Every Second With You

by Lauren Blakely

“Just because it’s going well doesn’t guarantee anything,” she whispers.

  “I know. But that’s okay. The only way to do this is one day at a time.”

  “Are you sleeping enough? Getting rest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t do anything to put strain on your body,” she adds.

  “I won’t.”

  Then she looks up, and her eyes are red, and her cheeks are stained, but at least she’s meeting my eyes. “Do you know what you’re having?”

  I shake my head. “We decided not to find out.”

  “Have you picked out names?”

  I shake my head again. “We can’t seem to agree,” I say, laughing. “I like Tom and Henry for a boy, but Trey says they are too traditional. He likes Walker and Travis.”

  “What about for a girl?”

  “We can’t seem to agree on that, either. What names do you like for girls?”

  She presses her lips together tightly, and I can tell she’s trying to rein in another round of tears. She pushes through, speaking quickly. “Allison. That was the name we picked out for a girl.”

  I smile. “I like that name.” Then my eyes widen because there he or she goes again. My baby is riding a rollercoaster in my tummy. “I think the baby is doing dives.”

  Sadness and memories flood her green eyes. “That was my favorite part,” she says in a choppy whisper.

  I reach for her hand, bring it to my belly and place her palm on her grandchild growing inside me.

  Her voice breaks again, but she doesn’t move her hand. She keeps it firmly on my stomach, feeling the baby kick against her hand.

  The tears are unleashed once more. But this time they aren’t only laced with pain; they are mixed with hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Harley

  The plane touches down and the sky is bursting with blue, dripping the crystal color from above us.

  I turn to Trey, and I can’t hide my excitement. I’m tapping my foot, and squeezing his hand, and smiling so wide.

  “A little excited, are you?”

  I nod. “Oh, god, I hope they like me.”

  He rolls his eyes. “They already like you. They already love you.”

  “They don’t know me. They can’t love me,” I say.

  After the plane taxis to the jetway, I practically bolt out of my seat, but I’m not going anywhere since we’re all milling about in the aisle.

  I motion for Trey to come closer. “Should I pull the pregnancy card?” I joke. “Pregnant lady. Let her through.”

  He laughs. “We need to save that one. Milk it for when you’re basketball size.”

  He gently runs his hand over my belly and plants a kiss on my cheek. This has become his new normal. Ever since we’ve been together, he’s had his hands all over me. He still touches me all the time, but now he also touches my stomach, runs his hand over the swell of my belly, and waits patiently for kicks. I love watching him change, seeing him start to embrace how our lives are transforming. And because I am an emotional beast, and the hormones swirling in my body make me more so, I lean into him as he scoots into the aisle, and I whisper in his ear, “You’re going to make a great dad.”

  I am rewarded with a smile, and then he gestures in front of me as the line starts to move. He carries both our bags, and soon we’re off the plane and heading toward the terminal. My insides are a cocktail of nerves and hope, as they jostle with each other for space in me. I run through a million what if scenarios. What if we have nothing to say? What if it’s weird or awkward? What if they don’t like me?

  The nerves intensify as we walk, and he holds my hand tighter, especially when a businessman in a suit nearly bumps into us as he flies by in a race to catch his plane. Announcements of departures and arrivals, of delays and last-minute gate changes, crackle overhead. We near the security checkpoint, and there are throngs of people on the other side, all waiting, craning their necks.

  But then, soon enough, I see them. Debbie and Robert look just like the picture on the cafe website, smiling and happy and holding hands. There’s a moment when I wonder if I’m supposed to run to them like in the movies. We’ll embrace, tears will streak down our faces and it’ll be a Kodak moment, a family reunion. But instead, I simply walk up to them and say, “Hi, I’m Harley.”

  And Debbie throws her arms around me. “Oh, sweetie. It is so good to see you again.”

  She smells like oranges, and her blond hair is springy and streaked with the sun. Though I hardly remember when I was six, something about this just feels . . . familiar. Comfortable. Safe.

  Especially when I see her T-shirt. It’s black with a neon blue cartoonish sketch of a chipmunk.

