Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series

by Shandwick, K. L.

  When I peeled back the paper I grinned. It was a personalized Good Disc with a message at the center. “This disc is awarded for the category of Emerging Baby Daddy to my amazing rock star Sawyer Michael Wild.” My heart clenched in my chest and I leaned in to hug her.

  “This is perfect,” I told her, pulling back to look at her. She wrinkled her nose. “Not really, I suck at this stuff, but at least it’s not socks and underwear,” she joked.

  “Okay, you’d better have this one then since we’re doing wall art,” I said, handing her the unmistakable wall hanging, wrapped in tissue and tape.

  Smiling sweetly, she tore off the paper then glanced at it vertically, puzzled at what it could be. Taking it from her I turned it horizontally so she could read it. I knew she’d know what it was, but not really understand it.

  It was an image of a soundwave, a series of yellow and white vertical lines on a dark gray background. At the center in front it had a glass case in the frame with a small, personalized USB key inside. The rest of the memory stick looked like a solid silver key, which was inscribed with a date from two weeks before.

  “Can you pass me my laptop, James?” I asked, nodding at the small notebook sitting on the table beside him. Billie’s puzzled gaze shifted from me to the laptop and back to me. “Take the key out, darlin’,” I urged and watched her delicately lift it out of the box. Her fingers wrapped around it and I noted she held it tight in her hand.

  “Okay, stick it in there,” I said pointing to the USB jack in the side of the laptop I had opened by then. The laptop sounded the presence of the new device. I opened the window and searched for the file. I’d already ensured the sound had been set but I’d plugged in my earphones and handed them to her.

  “Is this a secret message?” she asked, wondering why I didn’t want anyone else to hear. I watched as her eyes danced with anticipation, her breaths a little shallow and sharper the more excited she became. When I hit the play button for a second she froze until her eyes welled with tears and they flowed down her face. Taking the painting again she stared at it in wonder as she swallowed back wave after wave of emotion. When the track ended she covered her eyes with the heels of her hands and she sobbed.

  Tricia shot to her feet obviously upset to see Billie cry. “Fuck, Sawyer, what have you done?” she bit out as she made a dive for Billie, who held up her hand to stop her.

  “You …” she started and stopped and I grinned like some sick, sadistic man who gained pleasure from seeing his woman in tears, but I knew what they didn’t: they were happy tears. I knew because I had reacted in the same way when I had experienced the final result.

  “Sawyer,” James warned and this time Billie grinned.

  “It’s okay, I was just a bit … overwhelmed. Can I share it?” she asked and I nodded, choked because I knew it was my turn to keep my shit together because the key held a minute of sound of our unborn babies heartbeats. I had asked the sonographer to record it for me when we had attended her last utrasound scan. I then took the soundbite to a producer friend of mine and had the soundwave screenshot. Afterward I had a local artist replicate and make the wall art for us.

  “You’re a genius,” Billie gushed. Tricia and James sat silent and stunned, and both looked as choked up as we had been when we’d heard it for the first time. When it was finished they had both looked a little uncomfortable, like this was a private thing between Billie and me, like they had intruded on our moment. So I quickly lifted another box and shoved it at my wife to move things along.

  We continued sharing gifts such as small personalized baubles and other quirky shit for the tree until the buzzer went and Billie almost jumped out of her skin. “Whoa. Take a breath. I get this is a little daunting, darlin’, but we’re all here to see this goes well. I sincerely doubt Logan is going to pull his shit while we are all around you. Smile and be happy, that’s all I want. Leave the rest up to me.”

  Walking over to the intercom in the hallway I buzzed him up. He arrived at the door a couple of minutes later carrying a bag of gifts for Colby. “Welcome,” I said, not really feeling that sentiment inside.

  Looking somewhat deflated, he stepped inside the apartment and immediately cast his eyes over our hallway. I watched as he took in our white marble floors and the Persian rug my mother gifted us as a housewarming gift, and it dawned on me that although he had likely knew the building we lived in was exclusive, he probably had no idea ours was one of the penthouse apartments.

