AMBER_His to Reclaim

by Theodora Taylor

  Just a few minutes after sending the text, everybody’s in place. Amber and me, plus Matti and my special guest, Bartholomew Brunson, a judge I put in the Ferraro pocket a few months ago with an under the table loan.

  Matti takes out his notary kit, and we both sign the contract after Judge Brunson says a few template words. I guess this could be mistaken for a ceremony in the right romantic light.

  But for me, it’s just a formality, and I’m pretty sure nobody in the history of weddings has kicked everybody who ain’t his newly minted wife out as soon as all the formal shit is done.

  I’m pushing the elevator’s call button halfway through Matti’s congratulations and guiding Ambs towards the stairs before the doors have even closed.

  Less than ten minutes later, I’ve got her completely naked on top of our bed. Her back against my chest, her folded legs spread nasty and wide, over mine. I’m already inside her, pumping hard with one hand rubbing her clit while the other kneads her breast. She meets my every thrust, her pussy gripping me so good and hot, it’s a miracle of willpower that I don’t explode.

  This is one of our second chance positions. Borne out of necessity, because at this stage of the pregnancy, it’s the only way we can have maximum skin-to-skin contact without hurting the baby. But I get the feeling it won’t be retired after our bambino arrives. And I fucking love the way Amber reaches both hands behind herself to grab onto the back of my neck. Stroking my skin and anchoring herself at the same time, as her own hips undulate, pushing back into mine.

  Part of me wishes we could do this forever. Fucking and celebrating. But eventually Amber’s hands fall away as she arches into her release, and she clamps down so hard on my cock, I have no choice but to follow her straight over the edge.

  The orgasm shudders through me, and my cock shoots bolts of semen, even though it’s been less than twenty-four hours since I had her last.

  New again.

  This all feels new.

  “Fucking love you, Mrs. Ferraro,” I grunt into her neck as my dick kicks one last time inside her.

  I wait for her to say the usual. That she’s not changing her name. It wasn’t in the contract, and she didn’t agree to that.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight, all she says is, “I love you, too.” Breathing it out, like a prisoner released. And maybe the name thing will be a conversation for another day. Along with the baptism, and the previously avoided minefield of what we’ll be naming this kid.

  But tonight she lets me call her Mrs. Ferraro without any protest, and murmurs a sleepy thanks as I pull the duvet over our naked bodies.

  Tonight, after years of wishing, I finally have her back.

  This time I’ll cherish her and keep her and protect her. Till death do us part. This time I’ll never let her go. I promise myself that, as we drift off together as newly remarried husband and wife.

  14

  Taking A Chance On Love

  Amber

  I’ve been confused for so long. But today…

  Today I’m completely clear. As I say goodbye to Naima and Rock, after he surprises her with the “lunch date,” he requested from Luca when he asked to break the news to Naima himself. As I patiently wait another hour in the sitting room for the housekeeper to finish her cleaning and go home for the day. As I ignore the ache in my back and the siren call of Luca’s empty bed to make a trip to Naima’s soon to be former bedroom.

  No afternoon nap today. I have a mission.

  I make my way into Naima’s bathroom, knowing precisely what I want…if not exactly where to find her Tampons.

  My back has stopped aching by the time I clumsily get down on my hands and knees in front of the bathroom’s vanity. However, it’s not exactly the easiest position to get into without the cushion of a bed. I grope around the cabinets underneath the sink. My hands eventually find a smooth rectangular carton, pushed to the furthest recesses of the small space, as if Naima was afraid the housekeeper would pilfer through this particular box.

  I reach inside and root around until my fingers knock into something decidedly not tubular. Gorilla glass…encased in aluminum…yes! It’s the phone.

  I pull it out and don’t even bother with closing everything in her bathroom back up as I lumber to my feet with the prize. I’m so happy, I’m not even angry when my back starts aching again as I walk up the slimmer and more straightforward set of metal stairs to the roof.

