“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m unpacking our stuff.”
"Not in our room you're not."
“Ma, this is the biggest room. I need a spare bed and room for CJ’s crib. The other bedroom has a private balcony and a bathroom. Can’t you and Dad take that one?”
She tipped her head and glared at me, which was all the answer I needed.
"Boy, what are you doing in our room?" Dad walked in, taking off his Panama hat and dropping it on the dresser.
“Cole thought he was taking the big room,” my mom replied in a bored voice.
Dad laughed. “Oh, he did, huh?”
"Fine." I grabbed the bags, piled them into the crib and pushed them down the hall into the room with two beds. RJ had already opened his suitcase and meticulously laid out his clothes in a system of organization only he understood.
"Hey, man. We need to switch rooms. You can have the room with the big bed and the balcony."
"No, thanks. This is good." He didn't bother to look up at me. He just continued to stack and restack his folded polo shirts.
“RJ, I need this room. Lisa and I need two beds.”
“Well, if it was that important to you, you should have taken this room first.”
“Why can’t you just switch with me?”
He stopped, stood, and faced me. “This room is in the exact center of the apartment. It has the closest proximity to the kitchen and the bathroom. It has an ocean view and access to a larger balcony.”
“You know the master suite has an ocean view.”
"Yeah, but that's Mom and Dad's room. Mom and Dad always get the biggest room," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I groaned and rolled my eyes.
"Why do you need two beds, anyway? If you and Lisa are pretending to be engaged, wouldn't it make more sense to share a bed? Most couples cohabitate before marriage. It would probably make less sense if you didn't share a bed."
“It’s not that simple.”
“And also, I picked this room first. Rules are rules. You should have been faster.” He went back to organizing his clothes with the matter decided.
Shit. I was going to have to explain to Lisa why we were going to have to share a bed and not make it sound like I planned it this way.
I found her on the balcony sitting on the deck with CJ standing between her legs. He was pressing his face to the bars while pointing at the seagulls flying around the cliff.
Damn, this place was beautiful.
“Hey…”
“Wook!” CJ said while pointing through the bars. “Wook!”
“What is he saying?” I asked.
"He's saying ‘look.'" Lisa giggled.
I crouched down to his level. "What do you see, buddy?"
“Birts!” he squealed. “Birts!”
“I understood that one.” I chuckled and joined them on the floor of the deck.
“Hey, what’s up? Everything okay?” she asked.
I began and tousled my hair, “I kinda fucked up our sleeping arrangements.”
"What do you mean, kinda?”
I explained our current sleeping situation and how we got there.
“That was a rookie mistake.” She laughed when I told her about getting booted from the master bedroom.
"Let me talk to him," she said when I told her about RJ's rigid stance on the room switching. She pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her hands before kissing CJ on the head and walking inside.
“Lisa is about to learn the hard way that there’s no negotiating with Uncle RJ, isn’t she, buddy?”
Five minutes later, she poked her head onto the balcony. "Solved." She was grinning when I turned to look at her.
“What?” I spluttered. “He agreed to switch rooms?”
"No." She smiled. "You're going to sleep in the other twin, but you have to store all your stuff and shower in my and CJ's room, and he gets the first choice of the beds."
It wasn't ideal, but it was a workable solution, and I wanted to ask her how she managed to pull off this Herculean feat.
"I'm going to start unpacking, and you should go say thank you." She shot me a triumphant grin that pierced my heart and spread warmth to other places in my body before she turned to go inside.
* * *
We had a big family dinner at a restaurant called Brown Sugar, and everyone was exhausted by the time we got back to The Sterling. Aunt Patrice was staying in a one-bedroom apartment in the building next to ours. Adam and Kimberly were staying at Adam's place at the resort.
I showered in Lisa's room, played with CJ for a few minutes, then grabbed my laptop to get some work done. I wasn't planning on doing a lot of work while on vacation, but Smith was already pissed that I was leaving for two weeks, even though legally he couldn't stop me. I didn't want to give him an excuse to say that my performance was suffering. It wasn't. Because of Lisa, my work was better than it had been since before I got custody of CJ.
I was about a quarter of the way through the brief I was writing when my phone pinged.
Stringbean: Are you busy?
Me: No, what’s up?
There was a knock on the door. I opened it and found Kimberly on the other side wearing her pajamas and a pair of flip-flops. She looked upset.
“Kimmy, what happened?”
“Adam and I had a fight.”
"What do you mean a fight? Did he—" My pulse quickened, and I felt my muscles tighten before she interrupted me with a palm on my chest.
“What? No. No. Of course not, he would never.”
"So, you had an argument?" I clarified, feeling my pulse return to normal.
“Yes, counselor. We had an argument." She rolled her eyes and stomped past me to sit on the couch. "He's acting like an idiot."
"Okay." I closed my laptop as I walked past the table to join her on the couch. "Start from the beginning."
