Cocktails & Dreams

by Autumn Markus

  A brisk walk around the block cleared her head, and she decided to go for a coffee at the shop she and Leisa had visited the night she’d made the obviously bad decision to ask Nick to move in with her. After ordering, she shuffled through the densely packed bookshelves that lined the walls, reading a chapter here and a few pages there, feeling her blood pressure go down as she browsed.

  Jena was shocked when the lights started to dim; she checked her watch and it was after eleven. The shop owner smiled apologetically. “You looked so comfortable there, I stayed open an extra hour. However, my wife is getting a little antsy now. What held your interest so thoroughly?”

  Jena guiltily held up the Ultimate X-Men graphic novel that she had been reading. “What can I say? I have a weakness for Wolverine.”

  He laughed and they exchanged names, then launched into a conversation about the various incarnations of what turned out to be his favorite superhero team, as well. The clock striking midnight made Jena jump.

  “Oh, hell…” Tim sighed. “So much for good marital relations. Or any marital relations for a while.” He patted her hand. “Come back again, Jena. We still have the Avengers to discuss.”

  Chuckling, Jena twined her scarf around her neck and waved as she walked out the door. As she headed home, she considered what might be waiting for her there. With Nicholas having to work in the morning, the best-case scenario would be that he was asleep and they could get whatever was wrong out in the open in the morning. She couldn’t decide if the worst-case scenario would be resuming the argument that night or having him still gone.

  Jena noticed the light in the kitchen was on when she opened the door, and she breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that Nick’s presence, asleep or awake, was best case. She shut the door quietly, toeing her shoes off and padding toward the hall to shed her clothes into the bathroom hamper before she slid on the nightgown that hung on the back of the door. There was still no sound from the bedroom, so she went through her bathroom ritual quickly, thinking of the early morning ahead and wanting to get to sleep as soon as possible.

  Slipping into the bedroom, where she expected to find Nicholas asleep, Jena was startled to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed. He looked up slowly and held his arms out to her without a word. She sank down beside him stiffly, not sure that she was inclined to forgive him quite yet. Nick immediately pulled her onto his lap and held her tightly to his chest.

  “Nicholas? What’s wrong?” Jena asked, resisting the urge to relax against him, despite his wildly beating heart.

  “I thought you were gone,” he whispered. “Really gone. There was a half packed suitcase on the bed, and—” He swallowed convulsively and buried his face in her hair. She could feel him breathing, rough and uneven, and her heart softened.

  “Oh, Nick. I was packing for our trip when you got home. I got distracted with dinner and…well, after. I never did finish, did I?”

  “I was sure…” Nicholas drew a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry. I am a dick.”

  “You heard that, huh?” Jena sighed and rested her head against his chest. “I warned you that I have a terrible temper. Sorry.”

  “It wasn’t just you. Conor called me one, too.” Nick stroked her hair. “I tried to call you for hours and you didn’t answer, so I came home…and you weren’t here. I wouldn’t blame you if you left, Jena. I’m an ass.”

  She wriggled around until she could cup his face between her palms. “Don’t start calling yourself names, Nick. This was a fight, and I still want to know what it was really about, but it was just a fight.” She kissed his forehead gently, feeling him begin to relax. “I’m not going to leave you over a fight. Besides—” she smiled against his skin “—this was my apartment first. If anyone goes, it’s you, bub.”

  “Never,” he whispered, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against hers.

  “People argue, Nicholas. It’s not the end of the world.” She rubbed the back of his neck, and he sighed. “You’re really not used to this relationship thing, are you?”

  “I’m not used to this ‘feeling thing,’ and I have to say it sucks sometimes.”

  They laughed, but Nick still didn’t let her go. “So…are you going to tell me?” she asked quietly.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Heather died today.”

