by Kade, Teagan
He rolls his eyes. “We’re actually living out a real-life rom com, aren’t we?”
“At least we’re not characters in some cut-price romance novel.”
He laughs, head downcast between us before his eyes lift to find mine. “Hey, if it’s Fifty Shades it wouldn’t be so bad?”
I place a pensive finger to my head. “Hmm, I don’t recall a red room on Roxanne.”
He presses himself against me, his body hot. “Who needs a red room when you’ve got a whole damn island?”
I kiss him, take the initiative and press my lips to his, enjoying the way we move and grind there, the urgency growing, my skin flushing with need.
I reach for his zipper, just about to pull it down when two people from the party pass by. They stop. “Found them!”
Bobby turns around sighing. “Billy Ray, you bitch. You were a cock-blocker in high school and it doesn’t look like anything’s changed?”
“Block your cock?” this Billy Ray laughs, holding his girlfriend around the shoulders. “You’d need a god-damn bus for that.”
They go off laughing, Bobby returning his attention to me. “As much as I would like to be inside you right now, perhaps we should get back to the party.”
I glance left to where the door to the storage room is slightly ajar. “Or…”
He pulls me from the wall, directing me towards it with a playful slap on the ass. “Yes, ma’am.”
EPILOGUE
FIVE YEARS LATER
GISELE
“How the hell are you supposed to feed these things?”
I’m enjoying watching Bobby trying to feed our one-year-old Maisie. She’s flapping her arms around like one of those car dealership air dancers, her mouth caught in the cheekiest little grin you’ve ever seen.
Wonder where she gets that from, I wonder.
And Bobby’s struggling. Boy, is he struggling. The spoon’s going left, it’s going right, but Maisie’s dodging and weaving like a seasoned pro.
I lean back in the kitchen chair, observing from the other side of the table. “I thought quarterbacks were supposed to have lightning fast reflexes?”
He gives me a look as if to say ‘Why don’t you try it then?’
I slide my hands over my growing, six-months-in belly. “So sorry, but we need our rest. You know how it is being pregnant and all.” I pause, holding a finger up. “Oh, wait. You’d have no damn idea,” I smile.
He lowers the spoon, shaking his head at Maisie who continues to giggle and blow raspberries. “At least you’re cute.”
She is, a peachy slice of perfection that’s the best of us. She has Bobby’s eyes and most certainly his energy, but I see my softer features in her. After Bobby, I didn’t think it was possible to love something, someone so much, but I was wrong. Our whole world revolves around her, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Until Number Two comes along ,that is.
We still don’t know the sex. The little guy, or girl, refuses to give us a sneak peek, always shielding themself away when it comes around to ultrasound time. A child of the infamous Bobby Silver being modest? I can’t picture it.
Dinner complete, I let Bobby wrap it up and tuck Maisie down for her sleep. He always sings Yesterday by the Beetles to her. He’s no John Lennon, but there’s a sincerity to it that always squeezes my heart if I press my ear to the door. He’s smitten ten times over, even if she does test his patience from time to time. Again, all Bobby.
I step back as he softly closes the door.
He slumps against the wall. “This is hard work. How the hell do you do this all day?”
I come forward and snake my arms around his waist, get as close as I can with this giant balloon between us. “I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve.”
He senses my mood, smiling. “Do you now?”
I let one hand come around to the growing lump between his legs that never fails to jump to action at my touch. “I suppose good boys should be rewarded.”
“You’re saying my bad boy days are over?”
I laugh at that. “Baby, you’re shirt’s covered in drool, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and the fridge is full of formula and breast milk, not beer, which means, yeah, they kind of are.”
He holds my face in two hands. “Good thing I got the pick of the crop then.”
“I’m not a head of corn, you know.”
“More like a pumpkin?” he jokes.
I slap him in the chest. “Easy now or you won’t get any playtime, mister.”
He pouts and I swear to god it’s the exact same expression I’ve seen Maisie pulling lately when she doesn’t get her way. “Please. Pretty, pretty please,” he says, batting his unnaturally long eyelashes.”
I roll my eyes and lumber off towards the bathroom. “Oh, fine, but you’re doing the work.”
He comes up behind me, shuffling me along. “Happy to, ma’am.”
It’s been a funny five years since we met.
The Knowles thing put a serious dent in my life, but true to his word Bobby was there through the endless questioning, the trial and eventual, as predicted, sweeping under the rug. It seems powerful people really don’t want their dirty laundry being aired in the open. One day it all simply vanished.
Knowles got what was coming to him, of course. I saw to that at least. All his power and might weren’t enough to get him off the hook, even if he only had to serve a year, and then at some fancy resort-slash-prison Jordan Belfort would be proud of.
He never got what he wanted. The very same week following the shootout I used my contacts to help Bobby sell off the land, but not to developers or the ludicrously wealthy, but back to the community at a bargain price, even working with the state to ensure a large swath would become national park never to be forested or used for commercial gain. That was a big win… for us both.
