Complete Indelible Love Series

by Cee, DW

  The three Davises decided to hold off a bit longer before buying the units, thinking time may gain them more leverage. We all went to dinner and Josh called out Doug, Nick and Laney.

  “So are you going to buy the place?” Laney asked. She seemed to know more about this housing situation than I did. I didn’t realize those two had been talking without my knowledge. Not that Laney needed my permission to talk to Josh. In fact, I applauded her for getting to know him.

  “I think we are going to buy it. We like how your whole family lives on a block together. We want to re-create it, on a smaller scale of course.” Josh answered Laney.

  “It’s good to see any family having a good relationship. What do your parents think?”

  “Well…” Josh stopped talking for a little bit. “My brothers and I have a great relationship, but my parents…whole other story for a whole other time.”

  “Okay.” Laney said with a genuine smile. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think we have enough time tonight,” Josh chuckled. “One day Laney, you and I will have a long talk.” What Josh just said held a lot of meaning I didn’t think Laney fully understood. “You want to go watch a movie tomorrow night?”

  “Um…” she hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I have so much to do before this month is over. I’m graduating soon, I have a lot of schoolwork that still needs to be done, and I need to get my belongings together to move.”

  “Why are you so set on moving as soon as possible?” Garret joined in the conversation. That was something I wanted to know as well.

  “I…” She couldn’t finish her thought. “I just want to…there’s really nothing left here for me and I’d like a new start.” There was sadness in Laney’s eyes. I wondered if Donovan was in her heart and mind right now. I hoped she didn’t have a crush on him. After what he said to me the other night, she would be crushed if she knew he had no interest in her.

  “Laney, you have so many things here for you. Your family’s here, your friends are here, and I’d like to be here for you as well.” Boy! Josh was laying it all out on the table for her to take...or not. Brave man.

  She gave him another genuine smile and answered, “I know. I’m a really lucky girl. I have the best family, wonderful friends, and you are kinder to me than I deserve.”

  “Is there a but in there?”

  “Nope. It’s getting late and I think I’ll go home now. I need to study for my exams.”

  “Can I offer you a ride home?” Josh asked with a downtrodden look.

  Laney looked like she was going to refuse him again, but thought better of it. Smart girl. I knew she was always the kindest one out of all of us. “Sure Josh, I’d love a ride home. Thank you.”

  The rest of us stayed a lot longer and hung out. I was glad to see my family getting along so well with Max’s family.

  “You ready to leave?” Max asked in-between kisses.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered in a breathy kind of way.

  Max took a super long way home and I loved resting against his back. I tried not to think too much into why Max wouldn’t want to buy a place together. I did my best to shoo away thoughts of him not wanting any permanency with me, or him not catching on to the fact that I was deeply bothered by his action.

  “You gonna sleep on my back, again?” I heard his voice reverberating through his back.

  “No,” I answered slowly, but got off his bike swiftly.

  “What’s the matter?” He put his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him. “You’ve been unusually silent since the house hunt. You’re either unhappy that I chose a place without you, or that I’m purchasing a place without you. Which is it?”

  “Which do you think it is?”

  “How about if I tell you the answer to both questions, and then you can see if you’re still unhappy with my decision.”

  I nodded okay.

  “After we got into our fight, I started thinking about us and our situation. And after Josh told me how much money I had left in my account, I agreed with your idea that it was better to purchase than to rent. You were right. This was much smarter, considering mortgage was really no different than my monthly rent. I had just never considered it before.”

  I tried to pull back a little, but he held on tight. It was almost as though he was whispering in my ears.

  “I talked to Jake and Chief Reid, and asked what my chances were of staying at General Hospital for residency. They laughed and told me they’d only consider my application if I took you off their hands.”

  I gave him an appalled look; he gave me an adoring look, and expressed his adoration with a deep kiss.

  “Once I got my ducks in a row, I started doing my research, and after we found this place I decided this is something I wanted to do on my own. How about if I say this is something I need to do on my own? As wonderful as your family is, I feel somewhat overwhelmed by your wealth and their generosity. I feel like I can never give you the privilege you are used to in life. Before we establish any permanency between us, I wanted to have my own place, to be my own man, and not to have to rely on you, or the generosity of your family to start us in the next chapter of life. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I guess...”

  He gave me an unsatisfactory look, but continued. “And as for the place that I chose, I love the fact that it’s so close to your family. I want you to always be near your family and I, too, want to always be near your family. Plus, I thought you’d dig the extra shoe closet. I knew this place was for us when I saw the home for all your shoes.”

  “So...am I to just move in and be a kept woman?”

  Max couldn’t stop laughing. “Can you actually be a kept woman? If so, please teach me how to turn you into a submissive girlfriend, and I will wave that magic wand immediately.”

  “But I feel like I’m just moving into your life, rather than starting something together.”

