by Maggie Marr
My stomach squeezes. I’ve seen this kind of joy before. This is a joy that includes love, and visions of a future that we both want.
Susie. Susie’s eyes held this joy when she was in recovery, and we’d discuss our house, our future kids, and everything we wanted to accomplish together. I never thought I’d get to see that kind of joy in another woman’s gaze, especially a gaze directed at me. “Tara, I…” I start speaking with the intention of telling her what happened between her mother and me. I sigh. Shit. I shake my head a little and surrender to the fact that I’m not strong enough in this moment to ruin that look of joy. I press my lips to her forehead, then pull away and look into her eyes.
“Of course I’ll go. Just tell me when.”
“Thank you.” She presses her lips to mine. The warmth in her kiss makes me hard but it also makes my heart warm.
Is it possible to re-grow a heart because in the last three weeks it felt as though mine was nearly whole.
“Thank you. You know I love you.”
She says it with such an earnestness and a truth, that I know her words are real. And my heart that I’ve been re-building and stitching back together over time, and really if I’m fucking honest probably since the night in the hall when she was holding that damn wedding dress and I knew something was wrong even though she didn’t tell me. I’ve been piecing my heart back together and working through my past for this very moment.
I look at Tara and I think it. I know it. And I say it, too. “I love you, too.”
Her smiles widens. Her hand is on the side of my face and her lips press to mine. Now this heat between us isn’t just about feeling happy with the other person. No. This heat between us is more, much more, and my cock is hard and pressed against her.
That sigh, with a little moan that I’ve heard over and over again, comes from her lips. That tiny little sound makes my belly clench tight because it’s that very sound that tells me each time that she’s pleased and I’m wanted. Her desire ripples through her body like desire ripples through mine.
And it’s more than desire. So now, here, when we fuck, it’s not just fucking. It’s become more than fucking, more than wonderfucking. It’s become this beautiful, passionate event between the two of us that has taken on more than this physical act has meant to me in the past. What happens between me and Tara is more than a vocation, it’s a dominion. She has dominion over my body and my soul. A duet of two lives. A desire that is intertwining and brilliant and magical and can only be called making love.
Her hand slips down over my belly and her fingertips trail along my flesh until she has my cock in her hand. She strokes down and my breath flows from my body. Her mouth opens to mine and our tongues tangle and tease.
I rise up above her knowing that the need I feel she feels too. My lips pull from hers and our eyes latch onto each other. She is here, beneath me, with her blue eyes that mesmerize me, and her mouth open in this beautiful pleasure.
“I want you so much.”
And my cock glides into her heat, her warm, sensuous heat. I am enveloped by her silky, velvet warmth that surrounds my cock and I lose my self in the wet hot heat that is her. I slide in and out of her, both of us reveling in the pleasure of skin-to-skin contact. My cock in her sex.
Fuck. My body can’t contain this pleasure and my body is stone.
“Oh Jake.” Her muscles clench around me and pull me tight and deeper into her sex. I press forward and with one final thrust my body stiffens and heat rips through me. Heat jets from my body rip into hers.
“Tara!” I yell her name. A prayer and a plea on my lips as I come.
***
“The beach today?”
“That’s the plan,” I say, and continue filling the cooler with ice.
“Could we ask Lily and Rachel?”
I stop. I take a breath. Asking Lily and Rachel to join us at the beach makes what Tara and I are doing, real. Bringing my family into the mix makes everything we’re doing real.
“The Malibu house is empty. What if we have them meet us there and then we play, grill, hang out? They could even spend the night if they wanted.”
This is a huge gift, in fact this is one of the first things I thought of the very first time I visited Tara in Malibu: What a great place for a family to hang out and spend time together. What Mom and Dad’s house was to Rachel and me before all the ghosts that now inhabit our life and our childhood home.
“If you don’t want to ask the—”
“Of course I do.” I walk from the kitchen to the dining room table and grab my phone. I punch in the speed dial for Rachel, smile at Tara, and ignore the panic clutching my insides.
