I slow my pace and pluck the earbuds from my ears. “What?”
She takes a defensive stance with her hands on her hips, her eyes searching the room for answers. “I said, what are you doing here?”
I power down the treadmill and grab a towel from the nearby hook on the wall, wiping my face with it before placing it around my neck. “Last I checked, I still own half this place.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. She knows she can’t dispute it. She points to the treadmill. “So, you just decided to come work out?”
I guess she didn’t bother looking upstairs in the guest room yet. I shake my head. “I live here, Skylar. I’ve lived here for five years. I love this place. Is this going to be a problem?”
I can practically see the cogs in her brain spinning. Maybe she’s trying to figure out how to get me out of here. Maybe she’s assessing her feelings for me. Maybe she’s wondering what John-the-food-guy will think of her baby daddy moving back in. I raise my eyebrows at her, waiting for her to speak.
She chews on the edge of her lip before answering. “Are you going to ask me to move out now?”
“Do you want to move out?” I ask.
She shrugs and lowers her eyes to the ground. “I guess I could go back to my apartment.”
I try to hold in my smile. I have reliable intel that Mindy already found another roommate. Skylar wants me to ask her to stay. She just doesn’t want me to know it.
I walk over to her and stand close. So close I can smell her fruity shampoo. I want to reach out and pull her to me. I want to pick her up and carry her over to the couch in my studio where I’ll peel that green dress right off her body. It’s the same dress she wore when she gave me the cooking lesson. Even then, I couldn’t tear my eyes from her. But then, I had a wife. A wife I loved. Skylar was forbidden. A fantasy I would never engage in.
My running shorts get tight as my eyes fall over her breasts that are so much fuller than the last time I saw this dress. Breasts that rise and fall with each heavy breath she takes. Breasts that surround the locket that still hangs from her supple neck. I reach out and take the locket between my fingers, causing her breath to catch. “Stay,” I whisper.
She tenses up, but doesn’t pull away. Her eyes close briefly and I’m almost positive she’s inhaling my scent as much as I am hers. Suddenly she takes a step back and my hand falls away as the locket meets her chest once again. “I don’t know, Griffin. It’s all gotten so complicated. I’m not sure I should. And then there’s John. And—”
I lunge forward and put my arms up against the wall, holding her captive within them. I ignore her reference to the food guy as I lean into her. Pressing the pad of my thumb against her bottom lip, I force it out from between her teeth as her expression twists with indecision.
I push her hair away from her ear. “Stay,” I repeat. “It’ll all work out, Sky. Have faith.”
Before she can respond, I turn around and head for the stairs. As I reach them, I glance back to see her body sliding down the wall until her ass meets the floor. All the while, she’s looking up at the ceiling, exhaling a slow, controlled breath. I bounce up the steps, two at a time, basking in my small victory on the way to the shower.
~ ~ ~
After my shower, I find Skylar dozing off on the couch in the living room. She’s changed out of her work clothes and is wearing a casual light-blue dress that looks like it’s just a really long t-shirt. The tight-fitting shift accentuates every curve of her body. It clings to her stomach like a second skin.
I walk over to the foyer where I left my duffle, taking quiet steps with my bare feet so I don’t wake her. I retrieve a camera from the bag and zoom in on her beautiful face. I don’t dare move any closer to her in fear of the click of the camera waking her. Without trying to think about how creepy it is, I snap pictures of every part of her body. I get close-ups of her full lips. The curve of her neck. Her legs that are propped up on a pillow. Her feet that reveal toenails painted to match the green of her eyes. Her breasts that frame the locket I gave her.
When I zoom in on her pregnant belly I almost drop the camera when I see it move. I slowly make my way over to her, hoping that I’m capturing on film what my eyes are taking in. Finally, I lower the camera and sit on the coffee table, mesmerized by the movements.
