Lies and Lullabies

by Sarina Bowen

  “Jesus! So how’s that discussion going to go? ‘These sandwiches are fantastic. And by the way, our kid turns four next month.’”

  “I’m going to tell him.”

  “Of course you’re going to tell him! That’s the right thing to do.”

  I flinched. “Adam,” I put a hand on his wrist. “I haven’t done the right thing. Not at all.”

  “Not true!” He rubbed my back with one hand. “You’ve done all the right things, Kiki. It hasn’t been easy, but you’re doing well.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” I took a deep breath. “I never told you that I found out who he was.”

  “Wait… What? He’s some guy named John Smith who spent the summer in Mrs. Wetzle’s place. Are you saying that wasn’t true?”

  “It was, and it wasn’t,” I whispered.

  “Kiki.” His voice held a warning. “There’s enough soap opera in our lives already. What’s the story?”

  Right. If it was this hard to explain it to Adam, how was I ever going to tell John? Or Jonas. Whoever. I sighed. “Okay, when Vivi was nine months old, I saw his face on an album cover.”

  Adam whistled. “A good album cover?”

  “Do you know the band Hush Note?”

  I watched Adam’s eyes bug out. “Oh my god, Kiki! You got knocked up by a rock star? What’s his name?” Adam dug his phone out of his back pocket.

  “He’s Jonas—”

  “—Smith!” he yelled. He spoke to his phone: “Siri, show me if Jonas Smith has a hot body!” He squinted at the screen. “Hey—Hush Note is releasing a new single this weekend. Wait—what I really need is YouTube.” He tapped feverishly on the screen.

  It was just my luck that cell phone service had arrived at Nest Lake. In no time, my brother pulled up a video clip of Jonas Smith in concert. I leaned over Adam’s shoulder to see. I’d done this before, though, peering at clips of him, trying to understand who he really was.

  On Adam’s screen, Jonas sang hard, one sculpted arm clutching the microphone, torqueing his body as if to squeeze the sound out. The stage lighting had an orange hue, lending him an otherworldly appearance.

  After a moment, I had to look away. Whenever I saw one of those videos, it brought him further away from me, not closer. It was like watching a stranger.

  Today on the dock, though, I’d found the real man. And tomorrow we would meet again, and I would spill my secret.

  But then what? He’d probably freak out and disappear. And that was actually the best scenario. The scarier one was that he’d sue me for custody. Not that John was mean. But living with Adam—a lawyer—had been an unwelcome education on the topic of interpersonal disasters. The cases passing through my brother’s office showcased every kind of crazy thing people did to hurt one another.

  I dreaded telling him.

  “That is one hot piece of man,” my brother said, still squinting at his phone. “A burning hunk of love.” He clicked the phone off and stuffed it into his pocket. “But Kira, you knew who he was, and you never told him? That’s so wrong.”

  “I know, Adam. I should have tried harder to contact him.”

  “Did you try at all?”

  I was silent, because the answer to that question was somewhat complicated. But he mistook it for denial. “Tsk, tsk,” he said. “You are a bad girl.”

  “What do you think will happen?” I raised my eyes to him, and the sight of my thoughtful big brother was a balm on my soul. Without Adam, these last few years would have been unsurvivable.

  He leaned back on his elbows. “Well, really that depends on him. If he wants to acknowledge the child, the court will grant him visitation, if he asks for it. And you’ll get a shitload of money in child support. Actually, you can get the money whether he wants to acknowledge Vivi or not.”

  “I never cared about his money.”

  “God, Kiki, why not? If you took a full course load, you could graduate in a year. Seriously, why wouldn’t you take the help that’s coming to you?”

  This was another difficult topic, because I’d been sponging off Adam for years. Any child support I’d failed to collect had cost my brother more than it had cost me. But I did have a reason for not telling Jonas Smith about Vivi. Actually two reasons.

  Just after he’d left Maine, I’d reached out to him, and he had ignored me. That had hurt very badly. I told him how much he meant to me. And in return, he said nothing.