"Well, Adam will be living full-time in Barbados for the next two years, at least, and Lisa moved out of the garden level. So I talked to him about moving his stuff there and giving up his apartment." She raised her hands and dropped them on her lap. "And, he's acting like an idiot. He's attached to that overpriced shoebox, but he agreed to move his stuff into the garden apartment on the condition that he pay me the same amount of rent I was charging Lisa."
“So we’re both on the same page, he agreed to give up the apartment that he loves to move into your house, which you know makes him uncomfortable and he wants to give you money. Right?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Kimmy, I know where you’re coming from, but have you tried to see where Adam is coming from?”
"I've tried, but it's still ridiculous. We're getting ready to share everything. Adam paying me rent would be like paying himself rent. I don't understand why he doesn't see it that way, and I'm scared of what that means for us."
“Are you ready to call off the engagement because Adam wants to pay you rent?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Then you need to figure this out. Trust me, you don’t want to lose the person you love most in the world because you weren’t willing to do everything in your power to make it work.”
"Is that advice for me or for yourself?”
She glanced over my shoulder. I turned around to see Lisa standing in the doorway that separated her bedroom from the living room.
"Hi," she said quietly, and I wondered how much of that she heard. "I was about to put CJ to bed, and since you usually miss it, I thought you might want to help?"
“Yeah. I’ll be right there.” I nodded and smiled before turning to Kimberly. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded and raised her eyebrows. I shook my head at her before walking into Lisa and CJ’s room.
Apparently, having me participate in the bedtime routine proved to be a little too exciting for CJ. We read seven books, sang a lot of songs, and finally had to
put him in the crib and pretend to be asleep—fake snores and all—before we heard his slow, sleepy breathing.
"Hopefully, it won't be that crazy tomorrow," Lisa whisper-chuckled.
“Right? That was brutal.” I smiled at her.
“Well, goodnight, Cole.” Her tone was gentle, but her intent was clear. It was time for me to leave.
I climbed out of bed and moved toward the door. “Right. Goodnight, Lisa.”
* * *
When I re-entered the living room, Kimberly was gone. I assumed she went back to her apartment. When I went to my room, I found her sprawled out in my bed, fast asleep. RJ was awake and working on a tablet and a laptop simultaneously.
“How long has she been in here?” I asked.
“Thirty-four minutes,” he answered without looking up. “Do not wake her.”
I wasn't planning on it. Kimberly had anxiety related insomnia and regularly had trouble sleeping. When she did manage to fall asleep, it was best to leave her alone. I went back into the living room and finished working on the brief.
Kimberly was still asleep when I was done, and I was getting tired, so it looked like the couch was my only option. It was a large couch with soft white cushions, but I'm a big guy. The sofa was just big enough to make sleeping possible, but too small to make it comfortable. I was just settling in when I heard a knock on the door.
Adam was on the other side looking as sad as Kimberly did when she showed up and also in pajamas. “Hey, man,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied.
“She here?”
“Yup.”
“She still mad at me?”
“Probably, but she’s asleep.”
“Shit.” Adam reached up and scratched his head, making me wonder if male pattern baldness was a real thing or just came as a result of falling in love with people that stressed us out. “Can I come in and wait for her?”
I stepped back, and he walked past me into the living room and settled himself in one of the armchairs. I was definitely not in the mood to have a heart-to-heart with my sister's sad fiancé, so I went to the bathroom. When I came out, Adam was spread out on the couch asleep.
This was ridiculous.
I thought about Lisa sleeping alone in the room with CJ. There was a queen-sized bed in there. Lisa and I have slept in the same bed twice, and at this point, I was too exhausted to be worried about anything happening because I was sure I’d be asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I tapped gently on the bedroom door and waited. No answer. I opened it slowly and crept inside. The operative word being crept because, though necessary, this was suspect behavior.
“Lisa?”
She didn't answer me, but I heard a low humming sound like a machine. Was Lisa using a vibrator? No, not with CJ in the room, and if she were awake, she would have heard me, but now I was wondering if Lisa owned a vibrator and how often she used it.
Focus, Cole.
I tiptoed over to the window to let in some moonlight so I could see where I was going. A beam of light hit Lisa's face, and I jumped.
“Holy shit!”
My exclamation startled her out of her sleep, and she sat up. Lisa's mouth and nose were covered with what looked like an oxygen mask connected to tubes plugged into a box on the nightstand that was the source of the mechanical noise.
She clawed at her face to remove the mask, and it probably took a few more seconds than she meant it to. "Cole!" she whisper-shouted.
CJ somehow miraculously managed to sleep through my outburst.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What is that thing?” I whisper-shouted back.
“I asked you first.” She reached over to the nightstand and turned off the machine, plunging the room into an eerie silence.
I explained about Kimberly and Adam, making me homeless.
She covered her mouth, and her shoulders were shaking.
“Is this funny?”
She nodded, still holding back laughter. It took her a few seconds to regain her composure and remove her hand. “You can sleep in here with us,” she said between low chuckles.
"Now, answer my question. What is that thing?" I pointed to the mask, straps, and tubes in her lap.
