by Kennedy Ryan
“Ew! You like cherry Kool-Aid?”
“Okay, it’s like asking if you like Cookie Dough ice cream.”
I would have Cookie Dough ice cream delivered in crates if I could. My anus clenches in protest.
“Oh, God,” I whisper. “You love it.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
“I didn’t say I haven’t tried it.”
“You’ve done anal?” Displeasure darkens his eyes. “Who the hell’d you do anal with?”
“Excuse me.” I tilt my head and rest a fist on my hip. “Did I ask who you’ve done anal with?”
“You’re right, we don’t wanna go there.” He shakes his head and turns his lips down at the corners. “You didn’t like it?”
“It was messy and it hurt.”
“Well, yeah, it can be messy, but he probably didn’t do it right.”
“He definitely didn’t do something right.”
“I promise you I’ll do it right.” He cups my ass and squeezes, his pinky fingers delving into the slit of space separating the cheeks. “Can I tell you how I would make it better for you?”
Resist. Resist. Resist.
The chant in my head grows fainter the more his hands explore my body, seeking all my needy places. It’s not just the curve of my breast or the plane of my belly where he’s seducing butterflies, but my heart still feels unreasonably bruised by something as silly as menses.
“Not that I’m open to it,” I say, my voice slightly lust-rough. “But if I were to—”
“First I’d get you really wet,” he cuts in, eyes and voice a little too eager to be merely hypothetical.
If he continues, I will be ass-full of Grip by the end of the night.
“Um, forget I asked.” I laugh when his face falls. “I’m just saying . . . what about the game?”
“Game? There’s a game?” His lips ghost the ink on my shoulder, licking at the delicately sketched letters. “Do you bathe in sugar? Damn, you always taste good.”
“I can’t get through a shower without you barging in and violating me against the wall, so I think you would know if I bathed in sugar.”
“Is that a complaint?” He steps back like he’s abandoning the hunt, and I’m not quite ready to end the chase. I pull him back to me, slipping my arms up and over his shoulders, linking my wrists behind his neck to caress the smooth skin there.
“Definitely not.” I kiss his chin. “I personally can’t think of a better way to start the day than wet sex against a wall.”
“Mmmmmmm.” The hungry rumble vibrates into my chest. “Keep it up and I’m knocking on that back door tonight.”
We laugh into a kiss that starts soft and sweet, surges to hot and urgent, and settles into tender longing. He always knows how to get me back, how to pull me back from the brink, and I hope I do the same for him.
“Better?” he asks in between nips of my lips.
“Much.” I rest my forehead against his chin. “I’m sorry about the bitchiness earlier.”
“Don’t even think about it. We both know I can be an asshole,” he says, a rueful twist to his lips. “I’m sorry I called the poetry deal stupid.”
“I can change the dates with Barrow.” I look up to meet his eyes. “Can we chock it all up to the hormones?”
“Sure, but what’s your excuse the other three weeks of the month?” The twinkle in his eye saves him from a junk punch.
“You’re pushing it, Grip.”
“Oh, I can push it, all right.” His playful hip thrust has me giggling like a schoolgirl and shoving him toward the door.
“Go watch your game. I’m gonna take a nice hot bath and then drown my hormones in ice cream.”
I head to the bathroom, already peeling off my tank top when his voice stops me.
“We don’t have to go through this every month, Bris.”
He’s got one hand on his hip, an arm stretched up as he grabs hold of the doorjamb overhead. His T-shirt lifts to peekaboo soft-as-velvet skin stretched over a slab of granite abs. The humor has faded from his voice, from his eyes. All that’s left is lingering concern and unconditional love.
“I’m telling you there’s no pressure,” Grip says. “I’m gonna be ecstatic and obnoxious when you get pregnant, you already know that, but until then I’m ridiculously happy with just you.”
My words are stolen again by his consideration. I’m the luckiest woman on the planet. Minutes later, Grip’s in the living room cursing and yelling at the television while I sink into almost unbearably hot water and mile-high suds to soothe my cramping stomach muscles, wearing nothing but a grin because I’m ridiculously happy with just him, too.
