She raises her eyebrow. "How do you remember things like that, Noah?"
"I remember every moment I get to spend with you," I say it without hesitation. "I'll remember every moment we have together until the day I die."
I should know by now that words like that bring tears to her eyes immediately. Today is no exception. She covers her mouth with her hands in an effort to hold off a sob.
"You're too romantic," she murmurs quietly. "I love when you talk like that."
I pull on her waist until she's settled in my lap. "It's the truth, Alexa. I'll never get enough of you. You already know that."
She nods her head faintly. "I've been worried about us...about you, Noah."
I kiss her cheek, scooping up a tear onto my tongue. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine."
Her eyes stay trained on the wall of my office where a framed picture of our twins is hanging. I'd taken the photograph the first day they came to live with us. I can see the trepidation in their expressions. They were unsure what they were stepping into. Since then, any vulnerability that may have been hidden behind their eyes has vanished. The picture is completely out of place now. I make a mental note to replace it with our family portrait tomorrow.
"Have you been thinking about a baby again?" Her voice is soft in the stillness of the room. I can hear every hidden nuance in her tone.
She's not actually asking if I've given any thought to the idea of adopting an infant. She's telling me, in her own abstract way, that it's all she's been thinking about. I don't need to hear the words to understand that. I see it in her expression when we're out and she's gazing into the distance at a couple with a baby in a stroller. I see it in her hands as they tremble when she wraps gifts for our friends and her co-workers who are expecting a child.
Alexa has never gotten over the fact that she can't physically have a baby of her own. After we adopted the kids, she sought out the advice of yet another fertility specialist who reiterated what the previous two had. My wife will never carry a child of her own in her body. It's not meant to be.
"I haven't been thinking about a baby," I say honestly.
"Oh." She clears her throat. "I just assumed."
It's one of the very few subjects that we can't talk openly about. I love our family exactly as it is. She had mentioned a baby briefly after we adopted the twins but the subject was mute until my brother Ben, and his wife, Kayla had a baby. Alexa adores their daughter, Emerson, and it's rekindled her desire to adopt an infant.
I wanted the same thing for a time but now that the twins are settled with us, I like things just as they are. That's not to say that I won't want another child in the future. I won't rule it out but I'm not ready right now.
"You know how I feel about that, Alexa." I wrap my arms around her, tugging her into my chest. "I like our family exactly the way it is."
"I know." She swallows. "I love our family, Noah. Sometimes I just wish we had another child."
It's an issue we're not going to resolve tonight. We both know that. We revisit it on an almost weekly basis and at some point we'll have to figure it out.
"How did work go today?" I move the conversation in a completely different direction, hopeful that I can eventually steer it to where I need it to be. I have to tell Alexa about Boston. I need her to understand why I've done the things I have every time I've gone back there the past two months.
"Work was fine." She brushes her fingers against my cheek. "It's always fine. I just finished winter break and I'm already looking forward to the week I get off this spring."
I could easily launch into a lecture about how she doesn't need to work another day in her life, but I know how well that will go over. Alexa is fiercely independent and she worked damn hard to get her teaching degree.
She cut back her hours for months after the twins arrived but when the school asked her to take on a fuller schedule, she'd jumped right back in. The fact that we found an incredible sitter helped. Alexa vetted dozens of candidates until she found Diana.
She's a retired teacher herself with two grown children and three grandchildren. The woman has for all intents and purposes taken on the role of a surrogate grandmother to our kids. She's a gem and I pay her a tidy sum each month to make sure my two beauties are given the best care possible.
We asked her to move in the spare bedroom in our apartment but she was adamant about keeping her own place in Queens. She lives in a rent controlled studio suite there filled with the treasures of an entire life devoted to kids.
Alexa brings home gifts from her students too. The difference between her and Diana is that she packs them away in a cardboard box. Diana openly displays every colored picture, each note and every key chain her students made for her over her thirty-year career.
"I asked my dad about staying with the kids next weekend." I bury my face in the warm skin of her neck, breathing in the scent that is uniquely her. "I want to take you away."
"Where?" She spins so quickly on my lap that I lose my grip on her waist. "Are we going somewhere romantic?"
"Boston," I blurt out because there's no fucking way I'm going to give her the chance to suggest another location. If she did that, I'd drop my own plans to take her wherever it is. I'd give my wife the moon if I could figure out a way to lasso it and drag it down to earth.
"Why?" She eyes me suspiciously. "We're not going to see my mom, are we?"
"I take it you'd prefer if we didn't?" I joke. "We can hang out with her for a couple of hours if you want but I've got other plans."
"What other plans?" Her entire expression shifts. "There's nothing left for us there other than my mom."
This is it. This is where I tell my wife that I haven't been able to do the one thing she's been asking me to do since the day we married.
"My penthouse is there." I tighten my grip on her, hoping that she'll find some comfort in my touch. "I want you to go there with me, Alexa."
"It's not your penthouse anymore, Noah," she says bluntly. "At least it won't be next month when the new owner takes possession of it."
