by Serena Bell
I shake my head.
“And you didn’t ask him if he’d slept with her. The woman. With the shoes and the bra.”
I understand what she’s driving at. She’s hopeful that this story I’m telling holds a secret, a revelation, a big misunderstanding that redeems her brother and, in the process, a relationship. But this isn’t that story. There’s no happily-ever-after in the story of me and Jack and Gabe.
I take a deep breath. “Yeah, I did. I told him to let me know what he came up with after ‘giving it some thought.’ And then I turned to let myself out. But at the last minute, I turned back. I said, ‘Did you have sex with her?’
“I didn’t want to ask it. I was ashamed of myself for cracking like that, for being pathetic and jealous. So of course, I did the worst possible thing. I started to cry.”
“Oh, Maddie,” Sienna says, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears.
“He got this look on his face, like—like—a trapped animal. He said, ‘Maddie. This is who I am. If it wasn’t her, it would be someone else. You know that, right? You’re really great, you really are, but I’m nobody’s father and nobody’s husband.’ ”
“Oh, Jack,” Sienna groans.
We sit for a moment in silence. I feel exhausted, spent, from telling the story. She has moved closer to the door and turned away from me, so I can see only half her face, in shadow.
When she turns back, her face is eager, almost desperate. She grabs my arm. “People change,” she whispers. “That was five years ago. He’s older. He’s wiser. Don’t you think it’s possible he’s a different man now?”
I get it. I get what she wants. For her brother, maybe even for me. What so many people want: love and trust. Family. Home.
I want it too. But…
I think about Lani and my jealousy.
I think about Mia’s skirt and Harris on his knees, about those moments when you stand in place and the whole world turns itself around you, so you lose your orientation and aren’t sure if the sky is even still up.
I think about Cora, watching her boyfriend swallow a stranger’s cock in their living room.
I put my hand over Sienna’s, touch her fingertips until they unfurl from my skin and I can draw my arm back. I wrap both my arms around myself for warmth. “That thing that Cora said. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Most of the time, I think it’s true. But not always. I think some people cheat for reasons and when those reasons aren’t true anymore, they stop. So—yeah, I mean, I think it’s possible. I think some people change. I even think Jack could change. I just—”
I gulp air. I think about the night that Mia came to the house, what Jack said to her, to himself: You idiot. It doesn’t matter if she forgives you. She’ll never trust you again.
“I just don’t think I can change.”
Chapter 30
I am dreaming about an epic blow job.
We’re in the throne room of the palace—don’t ask—and I’m the king and she’s the jester. Her jester clothes are a skintight green and purple and red leotard that leaves nothing to the imagination, not the outline of her nipples, not the crack of her ass, not the texture that betrays the crisp curls of pubic hair on either side of the pretty vee where her leotard cups her in front. She is turning gymnastics tricks on the marble floor of the court hallway, her jester cap pinned to her head so she won’t lose it while she tumbles and dances like a cheerleader. I catch her and put my hand at the join of her thighs. She is so hot there it scalds my palm. Damp, too, through the layers of thin fabric.
She kneels at my feet and pushes up my robes. I’m commando, of course. The Commando King. I said, don’t ask.
She takes me in her mouth, all tight, wet heat around my dick, the world’s most skilled tongue curling around my head, slicking from root to crown. Soft resistance, perfect suction, enough depth to buck without hurting her.
I wake up with my dick down her throat. She’s naked, not wearing a jester costume at all. I know this because I’m clutching handfuls of soft, satin flesh in my hands, my fingers greedily gripping her breasts.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I groan as she releases me and climbs up my body, mounting me and sliding down so I’m seated fully inside her. She’s even hotter there, and every bit as wet.
She rises up and plunges down, finding a steady pace, but it’s the worst kind of tease, the way she’s fucking me—smooth as silk, the angle too perfect. I’m gliding through her slickness, but there’s not enough friction to send me over the edge, just enough to make me crazy from the way the tension winds and winds and winds. I get closer and closer to coming, but something keeps the orgasm maddeningly at bay. There’s something warped in my sense of time, too. It goes on and on and on, and I lie there and feel more and more desperate, until I realize—almost like I’m finally really waking from the dream—what’s wrong. I need to thrust; I need her to resist me; I need to be the one who’s driving this train.
“I gotta be on top.”
She shakes her head, still fucking me, her head thrown back a bit now, her breasts tilted upward, the nipples proud peaks. And okay, maybe I lied. Maybe I don’t need to be the one driving. Maybe I just need to watch her face, pleasure flirting with pain, eyes closed for a moment.
But I can’t take it. It’s too much, too fine, too close, too complicated, too perfect and elusive, and now her eyes are fixed on mine, so intently that I have to look away so I don’t lose myself there. With a groan, I flip her onto her back and thrust as hard as I can into her, twisting my hips against her at the end of that stroke, and the next one, and the next.
Her groans weave between my grunts. Her name slips from my lips, mine from hers, the names like a chant, the grunts and groans like a drumbeat, and it’s all counting out the rhythm of my strokes, urging us on, until we’re moaning our release in unison.
