Double the Love
Page 9
Aaron shakes his head. "But she gave me nothin' to go on! I asked directly, and all she would say was I don't know. Surprise me."
"That sounds like she does know and she doesn't want to say."
"But how could I possibly guess? I mean the only thing I know for sure she doesn't want is handcuffs."
"Now how do you know that?" Daniel asks.
"Because when I said do you want handcuffs, she said, hell no!" Aaron takes a sip of his beer.
"Hell no?"
"Hell no," Aaron echoes.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Daniel smiles. "That's actually a misuse of that line. In Shakespeare's time, protest meant swear to, not deny, so really—"
"—Man, no Shakespeare. I hear that enough from your wife."
"When you asked her if she wanted handcuffs, did you say," Daniel asks, with a deep, suggestive tone, "Do you want handcuffs?" Or did you say, he switched to a shocked voice: "Do you want handcuffs?!?"
"Uh…more like the second," Aaron admits.
"Mhmm huh."
"No." Aaron shakes his head. "No, she said hell no."
"Yeah, after you said, 'You're not so kinky and weird that you would want handcuffs are you?"
"I did not say that," Aaron insists.
"Yeah. That's pretty much what you said."
"She doesn't want handcuffs. She said no. No means no. Didn't they teach you that at Harvard? Didn't they sit you down in a freshman seminar and tell you no means no about six thousand times? Or do they just do that in the state colleges?"
Daniel laughs. "Look, you could lay them to the side. See if she goes for them. Of course, you realize, it may not be her she wants them used on."
"I'm beginning to regret asking for your advice."
Daniel bends his head over his scotch and laughs into it. He looks back at Aaron. "Well, if you need some privacy to execute your game plan, Eden and I would be happy to keep Sophie and Emily for a day or a night or even a weekend."
"Yeah?"
The waiter comes and sets down two mugs of beer. "We didn't order these," Aaron says.
"No, they're from them," the waiter points diagonally across the way to a table where two, thirty-something, vaguely attractive women sit. The women wave and smile.
"We can't," Aaron says, pushing the beer back toward the waiter.
"Come on, Aaron, now,” says Daniel, raising the mug he's just been given and toasting the women across the distance, "Just toast and smile."
"Daniel, you're married."
"Well I'm just toasting them, Aaron. I'm not fucking them."
Aaron shakes his head.
"Besides, both beers were probably meant for you. So don't be rude. Toast them."
Aaron picks up his mug, turns sideways, and raises it in the direction of the women, while he simultaneously points to his wedding ring. The women shake their heads and return to their own conversation.
"Damn, Aaron. You act like that's never happened to you before."
"Well…it hasn't…I mean…"
"Really?" Daniel's disbelief is apparent.
"Well, we lived in a pretty small town in Georgia. Everyone knew I was happily married."
"It's flattering though, isn't it? Come on. Admit it. You like the attention."
"I don't actually."
"Yeah," says Daniel, chuckling and raising his beer. "That's why you were a jock in high school and college. That's why you coach now. Because you love anonymity."
Aaron glances, very briefly, toward the women. He takes a sip of the beer he's been delivered, the beer he will later insist on paying for himself. "Hmmm…" he murmurs, "Well, they have good taste. And not just in beer."
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Aaron gets home, Janice has forgotten to leave the porch light on. Or perhaps she hasn’t forgotten; perhaps she’s irritated that he’s coming home over an hour later than he originally said he would. He texted her to say he was running late, that he was staying for another drink with Daniel, but she didn’t reply. In the faint haze of the car headlights, which will switch themselves off in another minute, Aaron struggles to fit his key in the lock.
When he gets inside, the lights are out. From Sophie’s open doorway alone comes the dim glow of a night light. He stops in her room and gives her a stealth kiss on the forehead. Emily won’t let him do that anymore. He looks down at his littlest girl before he leaves, thinking he’s lucky that, even now, she still likes to cuddle with her daddy and regretting that it probably won’t last another year. It hits him suddenly that this is his last child, and she’s growing up.
