Keeping Seven

by T. A Richards Neville

  He’d discarded his tuxedo jacket hours ago, along with the matching vest and bowtie. The dress pants he wore appeared a rich navy on first inspection, but further analysis revealed the dark, subtle tone of peacock blue threading the material. Against Julian’s indigo eyes and olive skin tone, I couldn’t have picked out a better tux if I’d been armed with an entourage of men’s Italian designers. He took my breath away with every look he gave me. I was still waiting for the day I’d get it back.

  Shifting Bear from football-carrier position, Julian boosted him upright to hold in one arm, Bear’s arms wrapping around his neck, his baby teeth peeking out to grin at me. Julian and a toddler was a tad too much for my ovaries, and whether it was him with my baby brother, or the champagne and cocktails I’d sipped my way through, my skin flushed all the way up to my face, the off-the-shoulder, long, lace sleeves of my wedding dress suddenly stifling me.

  Bear’s grubby hands had been all over Julian for most of the reception, and I was amazed at how white his shirt had remained. Bear’s mini tux was a lost cause, and we’d stripped him to what he was most comfortable in: his shirt, linen shorts, and a pair of socks. Him and Elena had made full recoveries after the hit and run left them in the hospital, and then Elena with crutches and needing physiotherapy, and my dad had stayed true to his word, never leaving Boston unless Elena and Bear were with him. I’d had grievances with my dad surrounding my upbringing, unjustly judging him at times and what had gone by the wayside in his past. But watching him with his son and his wife was like watching a new and improved man. He was doing everything right, and both our lives had fallen neatly into place.

  “Let me take him,” Elena’s voice carried from behind. “You must be exhausted,” she said to Julian. “He’s been joined to your hip all day, and this is your wedding. This day won’t come again.”

  Julian handed over Bear, Bear’s toothy smile collapsing as he tried to cling on but ultimately losing the battle to his mother. Elena smothered him in kisses, Bear’s dried-up smile swelling and bursting into big bubbles of tears as he cried for Julian.

  “Oh, I was just kidding around, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Elena bounced a worried look between me and Julian, cringing at Bear’s wide-open mouth at her ear belting out a soprano of heartbreak only a three-year old could understand.

  “He’s probably tired,” I said, stepping forward to brush a lock of hair from his sweaty forehead and kiss his plump cheek, right over his streaming, salty tears. “We’re coming back soon. Five minutes. I promise.”

  “Bear, if you stop crying, you would have heard that your sister and Julian won’t be long. So I say me and you go raid the ice cream bar. Does that sound…” Elena carried Bear back to the reception, his bawling reduced to drawn-out sobs as he considered with a serious frown and a trembling chin what he was being swapped out for.

  “Apparently ice cream comes before you,” I said to Julian.

  “For now.” He gave me a crooked smile. “I’ll win him back.”

  We were interrupted twice more, and I’d danced with Nicky Reid, wide receiver for the New York giants, and settled a brewing argument concerning philandering jocks between Beau and Rebecca.

  Tate Ross had been the final, determining straw for Julian’s stepsister and she hated all men now, except for when she was on good terms with Julian. I felt for her, I really did. It was tough out there. But she’d been seated with Beau during the wedding breakfast and reception, and there was still time for him to change her spoiled outlook on men. I hoped he could do it, because she didn’t deserve the shit she’d been wading through. Beau was such a great, down-to-earth guy, and if Rebecca could close her belligerent mouth for more than five minutes, well… I’d let Beau handle the rest. They were chalk and cheese, but so were me and Julian. And I wouldn’t have swapped my cheese for anyone else in the world.

  Speaking of Julian, today was our wedding day, yet we’d spent most of it with old friends and new ones. Not that I wasn’t grateful to have them here. I was. Incredibly grateful. But the night was blowing by so fast, and soon, it would be over. Our honeymoon had also been put on hold, so that I could help Rebecca move into my house in Venice. She’d enrolled at USC, where Julian was paying her tuition fees, and I couldn’t be happier that my house, after nearly a year of standing empty, remained in my name and hadn’t been bought by some stranger I didn’t know from Adam.

  Wandering through the twelfth-century loggia, the clip of my jeweled heels on the ancient floor echoing back to me, I found Julian at the end of the worn-stone walkway. Sitting on the ledge in the center of the triple arch, looking like all my fantasies manifested into impeccable, physical form.

