"I understand what you're
"Is it getting through to
you, though?"
"I don't know."
"You've just seen this man for the first time. You can't be in love. You like him; that's all. You're not even attracted to him as strongly as you think that you are. I promise you."
"Didn't you fall in love with Scott at first sight?"
"Well," said Natasha and laughed, "you won't agree with me on this, but that's different. I was an adult by the time that I met Scott. Remember, I'm only three years older than Noah. I've lived life. I've been with men, only two of them before Scott, though, and I know what it's like to be infatuated and what it's like to be in love."
Smiling, Nicole said, "So, you're saying that you were infatuated with your ex-lovers and you're in love with Scott."
Scott was passing by at the moment to go to his bedroom, which was five doors away from Nicole's, and when he heard his name, he stopped and started eavesdropping.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. That's why I didn't marry my ex lovers, and I married Scott. I thought I was in love with my first boyfriend and first man, but I was only twenty, and I didn't know anything about love. I knew everything about motherly and brotherly and sisterly love, but I knew nothing about man and woman love."
"You married Scott because you loved him, not for his money."
"Remember that I didn't know that Scott was a multimillionaire until I came back from Las Vegas, where we got married. I thought about divorcing him so that he didn't think that I was marrying him for his money, but he begged me not to. He told me that he pretended to be middle class, like we are, to see if I could love him for him. He got on his knees, cried and begged me not to divorce him. Then, he told me how his ex-wives broke his heart."
Nicole unexpectedly hugged Natasha. "I'm glad you found real love. Help me find my real love, too."
With a smile on his face, Scott walked to his room and opened the door to walk in as he thought, she loves me. She really loves me. She loves me more than Barbara and Hayley ever did. I thought that Barbara was my only true love, but I was wrong. My only true love is Natasha. He took all of his clothes off, and then he opened the door to his bathroom and walked in. Right before going into the bathtub, he took off his boxers. He walked into the bathtub and closed the sliding door. He turned the faucet on and let the water run down his body. Suddenly, Noah walked into his bedroom, closed the door and sat on his bed. His hair was washed, but it wasn't cut. His face was shaved except his eyebrows. Rob let Nicole decide what haircut looked best on Noah. Noah couldn't care less about his haircut. He just wanted to be clean everyday---like most people were. Suddenly, Noah saw a computer. It was only three months old. It was the latest Compaq Presario model. Scott never turned it off. He always put it on standby to use it time and time again at the push of a key. Mal ware never intruded the computer because Scott had it protected with the best anti-virus, anti-spy ware, and anti-ad ware in the world. He was completely protected, even when he was offline. He got up, walked to the computer chair and sat on it. He saw the CPU power light flashing, so he knew that he didn't have to turn it on. He pressed the space bar to get it working again. Then, he clicked on the Start button. He was connected to the Internet just by opening the internet explorer because Scott had broadband internet. He entered MSN.com and signed up for an email account. In less than thirty seconds, he was using it. He clicked the "New Message" button and started writing an email message to his mother in law.
Dear Providence,
I'm back at my father's house. I didn't call you because you moved to Connecticut, your hometown, when Jennifer was murdered, and I don't want to incur long distance charges on my father's phone bill. I just wanted to tell you that now that I'm going to be staying with my father, I'll be a lot better. I wish that the kids were with you so that I could talk to them! He typed and placed a crying smiley face right by the sentence. It wasn't just a smiley. He started shedding tears. I miss them. My father said he was going to help me prove my innocence and get my kids back. When I get them back, I'm going to see if I can share their custody with you, now that their mother is no longer with us. That way you have rights to your grandchildren.
I'll keep in touch. Now that you have an unlimited long distance plan for one low monthly price, you can call me at, and typed the phone number to Scott's house. I'll keep you informed on how the arrangements to recuperate the kids are going. My father already talked to his attorney. We'll see if it's true what he said, that when you have as much money as he does, you can prove anyone's innocence or guilt no matter how difficult it may be.
