SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “They’re, uh…really in touch with that side of their marriage, huh?” he asks slowly, almost hesitantly. His tone sort of surprises me a little, because Chilli is not usually a hesitant kind of guy.

  He usually just says what he wants, and damn the consequences. Hearing him say something in a way that’s so unlike him has me pausing and turning to look at him. What I see surprises me even more, because he’s blushing and looking down at his hands—hands that are all fidgety and wringing themselves together.

  “Yeah? Sure. I mean, I dunno. I’m not watching them like a creeper, but I guess. I think that, uh…he’s just really into her? Which is cool, but weird, because Rosetta is certifiably insane. I saw a report about her from a child psychologist once, but Honey and Jack reported the guy and basically ruined him, accusing him of being a monster for daring to insult their little angel. Of course, that report came after Rosetta had told the guy that she had dreams about killing them all. It would have helped if she’d elucidated and explained that she was talking about the fireflies that buzzed against her window at night. She was like, nine at the time,” I say affectionately, laughing when he gapes and then snorts, shaking his head.

  “No, I mean—they’re really close. I mean, like, really close.”

  “Uh…okay? Chilli, not to be insensitive, but what are you getting at here? Because I am struggling like hell to understand what’s wrong. You’re obviously uncomfortable and upset about something, and I really want to help you, but I just can’t figure out what that something is,” I say, my mouth falling open when he finally looks at me, and I see determination and something else in his eyes.

  “I want you to move in with me. I know that this is all happening backwards for us—that it’s usually living together first, and then marriage, and then kids—but this is the way that it happened for us, and so…yeah. I have a house, and I decked it out for us, and I want us to live there with the boys.”

  Hmmmkay?

  “Okay? I mean, I can do that. I’d just have to talk to Nate about the move—”

  “No. I mean, I love that he’s so present and shit, but—but we’re a family. You and me and the babies. And Nate is a big boy. He can live by himself.”

  “Chilli—”

  “And he’s been looking after you all this time, when I should have been the one doing that, but I was an asshole, and now—now I know what I was missing out on, and it kills me, and I am jealous, Alex. Like, for real jealous, and I know that I should just get past it, but I can’t! I want you all to myself. There. I said it!” he finishes in one breath, going stock still, as if waiting for me to explode.

  Which I of course do. I start laughing so hard that I snort and almost choke on my own spit. I laugh so hard that I forget to keep my vagina tense so that nothing spills out. And I laugh even harder when he blinks at me and scrubs at the nape of his neck, looking embarrassed.

  “I was going to say that I need to talk to Nate about taking over the apartment and maybe asking Zeus to gift it to him and take it out of my name,” I finish, giggling hysterically when Chilli curses and starts scrubbing at his hair.

  “Well. Fuck.”

  “In six weeks,” I confirm, laughing a little before he suddenly lunges and kisses me, the move a sheepish, vulnerable one that would turn me on, if I were physically capable of that right now.

  When he pulls back, ending the kiss with a sucking smooch, I’m breathless and boneless and very much aware that something is happening here. Something good. Maybe even love.

  “I’m counting down the days. Trust me, woman—I am counting,” he whispers, smiling when I grunt and become aware of where we are and how extremely naked I am.

  Let’s get real here for a minute. I feel gross. You know when you see celebs right after they have babies, and you think, “Wow, she just looks so awesome and so comfortable in her own skin”? It’s like, Kate gave birth to Charlotte and then looked like a million bucks just hours afterwards. I don’t feel that way. I sweat in places that shouldn’t be sweaty, I have to wear pads the size of diapers, and my damn boobs leak at the worst times. I do not feel sexy.

  “Yeah, well, you’d better hope that those days do some serious healing, because I feel gross and terrible,” I mutter, now rushing through the bath because I want to feel clean and get dressed and—

  “You look beautiful. Don’t snort and roll your eyes. To me, you look wonderful.”

  “Yeah. Right. That’s why you sleep on the couch,” I counter, watching his eyes go distant.