  The loft feeling vaulted ceilings and long windows to the rear couldn’t be seen from the street, and I wondered if he was mentally comparing his first impression of me with what he saw in our living conditions now. The luxury fixtures and fittings were evident in the finest details and I noted his eyes soaking them in.

  “I think you may have seen Tricia before, but you won’t know James, Logan, this is my brother,” I said and saw him check James out, then me, when his eyes flitted back and forth.

  “Hey,” James said, and stared down at Logan’s outstretched hand before he finally took it.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, none of it good, but I’m Tricia,” she said. “Are you going to be a dick today?” she asked, pointedly, and the moment she said it I thought Logan may have whiplash from the way his head recoiled inward on his neck.

  “I just want my son to have a good day,” he muttered, looking more than uncomfortable at Tricia’s challenge and I stepped in to help him.

  “Can I take your coat, Logan? Coffee, soda, water?” I offered, being careful because he’d at least had the balls to turn up and forego his arrangement for Colby’s sake.

  “Colby, your dad’s here,” Billie called down the hallway and pushed herself up off her chair. Her hands landed on her lower back and she groaned as she rubbed it gently. When she straightened up she began to walk and made her way to the kitchen to check on the roasting vegetables in the oven as Colby came rushing past.

  “Walk, Colby, we don’t want any accidents,” I admonished gently and nodded toward his mom.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking worried and sounded as if he was before he walked more slowly to where his father was seated and he sat down beside him.

  “Quite the place you’ve got here,” he advised Colby, and for some reason I felt a tad embarrassed by my wealth. Shaking off the feeling, I nodded to James and he stood, Tricia taking the hint and following him as well, and for the next fifteen minutes we left Colby and his father to have some short private time.

  It felt good to see James and Tricia comfortable in each other’s company, it made my job easier at least, but Billie was tense when she began to put the food out on the table and I picked up on her quiet, matter-of-fact demeanor.

  Nodding to Tricia to take over placing the food out on the table in preparation for lunch, I caught my wife gently by the wrist. Walking her slowly to our bedroom, I closed the door and turned to give her a moment of calm in which to catch her breath.

  “Billie Wild, I want you to breathe, darlin’.”

  Inhaling a long deep breath she blew it out and cracked her neck from side to side. The move reminded me of James doing that when he used to do his kickboxing matches.

  “You’re doing great. Now I know this must be so fucking weird, but you’ve got us and he’s only got Colby. We’re going to go out there and everyone’s going to behave like we’re old friends. Seven hours and he’ll be gone and we’ll have moved a mountain for Colby. You got me?” she nodded. “Good, because I got you too. Now another deep breath and let’s do this.”

  As Billie went to take a breath I crashed my mouth down on hers and kissed her so passionately her knees buckled, but before we got carried away I pushed her gently back and slipped my hand into hers. “There. Now your panties are wet and you’ve got another distraction to think about.” Thankfully she chuckled and I tugged her by the hand and led her back to the dining room.

  Lunch tasted amazing, which was no surprise as I knew from the dishes Billie had made befor
e that she was an excellent cook. Logan piled his plate twice, and from the way he groaned and rubbed his stomach, he’d found his Christmas lunch bliss.

  “Billie, that was incredible. I don’t know what you did with that stuffing, but I could eat it until the cows came home.” Tricia smirked when she glanced at me and a small grin threatened because of how frustrated Billie was about Logan when she’d stuffed it up the turkey’s ass.

  Giving Logan his due he made small talk, and although a lot of it centered upon himself, he had asked Tricia and James about their jobs and found a few threads of common ground to keep the conversation flowing quite smoothly through lunch. Colby looked pleased sitting between his mom and dad, with Billie next to me as I sat at the head of the table and James at the other end next to Tricia.

