by Lainey Davis
Juniper pulls out her phone so we can look at the calendar and make some appointments. It feels better just having dates on the books. I’m going to have to miss some practice sessions, she’s going to have to cut short her time at Stag Law, but we are going to figure this shit out. Together. By the time we finish, Juniper even feels up to a run, so we layer up and step outside into the crisp November air.
We aim small, since she’s been feeling so lousy, deciding to stop for peppermint lattes at the coffee shop 2 miles from our house. It’s just starting to get dark, and even though it’s mid-November, a lot of people have put their lights up already. We fall in step beside one another, puffing out frosted breaths and spying on these picturesque houses already so immersed in the family feel of the holidays. It’s easy to believe everything will be ok, sipping a warm, minty drink and holding hands beneath those glowing lights. We will figure it all out. Eventually.
11
TIM
“You could at least help me with the ladder,” I yell at Thatcher, who seems content enough to sit on the porch and watch me wrestling with the icicle lights Alice and Petey insisted we get. He laughs at me and tugs at his wool coat, blowing into his hand and walking over to steady the ladder. “I saw you and Emma spying on us,” I tell him. They pulled up all smug in his new SUV to watch us tussle with the Christmas tree. Alice vetoed Nicole’s idea of just ordering one for delivery. She wanted to go out there and chop one down like country tourists or something.
“You looked so manly with that saw, big bro,” Thatcher says, laughing again. He’s not wrong, though. It did feel good to whack through that tree, knock it over, and drag it up to the checkout area. I grunt in response as Thatcher helps unwind the strings of lights. “What’s up with your Juniper situation?” he asks.
She hasn’t really been working to her potential since Election Day, when she blurted out she was pregnant in front of the news cameras. It’s all everyone talks about—how she will be Pittsburgh’s first elected judge to take maternity leave this next spring, and would she still take the post.
“It’s a circus,” I tell him. “She’s going to be fine. Stag Law, on the other hand…” I drift off. Juniper is not only a fine lawyer, but had been helping me shape the direction of the company. I’ve let myself become someone totally new in the past few years. I never used to give a fuck what other people thought or take a minute to assess their opinions. I never had the luxury of time to ponder. I was always too busy raising my brothers, making sure they made good grades and stayed out of trouble. When it came time to open my law business, I handled it the same way. Do. Achieve. I never bothered to rely on anyone else, and so I never felt fucked when someone left Stag Law to work elsewhere.
Meeting Alice…she took my breath away and taught me how to rely on other people. Share in the hard stuff and the good stuff. So what does it get me? I bring Juniper into the fold, grow a damn fine business at her side…and she leaves me. Well. I pause and tack some lights up on the eaves. She’s not leaving me. She just reached the top of her potential with Stag Law. “Fuck it.”
I climb down the ladder and toss the rope of lights to Thatcher. “Your turn, dickwad,” I tell him. And before he can protest, I say, “this is for spying on me at the tree farm. Thatcher snorts and climbs up the ladder. Fuck him for hanging the lights faster than me. He works with his hands all day long. He’s used to this shit.
“Hey,” he calls down, talking around the nails in his teeth. “Is our father coming for Thanksgiving?”
“I guess so. I haven’t talked to him in awhile.” Things have been precarious with our father the past year or so. After he walked out on us and hid inside a bourbon bottle for 13 years, his body basically shut down. Thatcher found him in the hospital the last time Emma was in there with a seizure. “Gram talks him sort of regularly, I think. So I’m assuming he will be here.” Ted Stag had finally gotten sober and has slowly been more involved in our lives. “What makes you ask about that?” My brother climbs down the ladder and we move it over a few feet to finish up the last of the lights.
“I want to ask him about when Mom was pregnant,” Thatcher says with a shrug.
I don’t ask him to elaborate or whether Emma has talked more about her pregnancy. “Sounds like a great topic for a big holiday gathering,” I snort. If I’m honest, I’m the one who has warmed up to Ted the least since we reunited. Seems fair to me, since I’m the one who picked up all his work when he couldn’t handle his grief at losing our mother. He’s apologized and made amends, but it’s a slow process. I’m working on it. I want him to know Alice and Petey. I just don’t think to ask him for insight when I’m having a hard time in life.