  I crunch through what feels like even more fallen snow to the spot where I always make my phone calls. But I hesitate when I raise the burner to go through the process of calling Peter’s number.

  The thing is, I’m completely clear on what I’m going to do, but not quite how to phrase it. My well-honed sense of argument construction abandons me in the moments before my call. Because when you think about it, there’s just no good way to tell your brother that you’ve decided to do Somethin’ Stupid. Yet again. Except this time, you don’t feel stupid about it.

  Because…well…uh, a mishmash of reasons, including that Luca has changed for me once, and I now have faith I can convince him to change for me again. No soul-sucking CalMart job this time. Just a simple ask that he entirely delegate the criminal parts of his operation to Stone and actually commit to the job title at the top of his official CV as the CEO of Ferraro Disaster Management full time. I mean, he said it himself. He only feels the need to retaliate against people who have hurt his loved ones. And what better way for nobody to get hurt than for him to stop being a criminal full stop after the baby is born?

  It didn’t work last time, but it will this time. Because we’re older, wiser, and we understand each other so much better now. Even after five years apart and you know, him kidnapping me. He loves me, and I love him, and with the addition of our son and some compromises, we can make this second chance work. I just know we can….

  ….okay, yeah, that totally sounds like magical thinking, and there’s no way Peter’s going to buy that.

  So text message it is. I thumb the burner until it tells me I’ve hit the text icon. A few misses later, I manage to locate the text to speech mic at the bottom of the phone and get a prompting ping.

  “Hi, Peter, period. Please don’t extract me on Monday, period. I’m um not going to do this, period. Sorry, exclamation mark. Know I’m a bad sister, comma, but everything will be all right, and no one will hurt you or any children you decide to have, period. I promise, period. So please believe me and go on to live a happy life, period. Because that’s what I plan to do, period. With Luca.”

  I consider saying more, but then hit the send instead. What more is there to say? I’ve made my decision. For better or for worse. I’m taking this second chance with Luca—

  “What are you doing?”

  I freeze, then turn in the direction of Naima’s voice.

  “Naima…” I start, wondering how much to explain to her.

  “You waited until Rock took me out to lunch, then you got the phone out of my room to call your brother? Why?” she demands. “It’s not Wednesday!”

  “I know, but I was calling Peter to tell him—”

  “You’ve decided to stay here with Luca, right?”

  “Right,” I answer carefully, tilting my head because Naima’s voice is more strident than I’ve ever heard it. “And I can guess why you’re not happy about that, but—”

  “How can I be happy when you told Rock to send me away?”

  Her voice is 100% accusation, and I shake my head. “What?! Naima, no! I’m not sending you away. I don’t know how Rock explained it to you, which is why I wish he had just let me do it. But I told Luca to give you your freedom, not send you away,” I tell her. “Our friendship is a totally separate thing from me deciding to stay here with Luca.”

  “So, getting rid of me is, like, what? Part of that marriage contract Rock says you guys signed in a ceremony I wasn’t even invited to?”

  My back’s aching even worse now, and I reach behind me to massage my spine, wo
ndering if Luca and I celebrated our marriage a little too hard last night. Speaking of which… “First of all, it was barely a ceremony. And second, you were on one of those messed up versions of a date with Rock.”

  “So, you’re kicking me out because I’m seeing Rock?”

  I shake my head. “No, Naima! Can you stop accusing me for a second and listen to what I’m actually saying?”

  Apparently not, because Naima asks, “What did you expect? Rock and I have been forced to spend so much time together. Obviously, we were going to become more than friends.”

  “No, not obviously, Nai,” I point out. “Because the key word in that sentence is forced. Whatever you think you’re feeling for Rock—”

  “Think?” Naima screeches, cutting me off again. “So now you know more than me about how I’m feeling? Like, you’re allowed to have a change of heart, because you’re Amber, the crazy beautiful lawyer. But if I do it, I’m just a desperate social worker?”

