Back In My Life Again 3

"You bet I do!" said Erik. "If you want to come back to the motel with me, I'll show you!"

"Sure!" Chelsea didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, so she was more than happy to accompany Erik back to his motel room.

He drove them there, and then she followed him upstairs to his room. It was small but tidy, with a double glass door with the drapes drawn to let the sunshine in.

Chelsea sat on the comfortable beige sofa while Erik went to the bedroom and returned with a large CD book. He sat beside her on the sofa and opened it.

"Wow!" she breathed as she surveyed the titles. "ABBA, ELO, Journey, Styx, Kansas - some of these groups I've never even heard of!"

"This is great stuff." Erik selected a CD entitled 'Breakfast In America' by a group called Supertramp and inserted it into the CD player, and the first track began to play.

"I'm sure I've never heard this before," Chelsea remarked a few minutes later. "It's awesome!"

They listened to the rest of the CD, and then Erik played a CD by a group called Cheap Trick. By that time, it was getting dark.

"Would you like to spend the night?" asked Erik.

Memories of that magic night in the beach house swept over Chelsea - his hot breath on her skin, the way it had felt as they'd moved together.

But then the other memories returned - the empty, hollow feeling she'd had after she'd said goodbye to him at the airport. Did she want to go through that again?

Not on your life!

"I'd better go home now," she told Erik.

"All right." He looked disappointed, but he took her hand and walked downstairs with her to his car.

He drove the short distance to her apartment and walked her to the door.

"Goodbye, Chelsea." His fingers lightly swept the hair back from her face, and she closed her eyes as his lips softly touched her own.

"Erik's back," Chelsea told her mother as the two women strolled down the mall one evening.

"He is?" asked Jan.

"Yeah. He took me to a concert on the beach a couple of days ago."

Jan turned to look at her daughter. "Was that all you two did?"

"Uh huh. He asked if I wanted to spend the night, but I said no."

"Smart move."

Chelsea sighed. "I don't know what to do, Mom. I do still have feelings for him, but I don't want to get hurt again."

"Well, you're an adult now, Chelsea. I can't tell you what to do, but my advice would be to take it slow this time. If it was meant to be, it'll be."

"I thought I was taking it slow the first time, when I was still in high school."

"Well, Chelsea, you both have had some time to mature since then. Maybe he's more settled now, more sure of what he wants."

"I sure hope so!"

Later that night, Ilya and Jan were lying in bed talking quietly after making love.

"Did you and Lianochka enjoy your trip to the mall today?" Ilya asked his wife.

"We had a nice time," Jan replied. "She told me Erik's back in town. You remember - the exchange student from Norway she dated her last year of high school."

"I remember," Ilya replied. "She was very unhappy after he went back home."

"She was," Jan agreed. "And now that he's back again, she doesn't know what to do, and I don't know how to advise her. You and I were never separated for a long time like that."

Ilya chuckled softly. "I never could have been separated from my sweet Jan. Erik is a different man from me."

"He is," said Jan. "That's what has me so worried. He left her once. If she lets herself get too deeply involved, he may leave her again."

"Perhaps he has changed," Ilya suggested.

"I hope so." Jan snuggled up to her husband and was soon asleep.

"There's something I need to talk to you about," Erik said to Chelsea as they strolled along the beach, hand in hand. "I'm leaving for San Francisco in two days, and I want you to come along with me."

Chelsea stopped walking and just stared at him.

"I can't just drop everything and leave," she told him. "What about my job and my apartment?"

"There are nursing jobs and apartments in San Francisco," Erik pointed out.

"I could see if I can get a transfer," said Chelsea. "But Amy and Melissa are counting on me to pay a third of the rent. I can't just leave them, unless they can find someone else to move in with them."

Erik was quiet for a few seconds. "Of course you can't leave your friends without giving some notice. In that case, I'll travel on ahead, and you can join me when you get everything settled. How does that sound?"