***
“This house is amazing!” Rachel says. She drops her overnight bag on the floor just inside the open sliders that lead to the deck and the ocean that is steps beyond. “Seriously, if I had this, I don’t think I’d ever leave.”
She turns toward me and Tara. We unload groceries we picked up for today and tonight. In Rachel’s smile I see a question. Because of course she has questions. She hasn’t seen Tara and me together, and yet here we are functioning like a couple. Tara turns toward the fridge to load in the cheese, and Rachel raises her palms in the universal ‘what the hell is going on’ symbol.
I smile and fight back a laugh. Walk closer to Tara and nuzzle my face into her hair. “Rachel’s confused, shall we let her in on us?” I’m getting hard and realize that I won’t be able to do a damn thing about it, which is highly unusual, because Tara and I have gotten into this amazing habit of simply having sex whenever we want.
Tara shuts the refrigerator door, smiles at me, and together we turn to Rachel, who is back to pretending nothing is going on by staring out the open sliders at Lily who is on the deck brushing Jango.
I wind my fingers through Tara’s fingers and walk toward Rachel.
“We’re dating,” I say.
“I guessed as much,” Rachel says, and smiles. “I’m happy for you because I really think the two of you make a good couple.”
She pulls Tara in for a hug.
“We’ve kind of been seeing how it works, the last few weeks,” Tara adds.
“And it does? Work?” Rachel asks.
“Really well,” I say.
This knot in my chest slips apart. I feel it almost as though it’s a real entity. Suddenly, this tightness is gone, and I glance out to the deck where Lily sits beside Jango. I squeeze Tara’s hand and look at Rachel, who has a real smile on her face, and I wonder and hope and pray that all the pain of the last six years is finally behind us. Yes, there will be sadness and hiccups and bumps but maybe, just maybe, we’re all ready to have some simple joy and peace and this day, this night, is the start of all of that for us.
“Mommy can I go into the water?”
“Bean, I’ll take you,” I say. I walk to the sliders and bend down and grab one of Jango’s balls. “Guess who loves to swim?” I ask Lily and point toward Jango.
“Oooh!” Lily claps and jumps up and down with the excitement of having Jango and me in the ocean with her.
“My god, I’m going to end up with a fucking dog,” I hear Rachel mutter under her breath. Quietly enough so that Lily, who is already back on the deck with Jango, can’t hear her.
“That was always my plan, sister, dear.” I scoot out of the house before she can find anything hard to hit me with.
Chapter Sixteen
The sun hovers just above the ocean. Orange, gold, and pink streak across the sky. I open the top of the grill and set the cedar plank that carries a side of salmon inside.
“Here you go.” Tara walks up and hands me a glass of white wine. There is a peace winding through me that I haven’t felt in maybe forever. I sip my wine and place my arm around Tara’s waist. This is how I want life to feel; smooth and soft and silky with beauty and love and a slow joy that permeates the air around me.
“Good day?” Tara asks.
I don’t even know how to quantify thi
s day. This very simple day of throwing a ball into the waves and running into the surf with Lily by my side while Rachel and Tara sit on beach chairs talking and reading. Today is the best day I’ve had in what feels like a lifetime. I look into her blue eyes that I’m starting to call home.
“The best day.” I kiss her. “I love you.” I say, and I know that this moment is seared into my memory. Could a lifetime possibly be made up of moments like this one and all the brilliant moments strung together during this day?
“Do you think Rachel will mind? I invited our neighbor over for dinner.”
“Naw, she won’t mind.” I turn away, lift the lid and give the salmon a peek. “Is he single?”
Tara nods. “Very. Well-adjusted. Widowed. And has a good job.”
“She may end up thanking you.”
Tara’s gaze drifts to the house and I follow her gaze. Rachel brushes Lily’s wet hair. She’s fresh out of the bath and wears summer pajamas. “I don’t know. I think she’s pretty determined to get Lily raised before she gets involved with anyone.”