Chapter 31
Wednesday evening I come home to find Gabe playing with Legos on the living room floor and Maddie sacked out on the couch. Her dark hair is fanned out around her, her mouth is slightly open, which makes me want to kiss it, and her cheeks are pink.
“Hey, bud,” I say, ruffling Gabe’s still baby-soft hair. “Your mama looks tired.”
He tilts his head, gives her a thoughtful look, and returns to the structure in his hands.
“How ’bout you and I cook for her?”
He’s on his feet instantly. “Yeah!”
“I’m not as good a cook as your mama, though.”
He doesn’t care. He’s racing toward the kitchen and trying to get the step stool Maddie bought out of the pantry. I stop him before he drops it on his head or pinches his fingers, carry it into the kitchen, and set it up at the end of the counter. He scrambles up.
“So, here’s what I got, dude. I make mean bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. You like bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches?”
“What dat?”
“It’s like grilled cheese with bacon and a fried egg in it.”
He shakes his head violently.
“You like grilled cheese, though.”
He nods.
“And you like bacon.”
He nods.
“And you like fried eggs.”
He nods.
“Okay. So I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich and a fried egg and you can have your bacon on the side.”
He jumps up and down approvingly on the stool. I catch his arm just in time to prevent him falling off. “No jumping on the stool, bud.”
“Why?”
“Because you could fall and hurt yourself.”
“Why?”
To buy myself time to consider the answer, I go to the fridge and take out the bacon, egg, cheese, butter, and bread. For whatever reason, as crazy as it may seem, I feel compelled to answer his questions as accurately as possible. Maybe because my dad would have said something like, Can’t you see I’m fucking busy?
“Okay, see, there’s this thing called gravity.”
“Why?”
I ge
t out the griddle and start it heating. I put a couple of slices of toast in the toaster but don’t push them down yet. Gotta get the timing right. I’m thinking about what I remember from school. “Anything that”— I can’t say “has mass” because he’ll have no idea what that means—“is big enough will pull other big things close to it. So the earth, which is what we’re standing on, is really big and round, which means it pulls on us, which is what keeps us close to it. It’s what keeps us standing on the floor instead of floating up to the ceiling. But it’s also what makes you fall and hit your head if you aren’t careful about where you’re jumping.”
Gabe is staring raptly at me. “C’we float to the see-wing?”
“Um, no.”
“Why?”
I butter the griddle. “Because gravity pulls us down.”
“Why?”
“And…this went on for some time,” intones a voice from the doorway. Maddie is standing there, looking sleep-mussed and flushed and beautiful. She surveys the room.
“You’re making me dinner,” she says wonderingly. Her face has softened into that tender expression that makes me want to wrap her in my arms and kiss her.
“Well, don’t celebrate yet. It’s breakfast for dinner.”
“I don’t care. I don’t have to cook. You are a god among men.”
I would like her to keep looking at me like that. Like I really am a god. Like I can do no wrong, like I’ve never done wrong in her eyes.
Fuck it—I set down the butter and the knife, cross to her, and kiss her. Her mouth softens sweetly under mine, and I have to remind myself that we have an audience. I remove my lips from hers unwillingly. I’m a little dazed. And something else it takes me a moment to name: happy.
“Why?” Gabe persists.
“It’s just what gravity does. It’s what makes everything fall down instead of up.” In this mood, with Maddie beaming at me with affection and approval, I could answer his questions all day long.
“No, Daddy, why you kiss Mommy?”
“Because Mommy has gravity.” I take one of her hands and dance around her in a circle. She gives me a you’re crazy look, but she’s smiling. “I am in her orbit. She is pulling me in.”
“She big?”
Maddie plants her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows.
“Only in the best possible way,” I tell Gabe, waggling one eyebrow at Maddie, who sticks her tongue out at me.
“Why?” Gabe asks.
“I’m going to save that one for when you’re older, bud,” I tell him.
I spiral toward her and plant one more swift kiss on her lips.
When I pull back, her eyes are full of warmth. And something else.
Sadness.
“Jack. I have some—news.”
I know what she’s going to say before she says it.
“I got the apartment.”
“Which?”
She looks away, at the floor. “The one I looked at the weekend before last, the night your mom and your sister were here playing Hearts. The one I actually liked.”
“Then that’s—that’s great.”
Never have words been spoken with more force and less meaning. And she knows it. Our eyes meet, and all the giddy happiness I’d been feeling a few minutes earlier leaches out of me. We just stand there, looking at each other. Gabe, too, is quiet, watching us both with big eyes.
“So, when?”
“This, um, this weekend. Her other tenant fell through, and she asked if I could be in ASAP—she really doesn’t want it vacant.”
“Wow,” I say. Jesus. This weekend. As in, a few days from now. “If it feels too soon, you don’t have to take this one. I mean, you could wait and see what comes up.”
“I told her I’d take it, Jack.”
That shuts me up.
She looks away, toward the corner of the kitchen, her gaze far off. Then her eyes snap back to my face and she shakes her head. “I had to take it. I looked for weeks without finding anything. If I didn’t take this one, I just felt like, who knows when another one will come up.”
“There’s no rush.”
