So Twisted

by Melissa Marino

  “So, yes, Callie and I had a sleepover last night. We were so tired and ended up falling asleep here. We didn’t mean to have a sleepover, it sort of happened, like an accident,” I explained.

  I looked over at Callie, and beneath her flushed cheeks and uncomfortableness, she found the will to nod at me, encouraging me that we were doing the right thing.

  Delilah laughed. “That’s silly. How can you fall asleep by accident?”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly an accident, but we were so tired and after we were in our jammies, we fell asleep here while we were talking.”

  “What were you talking about?” she asked.

  “Aaron?” Callie said. “It would probably be easier to just tell her.”

  She was right. I needed to come out and say it, but hell, I’d never had to explain I was dating someone and relationships to Delilah before. Plus, with Callie living with us, how was I going to put it in a way she wouldn’t confuse dating with getting married? I never had women coming and going through the house, nor did I date hardly at all, so if I tried to explain…

  “Aaron,” Callie said pinching me in the arm and pulling me from my thoughts. “Pull it together.”

  “Ow,” I responded, rubbing my arm. “Quit it and I am pulled together.”

  “Look at her. You’re scaring her.” She gestured toward Delilah.

  I looked down at my daughter, snuggled between Callie and myself, gazing up at me with confused eyes. Callie patted her legs in reassurance, and Delilah quickly grabbed her hand, intertwining her little fingers with Callie’s.

  I brushed my hand down Delilah’s hair. “Sweetie, you know how Barbie and Ken are boyfriend and girlfriend? Well, Callie and I are boyfriend and girlfriend now.”

  “Oh,” she said, mulling over what I said. “You mean like Nana and Grandpa?”

  “Kind of, but Nana and Grandpa are married. They had a wedding. Boyfriends and girlfriends are people who like each other and want to get to know each other better. So, you might see Callie and me hug or kiss sometimes because that’s what boyfriends and girlfriends do.”

  I paused, waiting for a reaction or comment, but at the moment, her eyes looked like they were deep in concentration. Suddenly, she looked up at me, her head tilted to the side. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, sweetie.”

  “Are you and Callie going to get married like Nana and Grandpa, then? Because Callie could be my mommy, right?”

  “Ahhh,” I responded, trying to think what to say. “For now, I think…Well, I’m…What I mean is…”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, sweetie.”

  “Can I go watch TV?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and nodded my head, watching her scramble off the bed and dart to the door. I was beyond grateful for the brief attention span of a five-year-old and not having to explain things further.

  “Daddy?” she asked from the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s okay if you want to marry Callie, but when I’m older, I don’t want you to be married to her anymore because I want to marry you, okay?”

  She ran from the doorway, her tangled curls and part of my heart following with her. I fell back against the bed and rested my hand on my aching chest.

  I responded. “That little girl…”

  “Is amazing,” Callie said, finishing my sentence. “I think she handled that conversation better than the both of us.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t getting much help from you.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “It wasn’t my place. It was a conversation you needed to have with your daughter.”

  “But you’re part of this, too. This is about all of us, you, me, and Delilah.”

  I picked up her hand and brought it to my lips, kissing it while gazing at her. The events of the previous evening came flooding back to me.

  I had shut down. Completely.

  What the fuck was she going to think except that I was mad at her? No. It wasn’t her. It was everyone and everything else. Any and everything made me question us ever taking our love outside the bedroom for everyone else to see. That, coupled with the fear that made my stomach ache that she would call it all bullshit and take off.

  Her eyes. Her beautiful green eyes utterly pained over the entire evening—mostly because of my own behavior. As we stood in the hallway when we returned home, I looked at her, in her beautiful dress and sparkling earrings, and wondered how, with her looking so stunning, anything bad could happen. While rather juvenile in theory was how it seemed. Everything didn’t fit anymore, everything was slightly askew, and instead of telling her what I felt, I’d connected with her in the only way I knew how in that moment.

  I’d joined her in the shower and hushed her words with my mouth. It wasn’t words I wanted. It was her. Only her. I wanted to taste her kisses and the warmth and softness of her skin. I needed the intangible depth of want from her. It was where I was certain of her love for me. It was where we made sense.

  My throbbing erection was no match for all the lingering questions, and when I’d slid into her, our breaths caught in a moment of relief. We were together. The deeper I went, the more I craved and the more I feared. Fear that my life before her would be too much for her. Desire had little to do with reality, and while I knew she desired me, I didn’t know if it would be enough considering all of the baggage I was bringing with me. Would the want she had for me be enough to sustain us? I knew if she could feel me, how we fit together so precisely, it would remind her of how much we had.

  I just didn’t know if it was enough.

  “What are you thinking about?” Callie asked.

  I sighed deeply, reaching around her waist to bring her close. “Last night.”

  “Oh.” She bit down on her lower lip as her head dipped slightly, averting her eyes from mine. “Yeah, quite a night.”

  “Hey,” I said, tapping her chin up. “Look at me.”

  The same sad, confused eyes that gazed at me last night were looking at me once again. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, at the same time as her.