As I watch a tiny foot, elbow or knee trace a line from her hipbone to her belly button, I momentarily have flashbacks to a Sigourney Weaver movie where an alien breaks through her stomach. I quickly push the thought aside and embrace the fact that my kid is inside Skylar. And he’s putting on a show just for me.
I want so badly to reach over and put my hand on her. Maybe poke my son and see if he pokes me back. I haven’t touched her belly in over two months. And the only time I’ve ever felt Aaron move was the night Erin died. I remember feeling what could have been gas bubbles going through Skylar. It was nothing like this.
There’s a fucking person in there.
I find myself having to fight back tears as I swallow a colossal-sized lump in my throat.
“You can feel him if you want.”
I about jump out of my skin when Skylar speaks. I hadn’t realized she was awake. I wonder how long she’s been watching me watch her.
I lean closer to her and tentatively reach my hand out. She grabs it and places it on her. Immediately, I feel movement beneath it. My eyes go wide and I think I gasp in wonderment, but I’m so lost in the moment I don’t even realize I’ve gotten up from the table and am on my knees in front of her with both my hands pressed firmly on her stomach. I can’t move. I don’t ever want to remove my hands from her. If I flinch, it could stop. And I want this to last forever.
I don’t know how long I sit here, feeling my son kick and do somersaults under my hands. My knees hurt and my legs go numb but I don’t dare move a muscle.
I look up to find Skylar smiling. “Pretty fucking great, huh?” she asks.
“Don’t say fuck, Sky.”
Redness overtakes her face as she recalls what her cursing does to me. “Don’t call me Sky, Griffin,” she quips.
She holds my stare as we enjoy feeling our son move. I wonder what’s going through her mind. Can she tell what I’m feeling? Do my eyes show her how badly I want this?
The buzzing of her phone on the table breaks the perfect moment. She glances over at her phone and my eyes follow. I read the screen. John McCormack.
John-the-fucking-food-guy.
A look of sympathy flashes across her face. “Sorry,” she says, grabbing the phone while pushing herself up off the couch with her other hand.
She walks into the kitchen and sits at a barstool. “Hey, John,” she answers.
I follow behind her under the guise of getting a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She watches me as she listens to him. I make no attempt to give her any privacy.
She shifts uncomfortably on the barstool. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea anymore. How about I meet you there,” she says. Her eyes briefly snap up to mine. “Can we talk about this later? . . . Okay fine. You win. I’ll see you at seven . . . Bye.”
I finish my water and place the empty bottle down so harshly that it crumples. “Going out with the food guy again?”
“Liquor distributor,” she says.
I throw the disfigured plastic bottle into the recycle bin. “What?”
“He’s not a food guy. He’s a liquor distributor.” She walks over to retrieve her own bottle of water from the fridge. “And yes. He’s taking me out.”
With her back to me, she takes a long drink while I come up behind her. I put my arms on either side of her, trapping her against the counter. I brush her hair aside and watch as goosebumps dot her skin. “Unless I can talk you out of it, that is,” I whisper.
As I speak, my lips graze her ear, but not totally. My chest almost touches her back, but not quite. I can see from her reflection in the glass door of the microwave that her resolve almost crumbles—but not completely.
&n
bsp; Her eyes close. Her lips part. She slowly exhales. She has no idea that I can see every nuance of her face. She thinks she’s hiding these conflicting feelings from me.
When her eyes open, they are blazing with unspoken desire. She finds me holding her stare in the reflection. She tries to escape my arms, but I lower my hands to her waist and spin her around to face me before I cup her face with my hands. “Stay here with me tonight, Skylar. Talk to me. There’s so much I don’t know about you. I want to know you inside and out. I don’t even know when your birthday is.”
Every word has me inching closer to her until my breath falls over her lips. My groin meets her belly and I wonder if she can feel my growing erection as I press against her. Her eyes fall to my mouth. Her tongue comes out to wet her lips. Her breathing accelerates to match my own.
She wants this. She wants this as much as I do.