I need to think about something else. Ted Stag reminds me how hard it is to rely on someone else and how big the disappointment feels when they inevitably let you down. I try to think about Alice. “Oh, hey. Alice was asking if Emma is having any aversions.”
“What the fuck does that mean? Like how she doesn’t drink alcohol?”
“Aversions. Like…things pregnant ladies can’t handle. Alice couldn’t walk past fast food places when she was pregnant with Petey. The smell of the fried oil made her sick to her stomach.”
“Hm.” Thatcher nails in the final end of the lights and reaches out for the extension cord. I pass it up to him as he says, “She won’t talk about it yet. I don’t want to push her.”
I plug in the cord and step back. In the late afternoon, we can just see the glow of the lights around the overhang from the front porch. Alice has stuck bunches of greens out the windows on the second and third floor, putting candles in the windows. The house looks like a fairytale house. “Mom used to do that,” I say. “Put greens in the windows.”
Thatcher nods. “I remember. She’d like these icicle things.” He throws an arm around my shoulder, and I let him. The scent of pine drifts down in the crisp air. It’s nice. It feels right. We stand there admiring the scene until I hear the door fling open. Petey and my nephews spill out of the house, running and screaming, while Alice and Amy climb down the porch steps to admire our work.
“It looks magical, babe,” Alice says, kissing my cheek. I hadn’t realized how cold I’ve gotten until her warm lips press against my skin. Something about the mood makes me pull her in close, longing to cocoon into the couch and just hold her while I figure out the answer to everything. I need her to remind me, again, that it’s ok to trust other people. That the risk can be worthwhile.
The boys start throwing sticks at each other and Thatcher gets down low, playing with them, pretending he’s an abominable snowman. I look up and see my grandmother smiling down from her room on the third floor. For now, everything here is as it should be. All of us together. Happy. Loud. Then I remember Thatcher’s question about our father and head inside to check with Gram.
She pats my hand and tells me Ted will indeed be joining us. So we will have two Stag women with unplanned pregnancies, me trying to figure out the future of my business, Alice running around like mad cooking insane foods…this will be a Stag family Thanksgiving to remember.
12
THATCHER
Emma bursts into my studio, startling me so that I almost drop the rod with molten glass on the end. “Chezz,” I scold her, clucking my tongue. “That was almost a very painful greeting.” I roll the rod back and forth with one hand, shaping the glass a bit and trying to urge it into the look I’d imagined. “What’s up, babe?”
She bites her lip and sits on a stool, but she’s fidgeting so badly I can tell she’s going to explode if I don’t talk to her soon. “Come over here,” I say, holding out an arm. She stands in front of me and I hand her the rod, propped up on one end of my work bench. “Hold this.” She smiles at me and rolls the blob of glass back and forth as I squat on the ground next to her. I keep her eye while I blow gently into the hollow tube, creating just enough space in the glass to achieve a teardrop shape. She makes a lewd face at me and I laugh. Glass blowing has no shortage of
innuendo. I love having Emma in my studio with me when I’m thinking about hot rods and blowing tubes. Then I remember that there isn’t much blowing or bumping between us lately. Damn.
I put my hand over hers and tap the drop off the end and, settling one hand on her back, grab the glass with metal tongs. I carry it into the kiln to cool down, close the door, and pull her against me. She lets me, and I feel relieved. Like maybe we are chipping away a few inches of whatever wall got built up near the tattoo shop that day. “Tell me what’s got you so excited,” I whisper into the shell of her ear, planting a kiss on her neck, just below her lobe. She shivers slightly and leans back to look at me.
“I won a Press Award,” she breathes. Then she can’t contain herself anymore and starts jumping and clapping her hands. “I just met with Phil and he told me.”