  “I like your shirt. I have the same one.”

  “You have excellent taste,” Debbie declares and wraps an arm around me. “And I hope you’ll forgive me for not dressing my age.”

  “Forgiveness given,” I say, and I can’t stop smiling because this is so much easier than I’d thought it would be. It’s like we slid right into a natural rhythm.

  Trey clears his throat.

  “Oops!” I turn around, grab his arm, and introduce him.

  “And this, obviously, is Trey,” I say. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  “And as I understand, he’s also responsible for that,” Robert says, pointing at my belly. He smirks and laughs, and Trey joins in, too.

  “Yes, sir,” Trey says. “I am indeed responsible for that.”

  Trey extends a hand and the men shake, and I notice Robert has a tattoo on his bicep. Trey shakes his head, as if he’s seen a mirage. But nope, my grandfather sports ink on his arm.

  “You have a tattoo of a typewriter,” Trey says, his voice all staccato with surprise.

  “Observant fellow, too,” Robert quips, and I think I might be in love with my grandfather’s dry humor already.

  Debbie rolls her eyes. “Watch out for this one, he’s a jokester.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Then Robert returns his attention to Trey. “Yes, I got this hideous thing many moons ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

  “I gotta tell ya, I’ve seen a lot of tats, and done plenty, but I’ve never seen a typewriter tattoo. What made you get that?”

  “Let me tell you the story,” Robert says, and we all start walking out of the airport. “I was a journalism student in college. Thought I was going to be a sports reporter. Travel with the team. Write about every single pitch. Devise fantastic analogies and compelling stories about baseball and how it breaks your heart. So, one night, feeling all bold and brash, I got a little drunk, and got myself a typewriter tattoo. Like it was some kind of emblem, a symbol of my future.”

  “And did you become a sports reporter?” Trey asks as we reach the doors. When we step outside, I am bathed in the most delicious warm air and sun. And even though we’re at the airport, with cars and shuttles buses streaking by, stopping to pick up and drop off passengers, the air feels cleaner and fresher.

  Better.

  Robert shakes his head. “Nope. I was assigned to cover a college basketball game. I hated every minute of it because it sapped all the joy out of watching the game, and I decided that I didn’t want to be a reporter; I wanted to be a fan. And so that’s what I am.”

  “A sports fan with a typewriter tat,” Trey adds.

  “Yep. An ugly, faded, hideous one at that, but I wear it like a badge of honor.”

  “That’s the only way to wear one,” Trey says.

  As we reach the parking garage, Robert shoots a lopsided grin at Debbie and me, and points to Trey. “I like this one. He’s a keeper.”

  On the drive to their house, Debbie spends the entire ride twisted around in the front seat, so she can chat with us in the back, playing tour guide. She tells us about the old school feel of Ocean Beach where they live, the mom-and-pop owned shops, like bakeries, boutiques and indie book stores. Next, she chats about their dog, The Sheriff. After that, she mentions the dinner she has planned f
or us tonight.

  “You probably figured we were going to take you to Once Upon a Sandwich,” Debbie says, with a glint in her blue eyes.

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Nah. We were thinking we’d take you to our favorite burger joint for burgers, fries and milkshakes. Would that work for you?”

  I glance at Trey, and he’s smiling and nodding. It’s such a simple plan, and it’s so us, and it’s so them, and it feels so right.

  * * *

  “Do you think he’s watching us?” Trey asks, nodding at the black and white border collie.

  I check out The Sheriff. He’s curled up and sleeping on the hardwood floors of our bedroom in the duplex adjoining their cottage-style house. Debbie said they usually rent the duplex but the new renters aren’t moving in for a few weeks, so we have our own little home on the beach during our stay. It’s bedtime, alone time, on our first night here. Trey has already kissed me madly, nibbled on my collar bone, and stripped me down to nothing. Now, I’m lying naked before him in the dark of a moonlit night in California.

  I shake my head. “Nope. His eyes are closed.”