  My heart stutters at the accusation that I think my beauty and advanced degree make me superior to my amazing best friend. “No, oh my God, Nai, I’m not saying that at all. But you have to understand, this isn’t a normal situation for you. Luca and I have a history—that’s how I know I’m not under the influence of Stockholm right now. But you’ve never known Rock outside this prison. Plus, he’s literally the only man other than your dad that you’ve spent any major time with.”

  “I am thirty-six, Amber. Thirty-six goddamn years old. And I’ve spent my entire life helping other people. You still don’t think I’m ready for—that I deserve—a real relationship?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you deserve,” I point out, totally exasperated. “But age isn’t experience, Nai. And what you have with Rock isn’t real. He’s literally the only person other than Luca you see all day.”

  “I see you,” Naima answers roughly. “I spend most of the day with you.”

  “I don’t count in this hypothetical, Nai,” I remind her with a shake of my head.

  “No, you don’t, because you let him back in. Instead of taking the custody agreement he offered you, you’ve decided to raise this baby with a mafioso instead of me!” she screams back.

  And I jolt. “Oh…Nai, is that what this is all about? Well, you should know I’m going to ask Luca to step back from the criminal side of his organization. And no worries, you’ll still be able to see the baby. You’ll be the godmother, of course…”

  I trail off because Naima’s audibly weeping now, the sound of her tears, coming out in soft hiccups.

  “Nai…” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how important raising this baby was to you.”

  Naima sniffs. “No, of course you didn’t. Why would you? You’re Amber. There’s always some guy ready to swoop in and take over where the last one left off. I should have known better. We were never going to do this together. Never going to be a family. It’s over.”

  She sounds so bitterly disappointed, so not like the sweet social worker I’ve always known that I find myself taking on her usual strenuously optimistic role. “Nai, no. It’s not over. You’re only thirty-six, and there’s still time to have children. I mean, look at me. Thirty-four weeks ago, I didn’t know if I could even get pregnant—”

  This time it’s not Naima that cuts me off, but a sudden spike of pain up my back. So sharp, I drop the phone into the snow. It’s freezing outside, yet I’ve become unbearably warm. A cramp rolls through my core, acute and unbelievably intense, like menstruation pain times 1000. And my back…it feels like it’s on fire.

  “Are you okay?” Naima calls to me somewhere in the distance.

  I grab my stomach, eyes widening as something warm and wet gushes between my legs. At first, I think the back spike-cramp combo surprised me so bad I peed myself. But then, every TV show I’ve ever watched featuring a heavily pregnant woman flashes through my mind.

  And as if to confirm my realization, Naima says, “Oh, my God, girl, I think your water just broke!”

  Part IV

  Love and Marriage

  15

  Bim Bam Baby

  Olivia

  “Why aren’t you here yet? Mama is com-pleeetely flipping out!”

  I sigh as I make my way through a crowded corridor at LaGuardia to my departure gate. Inwardly sigh, of course, not outwardly, lest my sister, Skylar, hear it and flip out even more than our mother is prone to doing.

  “I had to take care of a few patients before I left and Garrett—”

  “Oh, Garrett! How is my future brother-in-law?” Skylar demands as if my fiancé is utterly more interesting than the well-being of my disabled patients. “You should have brought him with you. Is he going to be okay all by himself in New York?”

  “He’s a grown man, Skylar. I’m sure he’ll be okay.” Gate A-33… Gate A-32… Gate A-31…. I’m looking for Gate A-5. Am I even in the right corridor?

  “I’m just saying, I’ve seen those New York girls. Power hungry and desperate. They could eat that fiancé of yours right up. I wouldn’t leave my Clement alone in that city. No, sirree, not even for a minute.”

  “I’m sure Garrett will be fine,” I assure her, even though lately, I’ve been wondering about that myself.

  We’ve both been so busy. Between my on-call schedule and his twenty hour days at Harrell-Lachlan, a Fortune 500 investment firm, it feels like we barely ever see each other. It’s enough to make me wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to accept his marriage proposal last month.

