by Vi Keeland
She looked me in the eyes. “It’s okay. I’m on the pill. Come inside of me. Please.”
There was nothing I wanted more than that—to pour myself into her. My body ached for it with animalistic need, but as I let go, it also felt like I was giving her something I’d been holding back on a much deeper level.
For the first time since the night I met Alexa and she told me she was on the pill, I took a chance on trusting someone. Only, for some reason, it didn’t feel like a chance with Emerie. It just felt right.
Emerie
I felt the bed dip as Drew got up. “Where are you going?”
“I was trying not to wake you.” He walked around to my side and kissed my forehead. “It’s early. Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Five-thirty.”
I leaned up on my elbows in the dark. “Why are you up so early?”
“Need to get into the office and figure out how I’m cramming the six days of work I have booked into five already, into only two days a week for a while.”
“I take it you haven’t looked at your calendar in a day or two?”
“Tried to, but the damn thing was locked and wouldn’t sync up.”
I settled back into the bed and pulled the cover up. “Your first appointment isn’t until ten. I didn’t think you were back until this morning, or I would have started today earlier. Everything is rescheduled for the next two weeks for you. They’re long days, but I was able to get all of your in-person meetings into two days each week. I converted one in-person meeting to a telephone conference, and you have that from Atlanta on Thursday next week. But everything else is all set. I also reworked my schedule the opposite way, so I’m light on the days you’re here and full the days you’re gone. That way I can help out with whatever secretarial stuff you need done to keep your day moving.”
Drew was quiet for a minute, and I started to worry maybe I’d overstepped and I shouldn’t have gone into his calendar. But I’d wanted to do what I could to help. The bedroom was dark, and I heard the rustle of his clothes—although I wasn’t sure if they were coming off or going on until he climbed back into bed. I felt his warm body press up against my side. He was still silent, so I turned to face him.
“Did I overstep?”
He stroked my cheek. “No, babe. You didn’t overstep.”
“You’re being so quiet. I thought maybe I’d upset you.”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“How much right now I feel like I’m home, and I haven’t set foot in my apartment in a week.”
That quite possibly could’ve been the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. He was also right. I’d been jittery all week and hadn’t realized until now that I’d settled the minute I looked through the peephole last night.
“I know what you mean. You make me feel calm. At peace, I guess it is.”
“Yeah?” His hand slid down my cheek, and his thumb rubbed the hollow of my neck.
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad.” He kissed the top of my nose. “You know what I’m thinking now?”
“What’s that?”
“How I should thank you for fixing my schedule. Whether I should use my mouth to eat you for breakfast or turn you over and take you from behind while I finger your ass.”
I giggled. “You’re really crass. You went from sweet to pig in ten seconds flat.”
His hand at my neck dropped to my breast where his finger grazed over it and then pinched…hard. “You like my crass mouth.”
Deciding he was right, I didn’t fight the truth. “What were my choices again?”
I heard the smile in his words. “Mouth or all fours?”
I swallowed. “Why only one? You don’t have to be at the office until ten.”
“You want some more coffee?” It was after six p.m., and Drew still had another client coming in and a dozen phone calls to return.
“I’d love some. Thank you.”
I made his coffee just the way he liked it and brought it into his office. He was reading something with a blue back that I’d signed for an hour ago.
“Thanks,” he said without looking up.
“You seem to be thanking me a lot today.”
“Just wait until you see what I have up my sleeve for tonight,” he replied.
I knew he was busy, so I didn’t want to take up too much of his time screwing around. He stopped me as I got to the door.
“My place tonight? You can sleep in while I get an early start tomorrow, or take a bath if you want. My new slave-driver of a secretary has me booked starting at seven a.m.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t get a better night’s sleep if I stayed home? You need your rest with all the traveling and stress you have going on.”
Drew let the packet of papers he was reading from drop to the desk. “Come here.”
I walked back to stand in front of his desk.
“Closer.”
When I stepped around to where he sat, he surprised me by yanking me down onto his lap. “Four hours of sleep next to you is better than eight in an empty bed.”
“You better watch it, Jagger. You’re losing your sour and turning sweet on me.”
“I’ve been sweet on you since the first night you attempted to kick my ass. Now go. Go get your stuff. You don’t need to stick around here if you’re done, and we’re supposed to get snow later tonight.”
I left to do as Drew had instructed—pack an overnight bag and head back.
The entire trip to my place, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Drew was the kind of man who didn’t make it easy to get past his exterior, but when you did, it was worth the fight he’d put up to keep you out. Over the last week, it felt like our relationship had really turned a corner.
I even called my parents while I was packing my bag and decided to tell them about the new man in my life—something I rarely did. Of late—say, I don’t know, the last three years—it had been because there was no new man, but I also knew my mother would worry about me. She’d worry I was going to get hurt, or worry I’d unknowingly picked a serial killer to date—because, of course, everyone who lived in a big city had the potential to be a closet serial killer. So I was careful how much I divulged.