“It’s a CPAP machine. It helps me breathe while I sleep.”
That explained why I didn’t hear her snoring at night.
“You might have noticed that it’s quieter at night than the first two times I slept over.” She smirked at me.
“Nope. I didn’t notice a thing,” I said, returning her smile.
"Does it weird you out?" Her mouth tightened slightly, and she gazed up at me through her lashes. The woman I fell a little bit more in love with every day was uncharacteristically self-conscious.
“Honestly, it did take me by surprise because I wasn’t expecting it. But no, it doesn’t weird me out.”
She bit her bottom lip to suppress a grin.
"Unless," I mused, and she looked at me with her brows furrowed. "You're planning to blow up Gotham City."
“Shut up.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. I was happy to see a smile curling the edges of her lips.
“Or planning to build a giant space station capable of blowing up planets?”
“Are you done?” She laughed.
I made an exaggerated thinking face. “I’m trying to think of one for the guy from Mad Max: Fury Road…”
“Immortan Joe?” she answered deadpan.
“Yes! That guy!”
She rolled her eyes and pressed the mask over her nose and mouth and growled in a deep voice, “Mediocre!”
I burst out laughing, and she dropped the mask to shush me. "Thanks for letting me stay here," I said as I crawled into the bed next to her.
“Of course.” She smiled. “How would I explain to CJ that his brother came to Barbados to become a hobo?”
"Goodnight, Lisa." I slipped under the covers, and she put her mask back on. "Is that a forehead strap? Hot!" I teased her again, and she giggled.
“Shut up before I make you sleep in the bathtub.”
23
cole
Sexy Darth Vader was still asleep when CJ and I woke up, so we joined my family for breakfast. The kitchen island was set up like a mini breakfast buffet, and I filled one plate for myself and CJ since he always found what was on my plate more interesting than his own.
Mom and Dad were eating on the deck. RJ took his breakfast into his room. Kimberly was sitting in Adam's lap at the dining room table, so I assumed that they made up. I strapped CJ into his chair and rolled it onto the deck to join my parents.
“Good morning.” I bent down to kiss Mom on the cheek and squeezed Dad’s shoulder.
“Well, if it isn’t Thing One and Thing Two,” Dad exclaimed, then laughed while he tickled CJ under the chin.
“Hey, baby.” Mom handed CJ a blueberry from her plate. “Where’s Lisa?”
“She’s still asleep.” I settled into a chair and began slicing my scrambled eggs into finger-sized chunks.
“Does she usually sleep this late?”
I had to think about it. With only one exception, Lisa was usually up way before CJ and me.
“Why don’t you go check on her?” Mom said, correctly reading my expression. “We’ll keep an eye on the baby.”
With my breakfast abandoned, I went back into the bedroom. Lisa was still in bed but no longer asleep. She'd removed her mask and turned off the machine, but she was still under the covers. I crawled into the bed next to her.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I whispered and touched her arm. “You okay?”
"I'm fine… I just need a minute." But her voice sounded strained like she was in pain.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I touched her arm again, and she whipped around to face me. Her eyes were full of tears.
"Dammit, Cole! I said I was fine." She winced and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Well, I don’t believe you. What’s wrong? What can I do?”
She groaned and rolled her eyes. "I have cramps, okay. My period must be coming." She screwed her face up and winced again.
“Do you need Midol or something?”
“Ha,” she gave me a mirthless chuckle. “I might as well take M&M’s.”
“Do you need something stronger?”
“I have a prescription for pain meds, but I didn’t bring it—like an idiot—because I never know when my period is coming.”
“I’m gonna go get my mom.”
“Oh, God. No.” She covered her pale, pain-stricken face with her hands. “Please, don’t do that. This is embarrassing enough.”
“You never need to be embarrassed around me. And my mom is a doctor who can write prescriptions.”
“She can?” Her hands fell away. “Well, what the hell are you still doing here? Go get your mom! Go! Go get her!” She shoved me before wincing again.
I jumped out of bed, ran to the balcony, and returned with my mom a few seconds later. She sat on the side of the bed and pressed her palm to Lisa’s forehead.
“How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“Like my abdomen is being ripped apart,” Lisa said in a voice that made me feel helpless and concerned.
“Scale of one to ten?”
“Eleven point five.”
“Okay.” Mom smiled and smoothed her hair. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“Let’s see what we can do. Who’s your doctor?”
“Dr. Douglas. Suzanne Douglas.”
“Oh, I know Suzanne. You must have good insurance,” Mom said with a chuckle. Lisa gave her a small, pain-filled smile. “We’ll get you fixed up,” Mom said as she stood. “Cole, come with me.”
“I’ll be right back, okay?” I patted Lisa’s hip under the cover.
She nodded and mouthed the words, "thank you."
Mom turned to me after I pulled the bedroom door closed.
"I'm gonna call Suzanne, then the concierge, to see how fast we can get Lisa's prescription filled. I'll also have them send up a couple of heating pads and some ibuprofen, just in case. Your dad and I will take CJ for the day."
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