“Sky . . .” I close the gap that still separates our mouths. I can feel the softness of her full lips as mine lightly touch hers. My heart pounds so hard in my chest that I’m sure it’s become audible and is echoing through this room where the only other noise is the faint hum of the refrigerator.
Suddenly, she pulls back and my pounding heart falls into my stomach. “No,” she says, ducking under my arm and walking away. “You just don’t get it.”
I watch her walk slowly up the stairs as I speculate if the hesitation in her steps comes from Aaron’s extra weight or from her indecisiveness. I think about her words and wonder just what it is that she thinks I don’t get.
For the next few hours, I bury myself in work down in my studio. I blast music through my Bluetooth speaker so I don’t hear the doorbell when the food guy comes to whisk the mother of my child away for a goddamn date. Then I lie awake in bed, waiting and counting the minutes until she comes home. What follows is a sleepless night knowing she’s right down the hall, and long, painful hours wondering if she’s thinking about me or John-fucking-McCormack.
chapter twenty-seven
I want to laugh at what I’m seeing through the lens. I wish I could tell the photo editor and the modeling agency that this is not what real pregnancy looks like. But I’m just the photographer. They don’t want my opinion. They only want my photographs.
What I see before me is pitiful. Models on the verge of anorexia with false bellies strapped beneath their skin-tight dresses. Their surgically-enhanced tits spill over the edges of the so-called maternity wear clinging to their stick-thin bodies.
If this is how real pregnant women think they should look, I pity the children they are carrying as they’ll probably die of starvation before ever being born.
“Hi, Griffin,” a trio of models say in unison as they walk by me.
I lift my chin in greeting. “Ladies.”
I hear one of them whisper something about my dead wife as they walk away giving me sad glances.
When we break for lunch, Katy Fields, one of this year’s up-and-coming ‘it’ girls sits in the director’s chair next to mine. She munches on baby carrots, grapes and a piece of fruit I can’t identify, that in total barely fill her dessert-sized plate. “I’m so sorry to hear about your wife,” she says.
I take a bite of my turkey sub, not even bothering to swallow before I respond with a muffled, “Thanks.”
“I’m glad to see you back working. Some of those other photographers are simply awful.”
“How’s that?” I ask.
She purposefully touches my knee. “Well, they just aren’t you, Griffin. That’s how.”
What a truly insightful answer. I take another bite so I don’t have to engage in much conversation with her.
She reaches over to grab my hand. She pulls it toward her fake belly. “Do you want to touch my baby?” She giggles.
I rip my hand away before she can place it on the pillow beneath her clothing. She eyes me skeptically. I’ll bet there aren’t many men who would refuse the chance to touch a beautiful model. Maybe I’m the first. I shake my head. “That’s okay, Katy. I’ve got the real thing at home.”
Her perfectly-plucked eyebrows scrunch together. “Uh . . . I thought your wife died.”
“She did,” I say. “But I’m still having a baby. Long story.”
Katy gives me a confused look, but before I can explain, the models are called to make-up for re-touches. Katy hands me the small plate of food with the remnants of the lunch she barely touched. “That’s me. Well, good luck, Griffin.”
For the next three hours, all I can think about is getting home. The home I share with Skylar. The home I hope will be the place we both raise Aaron.
When I get there, however, I wish I had stayed at work.
Even before I walk into the kitchen I hear him. The food guy. It’s been a week since her date with him. A week of shared glances, accidental touches, and optimistic conversations. A week without John. I thought maybe he was out of the picture even though I never came right out and asked.
He sees me walking toward them. I could swear he was on his way out, but after he catches my eye, he turns around and gives Skylar a kiss. On the mouth. Not a passionate kiss. Not a kiss with tongue. But a kiss designed purely to intimidate yours truly.
Then he rubs her belly and I almost run the motherfucker down. It takes every ounce of self-control I have to not lay him out, rip him open, and smear his internal organs all over my wall as abstract art. Skylar sees my reaction and quickly walks him towards the door as he follows behind her like a well-trained puppy.
