by Megan Walker
That soft kiss quickly turns deeper, more urgent. My hands move up into his hair, and his skim the back of my satin nightie, and then along my thigh. I’d said just a couple days ago that probably it would be good to take a bit of a break from sex, just to reset. Not that our sex life has been bad—god, even at its most rote, sex with him is still pretty freaking incredible—but to take away the burdens put on it by ovulation schedules and “optimal positions” and fear of another negative test.
But there’s none of that right now.
There’s just us and this desperate need in our movements—in the way he presses me to him as his lips trail down my neck and along my collarbone, in the way I dig my fingers into his back when he reaches my breast, his tongue teasing against my nipple and sending this intense ripple of sensation through my whole body. This desperate need is in our kisses, and the stroking of our hands—his finding their way up my nightie, mine dipping down into his boxers—and our gasps in response. And there’s a sense of longing for something that maybe we’ve both been afraid we’d lost, or would lose.
I know now that we haven’t. That we won’t. We’re here, together, and this is about just the two of us, and how much we love each other, even when we mess up in showing it sometimes. And it’s about how much we both need to feel that, after yesterday.
After the last year or so, even.
He pulls my pixel-heart nightie over my head, to be tossed to the side of the bed, and soon his boxers join the pile. We’re lying side by side again, his fingers doing things between my legs that are making me see stars behind my eyes, making me whisper his name like a prayer. And then I’m kissing down his toned chest, savoring the heat of his skin against my lips, the feel of him hard in my hand as I run my fingers over him in the way I know he likes best. He moans, and I start to work my mouth down lower, to take over from my hands, but he guides my face back up to his, so his eyes are locked with mine.
“So, so much,” he murmurs, and through all the heat coursing through me, all that need, my heart melts to see how he means that. To feel how he means it. I kiss him deeply, desperately, and wrap my leg around his waist, still lying on my side facing him, and guide him into me.
We both shiver at the intensity, and then we’re moving together, slowly at first, but soon, like that first kiss: faster, deeper. And when the heat becomes unbearable, I roll onto my back so he’s on top of me, so I can wrap both legs around him, and it builds more and more, while I arch under him, my nerves sparking like live wires.
“So, so much,” I gasp back, the last solid words I can form before that brilliant, delicious blaze peaks, seizing me entirely, and I’m crying out, just as he does the same, his body shuddering against me.
After, we lie there breathing hard, our skin hot and damp with sweat, and I can feel his heart slamming against his chest, like a twin to mine. We hold each other, and I wonder if maybe we’re holding each other together.
We should have been doing a better job of that for a long time now.
Eleven
Felix
Today when I walk into his dressing room, Axel is already holding the cello, practicing some of the finger positions I’ve taught him over the past couple days, his mom nowhere to be seen. Considering our previous sessions have all required at least twenty minutes of dealing with Axel complaining about the fact that the couch he’s sitting on isn’t real leather or Jean complaining about the overall decor (“They expect him to relax in here? This is supposed to be the dressing room of a star, not the breakroom at Costco!”), and then sometimes another twenty minutes of that damn butterfly song to calm them both down, I’m taking this as good sign.
“You’re late,” Axel says, not looking up from the strings of the cello.
“Yeah, well, not all of us get private shuttles from the studio parking lot.”
“You should demand one,” he says, totally serious. “Tell them you’re working with me.”
“Working with” may be a stretch, given how little we’ve accomplished. But I have managed to teach him the parts of the cello, the positions he’s working on now, and most importantly, how a real cellist doesn’t just toss his instrument when he’s done like it’s a pair of dirty socks.
Good thing the studio provided him his own cello to work with, because this kid isn’t touching June.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. It’s good exercise.” I sit down on the couch a couple feet away and examine his fingers. “Not bad, but curve this one more—flatten out too much and you’d be pressing the D string too.”
He obliges, without so much as a withering glare. “Should I practice the bowing with it?”
“Sure, let’s try it.”
He does, and it sounds predictably screechy, but I’m not concerned about that. Axel doesn’t have to learn how to play the cello—they’ve got a body double for any really tight shots of him playing, a kid who really can play. Axel just needs to get comfortable enough with it that he looks like he knows what he’s doing.
“Good, but sit up straighter. Shoulders back, remember?” As often as I’ve said this over the last couple days, I’m starting to sound like an old lady at finishing school. Next thing you know, I’ll start making him walk around with a stack of books on his head.
Maybe that would help.
He makes a face at this, but rolls his shoulders back and tries again. It helps that he’s sitting in an actual chair and not that ridiculous papasan one that finally got shoved into a corner. “Better?”
“Better.”
“I’ve got a music room scene today,” he says. “In an hour. So you’ll need to be on set to supervise.”
Ah, that’s the reason for the sudden burst of productivity. This is the first scene he’s shot that involves him playing. From what the director has told me, they’ve tried as much as possible to arrange the cello scenes to be filmed in an increasing order of difficulty, so Axel has time to get the hang of it.