  And then there was the guilt. “The pregnancy was my fault, Adam. I told him we were covered, but…” I cleared my throat. I would tell my brother anything, but it was hard to say it out loud. The birth control gel I’d brought with me that night had been purchased during happier times. It was past its expiration date, which I hadn’t checked.

  Also, you were supposed to reapply it in between uses. But I hadn’t done that, either.

  So I’d born a child with a man who never wanted to hear from me again. And while I knew he deserved to know—and that Vivi deserved to someday meet her father—I hadn’t told him. Yet. I knew I needed to. I just hadn’t made it happen.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “The law doesn’t care which of you forgot to put the goalie in front of the net. Even if you flat-out lied, any guy who has sex is still responsible for the results.”

  “I didn’t flat-out lie.”

  He covered one of my hands with his own. “I believe you, Kira. But I’d still love you no matter what.”

  I let out a big breath and said a silent prayer of gratitude for my brother. In the silence, I heard the distant thump of a bass line echoing across the lake. “Do you hear that? His band is staying at the lodge. I’m supposed to meet him there tomorrow.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Honestly, it was tempting. “No. I’ll need you to babysit. Dad will be at the store.” My phone buzzed. “I’m not used to having cell service here.” I checked the screen, and it was a text message. “Oh, jeez. I forgot about Luke. I was supposed to see him this weekend.”

  “Did you stand him up?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” That high school boyfriend who’d enlisted overseas? We were still in touch. We’d blown up as a couple, of course, when he came back from his tour in Afghanistan to find me pregnant with another man’s child. He’d gone back for another tour after that. But we’d stayed in touch, occasionally seeing each other when I came to Maine.

  During our most recent phone conversation a few weeks ago, he’d said he wanted to see me and talk to me about something. I’d been curious at first, but now my head was spinning in other directions.

  My brother chuckled. “You’re booked for lunch tomorrow. But I guess dinner is still available.”

  I fingered my phone. “The message says he wants to take Vivi and me on a bike ride. He borrowed a seat for her.”

  “Interesting. That sounds romantic, actually. But now I realize you were holding out for a rock star.”

  “Adam, you know that’s not true.”

  He grinned. “So, what’s the deal with Luke? I’m pretty sure he’s still into you.”

  “He hinted that he’s looking at jobs in Boston.” Luke was a solid guy. He’d managed to come back from overseas with a clear head, and now he was finishing up an engineering degree at the University of Maine. Unfortunately, he’d let me down at the very moment I’d been most vulnerable. I didn’t know if I could ever get past that.

  “Please tell me you don’t have any more bombshell secrets,” my brother said. “I enjoy drama, of course, but the fallout is just so messy.”

  “Now you know all of my secrets, Adam.”

  “Uh-huh. Weren’t you the one telling me earlier that coming up here to visit Dad was really no big deal?”

  I laughed. The sound echoed over the water. I heard a fish jump and the gentle lap of the lake beneath us.

  “Kira, was he awesome in bed?”

  The question took me by surprise. “It was one night, Adam.”

  “Oh, honey
! Just the once and you got pregnant?”

  “Well… twice. But one night.”

  He laughed. “You still didn’t answer the question.”

  “I thought big brothers didn’t want to hear that stuff.”

  “You’re not sixteen. And there’s a serious lack of men in both our lives, Kiki. Just tell me one hot thing about him.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t pick one thing. Because everything about that man is hot.”

  Adam collapsed onto the deck with an exaggerated groan. “Wow.”

  Even if I wasn’t willing to talk about it, I still thought about that night all the time. It had been hot, but also sweet. After John and I had made love the first time, we’d held each other for hours.

  Strangely, it hadn’t been the least bit awkward. We lay in the same comfortable silence we’d often enjoyed, only without clothes. Occasionally he’d kissed my cheek, or stroked my hip. He was a hands-on guy, and I had the vague idea that he’d been nearly as starved for affection as I’d been.

