by Naomi Niles
“Well, I was on your TV all weekend if only you’d watched it.”
“Oh, I’m aware. If Bones had tried to play comedian in front of me, I would have decked him sooner. I’m sort of amazed at your restraint.”
I smiled. So she had seen the match after all. “Yeah, those jokes were all pretty bad. I knew I had to do something before he asked me to take his wife.”
“Yeah, wow. You did us all a favor.”
“If I wanted terrible comedy, I would log onto Twitter.”
All weekend long, I had been looking forward to taking her out for dinner when I came home. But as we were leaving the airport she turned to me and said, “How would you like me to make lunch at home?”
“Home? Which home?”
“Any home,” she said. “We can go back to mine; I spent all yesterday cleaning and doing laundry so it won’t have that weird cat smell you complained about last time you came over.”
“Okay, I wasn’t ‘complaining,’ I was making an observation. For the record, I also have a cat.”
“Oh, really?” she said in a tone of feigned surprise. “What is that like?”
“Like raising a goddamned child. Let’s go eat lunch.”
Back at her house, she prepared sausage-stuffed ravioli with tomato and cream sauce, served with garlic bread and a garden salad. It was so much better than anything I had eaten at the fancier restaurants in Vegas, and I ate with a greedy relish while she told me about her first days at work and her experience of watching the match with Ren.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” I said. “Did you miss me while I was gone?”
“You might say that. You can ask Ren: I was pretty forlorn during the two days you were out of state. I felt like a puppy sitting in the window waiting for its owner to come home.”
“I missed you, too. The Bellagio wasn’t the same without you.”
“Really? You didn’t have any long conversations by the pool?”
“Not a single one. And I only got one person drunk, and he’s still hungover. Not the worst weekend, but I can think of a few things that would have made it better.”
“I bet I can think of a few, too.” She came over from behind and wrapped her arms around my neck, but at the first brush of her skin on mine, I winced and drew back.
“You okay?” she asked, brows knitted in concern. “Was that too rough?”
“I’ve just had to be especially careful the last couple days because he really bruised me during that first round. I don’t know if you saw, but he had the upper hand there for a while.”
“I saw,” said Jaimie.
“Even in defeat, he managed to make my life difficult. Flying back this morning, every time the plane jolted, it sent a jolt of pain shooting up my back.” Seeing the disappointed look on her face, I added, “I’m not saying we can’t have any physical contact. We just have to go slow and easy during the next week or so. I’m a delicate man.”
“Then I will try not to break you,” said Jaimie, and eased herself back around me, more gently this time. “That better?” she asked low in my ear.
I nodded. Sometimes it was a struggle not to pin her against the will and aggressively make love to her—with her consent, of course. If we could make out whenever we wanted, we would get very little else done.
“I’m not saying I want you to be injured,” she said, her chin on my shoulder, “but it could be fun to have a convalescent to look after for the next week.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked in a teasing tone. “And just how would you look after me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I could read to you…make you some of that marvelous cream and mushroom soup that I make with the chunky mushrooms that you can actually taste…occasional visits to the zoo and the art museum when I see you’ve made progress…”
“Mmmm, tempting. You’d have to call into work and tell them you were nursing a sick patient.”
“I don’t know if I could get away with that, but I could look after you in the afternoons when I came home…” She ran her long fingernails along the small of my back. “With my patented recovery plan, we could get you back on your feet in a few days.”
“And what about exercises?” I asked with a smile in my voice.
Intuiting my meaning, Jaimie said, “I could see us doing plenty of exercises when you’re ready.”
I broke away and turned to face her. “What if I’m ready now?”
She hesitated, as though thinking of a response. Standing up stiffly, I wrapped myself around her, inhaling the juniper scent of her perfume.
“Somehow,” she said, “I don’t think they would allow this in the gym.”
“Really?” I raised one brow in surprise. “They’re missing out.”
“That’s why I’m glad you came here instead of the gym.”
Smiling impishly, she took me by the hand and led me out of the kitchen. “Don’t worry about the dishes,” she said. “I’ll take care of those later.”
“Right now, you’ve got a sick patient who takes precedence.”
“He does.” She ushered me into her room and shut the door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jaimie
This was what I had wanted: the two of us together, our bellies full of ravioli, making love gingerly but enthusiastically.
“You sure you’re feeling up to this?” I asked him as he brushed the hair out of my face. “We can find something else to do if it’s too painful. We can play a board game.”
“I am too wound up to play Cranium right now,” said Braxton. “The hardest part of getting through the weekend was not having you with me. Bones had nothing on that.”
“Sorry I was worse than Bones.” He was wearing a red plaid shirt, which I began to unbutton slowly beginning with the top button. “Do you mind if I’m really ridiculous when we make love?”
“No, why would I mind?” There was a smile in his voice and in his eyes.
“Sometimes I say the dumbest things when I’m with you. I think it’s because I’m excited. You bring out the silly side of me.”
“I like that side of you,” said Braxton. “I wouldn’t want you to hold it in.”