30
Grip
“I think I’ll run to the drugstore.”
Bristol’s standing at the door of our office. Technically, it’s Bristol’s office in her cottage. My place a few miles away is occupied by a couple of the Kilimanjaro guys, and our place in New York isn’t actually ours. It’s Mrs. O’Malley’s, but we’re still leasing it. Lately I keep thinking about getting a bigger house here, a place that’s ours, hers and mine, a place big enough for us and our kids. Dammit. As much as I keep telling myself not to think about our kids, I do. I meant it when I told Bristol there was no pressure. There absolutely isn’t, but man do I want to meet these kids we’ll have one day.
I check the time on the piece-of-shit watch I can’t bring myself to get rid of. When I took it to the watch repair shop, they looked at me like the screws in the watch might not be the only ones loose. Bristol won it at a carnival over a decade ago, for God’s sake. We never even paid for it, but I paid the shop to make it work again.
“It’s late, babe,” I mumble around a yawn. “Lemme go for you.”
“No, you have that assignment to finish.” Bristol comes into the office and sits on the edge of the desk. “It was due two days ago, right?”
“Don’t remind me.” I scowl at my laptop and the assignment on criminal justice reform legislation. “The professor gave me an extension, but I’m on the verge of missing this deadline, too, if I don’t buckle down.”
“It’s been a lot the last few months.” She steps behind me and sinks her fingers into the muscles along my neck, the shoulders locked with tension. “School, working on your next album, all the stuff for Qwest’s single.”
“I had no idea that song would do what it’s doing.” I cover her hand with mine, running my finger along her tattoo and wedding ring. “You never know what people will respond to.”
“They always seem to respond to the two of you together,” Bristol says easily.
I poke around in the air, searching for agitation in Bristol’s statement. She’s possessive on the best of days, but with Qwest, it’s on another level. I’m pleased to report clear skies, from what I can tell.
“Well the video’s in the can, the single’s out, and the first round of performances is behind me,” I say. “Now I can focus on . . . everything else.”
Like the book of poetry I haven’t even started. I won’t mention that, because if Bristol says the words “brand expansion” again, I’m going through my eye with a selfie stick.
“You have knots in your neck,” Bristol whispers, slipping her tongue inside my ear. She knows what that does to me. She must be prepared to face the consequences. I reach around and snatch her off her feet and onto my lap.
“No!” She squeals and laughs, but doesn’t budge. “I told you I have to go to the drugstore.”
“And I told you,” I say, trailing kisses over her collarbone, “that I’ll go. I don’t want you out this late.”
“It’s only ten o’clock.”
I shrug and keep kissing the hollow at the base of her throat.
“I thought guys hated buying things like tampons,” she says, pausing significantly. “And pregnancy tests.”
“I’ll buy whatever the hell I . . .”
My voice evaporates as her words sink in, and I gulp down the hope that
immediately springs up in my chest. I’ve been careful not to make Bristol feel any pressure. I meant every word I said—if we never had a kid, I’d be disappointed, heartbroken, but any man who’s not satisfied with Bristol alone doesn’t deserve her.
“Pregnancy tests?” I search her eyes, finding teasing and hope and trace amounts of fear.
“I’m late.”
“How late?”
“Three weeks.”
“Three . . .” I run my free hand over the back of my neck. She thought it was tight before; my neck’s a bowstring now. “Why’d you wait this long?”
“I dunno.” Bristol lifts and drops one shoulder. “I think I was scared to get excited. It could be stress making me late.”
Or you could be pregnant.
“But now I have to know.” She laughs nervously. “I’m going to the drugstore because I can’t sleep tonight until I know for sure. We can even go together if that makes you feel better.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to go at all actually.” I shift her off my lap and head out of the office, calling over my shoulder, “Gimme a sec.”
Maybe thirty seconds later, Bristol looks from my face to the items I laid out on the desk with wide eyes.