"I didn't accept that offer," I finally admit. "The buyer wanted an extension to get financing in place and I didn't give it. I shut the deal down two weeks ago."
She scrambles to her feet. Her hands pushing at my shoulders, her fingernails digging into my skin through the fabric of the t-shirt I'm wearing. "What? What are you talking about?"
I stare up at her. Her eyes are welling with tears although she's doing everything in her power to hold back the onslaught of her raw emotions.
That penthouse has been a fundamental part of my life since I bought it when I was twenty-five-years old. I'd used the inheritance that my mother left me and I'd built my career there. I also hid from the world there. It's the place I met Alexa and the same place I broke her heart. It's as much a part of me as my name. Giving it up wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.
"You've been going there to clean it out."
"No," I admit easily. "I've been going there for another reason."
"What reason?" Her hand bolts to her chest. "What are you doing in Boston?"
There's no one word answer for that. I want to show her. I want her to understand what keeps pulling me back there.
"I've been working." That's the most succinct way to describe it.
"Working?" Her voice is louder, her tone more demanding. "You're always telling me that you have too much work here in New York, Noah. You've been turning jobs down. Why in the hell are you leaving us to go there to work?"
"Not that kind of work." I stand. "I'm not taking on jobs, Alexa."
I just need to say it, but the words aren't going to come easily. Each time I go back to Boston, I lock myself back in that penthouse the way I did before Alexa came into my life. It's a safe place for me. It's the place I need to be while I sort through the remains of a part of my past I don't want to let go of.
"Oh, my God." She steps back, her hand reaching for the edge of my desk. "Noah, tell me right now
that you're not taking nude pictures of women again. If you are, I swear that I'll..."
"Seriously?" I step towards her, my hands grabbing hold of her shoulders. "You think I'd go back to that fucked up life? I'm a father, Alexa. I have children. I have you."
"What does that even mean?" she asks defiantly, her chin tipping up towards me. "You have me and yet you've been lying to me for weeks. You said you were going back there to take care of things at the penthouse."
"I was." I drop my hands from her, pushing them into the front pockets of my jeans. "I was taking care of things."
"Riddles, Noah." I see the pain, mixed with anger as it washes over her expression. "Stop fucking talking in riddles. What the hell is going on? You tell me right now."
I swallow hard. I feel my jaw clench. "It's my mother, Alexa. I'm going back for her."
CHAPTER 4
We've stood in silence for more than three minutes. I know because I've watched the seconds tick by on the clock on the wall behind where Alexa is standing. I've been waiting for her to respond. I wanted her to tell me immediately that she has an understanding of what I'm talking about but it's obvious that's not going to happen.
My pretty little wife can't even make eye contact with me right now. I know her well enough to sense that's because death makes her uncomfortable. It's a subject she avoids at all costs.
"I'd like you to come to Boston with me so you can understand what I'm doing there."
"Does Ben know about this?" Her gaze doesn't move from where it's glued to the floor. "Have you told him what you're doing?"
I haven't even fully explained it to her yet. How the hell can I mention it to my twin brother? I blamed him for years for our mother's death. I can't exactly call him up and tell him that I'm creating an exhibit of photographs I took of our mother before her death so I can show them at a small gallery in Boston. That's not something you bring up over a drink at a bar.
My mother's death still haunts Ben. I saw that firsthand when we were establishing the Foster Foundation, a charity dedicated to our mother's memory. It tore Ben up inside every time I mentioned how proud she would be of him and the good work he does at the hospital.
His life is settled now. He's happy. He's married to my wife's best friend, Kayla, and he's raising a little girl. I can't fuck that all up by telling him that I can't let my mother's memory fade away.
"I told you first," I explain calmly. "I want you to come and see what I'm doing before I talk to Ben."
"What are you doing?" The question carries the perfect balance of anger and frustration. She's pissed that I didn't correct her when she made the assumption that I was going to Boston to close the deal on the penthouse.
"I was cleaning out my things," I begin as I motion towards a chair a few feet away. "Why don't we sit, Alexa? I want to explain all of this to you."
She fidgets on her feet. "She's been gone for a long time. I don't understand what's going on."
I ignore her inability to stand still as I lower myself back into my office chair. I need the stability of that to ground me so I can get through this conversation. The kids are due back with Diana sometime in the next hour so I need to get this off my chest before they burst in.
"Tell me, Noah." Her voice carries all the impatience of her movements. The toe of her left shoe is tapping a rapid beat on the floor.
"I wish our kids would have known her," I begin because that's exactly where this all started for me. "It kills me that they'll never get the chance to know her the way I did."
That quiets her enough that she sits her ass down on a chair across from me. "I'm sorry about that. I wish I could have known her too."
"That's another part of it." I scrub my hand over my forehead. "I've got this perfect family and she'll never see that. She's never going to know the three of you."
You'd think I'd be over this by now. I'm in my thirties. She died when I was eighteen-years-old. I struggle to recall the sound of her voice sometimes or the way she moved when she walked. I know her favorite flower was a rose, but for shit's sake I can't push myself to remember if I told her I loved her before I left for a ball game the day she took her last breath.
