by S. Ann Cole
“Would like that.” He leaned close and bumped his forehead to mine. “Very much.”
We breathed each other’s air, brushed noses, swallowed each other’s sighs, but didn’t kiss.
An eon passed before he asked, “Can I rest my head in your lap?”
The request seemed odd and kind of random, but I nodded and shifted across to the other end of the chaise, allowing him enough space to twist and lay on his side, resting his head in my lap.
My fingers automatically went to his hair, smoothing down the baby hairs curling over his forehead.
We stayed like that, in comfortable silence, for a time and half a time. Until he broke it. “Dad did this a lot when Mom was alive. Think it calmed him. He’d call Mom away from whatever she was doing, and somehow she’d just know what he wanted, ‘cause without a word she would just sit down on the living room couch and wait for him to lay his head in her lap. Would sit like that for forever, neither saying a thing. Sometimes he fell asleep. Sometimes she asked me to go fetch one of her Mills Boon books.
“Used to wonder—when I was much younger—what it felt like for him. You know, what was he feeling lying there like that? What did it do for him? Told myself that when I got older, I’d find a wife as beautiful as Mom, and I’d lay my head in her lap just like Dad did. And then I would know what he felt, what it did for him.”
Listening to his stories about Mick and Aline always made me choke up. I wish I’d known her. I wish I’d known them both when they were young and in love. I prayed and hoped I would be able to make Xavier even half as happy as Aline made Mick. “I know I’m not your wife,” I rasped out, “but…is the feeling anything like you imagined?”
One beat. Two beats. Three beats. Four. “It was the evening after we fought at the Rappers vs Rockers event at the gymnasium.”
Thrown for a loop from his totally disjointed response, I mumbled, “Huh?”
“First time I realized I’m in love with you,” he explained.
I almost forgot to breathe.
I remembered that evening. He’d acted like a possessive jerkface because I sat in Jake’s lap, and when he didn’t get his way he’d acted like an even jerkier jerk by avoiding me.
“Kinda surprised no one told you this, but after I got over my shit and came looking for you and found out you left, I got so mad I upturned the Gatorade table. Had thought that was it. Thought you were done with me.
“That’s when I started asking myself why I’d acted the way I did. Never been stupidly jealous over a chick before. Never been jealous over a chick period. I mean, it was Jake. Jake, for shit’s sake. I embarrassed you in front of everyone. Couldn’t think straight after that. Couldn’t breathe knowing you were no longer in the room.” Pausing, he rubbed his palm over my left knee. “When I got in that night, found you in my bed...touched you, felt you, and realized you hadn’t left me…knew it then as well as I know it now: You’re her. The woman whose lap I would lay my head in.”
I didn’t know what my heart was doing. It was doing something, but beating wasn’t it. I loved this man so much, so differently, so madly, that it made me stronger instead of weaker. Unbreakable instead of vulnerable.
The love I had with Davian made me weak, foolish, and dependent. But after experiencing Xavier, I was convinced that that was the wrong kind of love.
Love was supposed to empower you, give you strength, give you confidence, give you will, make you excited for the future, make you want to love everyone around you, make you want to be better, make you see clearer. That’s what I had with Xavier; the right kind of love.
“You saw everything that was in the chest?” his voice broke through my reveries. The whole time his eyes had been closed, as I smoothed my fingers back in his hair.
“Mhhmhm.”
“Everything?”
I stilled at his tone. The ring. He wanted to know if I saw the ring. “Yes.”
“It was already yours.”
My voice was a wisp when I asked, “What?”
“Remember out in the garden when I gave you the ‘choose me’ ring?”
I thought I replied yeah, but realized after a few seconds that nothing came out and tried again, “Yeah.”
“Well, wasn’t really a ‘choose me’ ring. Made that up. Was more of a ‘just in case’ ring.” He opened his eyes and flipped over so he was facing me instead of away from me. “Had Mom’s ring in my pocket, too. Was gonna ask you to choose me right there and then. Say yes. But, just in case the thought scared you, freaked you out, I had the other ring.”