  He held me in silence until eventually saying: “If you end up getting together with your high-school sweetheart, I hope he realizes how lucky he is.”

  “Do you think I’ll have to tell him about my… terrible night a year ago?” I’d asked.

  That’s when his hand went still on my back. “He doesn’t know?”

  I shook my head. “It didn’t seem like the kind of news you email. Also, I didn’t want to distract him. It’s dangerous over there.”

  “Well, yeah. You have to tell him. He needs to understand that you might still get scared. Some little thing he does could trigger your fear. What if he gets a little rough, thinking that’s fun for both of you?”

  I raised my head to look at him. “Like what? Show me.”

  He gave a nervous chuckle. “No way.”

  Propping myself on an elbow, I looked him in the eye. “Why?”

  When he looked back at me, it was with an expression that I couldn’t read. “Someday I hope you can have deliciously rough sex without a second thought. If you feel like it. But not tonight, and not from me.”

  “You don’t like it that way?” I asked.

  “I thought I did. Right now I barely remember my own name.” He gave me a sexy grin. “God, Kira, you look… triumphant.”

  “Do I? That’s because I am.”

  “That’s because you conquered me, and had your way with me.” His silly smile reappeared, and we both laughed.

  And—Lord—he was so attractive, stretched out naked beside me. Like a work of art. High on my own bravery, I allowed myself to brazenly admire his body while I still had the chance.

  The intensity of my gaze must have been contagious, because his grin faded, too. He rolled closer to me, propping himself on an elbow, dropping his head to kiss me.

  The kiss was another scorcher. I opened my mouth and took him in. Before too long, he was on top of me, and I found myself shifting my hips around with pleasure. “Oh,” I gasped. “You feel good up there.”

  “I really do,” he panted. “Is this okay?” He bore down with his hips.

  God, yes. I could only moan my approval. He worked his mouth down my jaw and onto my neck. I let my hands wander the beautiful muscles on his chest until I felt myself flood with desire all over again. It was as if he’d flipped a switch, and it couldn’t be shut off again.

  “Look at me, sweetness.” I raised my eyes to his serious ones. “Before this gets too far, tell me what not to do up here. I don’t want to walk into any tripwires, if I can help it.”

  I cupped my hands on that chiseled, movie-star chin. “Don’t worry. As long as you don’t sneak up on me from behind and smash my face into a dumpster, we’ll probably be fine.”

  His face slackened with dismay. Without another word, he pivoted, collapsing onto the bed by my side. His arms wrapped around me. “Please tell me this guy got put away for a really long time.”

  “He did. You’re shaking.”

  “I’m just so sorry.”

  “You’re holding me awfully tightly.”

  “Is it scaring you?”

  “No.”

  “Then deal with it.”

  I laughed. “I ruined the mood, didn’t I?”

  “Pretty much. I can’t climb on top of you with that image in my head.”

  “See? This is why it’s tempting not to tell the ex-boyfriend when he comes back. He might not be able to handle it.”

  “That would be his loss.” He held me close, but his grip relaxed, and after a time I realized he’d drifted off. His face was serene, his chin against my shoulder.

  The light was still on, and I knew I should probably switch it off. But as I sat up, I just couldn’t stop admiring him. I knew he was out of my league—five years older, not to mention incredibly handsome. The glow of the lamp made his skin even more golden than it was in the daylight. And the tan line at his waist invited exploration. I dropped my head and began to trace his skin with my lips, dropping kisses down his belly.

  “Mmm,” he murmured sleepily.

  I’d honestly never been so bold in my life, but I did not want to stop touching him. His tight abs changed color from bronze to pale gold as they plunged past a set of trim hips. A strip of sandy hair wandered down the center of his lower belly, and I followed it. Feeling very, very brave, I pressed soft lips against him. Everywhere.

  Later I would wonder—if I’d just let him sleep, would I have gotten pregnant? Probably not, I’d eventually decided.