“Okay. Just—don’t repeat the things I say to you to anyone.”
“Babe, nothing we say or do leaves this room.”
“I’ll burn your house to the ground, swear to God.”
“Then I would have to come live here.” He lowered his head and gave me a long, slow kiss on the lips. “You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
“That would be just the worst.” I placed my hands on either side of his stubbly cheeks and drew him in for another kiss. “Having to see each other every day…”
“Waking up and seeing you next to me…” He shivered theatrically.
“Who says I would let you share my bed?” I replied. “You’d be sleeping on the air mattress, with the cat.”
“I can’t imagine the air mattress would last long once the cat got hold of it,” said Braxton. “Then where would I sleep? On the floor?”
“I don’t know…” I shrugged mischievously. “I guess I might have to let you sleep on the bed.”
“Too bad.”
“Either that or one of us could sleep outside in the garden. It’s fairly warm in the summers. Or maybe we could both sleep in the garden.”
“Oh, scandalous.” He raised a hand to his mouth in mock horror. “What would the neighbors think of that?”
“They’d probably record it.” By now I had finished unbuttoning the shirt, and it hung loosely open, exposing his broad chest. “Do you remember that one episode of Buffy where Buffy and Riley are having so much sex that it, like, awakens the dead or something?” Braxton laughed. “I don’t know! I don’t remember all the details, I just know they spent most of the episode doin’ it.”
“Is that your favorite episode?” he asked.
“No, but it came shortly after my favorite episode, the one with the creepy gentlemen. I think they ran out of
ideas about midway through the season. Either that, or Joss Whedon is just a big ol’ pervert.”
“Probably the latter,” said Braxton, nuzzling the side of my head. “Do you want to awaken the dead? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“I mean…” I laughed shyly. “I guess I’d rather reenact that episode than some of the other ones.”
“Like the one where she sleeps with Angel, and he becomes a soulless demon?”
“Yeah, wow.” I was quiet for a moment. “I think we already did that one.”
It was hard to remember now, but there had been a time when I thought my first sexual tryst with Braxton would be our last one. I was relieved to have been proven wrong, but even more relieved by the change in his character since that first awful night. He had transformed rapidly over the last several weeks into a man I could love and respect. I felt safe with him in a way I never could have done with the old Braxton.
“Hold on a sec.” Breaking away, I walked over to the dresser and brought up the Spotify app on my phone. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” started playing. Braxton laughed and clapped his hands to the beat.
“Didn’t know you were a Tom Petty fan,” he said as I returned to the warmth of his embrace.
“Oh, hell yes,” I replied, dancing in time to the music. I loved that I could dance in front of him, could be an idiot in front of him, could be kinda chunky and kinda nerdy and kind of a big dork and he didn’t mind. If anything, he seemed to like me more because of all those things.
By now, Braxton had removed his shirt and stood bare-chested in blue jeans. He snaked his hands along the bottom of my purple top, lifting it just a little to expose my ample midriff. “Got to take off that party dress,” he sang as it rose inch by inch over my bra and past my shoulders. I let out a squeal of delight and shot my arms up as though in surrender.
With a thrill of satisfaction, I patted him approvingly on both sides of his belly. “Sorry, I just really like you,” I told him. “Sometimes I can’t hold it in.”
“I’m not even mad.” He traced his index finger up along the side of my torso and ran it over my silk black and gray bra. I could tell he wanted to run his hands all over my boobs but was holding back as though awaiting permission.
“You know I don’t mind,” I said. “You act like you’ve never seen a pair of boobs before.”
“Not like these,” murmured Braxton, his eyes wide. He seemed to be having trouble taking them all in at once. “You are just a feast for the eyes as well as the tongue.”
“Hope it’s not more than you can manage.”
“Nope. It’s perfect.”
Reaching around behind my back, he unhooked my bra and threw it on the pile on top of my shirt. A feeling of pride surged through me at the evident delight on his face as his eyes lingered on my pale nips. He must have felt like a lunar explorer traversing some alien landscape.
“You’re so—what’s the word?—voluptuous,” he said.
“Is that a crack about my weight?” I asked, laughing.
“No.” Sincerity shone in his eyes. “There’s just so much of you to explore.”
“Then you’d better begin.”
And he did.
***
Once it was all over, he lay back on the bed, looking breathless and pale. I sat astride his waist combing my fingers through his chest curls, marveling at the steady rise and fall of his breath.
“How was that?” he asked. “Better than the first time?”
I nodded. “Thank you for not running out on me and leaving me to clean up after myself.”
“Well, I try to at least learn from my mistakes.” He sat up stiffly and mussed my bangs with his lips. “I wouldn’t want you to stay with someone who was consistently awful to you.”
“You haven’t been awful.” I placed one hand over his heart. “Sometimes it’s enough just to lay here next to you. I think I would be crushed if anything were to happen to us.”
Braxton nodded, a solemn look in his dark eyes. Whenever I thought about the relationship ending, I wanted to burrow down next to him and never get up again. Maybe if we hunkered down together and shut out the world, nothing could ever come between us.
