“What did Gina say exactly?”
She waved a hand in the air. “Oh it’s really nothing. Let’s not worry about it.” She smiled. “Did I see that you bought some nice wine on your way home from work?”
“I did, you want some?”
“I wouldlovesome.”
“Then I will be right back.” I bent down to kiss her once more, then got out of bed, threw on my boxers, and went downstairs to grab us both a glass of wine, still flying high from the fantastic orgasm she’d given me.
* * *
It wasn’t my typical M.O. to lay around in bed after having sex, drinking and talking, but for some reason that night I didn’t really feel like jumping out of the sheets right away. After I brought some wine for the two of us, Stephanie cozied up next to me and started asking me questions about my life, and it felt good to spend some time talking to her. The women I slept with were often busy, working women who had to be up early the next day, and who didn’t want me to stick around anymore than I did. They would usually be the one to kick me out of bed and tell me to be on my way, so this was a nice change of pace.
Not that I was planning on making a habit out of it or anything, but for that one night, it was perfect.
“I have a question,” she said after we were already one glass of wine in. I had brought the bottle up with me, thinking we were probably going to need it. “You once said that you were going through a big life change when you went to Vegas with Kyle all those years ago. I want to know what that big change was.”
I sighed. “You really don’t. It’s a bummer of a story.”
“I want to know anyway.”
“Fine.” I poured myself a second glass of wine and pushed my back into the headboard. “Let’s see. Where to start. Well, when I was in college for my undergrad, my dad used to talk about the day I would graduate and how glad he would be for me to finally start working for Becker Tech. David had already graduated and was working there; he’d actually interned there a few summers in a row. I, on the other hand, wanted to do something else. I wanted to be a doctor.”
She looked up at me with a surprised expression. “You were going to be a doctor?”
“That was the plan,” I said. “I always thought I would make a really good surgeon, and even though I’d never talked to my dad about it, I figured he wouldn’t be too upset about it. Who doesn’t want their kid to become a doctor? So—a few months into my senior year, I told him that I was going to apply to med school.”
“What did he say? Did he freak out?”
I shook my head. “No. In fact, he was very supportive of the idea. The only thing was that he told me I should take some time to get some work experience under my belt before I went right into med school. It wasn’t bad advice, honestly, even though now I think he had ulterior motives for giving it to me. But he was right. I got good grades in college, but I also partied a lot and slacked off as much as I could. Med school would’ve kicked my ass if I had gone right from undergrad into it, so I took a couple years off and in that time I took a low-level job at my dad’s company.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I see. So you think that was his plan all along, to get you to come work for him, get comfortable in the job, so that you’d decide not to go to med school?”
“I think so, yeah. And it worked for a while. He kept offering me promotions and raises, and I got to work alongside my brother, which was always a good time. I didn’t hate my job, and I was learning a lot, so every year when it came around to the time I would need to start looking at med school applications, I would let the deadline pass me by. Then, the year before I turned 30, I decided that I was going to do it, finally. I wanted to be a doctor before I turned 40, and in order to do that, I needed to get my shit together. So, I applied, and I got in.”
“You did!” she gasped. “That’s great! But—But you clearly didn’t go?”
“I did not go, you’re right about that. After I learned I got in, I decided to tag along on Kyle’s Vegas trip with some of his other buddies, to celebrate you know? I had this plan that when I got back I would tell my dad that I applied and got in, and regardless of what he said, I wasn’t going to let him talk me out of it. He would have had almost a year to get over it, since they send out acceptance letters like ten months before your first semester starts.”
I said nothing for a few seconds, and in that time, Stephanie must’ve put the rest of the story together for herself. “But ten months from then,” she said. “Will’s mom was going to show up with a newborn baby in her arms.”
“Exactly,” I said. “But when I got home from Vegas, I still didn’t know that I had become a father. Still, I chickened out of telling my dad. For that whole year. My plan was to tell him once it was too late for him to do anything about it, and once it was too late for me to change my mind. I was going to enroll in classes, buy the books, all that jazz, then I’d tell him on the same day that I quit my job at Becker Tech. Instead—the day I was going to quit was the day Irene showed up with Will and my whole life changed forever.”
“You wouldn’t have had time to go to med school with a baby at home, especially after Irene left.” She made a tsk sound with her mouth. “I’m sorry, Matt.”
“It all worked out for the best,” he said. “I got to raise my amazing son, and if I was a surgeon right now, think about how many hours I’d be working a week. I wouldn’t be able to spend nearly as much time with Will as I do with my current job. Things turned out the way they were supposed to. I know that sounds cheesy, but I really believe that.”
“It doesn’t sound cheesy to me at all. But do you ever feel like you missed out on chasing down your dream?”
“Maybe a little,” I said. “But you know, dreams change. I never knew how much I wanted to be a dad until I had Will, and now raising him has become a new dream of mine. I think very few people hold onto the dreams they had when they were kids, or even when they were teenagers.”
She smiled. “Yeah. But some do.”
“Do you mean you? Did you always dream of being a nanny?”
She laughed and gave me a playful little shove. “No! What little kid dreams of growing up to become a nanny? I was a nerd, but I wasn’t that nerdy.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed along with her. “But since that’s the only job I’ve ever known you to have, I didn’t know you had another dream you were keeping secret.”