  After dessert, I noticed Billie looked tired and wondered if all the strain had caught up with her. Tricia noticed this too and kept everything moving by working her magic on Logan and engaging them all in a game of Charades. My wife almost wet herself watching her ex act out the book title Wuthering Heights. Trust him to pick an English literary classic.

  Afterward Tricia did have us all play Pie Face, and Logan got slapped in the face with cream twice, much to Colby’s delight … and if I’m honest mine, although I hid this well and passed him some spare napkins to wipe his face with a small smile.

  We were playing another game called, “Tis the Season,” which was a trivia game when Billie looked exhausted and I suggested she lie down for a while. Her eyes looked nervously from me to Logan and back to me, as if to say she was worried if she removed herself from the mix Logan or I may not behave ourselves.

  “Lie down, grab forty winks,” Tricia told her. “No one is going to get bent out of shape while you’re gone. If they do, they’ll have me to deal with,” she offered straight up with no messing around or thought for anyone else’s feelings but my wife’s. I figured at that moment we all needed a Tricia for Christmas at least once in our lives.

  Doing as suggested Billie took herself off to our room and ten minutes later Colby confessed he’d had enough interaction with the adults and was dying to go to his room and play with his Christmas gifts. Nodding, I excused him as did his dad and I felt triumphant he’d had what must have looked to him like a near perfect day.

  Tricia and James took the opportunity of Billie lying down to stack the dishwasher full of dirty dishes before she got back up, leaving Logan and me in the sitting room alone.

  As far as I was concerned there was no awkward silence. I’d asked him to do something for Billie and his son and he’d delivered.

  “Thanks for today, I know it couldn’t have been an easy decision for you to come here and play happy families.”

  “When you first asked me I felt angry, no incensed actually, that you had the gall to lay down the law between me and my family.” I almost challenged him with the point about his family again, but I let it slide in acknowledgment of his deed. He’d been stretched every which way from his comfort zone as a divorced father.

  “I figured that was the case when we spoke, but the situation for Colby is a delicate one. He’s got siblings on the way he’ll live with for most of the time, and every now and again he leaves to visit you. That won’t be easy, but I want to reinforce to you that it has never been my nor Billie’s intention to exclude Colby from your life. She knows more than anyone what it’s like not to identify with her father.”

  “These past few years have been a fucking minefield for me and I’ve staggered around like a blind man, between the affair; which should never have happened, the divorce and breaking up with Poppy.”

  “And Billie was on the receiving end of all of that,” I said in my wife’s defense. “I know what you think when you look at her,” I confessed without malice. “You wish you could turn the clock back and have that time again.” He stared blankly at me but didn’t deny my truth. “But … now you have a different life to build, one where you can reconcile your future with your past.”

  “How do I do this? I feel stuck, lost, stupid. Hell, at times I feel certifiable for what I walked away from.”

  “I’m not the man you should be talking to about this, because I know I have all that you want, but she’s not coming back, Logan. Never.” My voice was calm and what I said may have sounded like a callous thing to say, but it was the truth and he had to hear it, absorb it, and move on from it.

  “If that’s the case, then I can only say I hate you, but I thank you, which sounds bi-polar to say, because, if it weren’t for you I don’t know where we’d be. But when I look at how my family live, how you care for them, love them …” he choked, looked down at his hands, and rubbed them together.

  Despite what he’d done, my heart went out to him and I figured we could both have done with a large glass of scotch at that point. But he was sober and that was another struggle he lived with every day.

  As if they’d been listening, Tricia and James came back from the kitchen and plonked themselves down on the couch looking worn out. “Right, I’m going to shove off in a few minutes. How did you get here, Logan?” James asked.

  “I came by cab, I wasn’t sure if there was guest parking with it being the holiday season, so I didn’t want to chance not being able to get a space.”