“I saw a movie once,” I said, “where the world was going to end in a few days, and there was no way to stop it. And the whole movie was this man and woman meeting and falling in love and trying to figure out how they were going to spend their last days on earth.”
“Did it have a happy ending?” asked Braxton.
I shook my head. “No, but that was sort of baked into the premise. You knew going into the movie that it wasn’t going to end well.” I placed a hand on his face, caressing his cheeks gently. “I think if I knew for sure the world was going to end, I’d probably do the same thing they did: climb into bed with my best friend and never get up again.”
Braxton pondered this for a moment before asking, “Am I your best friend?”
I took his hand in mine and kissed each of his fingers tenderly, one at a time. “You are.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Braxton
I woke up the next morning just before dawn. Pale fog pressed against the windows, and the room had that unmistakable early morning smell. Turning over, I reached for Jaimie and found to my surprise that her side of the bed was empty. I was alone in the room.
My immediate instinct was to wonder if maybe Jaimie had panicked and run away in the night. But that didn’t hold; we had spent the night at her house. Why would she dart off and leave the place to me? Then it occurred to me that she might have gone in to work early. She had taken yesterday off, and I wasn’t yet familiar with her new schedule. Working at FAF, she had been able to sleep in, but not every job would be so accommodating.
I was still puzzling over her absence when the bedroom door came slowly open and Jaimie walked, a little shyly, back into the room.
“Hey, sorry,” she whispered. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Where did you go?” I asked, rubbing my sore eyes. “I thought maybe you’d gotten scared and slipped out.”
“And what, just waited for you to leave?” She climbed back under the covers next to me. “No, Winston woke me up, so I went ahead and fed him and Gina.”
“Winston?” I gave her a blank look. “Is my cat here?”
“Mm-hmm.” She reached for the bruise over my left eye. “Just how bad did you hit your head?”
“Sorry, I guess I had just forgotten. Nick usually takes care of him while I’m gone, but he couldn’t have done that because he was with me.”
“You must have been really pressed for time before you left. You texted me about an hour before your flight and asked if I would look after the cat during the weekend. You left the key under the stone toad on your porch. I let myself in and brought him home with me.”
“Oh, that makes sense. I didn’t realize you had taken him home. I figured you would’ve just left him there.”
“Nope, he came home with me.” She smiled. “Not that we’ve really had the chance to hang out, since he spent most of the weekend hiding under the armchair. If I want him to eat, I have to leave the food in his bowl and leave the room.”
“Yeah, sorry he’s so extra.” I shook my head in exasperation. “I hope he at least got to spend some time with Gina.”
“I think they’ve been hanging out while I’m at work. When I come through the door, they streak off in opposite directions like they’re ashamed to be seen together. Like a couple of third-graders experiencing their first crush. Anyway.” She patted me firmly on the knee. “I hope if we ever have kids, they’re a bit more social.”
I continued to ponder that last statement as I drove home with Winston in the murky pre-dawn light, the silence only broken by the shrill cry of a rooster. The possibility of children hadn’t occurred to me until she brought it up. I wouldn’t want to have kids unless we were married because my parents had taught me that kids fare better when their parents are married.
But they had also taught me, maybe without intending to, that raising a family is hard. It isn’t all roses and breakfast in bed and making eyes at each other until daylight. There’s a lot of logistics, and planning, and having to be certain places at certain times and making sure the kids are fed and bathed and caught up on their vaccines. There are a lot fewer declarations of love, and a lot more negotiations and compromises and hard conversations in bed.
The phone buzzed as I pulled into the driveway. It was Mom. Switching off the car, I grabbed the phone from the dashboard and ran into the house.
“Hey, Mama. What’s up?”
“Just calling to check on you.” In the background, I could hear a dog barking. “Your dad and brother were busy all weekend ripping out the old floorboards in the bathroom and laying down vinyl planking. It looks so much more rustic now, and I can’t get over how good it looks. I’ll have to send you pictures.”
“Please do.” I had never paid much attention to Mom and Dad’s household renovations, but I loved how excited she got about them. “Mama, how did you and Dad know when you were ready to start a family?”
Mom paused for a second, as though surprised by the question. “I don’t know that anyone is ever truly ready. I think once we were married, and he was making above a certain income—why, do you have news you’re wanting to share with me?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said hastily. “It’s just something I’ve been batting around. You and Dad had, what, three kids by the time you were twenty-five?”
“Well, it was a different time,” said Mom. “Not everyone can do that, and I don’t expect them to. Regardless of what you decide to do, I want you to know that I’m already proud of you. I didn’t think I was going to be. I told your dad, we raised five boys and four of them turned out how we wanted. Maybe that was the best we could hope for. But no, you surprised us.”
“Thanks, Mom.” It was the equivalent of getting a “most improved” award at the end of the school year, but somehow the words filled me with a sense of pride nonetheless.
“It’s true, though. You’ve become a genuinely good and decent person in your own right.”