Aaron undresses in the darkness down to his white T-shirt and plaid boxers and crawls carefully and quietly into bed next to Janice. She turns almost instantly and rests her head on his chest, drapes a leg over both of his, and settles in.
"Sorry I'm late," he says. "I texted you."
"I know."
"I thought maybe you were mad. You didn't leave the porch light on."
"It's burned out. I told you that last week. You said you'd replace the bulb."
"Oh yeah. I forgot."
"I was just too busy dealing with Sophie at the moment to reply. She had a nightmare. Did you and Daniel have fun?" He murmurs a sort of yes. "What did you talk about?"
"Uh... stuff."
She yawns. "What kind of stuff?"
"Uh…politics."
He feels, rather than hears, her chuckle. Her breath is warm against his shirt. "You two are probably the two most apolitical men I know. What did you really talk about?"
"Just…a lot of stuff. Some women bought us drinks." The last he says hastily, partly to get her to stop asking about his conversation with Daniel, and partly as a sort of quick confession.
She raises her head and looks down at him, but they can’t see each other well in the darkness. "Did you accept them?"
"No. Yes. I mean no. We drank them, but we paid for them."
"Mhmmm…" She puts her head back down. "Were they pretty?"
"No, they were both just beers. I guess the amber color was kind of pretty."
She kisses his shoulder and laughs. "Well played."
"You know I only have eyes for you."
"I doubt that, but I know you're a loving and faithful husband, and I'm sorry if you've brought home some excess energy, because I'm exhausted. I was asleep when you came in."
"It a'ight. I'm pretty tired myself." He almost fell asleep on the way home. He isn’t used to staying out late. "I love you, hon." He kissed the top of her head. "G'night."
"I love you too," she yawns. "Niiiiiite."
He doesn’t fall asleep as soon as he expects. He lies awake into the night, wondering how he’s going to surprise her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Janice expected this catering gig in the fellowship hall of a large Catholic church to be a simple job, so she only brought one staff member, but there’s been a lot more bustling than she expected. There are two dozen priests, ministers, and rabbis having lunch in the midst of an interfaith conference, and she’s had to make sure the kosher dishes are properly labeled and that there are vegetarian selections for the Seventh Day Adventist. The lunch has drawn to a close, and a few lingering attendees are finishing up with their coffee while Janice’s employee clears the trash to the dumpsters out back and Janice herself removes the last tray.
She’s just reached the large, deep, stainlessless steel sink in the church kitchen when a deep voice startles her. “Hey there, beautiful.” She drops the tray and it clangs onto a few utensils in the sink below.
When the echoing clatter stops, she knows it’s Aaron. No other man has a voice quite like that: masculine and resonant and warm all at once. She smiles despite the long stress of the morning. He puts a hand on either side of the sink until he’s drawn up just behind her. “I might have some business for you.”
He kisses her cheek, and she giggles and turns. His blue-gray eyes are twinkling, set off by his burgundy coaching cap and jacket. Clearly h
e’s just come from his P.E. class. It’s his lunch time, and then he has a free period, so he’ll need to get back to the school, which is three miles away, soon. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
"Just wanted to see you.” He steps back to give her space. “How has your day been?"
"Okay. Just finishing up. It was just me and one other girl today, and she’s on her way home after she dumps the trash. Small event. At least, I thought it was going to be.”
He volunteers to wash the tray and puts it aside when he’s done. Then he takes her by the hand and tugs her in the direction of the kitchen supply closet. He jiggles the knob and then pushes the door open. "Can I have a quick, private word with you?"
Her eyebrow goes up. "In the supply closet?"
"Well..uh…actually, one of my soccer players goes to this church. And there’s been a rumor he hides pot in this closet. I wanted you to help me check, because I’m going to have to kick him off the team next season if he’s doing that.”