“I have a few things to wrap up and I’ll be back to pick you up around six.” He’s clearly talking to Skylar, but his eyes are burning into me. He’s challenging me to a dual. A dual I have every intention of winning.
Skylar’s phone rings back in the kitchen. She tells John he can let himself out as she goes to retrieve it.
“I’ll walk him out,” I say.
Her eyes widen and she shakes her head at me in warning while she answers her phone.
I pat John on the back as I walk him out. It’s not a friendly pat. It’s not even a cordial one. It’s a touch-my-baby-again-and-I’ll-fucking-kill-you pat.
I silently walk him to the door and open it for him, waving him through while glaring at him. I don’t say a word, yet I’m one-hundred-percent sure I clearly convey my feelings man to man.
He steps through the doorway then turns around and says snidely, “She’s a big girl, Griffin. She can make her own decisions. You may live here now, but that doesn’t give you the right to control her or the baby.”
I lean close, getting up into his face. “If you like your pretty-boy face with those pearly-white teeth, don’t ever fucking talk to me about my baby again.” Then I slam the door. Through the sidelight, I watch him turn and walk away, shaking his head as he descends the stairs.
“What was that all about?” I turn around to see Skylar’s hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation.
I raise my shoulders in an innocent shrug. “I was just seeing him out.”
“What did you say to him about the baby?”
“I simply suggested he not talk to me about him.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Suggested?”
“I may have added something about rearranging his face if he did.”
“Griffin!” She gasps. “You can’t go around threatening every man I date. It’s not fair. It’s not your place. You had your chance. You made your choice.”
“No, I didn’t.” My hands come up to run over my three-day scruff. “Dammit, Skylar. I choose you. You and Aaron.”
“I can’t do this, Griffin. You can’t just leave and then expect to walk back into my life like nothing ever happened.”
“Are you begrudging me the time I spent grieving my wife?” I know it’s a low blow, but I’m getting desperate to find a way in.
She looks horrified. “Of course not!” she yells, glancing over at the urn. “But you could have called. You could have texted or e-mailed. You could have not left that awful note.” She
paces around the living room. “Two months, Griffin. For two months I thought I was the biggest mistake of your life and now you just want me to forget that?”
“I’m sorry, Skylar. How many times do I have to say it? I was messed up. Leaving like I did was a mistake. You weren’t the mistake. Maybe we should have waited to sleep together—but I don’t regret it. I wanted it. You have no idea just how much I wanted it.”
She looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head. “Then why did you fucking leave?” she shouts.
I throw my arms up. “Jesus Christ, Sky. For once in your life, can you stop saying fuck?”
“Sure. Just as soon as you stop calling me Sky.”
I know without a doubt I’ll never stop calling her that. I also know that despite my apparent contradiction to the fact, I love her filthy mouth. There’s nothing I want more this very minute than to shut her up by kissing it. I walk over to her and stop her from pacing. My hand lands at the small of her back, anchoring her against me. I lean in to kiss her, hoping she’ll give in and let me. This is what we do, right? We fight and get all hot for each other. Maybe it’s our thing.
She pulls away before my lips touch hers. “You just don’t get it, do you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Get what—the fact that you’re a stubborn woman? That you want me but can’t seem to let yourself accept it?” I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “What exactly is it that I don’t get, Sky?”
“Ugh!” She stomps her foot and walks away. “No wonder I never wanted a boyfriend. Men are so goddamn obtuse.”
“Obtuse?” I yell, following her. “I think I’ve been pretty fucking clear about how I want you. Want Aaron.”
The front door opens and Baylor walks in. “I could hear you guys from the stoop,” she admonishes us, looking back and forth between Skylar and me. “What’s wrong with you two?” She drops her bag on the entry table and comes into the living room. “Erin didn’t want this. She wanted you to get along. To love each other and be a family. It was written all over her. Literally.”
White Lilies (A Mitchell Sisters Novel) Page 23