We probably made five percent of what we would have selling the land to the highest bidder, but that five percent was still enough to set us up for life. I returned to the lawyer life for a while, setting up a small, pro-bono practice in town. Until I got pregnant, that is, though I have every intention of returning, even expanding out across the state. Bobby’s behind it. He’s always pushing me, that rare kind of coach-cum-husband every woman dreams of, someone who brings out the best in her.
For a while after we tied up the land sell-off he seemed lost, unsure what to do with his time. There was no need to work, at least not financially, so I suggested he start volunteering, in addition to his weekly soup kitchen run. It began with coaching the local high school football team. Naturally, they were happy to have a big former star like Bobby on board.
That went so well he started doing reading groups with the kindergarten kids on Monday mornings, helping out at the shelter the next town over on Tuesdays, Meals on Wheels Wednesdays… and so on and so on until he was busier than I was getting about. He still attends the AA meetings, has kind of taken them over. I think people appreciate that.
All of this gave him the purpose he needed, but also the redemption from a community he so long considered was against him. I see him drift off sometimes, but time has healed a lot of those old scars, especially being able to see Danny. He even managed to bring him up here for a couple of weeks last summer, had his whole room and equipment trucked down.
I know Bobby was sad to see Roxanne go, but the water damage was too severe. We found a nice plot of land on the edge on town instead right by the river. We built a modest home there—enough space to expand but no Taj Mahal. We didn’t see the need.
I’d dreamed of a mansion growing up, a wedding in a cathedral with a thousand guests and the most expensive wedding cake the world had even seen ten tiers tall. But our wedding was small and private, less than thirty people. One of Bobby’s Meals on Wheels clients made the cake, nine tiers short of ten but still beautiful.
Standing there at the altar, or riverbank, I looked around and realized I didn’t need any of that. I had everything I ne
eded in Bobby and this town, as backward as I once thought it was. It was a liberating feeling. I didn’t even wear my infamous heels.
And then there was the honeymoon—on a very different kind of boat. There were three showers on this one, all of which worked perfectly. The Greek Isles, the sun… Bobby was a fish out of water in the very best way.
Bobby slides into the bed beside me, pulling the covers over himself and shifting forward to spoon me from behind.
I smile to myself. “Did she go down okay?”
“Lights out in ten seconds flat, just like her momma.”
I turn, with a fairly large degree of effort, rolling until we’re face to face, a belly between us. “Maybe Momma doesn’t want to sleep tonight.”
And I know with the smile that follows he’s taking his cue. “Is that so?”
His hand has begun to slide a little lower, fingers crawling south. “What would Momma like to help her… relax?”
A pain-free birth where the baby slips out like a bar of soap, I think, forcing myself back into the moment. “How about I let Daddy decide tonight?”
He laughs, his hand pausing. “A little weird, but sure.”
His fingers find my sex, my legs spreading to accommodate them. His middle finger slides easily into my wetness, probing, testing my desire.
“Fuck me,” he says, genuinely surprised, “it’s like a hot pool down here.”
A spread my legs a little wider. “Why don’t you jump in?”
He takes a thigh underhand, positioning himself. I don’t know how he gets so hard so fast, how the infamous Long Schlong Silver manages to fill that thing without losing consciousness.
He leaves himself sitting there at my entrance waiting, teasing with the slightest thrusts forward.
I’m pregnant, so freaking horny and hormonal I’m about to take action when he finally slides forward and fills me.
I sigh with relief.
That first time I saw it, I never thought I’d be able to take him, but somehow we work perfectly together. We always have.
He holds me as we make love. It’s not the lustful thrash-a-thon we spent on the front of a speedboat one lonely night. It’s not the kind of sex where you start to question whether you’ll make it out alive, but it’s beautiful. It’s tender and sweet and fulfilling in a way I didn’t think was possible.
Because it’s more than the sex. It’s two people coming together and trusting each other completely, two people who have built something genuine and wholesome, even if there was a whole field of hurdles in the way.
I smile openly, grabbing the sheets as my first orgasm builds.
“I love you,” he whispers, lips against the sensitive skin of my neck.
I don’t need to reply because he knows. Every damn day I tell him without words what he means to me, in my actions, in Maisie’s unconditional love.
I came to the Ozarks to buy a houseboat, but what I have ended up with is so much more.
Yes, the mighty Long Schlong Silver is all mine.
Now.
Tonight.
Forever.
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About Teagan Kade:
Teagan Kade thinks talking about yourself in the third person is silly, just like her collection of snow globes and rare manga. When she’s not being silly, she’s hanging out with her own Brock and two children in the south of Australia, dreaming of new characters and torturous ways they can get themselves into trouble. Teagan loves hearing from her readers, all of whom are as dear to her heart as salted caramel cookies. Shoot her an email at: [email protected]. She doesn’t bite.
www.teagankade.com