“Yeah, of course,” I say. I already knew that was part of my job, and probably have that on a schedule somewhere that I haven’t really bothered to check. As far as I’m concerned, I show up when I’m supposed to, and I do my best to get Axel to actually work on the cello, and when they need me to supervise a scene, they’ll let me know. But there’s something about the way he said that . . . “Are you nervous about the scene?”
“No,” he says, too quickly and defensively. “I’m a star. I don’t get nervous about filming. That’s for noobs.”
“Okay.” I refrain from rolling my eyes, trying to remember to be the grownup here. This kid has few enough of those in his life. “But you’re new to playing the cello, right?”
“I’m not scared.” He narrows his bright blue eyes. “I’m a professional.”
“Yeah, well. I’m a professional cellist, and I still get nervous before I perform.” I lean back on the not-real-leather couch. “The nerves can be a good thing, though. It makes me want to work harder in practice to be ready.” I give a pointed look at his fingers on the cello, poised in perfect position. “Like you are today.”
His chin juts out defiantly, but I swear I catch a pleased expression on his face before he smothers it. I wonder how much genuine praise this kid gets, for things he has to work at, and not just ass-kissing from everyone around him for how much money he can make them.
We work for another half hour or so—actually working, with Axel making more progress today than the rest of the week combined—before he complains that his fingers hurt. Which, yeah. Cello blisters are a bitch when you start out.
“I need a massage before my scene,” he says, clearly done for now. Though at least he gently sets the cello back in his case, like I taught him. “Have Mom get my masseuse.”
Does the kid actually have a personal masseuse on staff? I shouldn’t be surprised. And another staff member to spoon-feed him his quinoa, no doubt. Get a
couple others fanning him with palm fronds, and he might as well be a Roman emperor.
“I don’t think a massage is going to do much for your blisters.” I fold my arms. “Also, I’d think you’d have figured out by now that I don’t take to being bossed around.”
“You’re a jerk,” Axel says, glowering impressively.
“I’m a dad. I don’t let my own kid boss me around, and I’m sure not going to let you. So yeah, maybe I am.” I shrug. “You’ve actually worked today, so I’m good with you taking a break before your scene. But if you want your entourage, you’ll have to get them yourself. Or figure out a nicer way to ask me to help.”
He crosses his own arms like he’s mirroring me and slouches back in the couch. Okay, so the silent treatment it is. Ty’s not above that on occasion, so it’s not like I have no experience there. I pull out my phone to occupy myself while I wait him out.
Another missed call from Dana. My sister can be relentless. I love her—often grudgingly—but talking with her takes a certain amount of emotional preparation, not to mention patience for being lectured on the finer points of the latest scientific study about crib bedding.
Between dealing with spoiled child stars at work and trying to navigate the tension at home, all on way too little sleep, I am low on both emotional preparation and patience. So I’m not going to deal with Dana today.
I do take the time to return a text with the bishop at our church regarding what day we want to schedule Rachel’s baby blessing. We don’t baptize babies in our church—baptism is usually done when a kid’s eight, unless they join the church later, like we did—but a baby blessing is a nice opportunity to get your baby in a fancy white outfit that they will hopefully not crap all over, and show them off. Also, I get to give her the blessing—it’s like a special prayer given on her behalf in front of the congregation—and I’m looking forward to that.
I wonder if I should invite my family. Gabby and Will are a given, of course. Gabby may have been surprised by us becoming members of the Mormon church, but because she’s Gabby, she was pretty supportive—after, of course, making sure I wasn’t planning on taking extra wives. (Um, no. Hasn’t been a thing in the church for over a hundred years, and even if it was, not interested.)
My parents were even more skeptical, but didn’t say much of anything about it at all. I guess they figure even joining some weird-ass church is preferable to being on heroin, and I’d already lost their tacit approval the minute I left Juilliard, so my newfound religion probably fell under the vast umbrella of “things we don’t talk about in our family.”
Dana, on the other hand, had no trouble talking about it—or in typical Dana fashion, sending me every anti-Mormon article she could find on the internet. She’s an even stauncher atheist than I was, and I think felt a little betrayed by my abandonment of our joint faith—which honestly, I don’t blame her for. Teenage Felix would have been horrified to see this in my future (assuming Teenage Felix wasn’t too distracted by the hotness of his future wife to notice).
But the truth is, even though I don’t think this church we belong to is perfect, I love being part of it, and feeling like I have a connection to a God who loves me despite the things I’ve done. I don’t necessarily believe it’s the answer for everyone, and it’s not like it solves all our problems—obviously, we’ve still got stuff to figure out. But it works for us.
I just wish sometimes my family could be happier for us.
I decide that I should probably invite Dana. Anti-religion sentiment aside, she’d appreciate the invitation, and might even show up. I’ll return her dozen missed calls and invite her.
But not today.
I look over at Axel, who is still glaring at the wall. Sitting in that too-still way of his, like all the usual fidgety kid energy is beneath him. Or has been trained out of him, more likely.
He sees me looking and turns his glare to me. When I don’t react, he looks down at the floor.