  “Look, I was an asshole,” I explained. “I was never angry at you.”

  She sighed. “I know, but I also know you were disappointed, and that was because of me.”

  I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she wasn’t the cause of anything, but that would’ve been a lie. Everything that was happening was because we were together. It was her. It was me. It was my family. It was everyone. It was everywhere.

  She fit into my life, in our lives. I’d never known just how much having another person to share the day-to-day things with would make me realize how much I’d been missing. How much Delilah had been missing.

  She got up from the bed and walked toward the door, not looking at me. “I need to get ready.”

  I was getting hit from a million different directions. Every word, every move I made was forcing me into a war zone and it was blinding me.

  Blind to what was right in front of me.

  I was hit once again and knew what I needed to do. “Calliope.”

  “Yes?” she said, turning around.

  “You’re fired.”

  “Whaa…what?”

  “You heard me. Now, come here.”

  “Aaron…I…”

  “Come here.”

  With shaky limbs and her eyes cast downward, she moved from the bed slowly, placing herself in front of me. This, along with everything else Callie and I had gone through, could go several ways, but it was what I wanted. It was what we needed.

  “You want me to leave?” she asked, tears pooling in her eyes.

  I took her face in my hands, feeling her soft skin as my thumbs rubbed across her cheeks. “No, I want you to live here with me. With us.”

  “But if you’re firing me? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want you to be the nanny anymore, Callie. I want you to live here as my girlfriend, not as an employee,” I explained.

&nb
sp; She started to shake her head. “What? I can’t…You want…Shit. I’m turning into one of those girls who I hate, who become overly emotional idiots who can’t form a sentence.”

  “I want you. I want only you. I’ve never wanted another woman more. I want you to live here, sleep in my bed, and wake up next to me because I’m in love with you. I want you here because you want to be here, not because you’re the nanny.”

  I brought her face toward mine and lightly kissed her lips. “I want you,” I murmured against her mouth. “Please say you want me, too.”

  “But…”

  “No buts, please. We can figure out all the other stuff, just say yes.”

  Her hands that were resting on my chest began to tremble, and she no longer could hold my gaze. My heart began to sink with the realization the answer she would give me might be no. I willed myself to prepare for the rejection that was becoming more and more evident as each moment passed, but I wasn’t doing a very good job. Maybe it really was too much for her. Maybe all my baggage was too heavy of a burden to want to carry. Maybe she was confusing great sex with love. Maybe…

  “Yes,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “Yes, I’ll live here with you.”

  No maybe.

  Yes.

  She jumped onto the bed and tackled me, throwing her arms around my neck. I rolled over on top of her, kissing her mouth, smiling against her lips.

  This was the answer.

  “How would this even work? I mean, I need an income, and I can’t, or rather I won’t, rely on you solely for that,” she asked.

  “Well, what would you feel comfortable with?”

  I’d hate to see her going back to working nights, or anywhere for that matter. She’d still be here taking care of Delilah like she had been, and my financial situation was enough to take care of whatever she needed.

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure to be honest. I have some money tucked away that I’ve saved since living here, but with my student loans and credit card debt there is no way I can’t work.”

  “You can still keep your salary from me,” I said. “It—”

  “No way,” she said loudly. “If I’m not your employee, you are not paying me.”

  I picked up her hand. “Hear me out,” I said. “It wouldn’t be like that. You taking care of Delilah isn’t going to change. If we are going to be together, you’ll have to become comfortable with me picking up certain slack because I can, not because I think you’re taking me for a ride.”

  I could see the wheels turning, her eyes shifted to the ceiling as she bit down on her lower lip.

  I decided to press her further.

  “How about you consider this, then. I’ll pick up the tab for the student loans for now. It wouldn’t be like I was paying you, but only helping out my girlfriend, who lived with me.”

  “Aaron, you are so thoughtful to offer. I’m just not sure. Your father already thought I was in this with you for money. I don’t want anyone else to think that because nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “Of course, it isn’t true, and it’s none of anyone’s business what we do, either. I want you to consider something, though. If you had the money to help, would you help Delilah and me out?” I asked.

  “In a heartbeat,” she said without hesitation.

  As soon as the words left her mouth, the deal was done. I could see it all over her face. With a little more coaxing, we had an agreement.

  I pressed my lips to hers before leaning back to gaze at her. “Let’s go downstairs and have breakfast in our kitchen.”

  A short time later, just as I was setting Callie’s coffee-filled Tinker Bell cup next to her at the table, my cell phone vibrated on the table. I glanced at it and saw it was the one person I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to.

  My father.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, answering the phone.

  “Hi, son. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  “No,” I said.

  He cleared his throat as I walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

  “It was quite the eventful evening, wasn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “After you left, I had a long talk with Abel. He had some very strong words for me. I have to say, some of which were very hard to hear.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He paused before answering, breathing in deeply. “I’m not proud of how I acted, Aaron, but I want you to know it came from a place of concern.”