“That’s wonderful, honey. How did you meet?”
Uh…he broke into my office and then bailed me out of jail the next day. Best first date ever.
“He’s actually the landlord for my new office.”
“And he’s a nice young man?”
We didn’t fight…today.
“Yes, Mom. He’s very nice.”
“What does he do for a living?”
Well, he thrives on misogynistic tendencies he developed because of his lying, cheating ex-wife, and attempts to extricate men from their failed marriages by leaving women penniless.
“He’s an attorney. Family law.”
“An attorney. Very nice. And family law. That’s a noble profession. When do we get to meet this fellow?”
“I’m not sure, Mom. He’s so busy with work right now.”
And fighting for custody of his son…who isn’t technically his son because his bitch of an ex-wife saw him as her meal ticket when she got pregnant with another man’s baby.
She sighed. “Well, just make sure he has the right values. Money and a handsome face often cause temporary blindness.”
“Yes, Mom.”
We talked a little while longer and then, I have no idea where it came from, but I asked her a question that fell out of my mouth.
“How did you know Dad was the right one for you?”
“I stopped using the word I when I looked into the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before I met your father, all of my plans were just that—my plans. But after I met him, even after only a few weeks, I stopped seeing the future as mine and started seeing it as ours. I didn’t even notice it for a while, but when I talked about things t
hat were coming up—Saturday nights, holidays, whatever—I eventually realized I’d started saying we, not I.”
I stopped at the grocery store on the way back to the office and picked up some things to make dinner. Drew was going to be living in a hotel in Atlanta and working long hours when he was here, so I figured he’d appreciate a home-cooked meal. He came in as I was taking the lasagna out of the oven.
“Smells good in here.”
“Hope you like lasagna.”
“It’s my second-favorite meal.”
“What’s your first?”
He came up behind me, brushed my hair to one side, and kissed my neck. His word vibrated against my skin. “You.”
“Control yourself. You need to enjoy a homemade meal when you can. Your next few weeks are going to be busy.”
I opened the drawer to the right of the stove to get a spatula and found two matchbox cars and an old flip phone in with the cooking implements.
“I wondered where you kept the toy cars.”
Drew chuckled. “When I tell Beck to clean up, he just shoves shit in drawers. Last year I found crayons in the spoon section of the utensil drawer. He’d taken the spoons and thrown them all in the garbage. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said we didn’t need them because we could scoop things better with our hands but nothing else made color on paper.”
I smiled. “He has a point.”
Drew reached into the drawer and took out the flip phone. “Remember when we first met, and I looked through the pictures on your phone?”
“Yes. You told me the best way to get to know someone is to look at their cell phone pictures when they least expect it. Then after I let you look through mine, I found out yours was empty.” I exaggerated a sigh. “Jackass.”
Drew opened the flip phone, pressed some buttons, and offered it to me. “I’m gonna go wash up and change before dinner. This is Beck’s cell. It doesn’t have service, but he likes to use it to take pictures. Every time I start to doubt whether I’m doing the right thing by staying in his life, if I’m confusing things by not backing off and letting his biological father step in, I scroll through those pics. Take a look.”
Drew went to the bedroom, and I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down at the dining room table to look through the pictures.
The first photo was of Drew shaving. He stood in the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. There was shaving cream on the left side of his face, and he held the razor near his chin after shaving one line down. The other cheek was already cleanly shaven. Off to the side, in the reflection of the mirror, I could see Beck holding the camera with one hand, and the other held a spatula covered in shaving cream up to his face, which was also half cleared of white foam.
The next photo was of Beck standing in a stream. It looked like it could be upstate somewhere. It was probably taken a year ago, given how much Beck’s face had matured. He wore waders and smiled huge for the camera as he held up a small fish he must have just plucked from the stream.
I kept scrolling—photos of Beck and his dad ice skating, a shot of them sitting together on the subway, one of Drew reading Harold and the Purple Crayon in Beck’s bed, them riding bikes with Roman in Central Park, one that I had to turn the phone upside down to realize I was looking at the picture right side up—it was Beck taking the photo of the two of them while on Drew’s shoulders. He’d leaned over to snap the shot of their faces.
Photo after photo revealed their life together and showed just how much Drew was Beck’s father, no matter what a lab test said.
The very last photo surprised me. I hadn’t even known Beck had a phone at the time it was taken, much less that he had snapped a picture. It was the afternoon we’d gone ice skating—prior to my falling and injuring my ankle. Beck must have been standing on one side of the rink, while Drew and I were on the other, and I attempted to skate. My legs were spread wide—something I couldn’t seem to stop that day—and I was laughing on my way to falling into an ungracious split. Drew had one arm wrapped around my waist, trying to hoist me back up, and was looking down at me while he too was laughing. We looked so happy—almost…like we were falling in love.