  “Nope. I sleep on the couch so that I can keep the monitor out there and leave you to sleep a little. Also, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, and you always look like you’re ready to bolt if I so much as breathe your way. It’s okay,” he tells me, grimacing when I finish rinsing and motion for him to turn around.

  It takes me under two minutes to dry off, get on clean panties, diaper up, and pull on some loose sweats and a t-shirt, before my hair gets a good comb-through. In another minute, I have on some light makeup—what, like I don’t get to be vain?—and am finally feeling a little less icky than before.

  “Okay. Done.”

  Chilli turns then, and I see his expression go from resigned to determined as he looks down at me.

  “You and I are moving in together. Soon. The house is ready, and I’ve made up the nursery. It’s all there. All I need to hear is that you’re game.”

  Am I, though? Not for nothing, but this is a big step, and while I’ll kind of laugh it off on the outside, I know on the inside what a big deal it is. Being married…I don’t feel married, to be honest. Nothing is different besides having two new babies to take care of, and a lot of diapering to fail at. Besides all that, me and Chill…have gone nowhere.

  I’m hoping that that changes soon, and when it does, I’m praying that it’s the kind of change I want, and not someone scraping what’s left of me off the tarmac, where the love plane landed on me and squished me dead.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alexandria

  I’m speeding a little as I press the accelerator down, just learning to control a car that showed up uninvited, unannounced, and unwanted two days ago. What happened to my old car—my baby—I can’t say, because Chilli refuses to confess that he had her “taken care of.” The fact is, she’s gone, and in her place, I am now driving a…wait for it…Volvo!

  Yeah, people. A Volvo station wagon with enough room to transport two kids and all their stuff. Which is great—really, it is. Except that it’s a goddamn Volvo station wagon, and it’s gross.

  For safety reasons, I didn’t put up too much of a fight, but come on. Who actually goes to a dealership and says, “Yeah, I like that one—it’s great”? No one who wants to retain any semblance of street cred. That’s who.

  “It’s not that bad,” Sin says for the tenth time, ruining it when she snort-giggles and tries to keep a straight face.

  “It’s awful. I am officially the new owner of a mom-mobile, and, to make it worse, he put those stupid family stickers in the back window,” I hiss, ignoring how extremely comfortable the car is, and how smoothly it drives. Because, damn it, I want to!

  “I think it’s cute.”

  “I think that declaring to the entire world just how many people live in your house is a serial killer’s dream. It’s like saying, ‘Yo, dude, there are two adults and two kids living here. Wanna come in and play?’” I argue, smiling in spite of myself because Chilli put a cat in the mix, and I freaking love cats.

  Always wanted one, but was just was too lazy to commit to a pet.

  “Give him some credit, Alex. The man is really trying here.”

  Too hard. I want to scream at her that he’s trying too hard. It’s week two of the “Post-Birth Chronicles,” and in that time, he’s made moving arrangements for all of us, has set Nate up with Doc Payne so that he’s got something to focus on after we move out and will leave us alone, and has singlehandedly managed to keep all our parents and everyone else from ove
rwhelming me.

  He’s arranged nannies, a housekeeper, and a gardener, and has gotten the house all set and ready to be moved into in an unbelievably short amount of time. Too short. I’m having some serious and admittedly uncool second thoughts, but, to be fair to myself, who wouldn’t? Living together permanently—

  “Is what married people do! For God’s sake, who gave you that tape recorder?” Sin growls, snatching the thing away and hitting the off switch.

  Actually, it was Rosetta. According to her, it’s healthy to talk through your problems and put something down for posterity. I dunno. All I can say is that it beats talking to myself. Something that I do a lot lately.

  “Rosetta.”

  “Don’t use it! She tried to pawn one off on me, too, and then I caught her breaking into my place and stealing the tapes. They’re like…spy tapes. She’s gathering information on us, and, knowing Rosetta, the reasons are not good.”

