Love, Exes, and Ohs

by Violet Duke

  Blake looked back at Darcy.

  “Monkeys and cows if they have ‘em, sweetheart,” she added in a tight voice, smile still tenaciously held in place. “You know those are my favorites.”

  Blake, looking wiser than his years, just nodded. “Okay. And I’ll try and find a pig, too.”

  “Then it’ll be a party.” Darcy smiled, barely smothering a wince as she reached over to ruffle Blake’s hair. “Love you, buddy.”

  She kept the smile firmly on her face until the door slid closed.

  The second it did, she gasped and clutched at her side, agonized tears rolling down her face. Vivian had already gone to get a nurse, who came in with Darcy’s surgeon shortly after.

  “Darcy,” he called out in a comforting voice, loud enough that she could hear him over her loud, measured breathing. “You were a trooper for your son this morning but I’m going to have to up your pain medication again. Okay? I know you don’t want to sleep while your little boy is here but you need to let your body and brain rest today; the pain isn’t helping you get better.”

  More tears of sadness flooded Darcy’s eyes, but she nodded.

  Xoey and Vivian watched helplessly as she continued to struggle in torment for a few more minutes until finally a blanket of ease settled over her entire body, and her eyelids dropped closed.

  “The injuries to her spine and brain are extensive so I need to keep her heavily sedated,” explained the doctor. “She’d asked to lighten her pain meds so she could talk with her son, but I’m afraid she’ll need to rest for the remainder of today. She’s stable. We still don’t know the extent of the damage her brain has suffered at this point, but we’ll continue to run tests and keep you updated.”

  “And the paralysis?” asked Vivian, voice barely more than a shaky whisper.

  “So far, we’ve tested her legs and there is, in fact, paralysis in both. But it’s still too soon to tell. She had a lot of internal bleeding from secondary injuries that could be causing temporary paralysis. We just need to give it time.”

  Isaac and Blake returned as the doctor made his exit and Xoey quickly took Blake’s hand and helped him arrange the animals on the side table while Vivian fought to compose herself.

  “There,” said Xoey. “That way, the animals will be the first thing your mom sees when she wakes up in the morning, which means you’ll be the very first person she thinks of.”

  Blake looked back at his sleeping mom and again patted her gently.

  “Alrighty, Blake,” Vivian held out her hand from across the room, tears dried and her voice as calm and collected as always. “Your mom needs her rest so we should probably head on home.”

  Blake blinked up at Xoey. “Are we going to camp in the living room again?”

  Xoey’s throat constricted. “Not tonight buddy. You’re having a sleepover at your cousins’ place for a few days, at least until your mom’s ready to come home.”

  “Oh, okay.” Waving first at Xoey and then Isaac, he went over to join his aunt.

  The sad, scared look on his face as he looked back at his mom tore at Xoey’s gut.

  “Hey,” she said quickly, “I was just telling Isaac that I have some vacation time coming up,” she fibbed. “So do you think we could hang out again this weekend? If you have time that is; I know how fun sleepovers can be.”

  In retrospect, she probably should’ve asked Vivian first. But she knew how busy Vivian was on Saturdays, between being a soccer mom and her dental practice. Thankfully, judging by Viv’s appreciative smile, she hadn’t overstepped.

  A small smile flickered across Blake’s features.

  “And I was just telling Xoey,” fibbed Isaac right back, “that I had some free time as well. I can bring over all my old transformers—there’s some they don’t even make anymore.”

  Now they were at a full-blown grin. “Really?” Blake beamed up at them. “So we can all hang out again?”

  Xoey glanced up at Vivian again to be sure. Vivian nodded and mouthed, ‘thank you.’

  “I’ll call your aunt to set it all up,” she promised.

  * * * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, Xoey’s head was still tumbling and tormented over what Blake and Darcy were going through

  It killed her to see her friend in so much pain. The possible paralysis, she couldn’t even fathom. Darcy was just so full of life.

  And Blake—God, the kid was being such a trooper. She didn’t think she would’ve been half that brave at eight years old. Especially not if she’d been as close to her mom as he was to his.

  Isaac reached over the car console and threaded his fingers through hers, lifting her hand to his lips. “Everything will work out, Xo.”

  She knew that he knew probably better than most how car accidents sometimes did not work out for the victims. But she also knew that in Isaac’s calm, grounded mind, he was referring to the grander picture. And like it always did, his words gave her a measure of comfort.

  She thought back to the moment she and Isaac had shared back at Darcy’s house.

  What did it mean? Were they back together? She’d never actually gotten back together with someone before. Do you start at square one? Pick up where you left off?

  So many questions.

  “Isaac—”

  He placed another gentle kiss on the back of her hand before using his free one to shift his truck into park.

  Startled, she looked out the window and saw they were in the alleyway of Ocotillos.

  Before she could even process what was happening, Isaac slid his driver’s window open to accept a basket from one of her waiters, who gave her a quick wave before heading back in.

  They were back on the road moments later.

  …With the basket of what smelled like an incredible assortment of food sitting on a folded blanket in his back seat, and the truck heading in the direction of their dog park.