Oh my God. Oh my God. He really was going to propose that day? “I freaked out,” I whispered hoarsely.
His smile was forlorn. “So I gave you the ‘just in case’ ring.”
What an idiot I’d been. Chasing after a prince when I already had a king. I’d already won and didn’t even realize it, playing a game for a prize that already had my name on it.
“Xavi…” What did I say? I’ve never regretted anything at all that I’d ever done with Davian while with Xavier until now. I wished I could take it all back. All the lies, the cheating, the betrayal. If only I knew then what I knew now. That the one was Xavier and not Davian, I would’ve never wasted so much time chasing the wind.
No, there was nothing to say. I’d said enough. And they had all been lies. It was his time to speak. His time to bring light and goodness into this relationship. Because all I ever contributed was pain and heartache and darkness.
Curling one arm around my waist, he told my stomach, “Still yours. Whenever you’re ready for it. Yours.” Then his shoulders shook some with a silent chuckle. “Just never thought I’d be the one signing a pre-nup.”
I yanked on his ear. “Oh, shut up.”
“Pull my ear again and I’ll fart.”
“Ew,” I scorned, making a face, and automatically pulled on his ear again.
He farted.
“Ewwwwwww!” I scrunched my face up and punched him on his shoulder. “We aren’t married yet and already you’re farting on me? Not looking forward to the future anymore.”
Unrepentant, he just grinned. “Chino, you fart in your sleep.”
Embarrassment burned my cheeks. “I do not!”
He turned his face up to me. “Yeah, babe, you do. A lot.”
“No—I don’t—I didn’t—I-I,” I stuttered, my mortification such a palpable thing I could kick it like a ball. “I do not!”
His amusement at my misery was uncontained. “Careful, you’ll wake Jacob, pretty sleep-farter. Your lap is mine tonight.”
I smiled down at him, tracing the shell of his ear, feeling happier than I’d ever been. “Tell me about our life on the plantation. What it will be like. How many kids we’ll have.”
As if loving the sound of this, he closed his eyes, a contented sigh flowing from him. Then he tightened his arms around me and showed me. With soft, whispered, blissful words, he showed me what our future was going to be.
He talked until he yawned and yawned some more. But I wasn’t sleepy, I was pumped up, his love mixed with a heady adrenaline coursing through my veins, ready to start our future.
Right now. As ludicrous as that sounded.
He talked…
He yawned…
He fell asleep…
But I dreamed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. Ann Cole is a passionate writer and reader, and a lover of anything that distracts her from the real world. Reader first and second a writer, S. Ann Cole is an exaggerator, a laugher, sometimes overly chatty, sometimes overly shy. She’s afraid of cats, dogs, snakes—heck, she’s only tolerable to gold fishes in a tank. Because if they do jump out and try to attack her, the suckers will surely die…
She hates chocolate, schmaltz and arrogance.
She loves carbs, Chris Brown and humility.
She lives nowhere and everywhere.
Jokey people are her favorite people, as laughter is the way to her heart.
Never mind
her foul-mouth (she’s working hard on changing that!), she loves GOD. Fiercely. And believes prayer is the essence of all good, great, wonderful and miraculous things, and the most powerful privilege given unto man.
Ann hopes that one day, the right day, when it’s her time (because nothing happens before its time), her hard work will be noticed and appreciated, and she’ll become a “NYT Bestselling Author”…
Uh-uh. Yeah. That’s what she said.
When Ann’s not abusing her computer keyboard, you can find her nosing a novel, watching anything on television that makes her laugh until she breaks into hiccups (loves Disney TBS!) studying the Bible, or guzzling booze.
Do Not Hesitate to Contact Me!
Email me: [email protected]
Or visit my website: www.AnnCole.net
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ONE LOVE
ONE HEART
ONE BLOOD