  “Oh, baby…”

  Nicholas closed his eyes again. “I knew better than to get my hopes up when she woke up the other day, or when she talked to her fiancé. I heard she talked to him off and on all day today, more than she has since she came out of the coma, and went to sleep holding his hand, with a big smile on her face. And….” He brushed his hand roughly across his eyes. “Fuck, I hate this. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a doctor. How do I know? I’ve never tried to be anything else. Maybe my destiny is really to be a…a plumber.”

  “Maybe a plasterer?”

  He chuckled reluctantly. “What the hell is that? Maybe a bus driver.”

  “Or a cowboy? I’ve always wanted to see Wyoming.”

  Nicholas brushed her hair away from her face. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”

  “I take lots of things seriously. Us, especially. The rest of it is negotiable and laughable.” She kissed him roughly before pulling back. “I don’t give a damn what job you have, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t finish this, Nicholas. I know it would be easier if you didn’t care, but caring is what will make you a great doctor.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah. It just hurts. And when I couldn’t find you…” He drew Jena close to his chest again, pressing her hand to his thundering heart. “I don’t want to be without you.”

  “You won’t be. Just don’t shut me out. Talk to me.” She started unbuttoning his shirt. “Come to bed now. You need to sleep.”

  Nick caught her fingers. He looked almost shy. “Thank you for loving me when I’m an idiot.” He traced his fingers across her lips. “Jena…I’d like to love you. Will you let me?”

  “Only if you let me love you back,” she whispered, pushing his shirt from his shoulders.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “HOW ABOUT THIS ONE?” Jena asked, smiling down at the college-era CD she held in her hand.

  Nick crossed the room and rubbed his hand slowly up and down her back as he read the song titles over her shoulder. For the past two days, ever since he’d been sure she’d left his sorry ass, Nicholas couldn’t stand not to be touching Jena whenever possible. Screw playing it cool. He’d been terrified, and he needed to reassure himself that she was really there. Really his. After a rough couple of days, where Jena had been reserved and quiet around him, her hesitance had finally started to break down that morning, and Nicholas was determined not to do anything to change that.

  “Definitely,” he said, smiling at the thought of the way Leisa’s eyes would roll when Silverchair burst from the speakers of Jena’s Jeep. They’d already been subject to two lectures about what kind of music was appropriate and acceptable for a long car ride, prompting Jena to make a special playlist of music that definitely didn’t pass Leisa’s muster, just for this trip. “If you give me a minute, I might even be able to find that Blind Melon disc she particularly hates.”

  Jena laughed and flopped back on the couch, flipping through a handful of CDs. She stopped on one and traced her finger over the cover with a wistful smile.

  “What?” Nick asked, plopping beside her and eyeing the disc warily. “Reminder of an old boyfriend?” He had wondered about Jena’s romantic past, but hadn’t quite been able to ask; it seemed like something he should already know by the time he moved in with her.

  “Yep,” she said with a smile. “Well, more like an old lust. I had the biggest crush on him…” Nicholas felt a scowl drawing his brows downward a second before Jena burst into loud laughter. “It reminds me of you, you big goob!” She jabbed her finger at one of the songs. “This is the first song we danced to at that stupid party, the night you dis
appeared.”

  Rising, he placed the CD in the player and skipped to the appropriate track. As Coldplay’s “In My Room” filtered out of the speakers, he had immediate and total recall of that night, the way holding Jena against him felt as they swayed in the dimly-lit, crowded living room, the way she smelled, the jolt he’d felt when her hesitant fingers stroked his back through his shirt…he smiled and eased down next to her again.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder and hummed along with Chris Martin’s voice. “I was so stressed that night…” she murmured. “Remember my verbal diarrhea? I couldn’t shut up to save my life.”

  “I must have changed my shirt five times before I left my apartment,” Nick admitted. “I wanted you to come home with me so bad…” He smiled fondly at the memory. He started mentally culling his discs for songs that reminded him of Jena, then and now, determined to create another playlist just for her ears. The parallels to the mix CD he would have made in high school didn’t escape him, and he laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Thinking about high school, actually,” Nick replied, still grinning to himself.