  “I figured we could try lunch at the park today. I’m sure it’ll taste just as good as breakfast.”

  Though it addressed none of her questions, this right here was the only answer her heart needed at the moment.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “WOW, YOU’RE a good cook.”

  Xoey found herself pleasantly surprised as she sampled the tasty chicken stir fry Isaac was tossing around in the wok they’d found in her cupboard the other day. And the fried rice she saw sitting on the back burner—woefully not taste-tested yet—looked equally delicious.

  One of the perils of living on the premises of a food establishment meant she never usually bothered to cook. Once upon a time, back when she’d first started college, she’d been gung-ho with the cookbooks so she wouldn’t starve or go broke living on her own. But then she started working at Ocotillos midway through college and in the nearly ten years since, she’d maybe cooked a few dozen from-scratch meals at the most. Though she could rock the mac & cheese and ramen noodles something fierce.

  With Xoey and Isaac both having constantly shifting work hours that often went late into the night, they were each other’s worst enablers in that regard. They weren’t proud that they got special deals for being the king and queen of takeout in town but—

  Okay, maybe they were a little proud.

  But, that was all in the past. After having eaten Darcy’s incredible make-ahead home cooking the other week, they’d been inspired to actually turn on the stove in their respective apartments to cook something other than canned soup and spaghetti.

  The first two nights of the week at his place, their grand plans for dinner had inevitably lead to frozen pizza one night and take-out the next thanks to Isaac’s seemingly brilliant idea to conserve water by showering together before dinner each evening. The result was them being too weak to cook when the time came.

  As such, Wednesday found them back at her apartment with a shower that did not have the space requirements for paired showering. Well, the showering part yes, but nothing else. So they’d actually been able to make it to the dinner part.

&nb
sp; Granted, she’d cheated a little bit by recreating some dishes off the Ocotillos menu, which she’d been watching get prepared down in the brewpub for enough years that she’d had every step memorized, but it still counted as a home-prepared meal.

  They decided that finding the wok from the cookware collection either Dani or Lia had left behind had been a sign that they were on the right track with this cooking thing, and that a Chinese menu was their next challenge. So far, Isaac was knocking it out of the park.

  “The power of YouTube,” he replied to her silent question modestly when she looked around and saw no cookbooks to speak of.

  “Still, I’m impressed.”

  As she set the small bar-height table that separated the kitchen from her living room, Xoey proposed the first change in their Saturday morning schedule since the plague-like flu she’d suffered four months ago, which had been the direct result of the only other schedule shift on record…the plague-like flu, he’d suffered the week prior. “Do you mind if we shift our usual breakfast at the dog park to Sunday instead? I wanted to go over to the hospital and check on Darcy. I’ve chatted with Viv on the phone and she said Darcy was really down yesterday. I figured if I go hang out with her in the morning tomorrow, Vivian and Blake could tag in later after his cousins’ softball games.”

  Isaac ladled out his masterpieces in the two lovely platters she’d liberated from the Ocotillos dishwasher earlier in the night. “Why don’t we just shift our breakfast over there? I’m sure we can find some doctor-approved things for us to bring over. Has to beat two weeks straight of hospital food.”

  The man was just too sweet. “You sure? It’s a long way to go for breakfast. And you barely met Darcy last week.”

  “True, but Darcy and I clicked right off the bat. She’s a cool lady. A lot like you, in fact.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek. “But I don’t want to barge in or anything though.”

  “No, she liked you, too. Thought you were handsome and charming, to be exact.”

  “I could tell from our brief meeting that she was a woman with exceptional taste.” He lifted his water glass to clink against hers.

  Xoey smiled and marveled at how easily their relationship had transitioned over the past few weeks. Sure, they had a year of training as friends but it seemed ridiculously easy.

  Almost too easy.

  Suddenly, she felt her chair tip back and she yelped, scrambling to stop the descent to a scrambled noggin.

  But the fall never came.

  Instead, she was left suspended midair as Isaac’s mouth swooped down to cover hers in a kiss of the plundering and ravaging variety as he kept her chair tilted back on its hind legs.

  A too-quick minute later, he was tilting her back upright gently until all four legs touched back down to the tiled floor.

  He shrugged and gave her an unapologetic grin when she proceeded to blink her lust-glazed eyes at him afterward. “Quickest way to stop you from thinking so much.”

  She eyed first the scrumptious looking meal, and then the equally scrumptious chef watching her with hot eyes that held what she could only interpret as a big, silent dare.

  The oxygen in her lungs grew thick. And when her next deep breath pulled her t-shirt taut against her chest, he growled his appreciation.

  His eyes narrowed on her hardened nipples as he murmured in a rough whisper, “I still remember the night you came with nothing but my tongue on your nipples, and my fingers barely touching the edge of your panties.”

  Heat flooded her veins, dampening her in a dizzying rush of excitement.

  “And your teeth,” she managed to whisper back as she stood, edging closer to him to drag her own teeth against the muscular cords of his neck.

  Her lips skated up to his ear to confess, “I came because I’d been imagining your tongue and teeth where your fingers had been.”

  He yanked her body flush against him, tipping her chin up to take her lips under his.