There’s a beat. And then:
“So you have a kid?” he asks.
“Yep. He’s ten, like you.”
“Really?” He eyes me carefully, like he’s trying to figure out the math of our ages. “What’s his name?”
“Ty.”
“Is he a cellist too?”
I shake my head. “No. His mom has taught him a little piano, but he’s not as much into music as we are.”
“So what does he do then?”
I pause. “He’s a kid. He goes to school. He plays video games. He plays with his friends.”
Axel swings his feet back and forth, the first movement I’ve seen from him since I failed to summon his masseuse. “So he wastes a lot of time.” There’s judgment in his voice, but also, a thread of wistfulness that breaks my heart a little.
What have they done to this kid?
“I don’t think of it that way,” I say. “I mean, yeah, he has a lot of free time that he uses for fun.” I pause. “What kind of stuff do you do for fun?”
Axel’s gaze hardens. “Being a star is fun. I make lots of money, you know.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I might have heard something about that a time or seven.”
He gives me a look like he’s trying to see if I’m mocking him, which I’m really not. “People have to do what I say,” he says. “And Mom says I can buy a car with all the money I have. Maybe ten cars!”
He could probably buy even more cars than that. “And are you just going to, what, look at them until you’re sixteen?”
“Mom says I can rent out a track to drive on and not even have to be sixteen. I can drive all I want, all by myself.”
All by himself. He says it like it’s a good thing, but it’s easy to see that this kid is lonely as hell. I haven’t seen him interact with any of the other kids on set—and there are a few, other actors that play his siblings and kids at school—and barely even with the adults, other than to issue demands at them.
I doubt the kid has even one real friend.
“You want to see a picture of my son?” I ask.
Axel blinks at me, taken aback. “Sure,” he says after a beat.
I open the pictures on my phone, and pull up one I took just last night, while Ty and I were working on his science project.
Axel studies the picture. “What’s he doing? And what’s that black lumpy thing on a plate?”
“We set a Twinkie on fire for a science project. You know, to see what would happen. Turns out they don’t really burn, but they do toast up like a marshmallow.”
Axel looks vaguely impressed.
“Tonight we’re going to drop Twinkies off our roof,” I continue. “And Ty will compare it to his control Twinkie—you know, one we didn’t do anything to.” I’m not sure Ty gets quite how hilarious I find it that he insists on a “control Twinkie” for each and every experiment we do.
“That doesn’t seem very sciency,” Axel says. But he definitely sounds envious.
“Well, science can be fun sometimes. You probably have a tutor for school, right?”
Axel nods.
“Well, maybe you can ask them to do an experiment like this sometime.” I pause. “And remember I said ‘ask,’ not ‘demand.’”
But Axel doesn’t seem to have heard that. He’s still staring at the picture of a grinning, happy kid his own age, like it’s something he’s never actually seen in real life and doesn’t quite know what to make of.
An idea occurs to me.
“Hey,” I say, before I can question how wise it is to get more involved with this kid than I need to be. “What would you think about meeting Ty sometime? Like if I brought him to set one day, and you guys could hang out a bit?”
Axel’s eyes widen for the briefest second before he schools his expression back to his typical air of “I’m too important to care” nonchalance. “If you want,” he says.
; But I saw that glimmer of regular-kid excitement in his eyes, and I think maybe getting to hang out even for just an afternoon with someone his own age, someone who doesn’t give a crap that he’s Axel Dane the movie star and could just think of him as another ten-year-old kid—I think that could be really good for him.
And maybe because I feel so helpless to make things better for Jenna, I just need to be able to help someone.
Twelve
Josh
I leave work early a few days later to make sure our loft area is clean enough to entertain Ty Mays in for a few hours. After Anna-Marie and I made up, I figured maybe Felix and Jenna could use some time to themselves to do the same, so I offered to watch him so they could have a date night. I don’t think it’ll be difficult to keep a ten-year-old happy in my loft, which is the new home of my Harry Potter train table, my bookshelves, Anna-Marie’s gaming systems, the overhead replicas of spaceships from Firefly and Serenity, and the brand new table Anna-Marie and I are working on featuring various Sunnydale locations, including the school library with opening hellmouth. I’ve been working on getting parts for that multi-headed demon for weeks, and am just waiting on one more plastic toy before I cut them up and mash them back together.
The high-ceilinged loft, spacious enough for our growing geek empire, was another reason we had to have this house. It’s easily our favorite room—though it might tie in Anna-Marie’s heart with our giant walk-in bedroom closet—and even if I’m going to be cleaning it, just being in there has a calming effect on me.
But when I get home, Ben is sitting on the suede couch in our front room—the room that we don’t use except when we’re entertaining—and eating an enormous slice of pizza. Wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else.
“Hey,” I say. “We don’t eat in there.” I don’t bother calling out the boxers. This, at least, isn’t unusual for Ben in his off-work time, though usually he manages to wear a t-shirt, too.
“I know,” Ben says, but he doesn’t get up.