She doesn’t need to explain to me that this is a big fucking deal writing award. Those honors come with thousands of dollars in prize money and a trip to a swanky ceremony in New York City. I try to imagine Emma’s gruff editor telling her the biggest news that might ever come to the Pittsburgh Post.
“For your prison story?” I ask, remembering all the nights I drove her to and from the county jail to meet with guards and inmates and talk about pregnancy behind bars. Emma nods, twirling around, still jumping. She’s about to publish the last installment of her series and has basically been working around the clock for months. Until recently, of course.
“Thatcher.” She stops. “Phil wants me to expand it into a book.”
“That’s amazing, Emma.” I pull her hand to my lips, kissing her palm gently. I’m so proud of my girl. I imagine how hot she’d look on a book jacket cover, her red hair pulled back in a smooth braid. Emma is so smart, always notices the most interesting details and writes them into her stories. “Can we celebrate?”
She nods, tugging my hand. “But let me tell you!” Gesturing wildly, Emma starts describing how the prize isn’t just about prestige. Her editor thinks she should take a sabbatical from reporting. Devote a whole year into expanding her work into a book. He even apparently smiled at her and used positive adjectives during their meeting.
I grin. “It’s kind of spooky timing, isn’t it,” I ask her. “You write about pregnancy in awful circumstances, while you’re pregnant…”
The light fades from her eyes almost immediately. “I haven’t even told my editor about…anything. Yet.”
I swallow and take her hands. “Emma,” I say. “Talk to me. What are you feeling right now? Because, Chezz, you have so much support. You have so many people rooting for you, wanting to help you stay healthy through all this. I will do anything you need.”
She bites the side of her lip and looks into the flame in my furnace. “I never thought about how me being pregnant related to a research project about pregnant inmates. Writing a book could be good,” she pauses. “If I’m having health problems. I mean it’d be a little more flexible than having to meet deadlines and stuff.”
I rub her hand, not bothering to pull away just because I notice my hands are dirty from my work. “Dr. Khalsa said he feels confident he could keep you feeling pretty healthy,” I say, remembering our conversation in his office. I went in to see him with Emma this past week after Juniper’s news broke. Dr. Khalsa pulled up studies on pregnancy and epilepsy. Many of the women in his case studies had less control of their symptoms than Emma.
“I hate having seizures, Thatcher,” she says. Her eyes swell with tears as she looks at me.
“I know you do, Chezz. I wish I could take that away from you.” And I’ve never meant anything more earnestly. I’d take on her suffering in a heartbeat, just to give her a day not to worry about that feeling washing over her. “I know you hate losing control like that.” She nods. I pull her onto my lap on the stool and cradle her into my arms. “How do you feel today?”
We talk a little longer about her nausea. I brave the question from Alice, about anything to avoid at Thanksgiving. When Emma tells me the smell of tomatoes has been making her sick, it feels like a nugget of treasure. A piece of information about her pregnancy that I want to cherish, because I’ve felt so in the dark these past few weeks. We talk until I hear her stomach growl, and I close up shop.
We slide into the sleek interior of my new car and drive to get sandwiches, and I try not to think too much about what it would be like to have a tiny baby Stag in the back seat for a fast food run. When Emma turns on the Christmas radio station, I don’t even roll my eyes. It just feels right to drive around with her humming the Carol of the Bells until we roll up to the sandwich shop. The guy at the drive through window even talks me into a tray of gingerbread for dessert. Something about the traditions of the season make our worries fade a bit. Emma’s eyes gleam at the sound of the gingerbread, so I order a double and laugh as she dives in to her portion while we’re driving home.
We settle in to eat at the kitchen table, and it feels so familiar, so right. We haven’t had this lightness and ease in our interactions in a few weeks. She looks longingly over at my sandwich—her favorite and mine. I introduced her to this sub shop when we started getting together. But Emma isn’t supposed to have deli meat while she’s pregnant—she’s been reading all the stuff the doctors sent home with her—and she frowns at my ham sandwich while she picks at her grilled chicken. It feels so good to tease her, and I make moaning sounds while she feigns anger. I let her have my portion of dessert.