I understand that determination to stay un-involved, but I also now understand that sometimes it’s not a choice. Sometimes the person you’re meant to be with doesn’t wait for the perfect moment, they simply arrive, unrequested and unwelcome, and their presence requires you to do the work you need to do to share your life with them.
“She’s focused on Lily,” I say. “But sometimes being in love isn’t a choice, it simply is.”
She turns her face to me and presses her lips to mine.
Warmth flows through my body because I want a lifetime of this. What today and tonight is, this is what I want. Tara’s stomach growls.
“You’re hungry.”
“Starved,” she says. “And that smells amazing.”
I lift the top and peek in. “Five more minutes.”
“I’ll go pull the potatoes,” she says.
I watch the woman I love walk into the house. I turn toward the surf. The sun slips into the calm ocean. The waves caress the shore and I know that everything is right in my world.
***
“How have we never met?” I ask. Alex is the type of man that in my business I feel I would’ve run into at some point.
“You do VC, I make movies. Your kind isn’t exactly pounding down the doors to invest in films.”
“Fair enough.” I take another sip of my wine and squeeze Tara’s hand. Lily’s eyes are heavy and she looks like she may fall asleep at the table.
“Rach,” I whisper, and nod my chin toward my niece.
“Excuse me, I’m going to put my little one down.”
I’m up before the words are out of Rachel’s mouth. “I’ve got it,” I say. I lift Lily from her seat and without a peep, she snuggles her head onto my shoulder. Her hair smells fresh and of sun and wind and strawberries. I smile at Tara who stands.
“I’ll help.”
I walk up the stairs and down the hall to the room with a double bed. Tara pulls back the blanket and I gently put Lily in the bed.
“That’s the good kind of sleep,” I whisper. “The kind that comes after a day of sun, family, and fun.” Lily is so deeply asleep her eyelids don’t even flutter.
“There’s nothing sexier than seeing a man carry an adorable child and tuck her into bed,” Tara says. She tilts her head toward mine and we kiss. A soft and gentle kiss, the kind that comes with love.
We walk out of Lily’s room and I shut the door but leave the tiniest crack. Rachel’s laugh comes up the stairs. Big Sis sounds happy.
“He’s a nice guy,” I say.
Tara wiggles her eyebrows. “I know. I was kind of hoping that Rachel would think so too.”
Another laugh from downstairs followed by a deeper, masculine laugh.
“It sounds like they’re having a good time. Well done. You think you can fix up both the damaged Reynolds’ kids in one month?”
“I can try,” she says.
“That would be quite an accomplishment when you consider our failure in love.”
“Not really a failure on either of your parts was it?”
I pull her into my arms and close my eyes. “It felt like a failure.” The warmth of Tara’s body feels good pressed against me. Almost as though failure isn’t possible when she’s this close and my feelings are this good.
“No failure,” Tara whispers. “Sadness, but no failure. You tried to do everything for the woman you loved. How is that a failure?”
A breath shudders through my lungs. Heat builds in my eyes but the weight of guilt that compresses my chest when the topic of Susie comes up isn’t present. The loss is still there and I guess the loss of Susie will be with me for the rest of my life, but the guilt over not being able to save her seems to have gone.
“Her death wasn’t your fault.”
I open my eyes and nod. And while I know that Susie’s death wasn’t my fault, I’m still not ready to let go of the belief that if I’d only let her go, she’d still be alive and living her life.
“There you two are.” Rachel stands at the far end of the hallway at the top of the stairs. “Lily okay?” Rachel brushes by me and peeks into the room. I stand behind Big Sis and peer into the room too.
“She’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Rachel says.
“She’s perfect,” I say.
Rachel turns back to me and Tara, “I started the coffee and Alex is breaking out the dessert he made.”
“He bakes?” I ask.
Tara nods.
