But tell that to my body. My core quivers around his long staff, clenching it tight as the climax washes over me.
It doesn’t take Stone long to follow me right over the cliff’s edge.
“Need you…need you…need you…” he whispers urgently into my ear. His thrusts become faster, then sloppy. Then he groans long and hard before releasing with a full body shudder.
“Sorry…” he mumbles as he comes down. “Sometimes it’s hard without pills. It’s like I don’t know how to process things.”
Is this about his job, I wonder. The work he’s been doing for the Ferraro family? This time without the numbing benefits of pills.
I worry, but I don’t say anything, just press my forehead into his. “It’s okay,” I whisper, pressing soft kisses into his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Dragging him out of cotton, despite myself.
Chapter Thirty
We sneak back upstairs, shower, change clothes, and come back down the stairs separately.
That totally works. My family notices my outfit change, but they all remain circumspect about it and don’t bring it up.
Psyche! If you believed that, you’re most likely not from a large Dominican family.
“Nice dress. Did your man pick that out for you?” my cousin Yara asks, elbowing me in the ribs. Then she glares at her soldier husband who is home on leave this weekend. “Why you never make me change outfits in the middle of the day no more, Lucas?”
“I’ll give you three reasons,” Lucas answers, pointing at each of their kids. They’re all currently in a clear section of the living room with Garnet, arguing passionately over who should get to teach the baby how to walk.
“Mai, you’re going to have to stop inviting us over on Sundays,” Osner calls into the kitchen, after he vacates the recliner to let Stone sit down in his usual Sunday dinner. “Obviously our boy Stone’s got other things he wants to be doing in the afternoon.”
“Other things like what?” Juan, one of Osner’s sons, asks. Then he looks around confused when most of her family bursts out laughing.
“He’s trying to make sure you get another boy cousin to play here with soon,” his father answers, cackling at his own joke.
“Okay, I’m going to go help Tia Mari in the kitchen,” I inform the room, my whole face burning.
“You do that,” Heaven advises. “Stay in here too long and Stone might decide he don’t like that dress.”
“I like your dress, Tia Naima!” Juan calls after me.
Gales of laughter follow my retreat into the kitchen.
Stone doesn’t make me change again, but I can feel his hungry gaze on me all through dinner.
And when the rum and music comes out, instead of staying in his recliner to watch the conclusion of the Manhattan U. versus Virginia Tech game, he comes over to where I’m sitting on the floor with Garnett and Yara’s kids.
“You wanna do this or what?” he asks, holding out his hand.
I stare at the hand, my eyes probably wide as saucers. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he answers. His usual harsh rebuttal, but both his voice and expression are soft. Softer than I’ve ever seen them. I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet.
The next thing I know, I’m in his arms, swaying to the music, even though the current song has a fast beat meant for hip-shaking and twirling.
I don’t protest. A… I’m pretty sure Stone doesn’t merengue, and B…I kind of like being with him like this.
We never hug. Never touch even, unless it’s a precursor to sex. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved doing the sexy stuff with him these last few months. Technically that hard on was the best Christmas gift I’ve ever got.
But this is nice, too. Real nice. As long as you remember it’s only temporary, Almonte.
We sway in a bubble while everyone spins around us, and eventually the music gives in, slowing down into a nineties’ era Frank Reyes song.
“Hey, Stone?” I ask, feeling more comfortable with him than I have in…well, ever.
“Hmm?” His head is resting against the top of my forehead, and his voice rumbles low in my ear.
“What was up with you earlier? Why were you so intense? Did something happen after we walked Stallone?”
He tenses, and I wait, not sure if he’ll answer.
But eventually he says, “Yeah, something happened.”
Then he goes quiet again.
“Okay, what happened, Stone?” I demand, keeping my voice low but pulling back from his hold.
He doesn’t answer.
And I brace myself. Wondering if this is the moment. The moment he decides he’s done with me and better off with someone else.
But then he says, “The way you and me handled Cami, like a team, and all these talks we’ve be having, and you know, the sex. Today, I guess while we were out walking Stallone, I guess I realized, I was like, I dunno, maybe forty…fifty percent in love with you.”
My heart doesn’t just skip a beat. It stops. Dropping like an Looney Tunes anvil to my stomach.
“You’re not answering,” he says, after Frank Reyes plaintively sings a few more lines of Spanish.
No, I’m not. It feels like my brain has shut down, giving up on making words or full thoughts, much less on responding to Stone’s lowkey announcement that he’s halfway in love with me.
And after a while, he says, “Okay, me being sorta in love with you doesn’t need doves and trumpets. We’re already married. But I figured you would at least have a little something to say about—”
He cuts off when I kiss him. I don’t know why. Maybe because I never in a million years expected to hear those words from his mouth. Maybe because I’m still not sure how else to respond.
Either way, a whole bunch of hoots and hollers rise up from my family, drowning out the prince of bachata.
“Watch out, Stone’s going to make you change out of that dress!” Osner cheers somewhere in the distance.
And he’s totally right.