She was sick. She was really sick and if I would have been paying more attention than a teenager in search of his next high or his next lay is, I might have actually spent more time with her. I didn't. I regret it now that I see Alexa with our kids. My mother was just as giving and supportive to me and my brother as my wife is to our kids and I doubt like hell she knew how much that meant to me.
"I started sorting through my stuff there when I first put the place up for sale." I talk quickly, the words spilling out. "That's when I found boxes and boxes of old pictures I'd taken."
"Pictures of your mom?" she asks quietly.
"Her, my dad, Ben, friends." I shake my head faintly. "My folks got me a camera for my tenth birthday and I went hog wild with that thing. I took thousands of pictures."
"I'd like to see them."
Of course she'd say that. Alexa may not have been the biggest fan of my work when we met but since then she's been nothing but supportive. She'll sit next to me at this desk, grading papers while I edit images. She's learned what works and doesn't work in terms of shading and angles. I know her interest isn't coming from her own natural desire to take pictures. She's wanted to learn more about my business because of how much it means to me.
"Come to Boston with me this weekend." I lean forward to cup her face in my hands. "Come with me so I can show you exactly what I've been doing."
Her eyes graze over my face before they settle on my lips. "You know I can't resist you, Noah. I'd follow you to the edge of the earth if you asked me to."
"I'd do the very same for you, Alexa. I'd do anything for you."
***
"You said you'd do anything for me," she hisses the words from between her teeth. "You need to let me finish what I started."
I need to fuck her before I blow my load all over her face. "Stop, Alexa. I told you to fucking stop."
This is one of the few times when I can say I don't give a fuck that she's not listening to me. I'd gone to bed before her but when she crawled in next to me, all bets were off. Sleep was the last thing on my mind when she took my dick between her lips and sucked me to the back of her throat.
I'd almost lost it right then. I had to physically pull her off of me so I could catch my breath. She wasn't having it though and with a few quick flicks of her head to free her hair from my hand, her mouth was back on me, sucking, licking, taking me to the edge over and over again.
I want to come down her throat. I want that almost as much as I want her to climb on top of me so she can ride me.
"Get on my cock," I pant the words out quickly as she slowly licks the underside of my dick. "I want your pussy."
She moans as she scrambles hastily, shedding the boy shorts and tank top she's wearing. She'd turned the small light on the nightstand on when she walked into the bedroom and locked the door. It's enough of a glow to highlight her beautiful body. My cock stiffens even more as my eyes trail over her.
"Ah shit," I murmur as I watch her glide her long fingers through her soft folds. "You're ready."
"Sucking your cock turns me on." She dips a finger into her channel, pulling it out and over her swollen clit. "I love sucking it."
She stands on the bed, straddling me while she continues fingering herself. I stare up, in awe of how incredibly fucking beautiful she is; in disbelief that this woman agreed to spend the rest of her life with me. This is mine. All of this is mine.
"Sit on my face. Let me taste you." I fist my cock, bringing myself to the edge again.
"Not a chance." She's down and on me in an instant, her hands pulling mine away from my dick. "I'm going to come with this inside of me."
I stare at her face, watching her eyes flutter closed as she slides my shaft into her very wet, very ready pussy.
CHAPTER 5
"If I fall asleep in class
today, it's your fault." She rests her hands on my shoulders as she reaches up to kiss my cheek. "You're a fucking machine, Noah."
"A fucking machine?" I parrot back. "You've never called me that before. Does that mean you like me, Mrs. Foster?"
She rolls her eyes as she purses her lips. "Only my students call me that."
"You didn't mind when I called you that last night." I arch my brow.
She kisses me softly, her tongue grazing a lazy path over my bottom lip. "You can call me whatever you want when we're in our bed."
"Whatever I want?" I ask in a soft voice when I hear the twins rounding the corner to come into the kitchen. "I'm going to remember that. In fact, I'll never forget that."
The sudden curve of her brow is a silent question but I'm on dad duty now. That means I've got to find something, anything to get in front of Max before he eats his plate, and I have to coax my beautiful brunette little princess to eat a few bites of banana before I take them both to school.
"When's grandpa coming over?" Max walks right past me on a mission to get to the refrigerator. He opens the door with both hands before he pulls out a small tub of yogurt. "I have some stuff to go over with him."
"Go over with him?" I reach behind me to yank open the utensil drawer before he reaches it.
He grabs hold of a spoon and then closes the drawer with his shoulder. "We're working on something. I called him but he didn't get back to me yet."
This kid is way too smart for his own good. "When did you call him?"
"What time was that, Mommy?" He sits by the kitchen table, as he pulls off the lid of the yogurt. He runs his tongue over it before he drops it on a paper napkin.
Alexa smiles as she stares at him. "You called him last night around seven, Max. I told you grandpa was traveling yesterday to Texas. I'm sure he'll call us back tonight."
"You'll tell me right after school if he called you, right?"
I feel like I'm sitting on the sideline of a tennis match as my wife and son volley responses back and forth. Chloe has settled in a chair by the table as she takes the smallest bites humanly imaginable of the banana Alexa peeled for her.
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