“Seriously?” Janice is half shaking her head as she steps inside and flicks on the light. He follows her in and slams shut the door behind them. She lets out a little yelp when he grabs her around the waist, pulls her backwards against himself, and kisses her exposed neck. He slides his left hand over her stomach and upward to cup a breast. He kneads it gently through her silk blouse, and though a jolt of heat rips through her, she tears away.
What is he thinking? They’re in a church. She swirls to face him. "Aaron!"
"Shhh!" He wraps his arms around her waist and slides his hands down and over her tight-fitting skirt and squeezes her bottom before kissing her again, more deeply this time. He leans back against the door with a thud and pulls her on top of himself. Aaron slides his hands up to the small of her back and begins tugging her blouse free from her skirt.
Does he intend to ravish her in here? In the supply closet of a church kitchen? With a priest, a rabbi, and at least two pastors still lingering in the fellowship hall a stone’s throw away? She pushes herself away, takes a step back, and leaves him against the door. "What are you doing?"
He swallows. His face is such a medley of emotions that it’s hard to read: excitement, confusion, embarrassment, anger—she’s not sure which is flushing his cheeks and storm-clouding his eyes.
"I...I…" he’s stammering, the way he does when he fears he’s messed up with her, the way he did so many years ago, that night of senior prom, when they were laughing together and he suddenly kissed her, and he felt the need to apologize. He thought then that he was just the back-up guy, but she’d had a secret crush on him for a full year. She never thought an older guy like him – responsible, reserved, athletic, all-American, handsome – would want a girl like her, still in high school, smart, but not smart enough not to have jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend. She thought, by taking her to prom at the last minute, he was only doing her a favor for helping him to pass his math classes for the past two years. "I…just...” he stammers now, as he did then, “wanted to give you…something…something to think about for the rest of the day. Until we get home."
"To think about?” A laugh sputters from her mouth. This is so unlike him. Sometimes Aaron’s predictability can be a bit dull, but she’s always counted on him to be sensible. Given that her father left her mother when she was twelve, Aaron’s reliability has always been a comfort to her. “Sweetheart, all I can think about is the fact that we’re in a crowded supply closet in a church kitchen with a bunch of pastors and priests a room away.”
He stands up straight. The muscles of his jaw clamp down on themselves.
“I’m at work, Aaron. This is so unlike you.”
He looks down, and the red creeps further up his face. She places a hand gently on his cheek. “Hey,” she whispers, “I’m not mad. You just surprised me is all. What were you thinking?"
He brings his eyes back up to hers. "You told me to surprise you!"
She takes her hand away. She honestly doesn’t know what he means, or why he seems so suddenly angry. Janice has shelved, in some corner of her memory, the pillow-side conversation that has been haunting him mercilessly for days. "What? When? "
"In bed. Two weeks ago."
What is he talking about?
"After that Taboo game with Daniel and Eden," he reminds her. "You told me you wanted me to surprise you."
Now she remembers. At the time, Janice was thinking she might like to try a new position next time they had sex. "I didn't mean like this!" She tucks her shirt back into her skirt. She shakes her head. Really? A supply closet full of sponges and paper towels and rags and cleaning solution – a supply closet in a church? "I love you, hon. I do. Just don't ever take me to the supply closet again. It smells like Lysol in here." She reaches for the knob.
He steps away from the door. "Well what the hell do you want? Why don't you just tell me? This is agony."
Her hand falls away from the knob. "What's agony?"
"Trying to figure out how you want me to surprise you. What's going to excite you without offending you. This has been eating at me for days!"
"Oh, hon..."
He turns his face away when she tries to touch his cheek again. She drops her hand to her hip. "I'm sorry. When I said surprise me, I just meant...you know...while we're having sex," she’s whispering now, "at home, try saying something different than you normally say. Try a new position or one we haven't tried in a while. Or do a big romantic set up, the way you do on New Year's Eve, but do it on a day I don't expect it. Mix it up a little. That's all I meant. I didn't mean anything like this."
He turns his face back to hers. "Really? That's it?"