Best regards to you and Donatello,
Love always Noah Scott Spears
Noah clicked "send" on the email and it was sent in less than two seconds. Then, he closed the internet explorer and clicked, "turned off" and then "stand by" on the start menu. He wanted the computer to be just like Scott had left it. Then, he got up and sat on his father's bed once again, to wait for him to get out of the bathroom and talk to him. Besides a computer, Scott had a thirty-two- inch flat screen TV with a DVD player and recorder and a satellite dish receiver with over three thousand channels. He had the biggest satellite dish available on the market. Noah took the long gray remote control in his hands, turned on the TV, and then pushed the tab to the right to change the satellite TV channel. It wasn't known how, but when Noah turned on the TV, a porn movie was on, and although he was twenty-six and he loved sex when he had a chance to have it, he hated watching porn. He didn't want his kids watching it when they were adults, and what better way to get them not to watch porn than doing the same himself? The kids were far away from Noah, but they wanted to be just like he was when they grew up. They somehow knew that their father never used, sold, or carried illegal drugs around, that he was innocent of what he'd been accused of, and that he'd never committed a crime, and they loved him. Noah hadn't watched TV for six months and he had completely forgotten the channel line-up in cable, digital cable, and satellite TV, so he pressed the button for the programming guide display. This list was too long to choose from, so he chose one of ten different categories---music. Of all of the channel options that he had, this was his favorite category. His voice was too low for him to be a singer, but he was a song writer, and he had written songs for many different artists and sent them to their record labels. These artists had actually accepted and recorded Noah's music. It was too bad that because Noah had moved out of Scott's house, he'd never gotten the well-deserved money for his music. Little did he know that Scott had gotten his hands on all of that money, over three million dollars worth of payments in music, and stored it in a bank account under his name? Scott had instructed all of the people in his bank not to notify Noah of the bank account by any means. This was a big surprise for Noah that he'd get on his birthday---on October 15th, and boy was that a surprise! He tuned to the MTV2 channel. A three-hour video block was on. Once he found exactly what he wanted to watch, he just laid back, pulled a pillow down, and accommodated his head on it. He didn't want to go all the way to the top of the bed because he wanted to see the TV much more closely, although he had a twenty-twenty vision. Just then, Scott got out of the bathroom with a black towel wrapped around his waist and gasped when he saw Noah on his bed. He closed the door behind him and walked more closely to Noah. Noah looked at him with a smile on his face and asked, "Who died, Dad?" and laughed.
"No one," said Scott, smiling. "Would you please look directly at the TV for the next few minutes while I get dressed?" and Noah focused on the TV entirely. His neck was stiff looking at it. "I know that I'm your father and that we bathed together a plethora of occasions," he said as he quickly put on a fresh pair of boxers that he'd gotten from a luxurious dresser a few steps from the bathroom door, right in front of the bedroom window, "but we're grown men, and I don't think we should see each other naked." He put on the bottom part of his pajamas... the pants. Scott was a grown man, but he loved pajamas with little kids' designs on them. He looked so cute with those pajamas, as if he were a grown five-year-old boy. He quickly put on his long-sleeved, buttoned pajama top, turned around and said, "You can focus on me now. I'm done getting dressed," and walked to the bed and sat right beside him, right above his head and started caressing his hair.
People couldn't help but to caress Noah's head because despite the fact that he was half Latino, his other Caucasian half gave him perfectly straight hair and it was so soft and silky---like ebony silk bed sheets. "What did you want to talk to me about?"
Noah sat up, turned around, and moved over to the left side of the bed, where Scott was sitting, and got right beside him. "I wanted to talk to you about us."
"Oh," said Scott, amazed, "if that's so, we'll spend the rest of the night talking, Noah, because we have a lot to talk about us."
Noah replied, "I know, Dad," and sighed, "but I am not going to say everything I want to say at once," and laughed. "I know you have to go to work tomorrow. Tomorrow is Thursday."
"That's right," said Scott,
smiling.
"I just want to say," said
Noah, holding both of Scott's hands, with tears in his eyes, "that now that I'm back, I regret running away. I didn't have any remorse for it despite the sorrowful life I was living, but I do regret it now. Now that I've explored one fifth of this house," he said and laughed, "I know how different things would've been if I had stayed. I would've finished my college education and I'd be a successful entrepreneur right now, following your footsteps, just like I dreamed, and make a fortune and an empire of my own for my kids to enjoy," he said and wiped off some of his tears.
"And who told you that this can't still happen, Noah?"
"Well, in order to be as successful as you I have to study for at least ten years, don't I?"
"That's incorrect. I mean, you need a considerate time of college education, but not ten years. I was only in college for five years, and look where I am now.
My family wasn't always rich, you know? I am the first multi- millionaire in my family. It wasn't easy to achieve this wonderful financial life, you know? I had to..."
life."