  “Good,” he says, running his strong hands across my skin, first my arms, next my hips, and then he trails his palms along my thighs. When he reaches my knees, he parts my legs, and my breath is uneven and needy.

  “Why is it good? Are you going to do something naughty to me? Something you don’t want the dog to see?”

  Trey raises an eyebrow suggestively. “Even if he saw, dogs keep secrets, right?”

  I smile. “So I’ve heard. Their secret-keeping abilities are legendary.”

  “Then he won’t tell a soul what I want to do after I do this,” he says, pressing his lips on the inside of my thigh, kissing me behind the knee as he taps soft notes of desire with his fingers up my legs, barely touching me where I’m already electric for him.

  Teasing me.

  So much teasing that I try to wiggle my way closer.

  “What do you want to do after this?” I ask him, arching my hips, trying to bring his delicious mouth all the way to me.

  “I want to see if you taste as good in California as you do in New York.” He switches positions, moves up the bed, and flops down on his back. Then he reaches for me, his hands on my hips. “Sit on me,” he whispers in a hungry voice that burns with desire.

  “Really?”

  He nods against the pillow. “I want you on my face,” he says, breathing out hard, and I don’t know who’s more turned on now, but I know this much—I’m aching for his touch. I’m dying for the exquisite agony he delivers with his mouth, lips and tongue. So I don’t ask any more questions. I simple obey, straddling his face, balancing my hands on the headboard. His hands are locked on my hips, and he holds me above him. “This is a fucking beautiful view,” he says, then tugs me down.

  I bite my lip when he first licks me so I don’t scream out in pleasure.

  “Mmm,” he murmurs as he kisses all my wetness, his soft lips greedily devouring me, like I’m the key to his survival. He slides his tongue across my sex as his lips consume me. I grip the headboard, digging my fingers around the wood as electricity shoots through me like a hot buzz running through my skin, spinning in my veins, turning my entire body into nothing but the deep, hungry ache for release. I won’t last long, not with his moans and groans as he laps me up, plundering me with his tongue so eagerly, like he’s coveting my pleasure.

  Soon, I start to rock into him, to buck against his mouth. He grips my hips harder, grinding me deeper and faster into his mouth until I am awash in a hot charge that starts tight in my belly then pulses throughout my entire body, coating me in nothing but ecstasy and heat, all the way to my fingertips.

  Everything is a blur as I shout his name, the orgasm rocketing through me, leaving no inch of my body untouched with its pure and beautiful bliss. I exhale hard, panting still, my legs shaking.

  Then, as I slow my movements, I’m hit with the most fantastic aftershocks that radiate throughout me.

  Soon, I shift off of him, collapsing on the bed.

  “Holy hell,” I say, still dizzy and glowing from coming so hard on him. “You have a magic mouth.”

  “I guess that was good for you, too,” he says, with a sly smile.

  “Yeah. Slightly,” I say, and then I glance down at the sleeping dog. “Guess he doesn’t mind our noises, either.”

  “I knew he was my kind of wingman,” he says.

  I laugh. “So, what was your verdict?”

  He switches to his side, brushing his lips ever so faintly against my ear. “You taste like the one thing I will never have enough of.”

  A shiver runs through me with his words. They make me feel both loved and sexy. “Let’s do it in our position,” I say, and I move to my side, too. I reach down between his legs, grasp him in my hand, and bury him inside of me. I move with him, savoring his sounds, his breath, his ragged pants when he tells me he’s so close.

  “Come in me,” I whisper, watching his face strain and twist with pleasure as I bring him over the edge.

  Later, as we lie together, it occurs to me that San Diego is already winning. That the happiest days of my life were here when I was younger, and that so far, California is a bit like paradise.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harley

  The sky stretches with endless blue, the shade so pure and perfect it seems unreal. The sun inches its way overhead, and the waves crash into the sand, the powerful Pacific Ocean pushing and pulling at the sandy shore with its mighty force.

  “I told you so,” I say to Trey the next morning. “I told you you’d want shorts.”