“He’s perfect for Rachel,” I whisper in Tara’s ear.
We follow Rachel down the stairs. The table and kitchen have already been cleaned and the dishwasher loaded. Big Sis may be the best house guest ever.
We head to the living room where Alex has built a fire in the fireplace. Tara brings over a tray with coffee cups, plates, a carafe and silverware, and Alex follows behind her with the chocolate torte. Rachel starts to cut pieces while Alex tells me about the next film his company is putting into production. Rachel hands me my piece and I cut into the torte and take my first bite.
“Hey,” Alex says, and nods toward Tara. “How’s that new book of yours going?”
“You’re writing a book?” Rachel asks.
I glance toward Tara. A book? She hasn’t mentioned a book to me… My gaze is locked to hers but she won’t meet my eyes.
“It’s nothing, just this idea that I have and I’m thinking—”
“Nothing? Ha, it’s not nothing,” Alex continues. “Every publishing house in New York has made her an offer. I’ve even made her an offer for the film rights for this yet to be written book.”
My belly squeezes and suddenly the untangled knot in my chest is tangled and tightened again.
Because I know. I know before anyone asks.
“What’s it about?” Rachel balances her plate with a piece of torte on her knee and takes a sip of her coffee.
“It’s uh—”
“It’s that brilliant article she wrote for the LA Post,” Alex breaks in. “Everyone wants a piece of that. The click rate was off the charts and if they can’t find the guy then they definitely want his story.”
I put my plate on the table beside my chair. I can’t eat another bite. I swallow. I look at Tara but she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she gazes at her plate and scoops some of the torte onto her fork.
“You never mentioned a book deal,” I say. I try to keep my voice thoughtful and light as though simply surprised by the idea that the woman I’m seeing has a book deal when on the inside I’m screaming, What. The. FUCK?!
“I’ve gotten some offers based on the article but I haven’t taken any of them.” She finally meets my gaze. “I’m not sure I want to write it.”
I nod. Her response makes me feel a bit better, if not entirely. She’s lied by omission. She should’ve told me that people wanted her to write a book, that she’d been approached. I feel lied to with her decision not to say anything.
“I l
oved that article,” Rachel says. “It resonated with every woman I know.”
“You don’t think he’s a little creepy?” Alex asks. “I mean a guy just wanting to fuck a boatload of women and claiming it was his vocation? Doesn’t that sound like the world’s worst pick up line to you?”
“No, it seemed like he never had to pick them up. That they were always reaching out to him.”
“They were”—Tara’s eyes flick to me—“He’s legit. According to all the women I spoke to and when I met him, he truly believes that this is his vocation and he does it because he loves women and he wants them to feel good about themselves.”
“Was he gorgeous?” Rachel nearly pants.
I stand with my plate. I can’t sit here and listen to my sister pant over a man that she believes is distant when actually it’s me. That is simply too strange.
“Come on ladies, really?” Alex smiles and shakes his head. “Tara, you didn’t embellish any of what the women had to say?”
I stand in front of her and reach out for her now empty dessert plate. Her gaze meets mine and I can’t hide my disappointment, my discomfort, or the sadness that radiates from my heart. Her gaze screams, ‘I’m sorry’, but my mental state in this moment won’t allow me to accept her apology.
“No, they all felt as though he’d saved them,” Tara says, and her gaze locks with mine. I break away from her, unwilling to give her the acceptance she seeks.
“If you heard the stories that my women friends tell, you’d understand why,” Rachel says, and hands me her empty dessert plate.
“It’s that bad?” Alex asks.
“It’s that bad.” Rachel says. They look at each other and there is this moment between them. I feel the spark.
Rachel takes a breath and looks away from Alex. “My goodness, I ate too much,” she says, and lets out a nervous laugh.
“Go for a walk with me,” Alex says.
Rachel glances at him. The invitation is for her and her alone, and in his tone, his words, is more than simply a walk. Rachel glances at me and Tara. “You guys mind?”