  “Gem,” I loved the endearment in his voice, and the passion in his eyes, “save your money, till we decide that we’d like to be with one another till death do us part. At that time, you can use all your money to help us buy a larger home for that family we’ll create. Until then, help me be the man I want to be, for me, as well as for you.”

  For now, I decided to let this man be the hunter, and I would submit to being the gatherer.

  May 12, 2013 Happy Mother’s Day!

  The Reid family loves tradition as you can tell, and we have a lot of interesting as well as funny traditions in our family. I think Jake has told you guys about our Christmas tradition where we play a mean game of white elephant. We have no qualms about stealing from one another during this time to get the best present among the lot.

  Then you most recently saw our wedding tradition that was started back in our grandfather’s days, where the first man to get married in his generation picks from something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and buys a present to symbolize this adage. Gimpy’s treasure chest will put new meaning to the word “wedding tradition.”

  For Mother’s Day, we have a whole other tradition that hasn’t been practiced in a while, but has been brought back from the grave. This tradition went on hiatus for several years when so many of us were off to college and couldn’t make it back for Mother’s Day. It really needed all of us to be at home in order to accomplish this gag gift.

  Let me explain how this one works. Each family comes up with a gag gift for Mom. It could be as simple as a hand drawn portrait of Mom, or as complicated as a treasure hunt that leads nowhere. Before the contest begins, we each put $100 into the pot. It used to be a lot cheaper, but ever since most of us graduated from school and got jobs, the buy-in grew to $100 per person. What, you ask, are we buying into?

  The winning family gets to keep all the money. Correction, the winning Mom gets to keep the money. With five families plus Jake’s family, and Gimpy,
the pot’s grown to mucho dinero!

  We started the festivities on Saturday at Emily and Jake’s home. Mother’s Day was usually held at Uncle Dave and Aunt Deb’s beach house, but with Emily being so big (and yes, overnight she popped and started looking like she was going to give birth today) and with the twins being so...mobile, active, unpredictable—you name it, they did it, Emliy asked to host the event in her backyard. Max and his brothers were invited (NO Hannah), and Donovan and his family were invited. The Taylors have never spent Mother’s Day with us before, but considering it was at Jake’s house, they decided to invite the Taylors as well. The Taylors, though, opted not to join in our competitive fun.

  Brunch was a simple affair in Jake’s backyard with your typical brunch food. Jake and the rest of the family made sure that Emily didn’t lift a finger. The food was catered, we all helped set up and clean up, and then most of us dispersed to set up our mothers’ gifts.

  “Isn’t this a bit morbid?” Max asked while carrying Mom’s gift to our backyard.

  “That’s why it’s a gag gift.” I responded with an evil grin.

  “You Reids have a sick sense of humor.”

  “Thank you,” Jake, Nick and I answered simultaneously.

  “Um...that wasn’t a compliment,” he said with a chuckle, “but whatever. Live in your delusional world.”

  “We will and we do!” Jake and I high-fived each other. We knew we had the winning gift.

  “How much has the pot grown to, do you know?”

  “Well let’s see,” Jake started doing the math. “We alone make $700 since you all insisted I pay double for Mom’s entry and Emi’s entry. Then there’s another $1400 including Roland’s entry.”

  “Geez. That’s $2100! What’s Mom going to do with all that cash?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe she’ll share it with me. There’s a pair of Prada shoes I’ve been eyeing!”

  Jake laughed out, “Dream on.”

  “What did you do for Emily? It’s not like the kids can do anything on their own.”

  “You shall see when the time comes.” He could be so secretive at times.

  “Does Emily’s gift have a chance of winning?”

  “Nope. I’m not looking to give a gag gift to my wife.” Of course not! “But, it’ll be humorous.”

  After reconvening back at Jake’s, we did the grand reveal.

  “You guys have no chance against Laney’s brilliant idea.” Josh decided to go help Doug and Laney set up their present.

  “I don’t know, little brother. Jane’s idea’s pretty brilliant as well.”

  “Why, thank you!” I answered with an appreciative kiss.

  “For a response like that, I can kiss your ass some more,” he added, for the enjoyment of no one else but us.

  “Why you clever boy, you!”

  “Okay!!! Let’s move on from this love fest!” Garret broke us up by walking right in between us.

  We started at my house, or better stated, my parents’ house, and all walked up to Gram’s bathroom, which had a huge yellow caution tape X’ing out the door. Gimpy opened the door and we all died laughing at what we saw. They (as in my father and his brothers) had created a throne for Gram to use on a daily basis.

  Let me try and explain to you what the throne looked like. The chair looked like a 12th-century king’s throne chair—think Games of Throne, Robb Stark, House Lannister, Stannis Baratheon, and dragon queen, Daenerys Targaryen, all vying, plotting, killing, to claim this chair that only a King or Queen may sit upon. Well Gram’s chair looked identical to such chairs. It was built around the toilet already in existence, and only when you lifted the seat, could you tell that it was a potty. Perhaps a glorified port-a-potty was a more apt explanation.