My heart swelled in my chest. Drew was right. The best way to get to know someone was to steal glances at their pictures. He looked through the pictures and saw the love of a father and son—a reminder of why he needed to fight. I saw a good man, one fiercely passionate about the things he loved and who would do anything to protect them. Rubbing my finger across the screen as I stared at the picture of us, of me falling, I realized I’d fallen in more ways than one that day.
I had to blink back tears to keep my emotions from getting the best of me, and decided I should get up and cut the lasagna to busy myself.
Still preoccupied, I wasn’t thinking and grabbed the side of the hot lasagna pan to turn it so I could cut.
“Damn it.” I shook my hand and flipped on the kitchen faucet to run cold water over the mild burn. I’m batting a thousand around this stove.
Of course, Drew appeared at that moment. “What happened?”
“I touched the hot pan. It’s not bad, just stings a little.”
Drew took my hand out of the stream of running cold water, inspected it, and returned it when he was done.
“I’ll serve. Go sit. I don’t want to end up in the ER for a third time already this year.”
We spent the entire dinner catching up, since we hadn’t exactly spoken too much last night or this morning—unless you counted communicating with our bodies. Drew filled me in on his custody-trial strategy, and I told him about some new clients I’d taken on. The entire thing felt bizarrely domestic and natural. After we were done eating, Drew loaded the dishwasher while I cleaned the counters and table.
“Where was that picture taken of Beck fishing? He looked so adorable in his little waders.”
“Upstate. Roman has a cabin in the mountains up in New Paltz. It’s rustic, but has a big old clawfoot bathtub you’d like. We should go up in the spring.”
“I’d love that.”
A few hours later, we were brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed when Drew said, “Tess called today.”
“Who?”
“My secretary. She said her doctor thinks she can come back part time in two weeks. Her recovery after the hip surgery is better than expected, and moving around is good as part of her physical therapy.”
“That’s great.” In the whirlwind of the last month, I hadn’t really been looking for a new office. The first week I’d called one real estate agent, who’d shown me closet space in areas I didn’t want to be for more than twice my budget. I’d taken a break after that. Although at the moment, the thought of what I could get for my money wasn’t half as depressing as the thought of not seeing Drew everyday anymore.
“I’m sorry. I need to get back to looking for new space.”
Drew’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
I rinsed my mouth and spoke to Drew in the mirror. “Our deal. You let me stay while your secretary was out in exchange for answering the phones and helping out until I found a new place.”
He turned me around with his hands on my shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can’t afford to pay my share of what the rent must be for your office.”
“We’ll work something out.”
“But—”
He silenced me with a kiss, but kept his face close to mine. “We’ll figure it out. Let us just get through dealing with this shit in Atlanta, and then we’ll sit down and talk about it, if you want. Okay?”
I didn’t want to add any more stress to what he was already feeling, so I nodded. “Okay.”
It wasn’t until we’d gotten into bed, and I ran the entire day through my mind, that I connected some of the dots from the last few hours.
“Roman has a cabin in the mountains up in New Paltz. We should go up in the spring.”
“We’ll figure it o
ut. Let us just get through dealing with this shit in Atlanta…”
“How did you know Dad was the right one for you?”
“I stopped using the word I when I looked into the future.”
Drew was settling into we as much as I was, whether he was aware of it or not.
When he slipped into bed next to me, I wrapped my arms around him tight. Maybe, just maybe, neither one of us had found the right one before now…because we hadn’t met each other yet.
Drew
It had been the longest three weeks of my life.
The bailiff called the court into session. Judge Walliford took his sweet-ass time—I’m sure he’d call it proper southern time—to walk to the bench. Then he sat and rifled through a bunch of papers. Roman sat in the first row of the gallery right behind me, and he leaned forward to squeeze my shoulder for reassurance as I waited to find out how much my visitation was going to take a hit. I knew it was coming. I just had no idea how bad it would be.
The last time I was this nervous, this on edge about what was going to happen to the rest of my life, was the day I married Alexa. And we know how that fucking turned out. I looked over at my for-once-conservatively-dressed ex-wife. She, of course, stared straight ahead, not returning my stare. That woman was a piece of work.
Finally, Walliford finished shuffling papers around and cleared his throat before diving into a bunch of formalities for the record. “Docket numb-ah 179920-16. Jagger vs. Jagger. Petition for reduction in custody. Cross motion to compel relocation and enforce the previous signed custody agreement.”
Then he finally looked up. “Be-fo-wah I git started with my decisions, I’d like to take a moment to say that this was not an easy case. I had to consider the rights of both parties present in this courtroom, the rights of a biological father who was robbed of years of bonding with his son, as well as what is in the best interest of the boy.”
He looked straight at Alexa. “Ms. Jagger, I hold you largely accountable for the mess we have here today. If you had one inkling of a doubt that your husband might not be the boy’s father, you had a duty to get to the truth when that blessed child was born.”