Be All Mine

When I woke up the next morning, I had to try and remember what I had done the night before. I remembered, I just had to know it really happened. Did I really get asked out by Matt? The Matt? My head spun when I thought about it, and I had to calm myself down with a nice long shower, making sure to take every detail of my look into complete care and nurture.

I changed into a pair of tight, hot pink pants and a simple black, tank top with my favorite underground band, Cyanide Punch Party's logo on it. They were as brutal as scream-until-you-die metal came. Yet they were very brightly colored in their logos and banners, with dancing star troopers and the Kool-Aid Man head banging.

I blow dried my hair to the straightest my hair (or anyone's) hair could possibly get. Make-up done lightly to make my green eyes more outstanding, I sped down stairs and quickly ate a bowl of Cocoa-Puffs and downed a cup of orange juice.

It was noon when I arrived at the studios and I couldn't help but smile when I saw all of the guys standing around like they were on some type of break. Mikey ran and jumped into my open arms as I spun him around and kissed his cheeks. “How was my little boy?” I asked.

“I saw Daddy play bass with Uncle Tom and then we swung on his swing set,” he replied, his voice full of energy that was just ready to bust out. Mark had dressed him in his toddler The Sex Pistols t-shirt and a pair of kids', rugged blue jeans with a small, green-studded belt through its loops.

“Sounds like you had a lot of fun, kiddo,” commented Matt, his smile seemingly forced, as if he had some troubling news on his mind. I looked up at him and tried to ease the tension that I realized was settled through out the whole room. He smiled back in a non-forced manor this time.

“So you ready to go to the movie, Mikey?” I asked, standing up and holding his hand gently as he rubbed his smooth face against the back of my hand. Mark had left his Mohawk down, and it was still cute as it lay motionless on his sweet little angel face.

“Yeah!” Mikey squealed.

I looked at Matt and grew serious. “You okay, Matt? If today's not good, then I can always go some other time,” I said, my heart growing ill as I thought about how all my hopes would be shot down from their high resting place. I had been longing for this all night and I wasn't ready to realize this might not be right for Matt today, who looked very down.

He shook his head and objected to my comment. “Don't be silly,” he said, opening the door to the parking lot. “I promised a movie and I am not a person who breaks promises. Right Mikey?”

The way he eyed Mikey made me a little suspicious. Especially when Mikey hid behind my arm and pretended to zip his mouth shut and throw away the zipper. I looked at Matt who only smiled and nodded for us to start the walk to the theater.

“So how do you like Los Angeles? Mark told me you're a New York girl,” Matt wondered, walking straight and tall on my left as Mikey attached himself onto my right arm, the one away from the street.

I shrugged. “Well I am originally from Chicago,” I corrected his information. “And so I have sort of been used to the very unpredictability of the Midwest weather and fast paced days. It was the same in New York, too, so when Mark moved me out here I felt like I had moved from a fast paced, always-on-the-go world to a do-what-you-like-when-you-like world.”

Matt laughed and asked, “Why did you move to New York? Family just decided to?”

Depends on what you mean by “family,” I thought to myself. “Yeah,” I lied. “Something like that. My dad found a better job there and my mom didn't really have anything tying her down to the Chicago area anyway. But I was put into foster care when I was ten and was adopted when I was eleven.”

Matt's eyebrows raised and he wondered, “Really? Why did you...I mean, why did they put you in, you know, an orphanage?”

Looking down at Mikey, I thought about how he would never hear the story of my younger life, and how horribly I had lived for most of my life. He didn't need to know those people even existed, and I was going to do everything in my power to keep it that way. “Uh...I sort of don't want to talk about it in front of M-I-K-E-Y,” I said, spelling out Mikey's name as he counted the lines of the sidewalks, always ending at fifty because that was as high as he could go so far.

Matt smiled and said, “I respect that. I wouldn't want him to know, either. Seems unfair for a child to try to understand shit-stuff,” he said, correcting himself, “they don't need to. He's too young. Let him be an idiot for a couple more years.”

Laughing, I asked, “Did you just call my four year-old son an idiot?”

Matt shrugged and then answered, “In a non-direct way. We're here Mikey.”

We arrived at the theater at twelve forty-five and Matt paid for the tickets, though I tried to pay for mine and Mikey's, failing to get Matt to repeal his offer. He claimed that it was just plain weird for a grown man to buy a single ticket for a kids' movie, even if he had been with someone else and their kid. So I offered to buy the popcorn and two large drinks, but he again vetoed my offer.

“Didn't Mark ever teach you what a man does and does not do on outings?” he joked, as I rolled my eyes and we followed Mikey to the large theater.

Matt led us all the way to the top so Mikey would get an open and clear view of the entire movie, and I had Mikey sit in between us. I felt like it was the best thing to do since he had done this for Mikey, not me. It wasn't our date, it was Mikey's with me and Matt.

I handed Mikey the popcorn as I asked Matt what was with his very serious manor earlier. “I don't mean you looked like a tight ass,” I said. “But you looked...I don't know, in deep thought or something. Was everything alright?”

He sighed and stretched, his whole muscled stomach starting to show through his plain white shirt again and I tried to keep down my blushing complexion as much as I could. “Just band stuff,” he replied, coming back to normal as I looked at him more direct this time. “You probably know from years with Mark that sometimes bands just don't get along like some super gay happy family. We push each other's buttons sometimes.”