“Okay, now I’m definitely at fifty percent,” he informs me when we finish the kiss. “And I got a real good feelin’ you’re going to close in on fifty-five percent by the time the night is through. Think Mari can put Garnet down for the night?”
Stone’s fifty-five percent in love with me. At least he thinks he is. I have no idea how to respond to that out loud. But when it comes to answering with my body…well.
I let Stone take me by the hand and lead me up the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-One
Stone is gone when I wake up, and Garnet’s on the monitor protesting about not getting fed yet. Maybe it was just the rum talking last night. Relief floods through me at that thought.
If it was just the rum, I don’t have to take his declaration seriously. Or think about how the part where someone says they love you comes right before they leave.
“We love you, but…” my parents had told me before announcing their decision to move back to Hispaniola.
“I just want to thank you for agreeing to raise this baby with me. Love you, bestie!” Amber had written just a few days before Luca crashed back into her life.
“I mean, I thought I loved you, but…” an uncharacteristically somber Rock had said while shuffling his feet.
Stone not really meaning what he said, means he’ll stay longer, keep pretending we’re a real family. I’m not sure when I went from reluctant bride to all in on this fairy tale, but somewhere between August and now I’m all in. And if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I don’t want it to end.
When I come into the kitchen with Garnet, after breastfeeding her, I find him at the table, hunched over his phone. Not the iPhone, but the Samsung burner he uses for “Ferraro shit.”
“Morning,” I say to him, Cami, and Talia.
“Morning,” the girls call back. But Stone just grunts.
Yeah, it was definitely the rum, I conclude, as I go to the side of the table where Garnet’s highchair sits.
But Garnet has other ideas. “Un-uh!” She makes insistent baby sounds and reaches her chubby little arms toward Stone.
“She’s upset because I missed our morning bottle meeting. Give her here,” Stone says, putting down his phone.
Garnet’s whole face lights up with gummy smile, when Stone stands up and takes her from me. Then she immediately grabs his tie and tries to put it in her mouth.
“How many times I gotta tell you, Prada ain’t for munching?” Stone says, pulling it away before she can.
Garnet lets out a baby squeal and gives him another gummy smile. “Dada!”
Stone goes still as a statue and my stomach drops.
“Did she just say…?” I start to ask.
“Dada,” Garnet says again before I can finish asking.
Then just in case, Stone’s not getting it, she smiles at him and all but sings, “Dada! Dada! Dada!”
Cami and Talia cheer and coo. While at the stove Aunt Mari proclaims, “Oh, angelita, you love your daddy don’t you?”
But Stone just stands there, his expression completely stunned. Then he says, “She’s never going to meet him. He’s gone. He’s fucking gone.”
“Who is he talking about?” Talia asks, her eyes going wide at the never-before-seen sight of Stone in clear distress.
“His brother,” I answer, my heart constricting for Stone, who I suspect hasn’t really let himself think about the twin brother he lost before this moment. “He died about a year and a half ago.”
“Yeah, he died. He…” Stone rolls his neck. Right, left, as if trying to fight off a demon.
But he can’t. The tears come squeezing out past the barrier of his eyelids. First dripping, then rolling as Stone’s shoulders shake. “He’s never going to meet her,” he says, hugging Garnet to his chest.
It’s like watching a mountain break down and cry. And we all seem to make the decision to rush to our most stalwart family member at the same time.
“It’s okay, Stone,” Cami says, patting his back. While Aunt Mari tuts in Spanish about how the Lord does everything for a reason, but that doesn’t make the reason hurt any less.
I just cup his face and look into his eyes over Garnet’s shoulder, while Talia pats his biceps and tells him, “Sometimes I cry, too. But usually when nobody’s looking.”
That makes all of us laugh. Including Stone.
And then it’s over.
At least I think it’s over.
After breakfast, he walks me to my car. “Have a good day, babe,” he says, opening my driver’s side door for me, and whoa, it doesn’t even sound sarcastic.
He pulls me in for a soft kiss just before I’m about to get in the car. Then he says, “Now I’m at sixty percent.”
I stare at him. Again, needing him not to mean that.
“But don’t worry,” he promises. “I’m not going to be a fuck nut about it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Stone keeps his promise not to be a fuck nut about his percentage point love proclamation over the next few weeks. And he doesn’t bring up me not saying I love him back again. At least not explicitly. But somehow it’s always there between us. Like an elephant in the otherwise tidy room of our relationship. One I can’t look at directly, without shivering with fear.
He only heads out to New York every other weekend now, and he kisses me a little longer before he goes. Then he pecks Garnet on top of her head, and tells her to take care of me until, “Dada gets back.”
The percentage points also seem to be ratcheting up. And I’m not sure how to stop that. I get points for everything. I reach 65% for giving good head, but he tacked on another five percent for filling out his DMV forms when they come up for renewal. “You’re a 70% now, Nai. I fucking hate paperwork.”
The points pile up for kisses and laundry and bringing him coffee. One Wednesday before he’s due to leave for New York, he even gives me five points for “this pussy.”
“Fuck why do you feel so good?” he groans, right before he comes inside me.