  He holds up his hands in surrender as he throws another tennis ball to the dog. Trey’s jeans are cuffed up, but the cuffs are soaked. He wears a T-shirt, but without board shorts he looks out of place on the beach and, frankly, a bit silly.

  “You look like an interloper. Like a city boy. You’re embarrassing me,” I say, as I kick sand onto his feet playfully, the grains sliding through my naked toes. I love the feel of the sand on my bare feet, the breeze on my arms, and the salty bite of the waves in my nostrils.

  The Sheriff returns to Trey, trotting by his side and making big puppy-dog eyes at him as we cut across the beach toward the house. Already, the dog has adopted Trey, or maybe it’s the other way around. I never knew my guy had that side of him—the dog-person side. Then again, he never knew he did, either.

  “I’ve never had a pet,” he’d told me this morning when he woke up, laughing as The Sheriff licked his face, the dog’s way of asking for breakfast. “But this dog kind of rocks.”

  We reach the deck of the house; Robert and Debbie are drinking their morning coffee outside.

  “He needs shorts,” I tell Robert.

  “The Sheriff? That’s crazy. He only wears clothes at night, when he puts on his PJs. He goes full monty during the day.”

  I laugh and point my thumb to Trey. “Him.”

  “You telling me I need to take your boyfriend shopping?”

  I nod. “Pretty please.”

  Robert shakes his head, but he’s already giving in. He turns to Trey, and claps him on the shoulder. “Now son, I’m giving up my man card to take you shopping, but she’s right. I’m thoroughly embarrassed by your lack of appropriate beach attire. Surprised, too, that TSA didn’t confiscate your bags at the airport yesterday. We usually don’t let anyone into San Diego with jeans on,” Robert says, pointing to his own cargo shorts.

  They leave, and I join Debbie on the deck. The dog follows, parking himself in a perfect sit next to me, and looking expectantly at Debbie with the ball in his mouth.

  She takes the ball and tosses it far away in the sand, and the dog is off like a shot.

  “Why’d you name him The Sheriff?”

  “When we adopted him we had cats, and he was always trying to herd them, and round them up, like they were his posse or something. So we called him The Sheriff.”

  �
��I like that name.”

  “Thank you. Would you like some coffee? Tea, or lemonade?”

  It’s only ten in the morning, but lemonade sounds delicious. “Lemonade, please.”

  She heads into the house and returns quickly with two tall glasses. She takes a sip, sets the glass down, and presses her palms against the white wooden deck railing, gazing out at the water.

  “I bet it never gets old, this view,” I say, drinking in the gorgeous sky and the sun that bakes my skin slowly, luxuriously.

  “Never does. Every day it feels new again,” she says, and then she turns to me. “So, how’s it going with the two of you? How is he with being a dad soon?”

  I’m momentarily startled by the directness of her question. She reminds me a bit of Joanne; going for bluntness. It’s such a change from what I’ve been used to my whole life over.

  “He had a hard time at first, but he’s changed a lot in the last few months. Sometimes, he’s too sweet for words.”

  “That’s how it should be. And you’re very serious about each other.” It’s half a question, and half a pronouncement.

  “Very serious.”

  “I can tell,” she says, her blue eyes holding mine. “The way he looks at you. How he talks to you. And you, with him. You have this connection that goes beyond most people. One that runs so deep it’s almost like a secret language. I think that’s what it’s like with true love. With soul mates. You just have it.”

  “You can tell with us?”

  She nods, and taps her heart. “Oh yeah. I can tell. I have a soul mate detector.”

  “We are soul mates. I’m sure of it. What about you and Robert? Is that what you have?”

  “Absolutely,” she says as The Sheriff trots up to the porch, dropping the ball with a loud thunk then staring at Debbie. She grabs the ball, and tosses it back out to the sand.

  As The Sheriff tears away, I spy a seagull careening towards the sand in hot pursuit of a french fry. The seagull lands and grabs his carbohydrate prey, gulping it down.

  I turn back to Debbie, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand. There’s something I want to know, and she doesn’t mince words so I go for it. “My parents didn’t have that, did they?”