I nodded and admitted that I too was once in a band, but had quit in order to pay better attention to Mark. “He sort of felt like he was supposed to be the, not master, but the bread winner, you know? And if I got really famous, he was worried we would be competitive and not caring. So I found them a new member who I felt was worthy and then quit. Haven't seen them since,” I said.

The lights dulled as the trailers began to roll and Matt whispered, “What did you play?”

I sipped my soda quickly and replied, “Bass and vocals. It was an all girl death metal band called Inner Pit. We were actually pretty decent. But I still think that we would have diminished by now anyways, so I just got out before it got too disappointing.”

People two rows ahead hushed us and Matt swore under his breath as we smiled to ourselves. When the movie started, Mikey's eyes seemed to never blink, both Matt and I laughing as we watched him sip from my pop and eat popcorn like a zombie. “I guess he got your money's worth,” I told Matt, who nodded in agreement.

Occasionally I looked over at Matt from the corner of my eyes and found his head turned in my direction, but I couldn't tell what he was looking at. Either he was looking at me, or he was just simply looking at Mikey. You're so stupid! Why else would he look this way?

I looked over at him, head turned fully so as to take a better and quick look. He looked away hurriedly and I felt my cheeks warm up as I tended to the messy Mikey, cleaning up his popcorn infested shirt. “Mikey,” I grumbled to myself, as he had a cool spot from dripping soda and grease from the overly buttered popcorn.

“Mommy?” whispered Mikey in my left ear as I continued to wipe his shirt with napkins.

“Hmm?” I asked, hard at work.

“Can Matt stay for dinner?” he asked, Matt's eyes now throwing a warm spot on my head as I felt him looking at me. I knew he overheard, but I didn't want him to hear how badly I wanted to ask him to stay.

“Well,” I whispered, taking the empty bucket from Mikey and putting it in the seat next to me. “That isn't for me to decide, honey. Matt is a big boy and he probably would like to go do things that big boys want to do. You have to ask him. Okay?”

Mikey nodded and asked, “When should I ask?”

“After the movie, bud,” I replied, turning back around to watch the last twenty minutes of the film.

If there had been a moral to the whole movie, I didn't catch it. Either I was spacing out thinking about Matt staying for dinner-or not staying- or the movie actually never had one. Either way, I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn't realize it was over until Mikey was tugging at my arm impatiently and saying, “He said yes! He said yes! Can he stay, then? Please?”

“What?” I asked, confused, before realizing what he meant. “Oh...Yeah, of course he can. I'm making steaks on the grill and probably baked potatoes. If that's okay with you.”

Matt grinned. “I eat a lot of steak. I love it.”

“Well I buy a lot of steak,” I added. “I love it more. So we'll go back to the studios and you'll follow us to my house. We live just like, twenty minutes away. So not too far.”

We left the theater as Mikey's body gave in to the sugar rush and he started to blab on to Matt about hockey, or dinosaurs or whatever else was coming to mind. I think he even mentioned the hilarious monkeys we'd seen at the zoo a week ago, and how they were flinging food at one another, but I wasn't really paying attention. The fact that Matt was going to have dinner at my house was a little nerve wrecking. There was something about a rock star who was more than godly looking and richer than hell coming over to my measly condo and eating steaks. It seemed so out of place to me.

Then again, he had said yes, so he probably knew I was no mega-millionaire with a house the size of Rhode Island. But maybe it was more out of guilt, since a four year old asked him. If Mikey asked me with those bright green eyes the size of tennis balls, I would feel bad saying no, too.

“Can I ride with Matt?” asked Mikey, as I finally snapped out, once again, of my own world and back to reality.

I looked at Matt who nodded, and I said, “Well, I guess so. Just make sure you wear a seatbelt. Okay?”

Mikey smiled and skipped off with Matt towards his own truck, his hand held firmly in Matt's. I hopped in my truck and took a deep breath. I was scared for some reason. As if it was the first time Mikey had been out of my sight but with good reason. I wasn't scared of Matt, was I? He was nice, he was charming, strong, good-looking...Was that it?

As I sped off towards my house, Matt in hot pursuit, I realized that I was actually intimidated by Matt. He was so unique looking and heavenly, while I was so plain. If he wanted to chew people up then spit them out, what would honestly stop him from doing so? Me? Yeah right. Matt was no doubt smarter than I thought and probably way more clever.

But what would he try to pull? I really doubted a famous rock star would get very far with kidnapping or some other type of crime where his face was more than recognizable; it was memorable.

Or he's just going to use you, I thought to myself, watching his car in my rear view mirror very closely.

That had to be it. That was why he was always smiling at me like he knew something I didn't, and why he was always too sincere to me. He was after something. After what only a girl like me could give: hospitality and competition. I was a fighter and he knew it; he felt it. I was a mother of one, raising my child by myself as his dad went on tours around the country and world. It wasn't like I was Paris Hilton who never worked hard for anything and just laid myself anywhere for people.

“You're being foolish,” I whispered to myself, pulling into my garage as Matt parked in the driveway behind me. This is the little girl talking again. Not the woman. You're fine, I thought, as I closed the door behind me, heading into the house with the two best men in the world on my side.