It’s May now. Nearly a year into our unexpected relationship. And somehow, I’ve found myself at 95% love. I know he’s not really being serious, and I’m not even sure why I kept on adding up the points.
“You know this love thing is just pheromones, and you coming down from the pills,” I tell him while we’re both lying there in the dark afterwards. “When you’re in New York this weekend, maybe you should consider experimenting a little.”
A long beat of silence. “You want me to fuck around on you when I’m in New York?” he asks, his voice just as hard as it used to get back before he came off the pills.
“No, I don’t…but yes, I kind of do. Our relationship is really unorthodox. And I think you should explore your options—your many, many options, before you make a decision you might regret. I mean, you’re talking about having another baby.”
“I’m talking about having more babies. Plural. And you’re telling me to go bang some other chick.”
“I mean…wear a condom of course.”
“I cannot believe this shit…” Another long silence, then he asks, “You get that I’m a fucking psycho, right? If you cheated on me, I would kill that bitch. I don’t care what side of the spectrum your shit falls on.”
“Psycho is a strong word,” I answer, keeping a reasonable tone despite his obvious attempt to bring me down to his level. “And you don’t have to worry about me cheating. I’ve dated, at least a little bit, and believe me, I’m not looking for anything more complicated than this. But from what I’m understanding, you didn’t date anyone seriously before me. I mean, as many drugs as you were on, were you even having sex?”
“The drugs didn’t start giving me problems until my thirties. And I wasn’t a monk. The Ferraro family used to own a bunch of strip clubs. I could go in any of them and get whatever I wanted.”
Keeping my voice clinical, I answer, “Strippers aren’t experience, and again you were heavily medicated. For all you know, you’d feel this way about any woman you fucked.”
“You’re my wife. The only woman I should be fucking. The only woman I want to fuck.”
“That’s a kind of problematic statement, since—”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he explodes in the dark. “I’m clean. I’m fuckin’ killing this dada shit for Garnet. Now you’re saying there’s something else wrong with me because I don’t want to fuck anybody but you?”
I wince, because yeah, he’s summed my points up and it doesn’t sound so logical when he puts them like that. “I’m just saying if you get the itch in New York, don’t ignore it.”
Another silence, this one even longer than the two that became before. So long I’m beginning to wonder if Stone has fallen asleep when he says, “Okay, expect a call this weekend when I’m in New York.”
“So you’re going to try it?” I ask, dual urges battling in my chest. I want to push him away, just far enough to realize this supposed love he’s feeling could be applied to anyone now that . But I also have a crazy waist to lock my arms around his neck and never let him going.
Conflicted to my core, I wait in the dark for his answer.
But this time Stone doesn’t reply.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Stone keeps his promise about the call, but it isn’t the one I’m expecting.
“Hello?” I say, when my phone erupts just as I’m walking to my car after getting off of work on Friday.
“Hi, is this Naima?” a friendly voice says. “Stone Ferraro’s wife?”
“Yes…” I say carefully, my heart seizing. Did Stone decide to sleep with another woman, then have her call me after it was done?
“Hi, Naima, this is Dr. Nouri. I’ve been working with Stone, and he was hoping we might all meet on Monday when he’s back in town.”
Even as my heart starts beating again, I have to wonder out loud, “Meet? Meet about what?”
“Many patients find it helpful to have their spouse come in with them to an ap
pointment.”
“Oh, I know but Stone …” I want to say “ain’t most patients,” but trail off. “Really, he wants me to meet with his therapist?”
“Yes, really,” she answers. “Do you have 2pm on Monday available?”
“I can make it available,” I answer. So we set it in the calendar and say our friendly goodbyes, even though I’m still so, so confused.
You want me to meet with your therapist? I text to Stone as soon as I get off.
No answer.
The weekend doesn’t pass by fast enough. Stone texts on Saturday to tell me he’s not coming back on Sunday but Monday now. But he never answers my questions about Monday’s appointment. Typical Stone, but still…
My stomach is a churning pit of anxiety as I sit at the breakfast table, feeding Garnet in a daze.
“Naima? Naima? Did you hear what I said?”
I look over at Cami, who’s standing in the kitchen doorway with her Acer laptop in her hands.
“No, I didn’t,” I apologize. “Could you say it again?”
“I got a job!” she practically yells. “I woke up to the email this morning. One of Stone’s friend’s has this kid named Barron. He’s still in his teens, but he’s been tapped to head up a new division of GoRobot. It’s, like, biotech. Totally top-secret shit. And I got the job! I got the job!”
She sounds so happy. And I should be happy, too, but… “GoRobot…isn’t that in Portland?”
“Well, yes, but that’s no big deal.”
“A cross-country move is no big deal?” I repeat. “I mean, the other day, you were talking about staying here with us after you graduate, just so you could keep Talia in the same school district.”
Cami’s shoulders suddenly deflate. “Yeah, I was. But this opportunity seems so good.”
“And you say the company’s run by a teenager?” I ask.
“A really smart teenager,” Cami answers, but sure she can hear how weak that answer sounds.
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 14