But she’s shaking her head. “This can’t just be an indefinite thing, Jack. We both know that’s not a good idea.”
In other words, I’d be okay with continuing our bonkfest for another few weeks, but this—this whatever-it-is between us—can’t be permanent.
Which—that’s what I want, too, right? There’s no percentage on this lasting past another few weeks. I mean, what’s my past track record for longest chunk of monogamy?
Oh, right. The last time I was sleeping with Maddie.
I wince.
“Daddy, you sad?” Gabe asks.
His eyes are big and concerned. I have no idea how much he hears or understands, but I do know it’s our job as adults not to let him worry about anything, especially not this messy territory Maddie and I have ducked into. “I’m happy! Your mama found a great place for you guys to live!”
“We should talk about this later,” Maddie says, aiming a significant look in Gabe’s direction.
I nod, while Gabe grins maniacally back at me, and I realize it’s an exact replica of the too-cheerful smile I’ve plastered on my own face. I adjust the size of my smile, then give up and let it slip off my face. I busy myself assembling the rest of our dinner sandwiches, frying up bacon, flipping eggs, breaking yolks so they’ll cook through, melting cheese slices on top of them, slapping sandwich components on bread. Having something to do is soothing, but it doesn’t stop the weird, unfamiliar ache that’s forming in the pit of my stomach.
We sit and eat. It is so quiet I can hear Gabe’s chewing, since he hasn’t quite figured out the whole close-your-mouth-while-there’s-food-in-it thing. He’s excited about his sandwich, and his egg, and his bacon, although he still flatly refuses to try the three together.
Whatever. What do I care if he’s a picky eater? I only have to deal with his eating every third weekend.
Henry and Clark will be thrilled.
I’ll be back to my normal prowl.
I can go on the Phoenix trip.
I don’t feel even an iota of excitement about any of it. Not even about being sprung for the road trip. Not that I don’t think it would be fun. Of course it would be great. But if I had to miss it for another weekend of sex with Maddie, I would happily do it.
“How was work?” Maddie asks.
Work was a whole new level of clusterfuck. I’d forgotten all about it as soon as I’d walked through the door and found Maddie sprawled out on the couch and Gabe sitting on the floor with his Legos. Their faces—and Gabe’s eagerness to cook dinner with me—had put today’s bullshit right out of my mind. Now it’s come clamoring back. The wrong kitchen sink ordered, screwed-up measurements on the countertops. I’d asked my boss a while back to double-check the orders and the measurements, and what I’d gotten for my efforts was a reaming out. Stick to power tools and let me handle the tricky stuff.
When it all went south today, he told me that I’d let too many things slip through the cracks; one more and I’d have to look for a new job.
Even then, I hadn’t been as upset as you’d think. As if I was insulated from that crap by knowing I’d get to come home to Maddie and Gabe; that however much horse manure my boss could shovel, it couldn’t dampen the pleasure of seeing their eyes light up when I walked in the front door.
But that wouldn’t be a thing, not after Friday.
“Work was fine.”
She gives me a long look that contains multitudes. I shrug.
“ ‘Fine’?” she demands.
“Whatever. It is what it is.”
I don’t want to tell her the story of my day for so many reasons. I don’t want her eyes boring into my head, the way she looks at me like she can see through everything. I don’t want her to tell me I’m more or better than he says I am, that I deserve better, that I could start my own business or—whatever. I don’t want her to fuss or worry or as
k me what I’ll do if I lose this job. I don’t want her to talk to me at all, because—
I don’t want her to cheer me up.
After Friday, she won’t be around to cheer me up.
She’s not my family. And she doesn’t live here.
Chapter 32
As I’m trying to make my exit from his bedroom, Gabe sits up and tosses off his covers for, I don’t know, probably the eighth time. “Daddy…”
“Lie down, bud.” I say it gently, but a fist tightens in my chest. I’m losing patience with him. I want to get back to the living room to talk to Maddie about the apartment thing. I want to tell her she needs to postpone it a week or two. I mean, what’s the difference to the landlord whether they move in now or in two weeks? We can go over there on a daily basis and check up on the place, or whatever it takes to ease the landlord’s fears about it being vacant for a little longer.
And that will give me more time to convince her that—
That what?
That I’ve changed? That I’ve become the kind of guy who commits? A father? A husband?
Like my father, who was the worst kind of father and the worst kind of husband? Hateful, and then…gone.
What kind of an asshole would I be if I selfishly kept Maddie near me, knowing how little potential I have to make her happy?
“I need a drink of water, Daddy.” Gabe slides his legs out from under the sheets toward the side of the bed.
I steer them back and pull up the covers. “You had a drink. If you drink more, you’ll have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”
“But I’m thirsty.” He kicks his legs out against my hands, catching me in the wrist. It hurts surprisingly much for an injury inflicted by a preschooler.
Don’t you dare kick me!
A little twist of anger wells up. I want to shout. Get in his face. Scare him just a little so he doesn’t try that again. Ever.
I crush the impulse and get him one more small cup of water. He doesn’t even drink it. He just takes it and puts it on the bedside table, which irritates me even more. He was manipulating me. I was manipulated by a four-year-old.