“You just happen to have a pregnancy test?” Bristol lifts one of them and an eyebrow. “Or six? When did you get these?”
“Um . . . March?” I pretend to have to think about it. “Yeah, March.”
“March, as in, our anniversary when I told you I was ready to have kids, March?” A knowing smile spreads across her face.
“I didn’t buy six pregnancy tests that day. That would be weird.”
“Right.”
“I bought one each month.”
“Which is even weirder.” She laughs. “But okay.”
“I know.” I can’t believe I’m embarrassed about this. “It was some kind of ritual or something. That first day of your period when you realized you weren’t pregnant, you would always be kind of . . .”
“Psychotic?”
“Your words, not mine.” Though . . . nailed it. “Maybe it was a hope thing, but I would go out and buy one of these. Don’t ask me why.”
I nod to them, a smile pressing through.
“But now we need them. I think ‘thank you, Grip’ is the phrase you’re looking for, and you’re welcome.”
“Well, no time like the present.” Bristol scoops up all six of the tests and heads for the bathroom.
I meet her there with a glass of water.
“I’m not thirsty, but thanks,” she says, pushing the door as if to close it.
I stick my foot in to stop her.
“That’s a lot of tests, and a lot of pee.” I slide fully into the bathroom, hand her the water, and hop onto the bathroom counter. “Drink up.”
Bristol circuits a glance from me to the door to the glass of water in her hand a few times.
“Get out.” She takes a few gulps of the water and narrows her eyes at me. “You aren’t watching me pee.”
“So, I can eat you out but I can’t watch you pee? That makes sense.”
“Get out,” she repeats, pointing to the door. “And give me some privacy to do my business.”
I blow out an exasperated breath, head for the bedroom, and hover outside the closed bathroom door. I’m being an idiot, I know it, but I can barely breathe I’m so excited. The possibility of this actually happening, of my DNA and her DNA making something unique to us has me tripping.
After an eternity . . . or ten minutes . . . the door opens, and Bristol gestures me inside the bathroom. She has all six tests lined up on the counter. I don’t even glance at them, but search her expression for the verdict. Her face is blank, downright miserly, it’s giving away so little.
“So?” I hop back up onto the counter, still not looking at the little pissy sticks. “What we got?”
Bristol leans one hip against the counter to face me.
“You bought the first test in March, right?” she asks instead of getting on with it.
“Yeah.” I give a jerky nod, hoping she doesn’t make me feel like even more of a sentimental pussy than I already do.
“Your March test says . . .” A grin, infinitesimal in width but huge in impact on my heartbeat, quirks her lips. “I’m pregnant.”
We stare at each other for a few seconds, the moment swelling with all the possibilities. It could be a fluke. The other tests could negate that one.
“Your April test says I’m pregnant, too,” she says. “And your May and June tests agree.”
She slides three more sticks to me. I glance down to see four tests confirming what I’m almost afraid to believe in various shades of pink and plus signs.
“Apparently, July and August concur.” She pushes the last two tests to join the others, six sticks all saying the same thing.
“You’re pregnant.” My smile feels like it’s spilling over the sides of my face. “It’s definite.”
“I’d like to have a doctor confirm,” she says as mischief, awe, and tenderness swirl in the look she gives me. “But six tests probably don’t lie.”
I was determined to show restraint until we knew for sure. If she wasn’t pregnant, if even half those tests read negative, I would have maintained some kind of reserve, but she’s right—six tests don’t lie, and my resolve goes to hell. I eliminate all the space between us and scoop her right up off her feet. Her legs lock behind me, and a peal of laughter slips free, echoing in the bathroom.
“Is that your bird laugh again?” I smile my way into a kiss against her lips.
“It seems to pop out when I’m happier than anyone has a right to be.” Her cheeks are as wet as my eyes, and she presses our foreheads together. “We’re having a baby, Grip. I can’t even tell you what I’m feeling right now.”