  “All those hot chicks after you, right?”

  He snorted. “Hardly. I was a total dork. I’m serious!” he protested as Jena shook her head with an exaggerated sigh. “A gangly, acne-ridden, non-athletic adolescent, with my nose always in a book. I think my dad was suspicious of the relationship between Mom and the milkman until I hit my senior year and things started falling into place.”

  “Did they ever,” Jena said, wriggling her eyebrows suggestively. She laughed when Nick unexpectedly blushed.

  “How about you?” he challenged, hoping to both get the spotlight off of him and dig around in Jena’s past in a playful way. “I’ll be the first boy to warm your mother’s heart, right?”

  “Terrible paraphrase of a good Jack White lyric.” Jena shook her head sadly before glancing at his profile and smiling. “Um…maybe?” She cringed as his head whipped around and he stared at her. “Mom’s a little enthusiastic! My brother David got married when I was ten, and she’s been looking for my other half, while simultaneously being terrified that I’ll find him, ever since then. Are we really doing this?”

  Nick nodded, feeling a little sheepish.

  “Fair enough.” Jena surprised him by standing and rising. She put another CD in the player and asked with a smile, “Do you want to know what this song reminds me of?”

  Hours later, Nick and Jena lay on the floor, her head pillowed on his shoulder, surrounded by their personal histories in music. His stomach hurt from laughing, but his heart felt full and far closer to the woman whose quiet breathing seemed to be in time with the song playing.

  “My parents love Dylan,” she remarked, and then snickered. “I never did, much—he sounds like a nasal billy goat to me—but this song…Yeah. I get it.”

  Nick listened quietly for a minute, holding Jena gently. “I do, too.” He thought of the completely sappy, utterly romantic playlist he’d already compiled, and reminded himself to add that song before they left for Ashland. And reminded himself not to mix it up with Leisa’s ‘special’ playlist. Because that could be embarrassing as hell, as much as Jena had liked it.

  “Why haven’t we done this before?” he asked as the disc changed and another sweet song drifted through the room.

  “We’re doing it now,” Jena answered, and he almost missed her quiet, “Thank God.” Almost. He rested his cheek against her hair and nodded his agreement.

  He had drifted into half sleep, warm and comfortable with Jena in his arms, when her voice drifted out of the darkness.

  “Nicholas, this weekend is gonna be crazy. It always is.”

  He wrapped his arm around her more tightly. “Yeah. So I’ve heard from Travis.”

  Jena shifted until she rested on one elbow and her other hand could cup his cheek. He could barely make out her eyes, but the calm love there made his heart skip a beat. “It will be okay. I promise.” She rose to her feet and tugged him to his. Backing toward their bedroom, she held his gaze. “When it feels like too much, remember this. Right now.” Sinking down on the bed, she urged him to lie down before she pressed a soft kiss on his eyebrow. “No friends.” She kissed the other eyebrow. “No parents.” Soft lips brushed the corner of his mouth as she settled on top of him. “Just us.” Her eyes smiled as she stroked Nick’s cheek.

  “Just us,” he repeated softly.

  She nodded.

  “Good enough for me,” he murmured, leaning forward to claim the kiss promised by her smile.

  They took their time undressing, hands never completely leaving one another’s bodies as each exposed inch of skin was given loving attention. Jena’s soft sounds and whispers guided Nicholas as he found new places on her body to adore. The gentle curve of a shoulder blade under his fingers as she arched against him. A downy patch of fuzz at the small of her back. The feeling of her pulse under the thin, silky skin high on her thigh.

  Jena ran her hands slowly over Nicholas’s body, taking the time to trace each individual muscle in his forearms and shoulders, kissing and nuzzling from his face to his feet. Her mouth was soft and warm against him, and the occasional nip from lips or teeth drew his own moans and shudders. He was trembling when Jena threaded her fingers in his and clasped their palms together.

  “This is good,” Jena murmured, smiling as she gazed into his eyes. She squeezed their joined hands. “Don’t let go, Nicholas.”