  I grin at that, but only because it’s genius, and nod when Sin tosses the recorder into the glove compartment.

  “So. You good?” she asks, just after I make a right onto the next ramp towards an exclusive neighborhood, where lots of small businesses have taken to setting up.

  “Good,” I confirm, a little untruthfully, because I don’t really know.

  Honestly? In the last two weeks, my whole life has been turned upside down. I’m exhausted—thanks to feeding, caring for, and basically living for two babies—my marriage is about to become real, and here I am, driving to a spa on a Wednesday morning because Chilli wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wanted me to relax and get away for a few hours so that I could feel good about myself again.

  The boys are with Mom, Dad, and the Harts, and I have a spa date with all four of my peeps, including Mindy, who is now officially one of us thanks to Sin. But I don’t wanna go. All I want to do is rush back to the boys, whip out a boob, and go back to existing in my mom bubble.

  “Yeah, okay. Next time, say that with some actual conviction. What’s up?”

  “What’s not up? I feel disgusting, I’m driving a car that my husband bought without my input, and I’m moving in to a house that I have never seen. Add in the fact that Rose sent Carla to me for counseling, now that she’s over her husband’s death, and that Carla’s brother keeps hitting on me, despite the fact that this ring is big enough to see from space…” I sigh, not finishing because now it just sounds like I’m complaining.

  Darn it. I don’t want to be a whiner, but all this change is just too much. I have a patient that I see at my home on Mondays, Carla, who murdered her husband, got a get-out-of-jail-free card, and is now asking me for relationship advice because her new boyfriend doesn’t like blow jobs…is that even possible?

  It’s just all so much to deal with, and now—right now, in fact—I am going to a spa while Chilli and his people move all of my stuff in to our new home. It’s so final. Done. Set in stone. I am married, and we’re living together—

  “Jeezus, Alex, that’s a good thing. You realize that this is the normal, natural way for things to happen, don’t you? Boy meets girl, boy dates girl, boy moves in with girl, and then the boy and the girl get married and have kids and all that sappy stuff. It’s normal, and it’s also normal to be nervous. Hell, I was scared shitless the day I got Mr. Binkles.”

  “Mr. Binkles is a cat, Sinai, not a husband who will be sleeping beside you for eternity,” I mutter, my sigh coming out tired when I pull in to the spa’s parking area and shut off the car.

  There’s no sputter or threat of a backfire, and that just depresses me more. I miss my car.

  “Precisely. He’s a cat who needs love and care, and I didn’t think that I could do it, but he’s still alive, and if I can deal, then so can you.”

  Would you listen to her comparing my marriage to a one-eyed cat?

  “That cat lost an eye two days after you got him.”

  “Is it my fault that the stupid idiot thought he could attack a seventy-pound bulldog? I warned him about Mrs. Farley’s dog; he just didn’t listen. And besides, it worked out. He’s a great addition to my life.”

  “My husband is not a cat, Sin. He’s a person that I have to take care of and love for the rest of my life. What if this doesn’t work out? What if it all happened too fast? Technically, we’ve only been together for nine months, if you count the time I spent hating him. That’s not a lot of time. We hardly even know each other,” I point out, getting out of the car and then locking it as she comes around and falls in beside me.

  The spa is an exclusive little hole in the wall that caters to only the “best” clientele, and the only reason we got in today without an appointment is that Adonis called the friend of a friend.

  “Nine months is plenty of time to get to know a guy. And he’s great with you, babe. He’s a good dad, he’s kind and considerate, and he got us this amazing spa day so that you can relax and get all dolled up. That’s a good thing.”

  It would be if I actually liked spa days, but I really don’t. All those strangers touching me and looking at my flaws isn’t my thing. But hey, I’m here, so I might as well just try to enjoy myself.

  “Yeah. But did you guys have to invite Mindy?” I groan when I walk into the spa and see her bouncing around, talking to a grimacing Rosetta.