  “All right, I’ll give you a ride home.” Turning to me he asked. “Do you want to wake Billie and I’ll get Colby so they can say their goodbyes?” I nodded and stood, my concerned eyes catching Logan’s again and I turned and headed toward the bedroom.

  Stepping into the hallway I blew out a breath, my chest heavy, a brick weight centered square in my stomach. It hadn’t given me pleasure to see a man on his knees, no matter how he’d come to be on them.

  Twice I noticed Logan’s eyes drop to take in my wife’s stomach as everyone said their goodbyes, but I kept their departures short and breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the door behind them. Fortunately, Colby had gone straight back to his room after seeing everyone out, because when I turned to look at Billie, she burst into another bout of tears.

  * * *

  By 8:00 p.m. Billie and I were curled up on the couch, a glass of Perrier water in her hand and a large overdue scotch in mine. No one had drunk during the day, as neither Billie nor Logan could, and I wondered if it had been James’s driest Christmas on record.

  When James left with Logan, Tricia gathered up her gifts and prepared to leave, stating she was also going home. She had another day off work, and said she wanted to sleep in the following day. However, at the time, Billie and I had felt were being spun a line by her and James.

  After an hour, Billie FaceTimed her with the expectation of catching Tricia out, and was initially disappointed when Tricia answered from her own bedroom at home. We both admonished our overactive minds until I spotted the distinctive gray high-dollar designer coat James had worn to our place, strewn casually over her bedside chair. Naturally, not one to be a cock blocker myself, I waited for Billie to conclude the call before I told her what I’d seen.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  By mid-February the snow was thick on the ground, Billie’s abdomen was as tight as a drum, and Colby had taken on his role as ‘big brother’ like a drill sergeant to a bunch of rookie soldiers fresh off the bus.

  Valentine’s Day was also our birthdays, and as Billie had become a little anemic, she felt tired. My parents had wanted to do dinner, but it had been a weekday and due to the snow, my wife had politely declined on our behalf.

  My suggestion of an intimate dinner at a local restaurant had also been rejected and a rain check issued for after the babies were born, which had left me no choice but to cook dinner for her at home. It was almost impossible to be romantic with a ten-year-old in constant daily negotiations for a later bedtime.

  James surprised us by turning up at 6:00 p.m., looking for an excuse to see a Marvel movie and asking to take Colby. Not that he’d needed an excuse, but Colby had believed him and had been only too happy to skip
out on going to bed at 9:00 p.m., as the showing let out at 10.30 p.m. After promising his mom not to be cranky when it was time to get up for school, he left with his uncle to head to the movies.

  “Oh. My. Goodness, Sawyer!” she admonished after gushing her pleasure at the first two deliveries of flowers, her attitude growing less so with each one after until she made me promise not to send more than one bunch to her ever again.

  Flowers arrived almost hourly from 11:00 a.m. until 7:00p.m. A large bunch for every month of our marriage, and our apartment looked like a rose bush had exploded by the time the last one finally came. I’ll admit it was overkill, but the bunches on display hadn’t looked that large at the florists when I’d ordered them.

  Setting up the dining room table by the patio doors, we looked out on our loggia draped in a foot of virgin snow, strings of pretty pink fairy lights we’d hung up in the summer twinkled and looked even more perfect against the backdrop of the brilliant white snow and the black cover from the winter night’s sky.

  We ate by candlelight, light food of salmon and salad, due to her ever-decreasing capacity for food due to the babies and drank bottled water. It was a simple meal made with love and it reminded us that the smallest things we did together always somehow felt the best.

  Curling up on the couch we watched the movie ‘P.S. I Love You’, and I chuckled when she kept saying, “Oh I love this part,” which left me wondering how many times she’d seen it already.

  After the movie, I filled the tub in one of the guest room bathrooms as she found the hot tub bath in our bedroom suite uncomfortable. Stepping into the bath, I helped her in and sat her down and settled myself behind her.

  “Bliss,” she murmured, nuzzling her head against my shoulder.