"Yes! And I wouldn't mind if, during," she broke eye contact for a moment, "you talked dirty more often." She meets his eyes again. "Not all the time, certainly. Most of the time I want your sweet nothings. But every third or fourth time maybe. Lately it seems you only do it once in a blue moon."
“Because it’s like walking a tight rope.” She knows what he means. Sometimes he hits the rope perfectly, and sometimes he slips and wobbles a little but keeps on going, and sometimes he just plain plummets and the show is over. He’s been building a list of appropriate and inappropriate phrases through trial and error over the years, but, as is her womanly prerogative, she does sometimes randomly move things between the yes and no columns. “But I think I can manage that.”
She feels a wave of affection for him, along with a little guilt for unintentionally making him fret, but, still, she can’t help but chuckle. "Hon, I'm so sorry. I'd completely forgotten that conversation. I had no idea you were worrying about this."
"How could you not know that if you said something like that to me I would be – "
"I really just didn't think about it. It was never a big deal to me. It's just the whole Taboo game kind of reminded me that we could use a little more variety. We've kind of fallen into a routine lately. The same days of the week, the same few positions, the same words and phrases, the same room of the house…I just felt we should mix it up a little.” She wasn’t looking for a supply closet or silver ties or fifty shades of kinky. “I thought you knew what I meant. I didn't mean to make you feel like I needed some wild…that I don't enjoy…that you had to do some…" She gestures around the supply closet. "I had no idea you were thinking of how to jump me at work."
"I take it this means you have no interest in handcuffs either."
"Aaron, I believe I told you hell no!" That’s just not her thing. More power to the woman who enjoys it, but she’s not slapping metal around her wrists. She wants to be free to move anyway she likes, anytime she likes, and she doesn’t want Aaron restrained either—she loves his tender touch too much.
"And you meant that?" he asks.
"Have you ever known me not to mean hell no when I say hell no?"
Aaron shakes his head slowly. He steps out of her way as she reaches again for the door. She peers out into the hallway. "Coast is clear," she says, and smoothes her skirt before openi
ng the door all the way and stepping out. "Aren't you coming?"
"I'll be along."
She shrugs. “Suit yourself,” she says and then returns to the fellowship hall to make sure she hasn’t missed any leftover food.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Janice leaves, Aaron remains in the supply closet. He slams the door shut, lets out an exasperated grunt, and kicks over a mop. He whisks off his cap and digs his fingers through his thick, raven-black hair. After taking a few calming breaths, he situates his cap back on his head and finally emerges from the closet. As he does so, he’s startled by a priest who eyes him suspiciously.
"I was just checking for, uh…” he stutters, “I’m the caterer’s husband and uh…” Without completing his sentence, Aaron flees the kitchen.
When he’s back at his office in school, with ten minutes remaining in his free period, Aaron calls Daniel and says, "You give fucking horrible advice."
There’s the sound of a crackle and a shift in volume. "Whoa. I'm with the boys. You were on speaker. I wasn't exactly expecting an f-bomb from you. Are you somewhere where your students can't hear you?"
"I'm in my office. It's my free period."
Daniel's voice turns suddenly authoritative. "Playroom, five minutes."
"Yes! Fucking awesome!" exclaims one of the boys
Daniel sighs. "Well at least Othello can quickly pick up on new vocabulary and apply it in context. So I take it you finally made your move on Janice and it proved less than successful?"
"Yeah, to say the least."
"Well, is there anything else you called to say?" Daniel asks. "Because I have to finish up the day's home schooling with O and Cory. We got a late start today. Slept in a bit."
Aaron leans back in his chair and shifts the phone to his left ear. He puts his feet up on his desk and half watches one of last season's soccer games playing out on the TV to the right of his desk. "Yeah, there is somethin' else. I also wanted to ask—can I drop Sophie off at your house Friday afternoon for a sleep over? Emily’s going to be at a friend’s that night, so it would be nice to have the place to ourselves. We'll pick her up Saturday evening."