  The love was sweet. And he didn’t let go.

  Lying tangled together on the rumpled bedspread, unwilling to separate quite yet, they caught their breath afterward. “I love you,” Jena whispered, kissing his chest again as his arms tightened.

  “I know,” Nick answered in his best Han Solo voice, and Jena laughed, slapping at his shoulder and glancing at the clock.

  “Late,” she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder again. “Should we shower?”

  He groaned, shaking his head against the pillow. “I don’t think I can manage again quite so soon. Wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, I can.” He grinned and tried to sit up.

  “Ass,” Jena said, pushing him back down and smiling. “This might be the last good sleep you get before we leave Casa del Baker. I told you about my dad’s insistence on no unmarried ‘business’ in his house right?” He felt her sleepy smile against his skin. “It’s sofa city for you, sweetheart.”

  Nick groaned again.

  “Finished, Jen?” Nicholas smiled as Jena shoved another book into her suitcase, and she glanced up, blushing.

  “This one’s for my dad.” She smiled up at him. “It’s a thing we do—trade trivia books.” She shrugged and finished zipping her bag. “For a while there, when I wasn’t a little girl anymore but not quite an adult yet, that was the thing we had in common to talk about. Now it’s sort of a Thanksgiving tradition.” She grinned. “We kill at Trivial Pursuit and Fact or Crap.”

  “Fact or Crap?” Nick raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

  “A game? You read cards, and have to determine if what’s written on them is, in fact, ‘fact’ or ‘crap’?” He shook his head. “Jeez, Nicholas, have you been living in a hole for the last decade? That game’s so old my parents play it.”

  Nick chuckled and pulled her into his arms, curling himself around her. “Can I use being an ‘old soul’ as an excuse?”

  “‘Old’ something,” she muttered, and Nicholas dropped his face down and scratched under the shelf of her jaw with his chin in retaliation. Jena squealed, pushing at his upper arms for a minute before she wrapped her arms around his waist and nestled her head against his chest.

  “I’m so glad you’re coming,” she said softly. “My parents are crazy, and they will embarrass me, but…I want them to meet you.”

  Nick felt a rush of contentment. Sharing stories from their pasts had opened a new level of closeness between them, an intimacy that he found himself wistfully wishing had existed since
the beginning. Jena seemed to feel it, too; the occasional hesitance he’d noticed when she made a suggestion had disappeared, as had the searching looks when she thought he wouldn’t notice. Most welcome was the absence of the distrust that had shadowed her eyes since his last blow up. Nick would give anything not to have to see that ever again.

  He relaxed against her, eyes closed, as he listened to the traffic on the street below. Soft fingers whispered against his back, and he sighed in contentment. After a few minutes, Jena’s hand stopped moving, and she sighed. “I have a few more things to pack.”

  “I don’t want to let you go,” he murmured.

  “I’m just going into the bathroom. I think you’ll live through the separation.” Jena laughed and gave him a final squeeze before walking toward the door.

  Nicholas grabbed her hand, kissing it. “I’m not so sure about that. In approximately four and a half hours we’ll be at your parents’, which you’ve warned me could very well be a no-touching-zone, for four full days.” He pressed his lips against each knuckle slowly…then the back of her hand…then he flipped her hand so he could draw the tip of his tongue across her wrist before nipping it with his teeth. “Don’t you think we should take advantage of our last half hour alone?” he whispered, looking up at her from underneath his lashes.

  Jena snorted and jerked her hand away. “Aside from the time references, you used that same line this morning. What makes you think it will work again?”

  Nick grinned. “The same thing that let me know it was gonna work last night.” He grabbed her arm again and pressed his fingertips lightly to her wrist. “Feel that heart.”

  “Smart ass.” Jena pulled her hand away, laughing. “Just for that I’m not gonna tell you what I had planned for you, or where I planned on doing it.”

  She shrieked and ran for the bathroom as Nick lunged at her, slamming the door just as his phone rang.