“So,” I say after we eat, trying not to talk her way so she doesn’t have to smell my ham breath. “What do you want to do to celebrate your award? Maybe a nice meal at the country club?”
Emma smacks me in the arm and rolls her eyes. I lean back in my chair, nursing a beer while Emma clutches her teacup. She blushes. “I can think of something I’d like,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow, wanting to be right about what that facial expression from her usually means. “You’re going to have to be really direct, Chezz. It’s been a hell of a few weeks.”
She doesn’t say anything, but stands up and walks slowly toward me, her fingers trailing along the table. “I want you, Thatcher,” she says, licking her bottom lip and meeting my eye. She nestles herself in between my legs in front of the chair and my dick springs to life in my pants. The soft light in our kitchen brings out the golden tones in her hair and she looks like a glimmering goddess. I set my beer bottle on the table and put my hands on her hips, my thumbs gently stroking her thighs through her jeans.
“I want you, too, Emma. So fucking bad. Are you sure, baby?”
She nods and reaches for the hem of her shirt. She lifts it slowly over her head, giving me the first glimpse of the subtle ways her body has changed in just the past few weeks. Three months pregnant, Emma seems…fuller somehow. Her flat stomach strains a bit, with the hint of a swell right at the waistband of her jeans. Her chest rises and falls slowly as she breathes, and I keep my hands on her hips, afraid to touch her. I look at her breasts, mesmerized. They have grown noticeably and spill over the cups of her bra. She takes my breath away, but I swallow and manage to say, “Emma. You’re gorgeous.”
She grips my face in her hands and leans in, kissing me deeply, and I moan softly against her full lips. Christ, I’ve missed this. I let my tongue slip into her mouth, exploring the corners like they’re mine to dominate. I break the kiss. “I should never take you for granted, Chezz.”
She’s breathing heavy and her lips look swollen from the force of our kiss. She grabs my hands from her hips and places them on her chest. “Thatcher,” she says, a spark in her eye. “Shut up and just fuck me already.”
I stand up quickly, tipping the chair behind me. At my full height I tower over her, and I stoop to pick her up. I need space to ravage her properly, so I lift her up against me, grinding her center against my hard length. She wraps her arms around my neck and hooks her ankles behind my back as I carry her down the hall toward our room.
Stumbling in the dark, I don’t want to take time to tu
rn on the lights. I grow desperate, the past few weeks of our emotional distance surging inside me until my body throbs with need. Stumbling onto the bed, I laugh as she falls beneath me. Emma twists away just enough to peel off the rest of her clothes and I hurry to join her. As I unhook my belt and unzip my jeans, I gasp. Emma thrusts out a hand and wraps it around my cock. I hiss at the feel of her cool skin against my shaft. I fit so perfectly in her hand. Bracing my weight on my forearms, I lean over her, and Emma guides my tip toward her core.
“I’m so wet, Thatcher,” she says. “Whenever I’m not puking, I’m horny as fuck.”
To illustrate her point, she rubs the tip of my dick against her seam and I feel just how wet she is. “You’re soaked, Chezz,” I say. “And I’ve been hard every fucking day looking at you.” I start to slide inside, slowly, giving her time to adjust to me. I meet her eye and, just like every day, I know I’m supposed to be here. Right here. I slide deeper now, until Emma grabs my hips and pulls me tight against her. I feel her nipples on my chest, taut and so hard.
She rocks her body against me and I almost lose my mind, she feels so damn good. But it’s not just that it feels good physically. Emma is my muse. She grounds me, calls me out on my bullshit when I’m being a cranky asshole. She works twice as hard as anybody else every single day, simply because she’s keeping her shit together so she doesn’t have a seizure. “Emma,” I’m panting now. “I love you so much, babe. I need you. Always.”
She’s moaning now, grinding against me so my body stimulates her right where she needs it. Emma starts groaning when I dip my hips, letting my groin rub against her needy clit. “I have to see you come, Chezz,” I whisper, leaning toward her ear. I bite it gently, letting my teeth sink into her lobe while I press into her harder.