  Hot, dominant, and possessive, his lips covered hers again with a completeness that left her fighting for breath, for sanity as he claimed every last cell in her body as his to command, to control. To keep.

  Holy hell.

  His kisses had always been intoxicating, but tonight, they all-consuming.

  With every passing second, he was leaving searing reminders of him on her lips, branding himself in her memories.

  As if she needed any more.

  He was already a permanent fixture in her fantasies, her dreams.

  Her reality.

  The latter, lately, feeling the most special connection of them all.

  His muscles hardened under her hands as he transformed the kiss into a full-blown assault, ravishing her mouth while his fingers smoothed over her inner thigh and slipped under the fabric of the loose boxer shorts she always wore to bed.

  Fingers her body fervently welcomed, slid through her wet folds, teasing her with such tenderness that the contrast against his rough kiss was almost too much.

  It had never been this good with them, with anyone.

  Removing each piece of clothing she wore slowly, deliberately, he kissed his way down her body like a voyager laying claim to every part of her.

  She arched against him when his tongue stroked against her slick center, long and slow. Instantly, she began drowning under waves of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known.

  His teeth nibbled, scored her skin as he sought, demanded more.

  One of her legs found its way over his shoulder just before his mouth closed tight over her sensitive flesh. Flashing lights and whirls of carnival sounds began echoing in her mind as his thick fingers slid into her, teasing her in tandem with his tongue and the words he was whispering against her skin—words so heartfelt, she felt herself quickly unraveling at the seams.

  She’d never recover.

  That was the only thought in her mind as she began spiraling through a tornado of bliss that ravaged every last one of her defenses.

  Blinded by ecstasy, rendered immobile by words of love and possession, her thoughts splintered into oblivion as a thousand erotic fireworks detonated at once, exploding in her brain in a spectacular light show that sent her hurtling to an explosive grand finale.

  The reheated stir-fry and fried rice an hour later was even better than she’d expected.

  * * * * *

  XOEY GROANED as she tried to shoo the thin rays of sunlight streaming in through her bedroom windows, which were successfully pulling her out of what felt like only ten minutes of sleep since her head had hit the pillow after yesterday’s rough night at the brewpub.

  Rolling over and burying her head under the blanket didn’t work either, because suddenly, sunlight exploded around the room.

  “Isaac!” she growled. “Leave my blackout curtains alone.”

  Her blanket disappeared off her body next.

  Evil man.

  She shivered and curled up in a ball to try and regain her nice cocoon of sleepy warmth. “What happened to not wanting to disrupt my privacy by using my spare key unless in emergency,” she accused.

  “It was an emergency. You were snoring so loud a crowd was gathering outside and threatening to break down your door.”

  Xoey shot up to an upright position and covered her face. “I wasn’t snoring was I?”

  Though none of the guys who’d spent the night at her place had ever told her she snored, Dani had. Her description describing the sounds as something she imagined a cute rumbling bear cub would make did not make the news any more appealing.

  Isaac chuckled. “No more than usual. It’s pretty damn cute.”

  She pouted. “Don’t you dare say I sound like a bear cub.”

  “No, I was thinking more like the engine of my bike. Well, if my bike sounded like a really cute roaring T-Rex.”

  She launched her pillow at him, and he caught it easily. “I’m kidding. It’s really more like a cat purring. It’s cute. And only when you’re exhausted, which I know you are, but—” He pointed to
the clock. “We need to book it if we’re going to make it over to the hospital in time to beat Darcy’s hospital breakfast delivery.”

  “Oh, shoot! Is it really that late already?” The glowing 6:00 a.m. time stamp on her clock proved Isaac right, and she scrambled out of bed to get dressed. “I didn’t get a chance to check the breakfast places in the area up there.” She didn’t want to surprise Darcy with food that was two-hours cold from the drive up.

  “I checked out the reviews of a few places. There’s a diner right around the corner from the hospital that folks apparently rave about. I downloaded the menu to my phone so we can call our takeout order in from the road.”

  She stopped for a second and tilted her head at first the amazing man in all his early morning gorgeousness, and then the big, cheerful bouquet of flowers sitting on the coffee table in front of him. Sometimes, he really did make her believe in the existence of over-perfection. “Darcy will love those.”

  “Good.” He produced something far better than flowers then, at least where Xoey was concerned.

  She rushed over and launched her still only bra-and-panty-clad body onto his lap to plant a kiss on his smiling lips, whilst simultaneously opening up the bakery bag that held her precious bacon doughnuts.

  “I didn’t think you’d be able to last the drive without some sustenance.”

  The man knew her so well.

  After kissing him silly, she peered in the bag and feigned a look of dismay. “There are only three in here.” Normally she got at least a half dozen of the little things. She blinked up at him prettily. “But whatever will you eat?”

  “The craft fair the next town over seems to be responsible for the doughnut shortage. Nancy did save these three for you just in case though. The naïve woman seems to think we split these doughnuts evenly at breakfast.”

  Xoey didn’t find any fault with their five-to-one split.

  “But I always get you either those giant ham and cheese turnovers or a few of those meat pies that you like so much.”