For once, I’m in the same boat. Words are my business, but the feeling taking over every part of me leaves me speechless.
31
Bristol
“It’s snowing in New York.”
Grip’s low-voiced comment from beside me at the dinner table makes me smile. Christmas in LA is not Christmas in New York. I’ve done it on both coasts, and a balmy Christmas doesn’t quite feel the same. Our friends and family are here, though, and we’re eating dinner with Ms. James then heading to Rhys and Kai’s. That first awful time I came here for dinner, I never would have imagined that this place would feel like a haven and my brother’s house would feel like hell, but Rhyson has invited my parents over for Christmas.
Armageddon, people. Armageddon.
This is something I’ve wished for and worked toward for a long time. I should feel less dread now that my parents and my brother will be at the same Christmas table again. The last time that happened, Uncle Grady, my father’s twin brother, hosted what I like to call Bloody Christmas and they nearly came to blows. Rhyson stormed off to spend the holidays with Kai, as if he needed motivation to abandon the family
Christmas dinner with Grip’s family couldn’t be more different from the stiff affairs our holidays always proved to be. There is warmth and affection, an ease as everyone goes around the table sharing the highlight of their year.
“Let’s tell them,” Grip whispers, passing me the yams.
I freeze, my fingers tightening on the platter.
“Today?” The word glides quietly from the corner of my mouth.
“Why not today?” Grip shrugs, but that light that never seems to leave his eyes since he found out I’m pregnant gets even brighter. “My mom and Amir already know. We’re out of the danger zone, in the second trimester. This is the highlight of my year and I want to share it, babe.”
I glance down the table, past Amir and his mother, past Shon and all the other family and friends I’ve managed to win over since we married, until my eyes settle on the one holdout. Across a spread of turkey, stuffing, chicken, peas, collard greens, and a variety of foods I’ll have to work off tomorrow, Jade’s gaze locks with mine. Though she doesn�
��t roll her eyes, she still manages to convey her derision. The tracks she wrote for Qwest’s album did well, and that’s opened other doors for her; I hate that she and Grip haven’t been able to celebrate together. When she didn’t show up for the wedding, it strained things between them even more. Now on Christmas, tucked in my belly and under my heart, is a secret that could further divide—or maybe unite.
“Okay.” I muster an answering smile to the flash of white-toothed excitement on his face. “Go for it.”
Grip clears his throat when it’s his turn to share.
“It’s been another crazy year.” Anticipation sizzles around him, an irrepressible smile on his face. “You’ve all been there for every phase of my life, loved and supported me unconditionally.”
Grip’s eyes drift over each face, the friends, family, and neighbors, the people he grew up with, who have been his anchor on an unlikely adventure of fortune and fame. The people at this table helped shape him into the man I love, a man whose talent propels him to soar with stars while his feet remain firmly on the ground.
“Over the years,” he continues, “when we came to this part of Christmas, I’ve had some pretty amazing highlights—my first recording contract, a double platinum album, Grammys.”
When he looks to me, all the improbable dreams I had about happiness, about love, stare back at me.
“A wife,” he says softly. “This year, many great things have happened, including my first book deal.”
Those around the table cheer and clap. I even hear a few Thank you, Jesus-es. I haven’t visited the church where Grip grew up and that his mom still faithfully attends, but I am fully anticipating a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“But the thing I’m most excited about this year, the absolute highlight”—Grip’s grin is like a horizon, bright and wide—“is our baby. Bristol’s pregnant.”
The room erupts with good wishes, high fives, pats on the back, even some tears. Their goodwill, their love for Grip—and by extension, for me—crashes over me like a wave, and for just that moment of impact, I can’t breathe. My throat constricts around happy tears, around joy. I coveted this growing up. I didn’t have a tribe, a unit of people surrounding me, cheering me on every step, but Grip did. Though I had a rough start with some, fraught with mistrust and confusion, and yeah, in some cases, prejudice, they’ve embraced me. Their warmth is as sure and as solid as arms around me.