  Music drifted through the dimly lit loggia, but the party didn’t touch us here. We’d slipped into our own space and time, a few precious moments carved out from the chaos that belonged only to us. Light and shadow stretched beyond the open arches, and I walked slowly over to Julian, my dress sweeping the floor behind me as he quietly waited for me.

  I stood in front of him. He pulled an A5 manilla envelope from the back pocket of his dress pants, handing it to me. “Open it,” he said.

  I looked at him and then the envelope. In slanted calligraphy was Julian’s name and address, and I ripped into the seal with my fingernail and unfolded the piece of floral decorated paper inside. The ivory-stained stationery looked like it was from a letter set nobody really used anymore, and the penmanship was beautiful. Sleek, curving lines of blue ink.

  I narrowed my eyes. The one-page letter had been written in perfect Spanish.

  To our Granddaughter,

  I will start by apologizing for not being there on your very special day. If we had been given the opportunity to meet you sooner, I’m sure the circumstances would be very different, and your abuelo and I would be blessed to watch you walk down the aisle and into the first day of the rest of your life. My heart breaks that for almost twenty-four years we have lived without you. Our darling Angel, I cannot express how eager we are to meet you and your wonderful new husband, Julian. I hold onto the promise that in two weeks we can begin to make up for the lost time and build beautiful, new memories together.

  Until then my sweet girl.

  All my love,

  your abuela x

  Dampness rimmed my eyes as realization for what I was holding crawled over my skin and carved its way into my heart. “How…” I was too shook to form a whole, solid sentence. My hands trembled around the paper.

  “In an ideal world, I would have had your mom here. But the world’s far from ideal, so your fraternal grandparents were the best I could do. I asked your dad about them. He knew your mom had parents, and that was as far as his knowledge on her ancestry extended. He did tell me where she was born, though, and I pounded the history trail. Angela helped.”

  Tears weaved from confusion and disbelief slid soundlessly down my cheeks. “When did you do this?” I hadn’t cried all day, not even during the vows.

  “I reached out months ago, hit a few wrong addresses, and then I got this in the mail two days ago. It only left me one day to book the honeymoon, so it’s just as well money wasn’t an issue.”

  “Honeymoon?” My speech had been reduced to that of a baby chimp.

  “Arturo and Rosa Rivera live in Merida, Mexico. Been there their whole life. Your mom didn’t tell you anything about them?”

  “Just that they disowned her when she was a teenager, and they hadn’t spoken since.”

  “Think she may have been lying, Angel.”

  “Yeah, she’s good at that.” I glanced down at the paper that had been hand-written to me from a grandmother I’d known nothing about. A link to a family that belonged to me. I could have cousins, uncles, aunties. The odd part of me that never quite fit in with my surroundings finally had somewhere it could connect to. I loved my dad, brother, and stepmom, but there had always been more in me that I could never find ways to fill. It wasn’t a place or a person. It was a deep-runni
ng emotion. A feeling—a belonging. A labored breath no amount of oxygen could satisfy. The missing piece of me was in Merida, and I was finally going to get it back.

  “I’m helping Rebecca settle into the house. I said I would show her around Los Angeles.” The obligation sprouted from nowhere, but I couldn’t flake on her.

  Julian kept the solutions rolling. “Hayden’s taking care of it, and Susan and Tabatha are flying in with her. Angel, the only thing you have to do is get on the plane with me tomorrow and meet your grandparents.”

  “How long are we staying?” A wobbly smile brightened my tears. I could have been floating, I felt so light on my feet.

  “Three weeks.”

  “Wow.” I sucked in air, letting the news sink in. “Three weeks.”

  The song playing faded out, the DJ mixing in the beat for Snakeships’ “All My Friends.” Tinashe’s voice sent me rushing back to the first night my mind had really started to change about my now husband. The night my breaking point had become a turning point, and Julian had helped me to see that maybe I was worth more, deserved more, than what my then, on-off boyfriend had been putting me through.

  Julian’s easy smile grew, that sleepy, sexy look in his eyes as he stepped down from the ledge, offering me his hand. “Dance with me?”

  Placing my hand in his, he drew me in, his other hand resting at the small of my back. Just like back then, on that cold night on the lake, under a full, creamy moon, I slow-danced with Julian, my body pressed to his. I put my head on his chest, over the cadence of his beating heart, and I knew I’d stay in his arms forever. Nowhere else would I be as safe and loved as I was here. No other person could make my heart flutter and my knees turn weak.