  “I realize that, but it still doesn’t excuse your actions.”

  “It all seemed to happen very fast. I didn’t want to see you hurt again. Everything you went through with Lexie and the aftermath, it nearly destroyed you. If it wasn’t for Delilah, none of us thought you’d make it through.”

  “And you think Callie would do the same thing to me?”

  “Considering the circumstances, I may have jumped to conclusions about her, her intentions and about your relationship in general.”

  “I have to be honest, I’m shocked as hell you’re saying this,” I said.

  “Well, let’s just say, after last night, and the tongue-lashing I got from your mother, I had to see things at face value.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “You’re crazy in love, Aaron. I saw the way you looked at her last night, tuning out everything else around you and gazing at her, just like I used to do with your mother when we first met,” he explained. “My reaction to your relationship was based out of fear. Plain and simple. I’m sorry to both you and Callie. I’d like the chance to apologize to her personally, too.”

  Frankly, I didn’t know what went down after we left last night, but it was certainly enough for my father to come to me with his tail between his legs and apologize. Being a parent made you do crazy, irrational things. I knew this. I was going to take the olive branch he extended.

  “Thanks, Dad. Do you have time for lunch this week?”

  “Absolutely.”

  We said our good-byes while I walked back into the kitchen as Callie and Delilah were eating their waffles.

  “Is…” She paused. “Everything okay?” she asked, standing and picking up her mug.

  I grabbed her free hand and guided her into the hallway. “Yes. My dad called me to apologize for acting like a horse’s ass. It seems after we left last night, he got an earful from everyone.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. Pretty crazy, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Well, when you were on the phone I realized we both forgot that the decorator was stopping by this morning to go over ideas for the new toy room.”

  “Shit, I completely forgot. Well, I think we’re going to hold off on doing anything to the room right now anyway.”

  “What? Why?” she questioned.

  “We’ll do something with the playroom eventually, but I thought it would be best to hold off. You never know what the future brings,” I said, smiling.

  She scrunched her nose. “Eww. You don’t want to turn it into one of those S and M rooms, do you? I mean, I’m all for a little spanking and kink, but a whole room, Aaron? I don’t know.”

  “Very funny, smart-ass. All I was thinking was, what if we need an extra room someday?”

  “If I move into your room, like we discussed, we’ll still have a guest bedroom.”

  “Well, what if we decide to have a baby?” I said.

  Excitement overwhelmed me at the prospect. I knew she’d want to finish school and be married, but I knew children for us wouldn’t be far behind.

  When several moments passed and she hadn’t responded, I realized I’d surprised her. I don’t know why she seemed so shocked. I had assumed it was something she thought about, but maybe it was the fact I brought it up that took her aback.

  “Callie?”

  She looked at me with big eyes before she dropped her Tinker Bell cup, glass shattering and coffee spewing everywhere.

  Chapter Twenty-Three
r />   CALLIE—

  What the hell is the matter with you?” Evelyn asked. “And why do you sound like you’re in a cave?”

  I was hiding in my closet, calling my best friend, because that’s what you did in these situations.

  “He…he…he…baby…,” I stuttered.

  “He who?”

  “Mr. Simms. My fifth-grade Algebra teacher with the bad breath and mullet. Who the hell do you think I’m talking about?” I yelled. “Aaron!”

  “Aaron found a baby?”

  “No, you idiot. He wants one.”

  She paused. “He wants one what?”

  “Ev. Focus. A baby. Will you keep up, please?”

  “Oh! A baby. Sorry, I was confused. Oh…oh…,” she said excitedly.

  I slapped my hand against the phone since she wasn’t in front of me and I needed to stop her verbal nonsense. “Aaron wants to hold off on redoing the toy room in case we have a baby.”

  She gasped. “Is he serious?”

  “I have no idea, but he sounded serious about holding off on doing the room.”

  “Wow. How do you feel about that?”

  “I feel freaked the fuck out, that’s how I feel,” I replied, wringing my hands together to keep them from shaking. “I mean, I only just agreed to live here, as his girlfriend, this morning. Plus, I’m not even done with school yet. I’m only twenty-four…”

  “Shit,” Evelyn said. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Bridget is calling me. Total wedding crisis going on. I’ll call you as soon as I can tonight, okay?”

  She hung up and I stood there holding my phone.

  A baby? Really? Not only did the fact that the thought had crossed his mind terrify me, but the realization he was actually thinking about it in terms of placement in our home was enough to make that whole vomiting problem I had threaten to return. We just decided to live together.

  Oh my God. If he’s thinking about a baby, that means he probably already thought about marriage. How could he be thinking about that already? Does he want to marry me? For shit’s sake, I didn’t even know why he picked the blueberries out of his blueberry muffin. Why get the blueberry muffin and remove the blueberries, stacking them neatly on a napkin? Why not get the apple cinnamon and not have to perform baked-good surgery to remove the offending berry? Was it the taste he disliked? Texture issues? Not agreeable with his digestive system? These were questions I needed answered, and to get to the bottom of, before I could even consider marrying someone.