  “Whose idea was this?” I asked. “Uncle Henry’s?”

  “Believe it or not, it was Roland’s. He wanted his bride to know that she was his queen. Watch this,” my Uncle Dave explained. “Mom, please pull on the toilet paper roll.”

  Gram did as she was asked and a tune of God Save the Queen blared. This was one of the best Mother’s Day gifts we’d seen in a long while!

  “All right. To the next gift...” Uncle Henry declared.

  I led everyone to the backyard, and the howling began again. Placed on our grassy land was a grandfather clock-shaped coffin for our dear old mom. You all remember that Mom’s a nut for clocks and she collects them from all over the world? In honor of her clock-mania, we fashioned her coffin to look identical to a grandfather clock. It even had a beautiful Omega-like clock face with a working hour hand, minute hand, and even a second hand. On the grave, we had engraved, “Counting down your mortality, Sandra Jane Reid.”

  “You see. Mom loves it,” I whispered to Max.

  “I see.” Max didn’t know whether or not to believe Mom’s sincere appreciation for the gift. “You Reids have an oddball sense of humor.”

  “That must be why I love you so much, Mr. Davis.” That earned me a slap on the rear end. Of course, we were at the end of the Reid trail, who were off to Jake’s house to view Emily’s gift.

  We arrived at Jake’s hallway, and he presented to his wife a framed caricature of the twins. An artist had drawn our beautiful Ellie with exaggerated teeth and mouth, huge but gorgeous blue eyes and uncontrolled curls everywhere. She was shown to be yelling the words, “ME! and NO!” Truly, her two favorite words. Even as a caricature, she looked darling.

  James was drawn to have a huge forehead, floppy ears and he looked like the road runner, wreaking havoc wherever he’d been. Furniture was turned over, toys were broken, and his sister was in the far background with food on her face from his tornado-like run. It personified him perfectly because that’s all he liked to do these days. RUN!

  Then, Jake took us to his office and unveiled an absolutely stunning montage of pictures of his wife. These pictures chronicled their relationship, starting from their second chance in Tokyo, to their wedding, to their honeymoon, her pregnancy, the birth of the twins, life with the twins, and even her pregnancy now. There were a few empty spots, for what I assume was their new addition in a couple of months.

  And finally, we were led to Emily’s favorite room in the house, her sitting room, off their bedroom. Here, Jake had carefully restored old black and whites of Emily’s grandparents, her parents, and Emily, when she was younger and created a family tree with pictures rather than names. All our immediate family was on there, even Gimpy, and once again, there were several spots open for more babies in the future. Leave it to my brother to get all the women gushing about his wife’s gift. Never in my wildest dreams, growing up right after an annoying, know-it-all, did I ever imagine Jake as the ideal husband. Laney was on the nose about wanting a husband like my brother.

  Next, we moved to Uncle Henry’s home where usually we found the most hilarious gift of them all. Uncle Henry was the jokester in the family, and his kids assumed his gregarious personality. When we got there, we were not disappointed.

  “Oh, my gosh! Is that what I think it is?” Aunt Babs shouted. “That tub is my favorite place in the house. How am I to shower in there with that?!?”

  Aunt Babs’ bath curtain for her claw-foot bath tub was changed out to a clear curtain with Uncle Henry’s naked image silkscreened on it. This image ran from the top of the shower curtain along the entire length of it and it was disgustingly hilarious. Praise God that he was holding a hanky just large enough to cover the parts that would’ve grossed us all out from here till the end of time!

  “Who the hell came up with this idea? It’s hysterical!” Donovan declared. “I don’t know that I needed this visual of the Chief right after a meal, but it’s a brilliant idea.”

  “You haven’t seen brilliant, till you see the inside of the curtain.” Doug opened the curtain and called out, “And now...for the pièce de résistance...the backside!”

  When he proclaimed the backside, he wasn’t kidding. The inside of the shower curtain had the s
ame picture but of Uncle Henry’s hairy backside. And this time, there was NO hanky covering the pertinent part. When it didn’t gross us all out, we were dying—almost literally—of laughter. Aunt Babs would see her hubby’s backside every time she stepped in her claw-foot bath.

  “I will never, ever use that bath tub, ever again!” Aunt Babs said while flecking off the tears of laughter. “Who came up with this idea?”

  “It was both our ideas, but Laney came up with the naked rear end idea.”

  “I declare Henry’s ass the winning gift,” Uncle Dave said, even before we went to the other three homes. Everyone agreed with his declaration.

  “That was an ingenious idea, little girl. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “Why thank you, Mr. Taylor. There’s a lot about me you’ll find surprising, if you care to notice.” Laney beamed.