to me, leaning against the counter, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He turns when he hears me walk in and smiles. I give him a little hug and he kisses the top of my head.

"Good morning beautiful." He says.

"Good morning. I borrowed one of your shirts."

"No problem. Do you drink coffee?"

"Yeah." He moves around me and grabs a big coffee mug and pours some coffee into it and hands it to me.

"I have creamer and sugar around here somewhere if you want." He says.

"Black is fine. I'm from Michigan, we drink black coffee."

"That's how it is in Oklahoma." He laughs. We sit down at the table in the breakfast nook and I look out at the pool.

"Wanna go for a swim?" He asks.

"I don't have a swim suit here."

"That's why I have a fence, baby." I roll my eyes.

"OK, if you want to come over anytime and use the pool, you're more than welcome. I leave my house unlocked all the time, so just come on in and tan and swim all you want."

"That's very trusting."

"I trust you, Madison."

"I trust you too, Austin." And I mean it.