  When they see us, they all shoot to their feet, and Cleo practically runs at me, her eyes wild.

  “You’d better do something! I’ve had to stop Rosetta from reaching into her bag three times already. And she likes the woman,” she whisper-hisses, smiling when they come towards us and Sin immediately falls in beside Mindy.

  Once she’s distracted, I see Rosetta take a deep breath and physically relax, losing that hunted, psychotic look that I’ve seen in her eyes more than once.

  “So, what’re we doing first? I want a massage, a scrub, and a pedicure,” she informs us, basically telling us what’s on the agenda and making the question moot.

  We all concede, even though I hate the thought of some stranger putting her hands on my skin, and by the time we’ve disrobed and are face down on the massage tables, I’m actually convinced that I’ll enjoy this. Until Mindy starts prattling.

  “I mean, I just don’t get it! One minute, we’re doing great, and the next, he’s telling me that we need to take some time off from the relationship. It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she tells Sin, her voice carrying all too clearly from her spot across the room.

  “Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, babe. You guys weren’t all that hot and heavy.”

  “We were, though. I even decided to let go of my fears and do the…other stuff. I thought that that would keep him quiet until we got to a place where he’d want to commit.”

  “Minds, baby, let me break this down for you in a way that will clarify things. You’re a teetotaler who believes in marriage before sex, and you were dating a man who stated, unequivocally, that he wanted a full relationship. That isn’t likely to lead to marriage just because you really liked him. In fact, it kinda made me wonder how the two of you even got together in the first place,” Sin snorts, ignoring the disgruntled hiss that Mindy gives off.

  “But those are my beliefs.”

  “Yes—yours,” I cut in, wincing when I feel the masseuse’s hands on my shoulders. “You have to understand that everyone is different. Nate isn’t the kind of guy who’s going to be okay with stalling out unless he pops the question. That’s like handing him an ultimatum before you’ve even had your second date.”

  “Yes, Alexandria, I am well aware of your opinion on this. Trust me. I heard Nate talking to that friend of his, and I heard him tell the guy that you advised him to end things,” she mutters, the tone of her voice more than a little hostile.

  “I did no such thing. I just pointed out that if he was having doubts, he owed it to you to be honest. And here’s a little more honesty for you, honey. There is no shame in being a good Catholic girl who wants to wait for marriage, and some guys might love you enough
to be into that, but Nate never lied about not being that guy. He told you what he wanted, and you agreed to it. Just because you changed your mind halfway through the relationship doesn’t mean that he’s being difficult, or that he’s some hound dog only interested in sex. Sex is normal in relationships, and it’s a necessary part of every healthy romance. If you don’t want sex, then fine, but choose a man who has the same beliefs. Don’t go getting yourself involved with a man who isn’t like that and then badmouth him—or me—when you don’t get your way,” I tell her, tensing my muscles so that I can lift myself up to look at her.

  She’s up, too, and glaring at me, a sure sign that the teetotaler part of her persona is officially gone. Definitely a little into the sauce, I think, which is confirmed when she swipes up the cocktail beside her and downs it.

  “What’s wrong with following my beliefs and wanting the man I love to respect them?”

  “The problem comes when the man you love tells you that he doesn’t have the same beliefs. Come on, sweetie, be honest—Nate never lied to you about where he wanted things to go, and if you’d listened, you’d have known that you were going to have to either compromise or cut out,” I say gently, letting out a groan when the masseuse digs her knuckles into a spot just below my shoulder blade.

  Oh my God, that feels great.

  “But I was…trying,” she tells me in a small voice that makes me grimace and pray.

  Mindy’s a crier. I can’t deal with criers.

  “Giving a guy the odd blow job isn’t trying,” I sigh, shaking my head when she sniffles and sags back down.

  “I just…liked him, ya know? He was nice and kind, and it isn’t easy to find nice guys who look as good as he does.”

  “Preach!” we all cry, giggling when Sin mutters something crass about married women and their inability to be cool.