  Yes, he’s perfect. Handsome, from a good family, and unlike a lot of the other old money boys I went to school with in Kentucky, unconcerned that I was adopted into my old money name. And, sure we’d been dating for over five years now, ever since meeting during a B-school/med school mixer at Manhattan University.

  But before his recent proposal, it had felt like we’d been in a rut for the last few months of our relationship, with both of us deriving way more interest in our jobs than each other. Truth be told, when he’d been so adamant about us going out on a date at a specific time and on a specific day—instead of taking advantage of the few miracle hours when we both happened to be available—I’d been pretty sure he was going to dump me. Which is why I was shocked when he got down on one knee halfway through dinner and asked me to marry him instead of going our separate ways.

  But I know this isn’t a subject to discuss with my perfect, non-adopted sister, Skylar. Garrett’s an I-banker from an excellent southern banking family, and I’m the nerdy daughter who didn’t live up to my glamorous mother’s expectations from the start. My adoption didn’t save her marriage with the Glendaver whiskey heir, and my wedged-in life with Skylar and her afterward was basically a whole lot of trying and failing to fit into the genteel world they so easily occupied.

  I’m a Glendaver, but I look more like the mostly black workers who do all the hard labor at our distilleries than my fair mother, sister, or father. I can’t tell you how many times I was mistaken for the help while growing up in the Glendaver mansion before Mama and Dad divorced.

  Then did I go to a college in the south? Unlike Skylar, who seemed to have a Delta Delta Delta admission waiting for her as soon as she stepped foot on the University of Kentucky campus, I didn’t even bother to apply to any schools below the Mason-Dixon line. I went further and further north, first to Princeton, then to Manhattan University for med school.

  And though I eventually went on to become a doctor, and even managed to disappoint Mama on that front when I decided to take a job at ManU’s Women’s Disability Clinic as their only OB. Never mind that I’m doing good and necessary work for women and teenage girls who come from all over the tri-state area to see me. According to my mother, I’m wasting my pedigree and training on those who “should know better” than to get pregnant in the first place.

  If you ask my mother and sister, Garrett is the one and only thing I’ve managed to do right since getting adopted into the Glendaver family.

  A
nd even now, there’s more than a dash of “don’t mess this up, dear sister” pepper underlying Skylar’s purposefully sweet tone as she says, “We can’t take our men for granted now, Livvy. That’s how you end up with a ‘first’ before your wife title, like poor Mama.”

  Really? Because I could have sworn, the assistant Dad decided to keep for a longer term than his usual habitual affairs was the reason our parents got divorced. Not to mention the fact that they both despised the other for daring to grow old. Which is why I now have to fly down to Kentucky to celebrate Mama’s upcoming nuptials to a personal trainer only a few years older than I am.

  But I keep my mouth shut. Skylar loves her attentive wife narrative too much to ever let a pesky thing like reason or actual statistics get in the way of her problematic assumptions about why modern couples break up with each other. I’ve learned the hard way over several tense Thanksgivings to never argue with her, unless I’m just dying to spend the rest of the holiday weekend listening to weak deductions based on internet articles on celebrity divorces. For instance, who knew it was Jennifer Garner’s insistence on having her own career that had driven Ben Affleck to both drink and cheat? I certainly didn’t before the Thanksgiving Dinner of 2016.

  “I’m just saying, you don’t want to be ditched at the altar because you’re paying more attention to those down-trodden baby mamas than your husband to be,” Skylar finishes in that sing-song way of hers. Then she asks, “Do you have a wedding date set yet? And just when are you going to quit that awful job of yours? You won’t be able to work once you have children, you know. Not if you want to be a good mother.”

  No, of course, I won’t be able to work, Skylar, because no one in the whole wide world has ever managed to hold down a job while raising children. Nine out of ten random internet bloggers agree that it’s physically impossible for anyone on this entire earth to do that and be a good mother, I want to answer. But Skylar tends to get incredibly hurt whenever anyone tries to correct one of her antiquated—and, according to the Black Women’s Studies class I took at Princeton, unbelievably privileged and white notions about motherhood.