  I had everything to look forward to. And it was all because of him. We had our lives to live and goals to accomplish, and the next set of mine waited for me here in Miami, where Taj had already moved in with us. Every day away from Julian had been harder than the last, and the trials were done and dusted. Just like he’d said, there were ice rinks in Florida, and I’d found one to set up my figure skating coaching seamlessly. The small number of friendships I cherished, including the one I’d built with Beau, had transcended the distance I’d put in the way of us and nothing had really changed.

  “Do you regret what we did?” Julian asked over the music. The same question he’d asked me all those years ago.

  “Not a single minute of it.” I lifted my head from his chest to look into his eyes. My heart twisted, too full and overflowing. “I’m in love with you, Julian. In love with the way you make me feel and how hard you make me hope. Sometimes it feels so strong it could crush me.”

  Our feet stopped moving to the song and Julian pulled me into him, hands travelling over my waist to my ribs, his lips slanting over mine and his kiss illuminating my very soul. He wound his hand through my hair, reducing me to putty in his hands. My body a pliable toy for him to play with whichever way he pleased. The moment heated up and then set ablaze, Julian roughly gripping the back of my neck as he explored my mouth with his tongue, every kiss we shared different and more exciting.

  Losing grasp of his careful control, the pressure of Julian’s lips on mine decreased as he pulled back, his head dropping with a reverberating growl as he buried into my neck, nipping my skin with his teeth and sending warm, tingly shivers shooting to my core.

  His head came up slowly, the thick, tantalizing ridge of his erection pushing into my dress. But my garter was sewn out of pieces of satin fabric from my late Grandma Nellie’s wedding dress and getting aroused now would be inappropriate. Hard to ignore, but still inappropriate.

  Julian’s gaze burned with the same intense heat searing between my thighs. “I’ll take you back to the reception now, because this is your party, and there’s people out there who want to see you. But then you’re all mine, Angel. I’ve got three weeks of being cock-blocked by your grandparents after tonight, so I’m gonna get my fill of you while I still can. Anything you want to say to that?”

  I had plenty to say to that. “Can I sleep on the plane at least?”

  Julian’s arm slipped around my waist and we headed toward the opening at the end of the loggia. “If I do my job right, you’ll be falling asleep at the airport from exhaustion.”

  “Wait.” I stopped him with a hand on his chest, so thrown off course by the letter he’d given me I’d almost forgotten I had my own news. “I have to tell you something.”

  A healthy measure of skepticism shrouded his eyes, and they narrowed in the corners as he slid his hands into his pockets, his broad shoulders straightening. With a tingly tremor born from excitement and stepping into the unknown, I put my hand on Julian’s wrist, guiding his hand from his pocket and placing it over my stomach, slightly swollen under the white lace, just enough progesterone imbalance that only I noticed the discreet, early change in my body.

  “I’m pregnant, Julian.”

  Time skidded to a stop and rolled by in reverse, the emotions crossing Julian’s face, in his critical blue gaze as it lowered to his hand on my stomach, eventually evening into a stern look as he leveled his eyes with mine and said, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m two weeks late. I thought at first maybe it was stress—pre-wedding jitters. I took a test last night and another one this morning. We’re having a baby.”

  “Fuck.” Julian pulled his other hand from his pocket, his thumbs stroking the front of my dress as he framed my belly. “You’re pregnant. You’re really pregnant?”

  I nodded, covering his hands with mine. “I really am.”

  I gave him some time for my announcement to sink in, his gentle touches on my belly having strange effects on my libido. Could be a pregnancy symptom, but I was sure it was more to do with Julian. Powerful and domineering one minute, soft and careful the next. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of father he would be to our child.

  “I’ll never be done falling in love with you. There’s no end, Angel. Just us.” Julian drew me against him with a hand on my back, his other hand curving around the side of my neck as his thumb brushed my cheek. “We’re having a fucking baby. You’re having my baby. How did I get so damn lucky?”

  My back bowed as his body sheathed mine and he tilted my chin up with a hand on my jaw, parting my lips to dive in and claim me with his mouth, his voracious, predatory kiss tapering off to my throat, a shiver rippling up my spine and tightening my aching breasts. It looked like the reception would have to hold off for a few more minutes, because my sensitive, receptive body and my insatiable appetite for my husband absolutely could not.

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