  But I wasn’t thinking at all, back then. I’d teased him until he was thoroughly awake. He’d made a comical growl, low in his throat. And then he pulled me down onto his chest for a kiss. I had never been kissed like that before—as if I were vital to someone’s continued survival. Drunk on my own lust, I allowed myself to be rolled over.

  John shifted his body over mine again. At first, the weight of him felt wonderful. He kissed my neck, my ear, my collarbone. But then somehow I began to feel a little bit trapped, and too warm. I forgot to think about how sexy he was and focused only on my growing anxiety. “Wait!” I cried out.

  He went still immediately, rolling to the side. “Kira…” He was breathing hard, but his eyes were full of compassion. He propped his head in one hand. “Do you trust me?”

  I did, but that was beside the point. And it wasn’t easy to explain. “I trust you. I do. But sometimes I just panic, and it doesn’t matter that I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  He’d looked thoughtful. “Okay. I know a thing or two about triggers.”

  “Really?” I tried to focus on his face and words and relax my body.

  “When I was a kid, I saw a horrible car accident. For years, the squeal of a truck’s brakes made me crazy. It still does. But also, the sound of feedback from a microphone sometimes reminds me of it. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself out loud which sound I’m hearing and order myself to remember that it isn’t dangerous. I’ll be standing up there in front of…” He let the sentence die.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I just talk to myself, that’s all. And sometimes people stare. But it calms me down.”

  I looked into his kind eyes and smiled. “Whatever works, right?”

  “Right. The trick is to convince your body to listen to what your heart already knows. You try it. Say out loud what we were going to do.”

  “We were going to make love.”

  A slow smile crept across his face. Just then, I would have done anything to keep it there. “And how’s that going to feel, Kira?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Be specific. Tell your body exactly what good things will happen.”

  This little game was far, far outside my comfort zone. But I’d brought the two of us here by my own design, and he was trying so hard to be good for me. So I took a deep breath, and said, “You’re going to… fill me up.”

  He turned his chin to face me, a devilish smile in his eyes. “Go on.”

&n
bsp; “Oh good grief!” I complained. Dirty talk wasn’t something I was used to.

  “But I’m a details man.” He chuckled.

  “Fine.” I rolled, putting my mouth beside his ear, so I could whisper. “You’re going to stretch out on top of me and slide inside.” His sexy little grunt of approval gave me courage. “Then, we’ll make out like the Apocalypse is near. Until we both…” I finished on a hot whisper. “…come.”

  He took a deep, shaky breath. “Mother of God. I don’t know if that’s working for you. But I, for one, am convinced.”

  At that, I laughed out loud. The aroused grimace on his face was hysterical. And ultimately, that’s what relaxed me—the laughter. He was amazingly sexy, lying naked just inches away from me. But he was still the same man I’d talked to every night that summer, with the same warm eyes and quick smile. It made my heart sing to be near him—clothed or naked.

  I let myself laugh, and he laughed too. He came closer again. “Mmm…” he said, prowling my sensitive neck. I felt the flush of desire return. And when he kissed me again, I opened to him with a sigh. He deepened the kiss, making sweet love to my mouth. But still, he didn’t attack. Supporting his weight on his elbows over me, his eyes flashed with humor and warmth. Just as on our many walks home in the dark, it was impossible to stay scared when he was nearby.

  “I want to touch you now,” he whispered, his eyes dropping down to look at my body. When he looked up again, the heat in his expression had risen to a slow burn.

  “Do it,” I breathed.

  He used his knees to spread mine apart, and when his fingers slid between my legs, I couldn’t keep still. I had to shift my hips with every sweet stroke. He put his lips over my breast and sucked gently.

  “Okay.” I took a breath. “Please. Now.”

  On a groan, he looked down between our bodies. “Use your hand. You’re still in charge.”

  So I wrapped my fingers around the base of his cock and tugged him down between my legs until the thick head of him grazed me. It felt amazing.