by Lili Valente
We stumble toward the bed, but at the last minute, I shake my head, mumbling against his lips, “Not there. The closet.”
“The closet?” he asks, his hand finding its way up my shirt as I shift our course toward the other side of the room.
“It’s a big closet, and it locks from the inside,” I explain, breath catching as his thumb brushes across my already tight nipple. “The bedroom door doesn’t lock. It never has for some reason.”
“Your parents probably wanted to be sure they could get to you in case of a fire.” He hooks his fingers over the cup of my bra and jerks it down below my breast, baring my skin to his touch. “That’s why I took Chloe’s lock off of her door.”
“Or they wanted to be sure Justin and I kept our pot smoking over at his house.” I arch into his hand as his fingers find my nipple again, this time with no satin in the way. “God, that feels good. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me, too, baby. It feels like I’ve gone a fucking year without your pussy, not a week. I need you naked and on top of me. Right now.”
“Push the lock,” I whisper, already reaching for the bottom of my sweater in the dim light streaming through the cracks in the closet door.
Brendan clicks the button and proceeds to strip swiftly and efficiently, disposing of his boxer briefs and revealing the long, smooth column of his erection as my bra hits the floor. A moment later, he’s flat on his back beside a shelf of my shoes from high school, and I’m straddling him, groaning in relief as he guides his cock to where I’m already wet simply from standing next to him in the kitchen drinking eggnog and admiring how sexy he looks in his jeans.
“Fuck, Laura, you feel so good,” he murmurs as I drop my hips, taking him deep, my entire body thrilling to the way he pierces me, stretching me, filling me with a perfection that assures me on a biological level that we’re a perfect fit. “Yes, ride me, beautiful. Ride your cock. Because he’s yours. He belongs to you.”
With a moan of surrender, I obey, giving in to the desire pumping through my bloodstream like wildfire, devouring what restraint I have left. I brace my hands on his chest and ride him hard and fast, slamming my hips down again and again, grinding my clit against him at the end of each thrust, while he pinches my nipples and urges me on with a string of sweetly filthy words that take me higher, higher, until I’m gasping for air.
And then suddenly I’m falling.
I cry out his name as I come, my pussy locking tight around his cock as waves of pleasure swell and explode, one after the other in a brilliant row, like fireworks lighting up the night sky.
I’m still coming, my inner walls clenching and releasing like a fist, when Brendan joins me. He pins my hips to his with his fingers tight at my waist and comes with a groan, his cock twitching until I can feel the head of him pulsing against that sweet spot deep inside.
I wiggle closer, on the verge of catching a second wave, when the sound of a slamming door and a familiar chuckle make me freeze.
Eyes flying wide, I glance down at Brendan, who looks like he’s seen his grandmother’s ghost. Right behind us. While we’re both naked.
“Who is it?” he mouths.
“I think it’s my parents,” I mouth back, a horrified furrow wrinkling my forehead.
A second later, I hear my father say, “I love that eggnog makes you horny, Mimi. I’m going to serve you a glass every Friday from now on.”
My mom giggles breathlessly. “We shouldn’t be doing this. The kids will notice we’re gone and come looking.”
“But they won’t come looking here,” my dad says with a naughty laugh that makes me want to stuff cotton in my ears.
And then some moist, smacking sounds drift through the air, and I revise the wish for cotton to acid. Acid poured right into my ear drums until I’m in so much pain I’m incapable of remembering that I heard my parents preparing to have sex.
“We have to stop them,” Brendan hisses softly. “I’m not ready to be this close to your parents.”
“And you think I am?” I hiss back, eyes squeezing shut as more smacking sounds and a giggle sound from my childhood bed, where my parents are totally about to get in on while Brendan and I hide out buck-naked in the closet.
I shudder as I crawl off Brendan and grope for a cowboy boot in the semi-darkness. “Cover your ears,” I warn, knowing there’s no time to waste.
The moment Brendan’s hands fly to either side of his head, I slam the boot into the wall with a sharp—bam bam bam bam bam—and call out in my loudest voice, “Fire drill! Fire drill! I repeat this is a fire drill and all perverted old people should vacate the premises as quickly as possible. Preferably with all of their clothes on.”
Silence falls in the wake of my announcement, and then my mom says, “Laura? Are you in the closet?” in a horrified voice.
“Yes, Mom, I’m in the closet and unfortunately I’m not alone.” I quickly slip on my panties, bra, and sweater, just in case my mom or dad decide to come peer in the slats of the closet door.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Collins.” Brendan grins as he pulls on his boxer briefs and sweater, as if this is all some hysterical joke. “I hope this won’t make things weird.”
My mom gasps and whispers something to my father, who only laughs because he also has no shame. This is the man I caught fondling my mom’s ass every morning as a child, when I stumbled down the stairs grumpy and hungry and hunting breakfast only to find the two of them canoodling over their morning coffee.
“Not at all, son,” my dad says, while my mother makes more distressed hissing sounds. “Just glad you two sounded the alarm before—”
“Blah blah blah blah,” I call out, covering my ears. “I’m not listening. Good-bye, Dad, good-bye, Mom. We’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes, at which time we will all pretend this never happened.”
“Excellent idea,” Mom says. “But I will take this opportunity to mention that birth control is an important thing to consider when you’re young and—”
“Oh my God, Mom, stop! For the love of Christ.” I bury my face in my hands with a moan while Brendan giggles.
The man actually giggles, a gleeful leprechaun sound that makes me laugh even as I wrinkle my nose and slap his chest. “Stop,” I whisper. “This is not funny. And you sound like you’re twelve.”
He giggles again, apparently unable to help himself. And pretty soon, I’m unable to help myself, either. By the time my parents hustle out of the room, slamming the door behind them, I’m laughing so hard I can’t stand.
“Stop,” I gasp, sliding down the closet wall as my knees give way. “Stop or I’m going to be sick.”
“I can’t.” Brendan swipes his fist across his watering eyes as he doubles over with a fresh convulsion of laughter. “I wonder if you inherited eggnog-inspired horniness from your mother.”
“Gross. Oh God, so gross.” I slap at his knees with a laughter-weak arm even as I snicker so hard my nose starts to hurt. “What is wrong with you?”
“Not a thing.” He slides down to sit beside me, taking my hand in his. “Not a damned thing. You make me stupid happy, Laura Collins.”
“Me, too.” I sniff hard as the laughter cramps finally begin to subside. “It’s just stupid. We should have been doing this since last summer. Think of all the getting-caught-banging-in-the-closet fun we missed.”
He grins, bringing our joined hands to his lips. “That’s all right. I think we’re doing a good job of making up for lost time.”
I watch him kiss the back of my hand with what I’m sure is a sappy as hell expression, but it’s dark and I’m crazy in love so who cares?
I’m thinking about how crazy this is—and how wonderful and scary it is that we might have passed in the night and never finished falling in love if not for Diana’s text—when Brendan shifts onto his knees in front of me, a weirdly serious expression on his face.
“I was going to wait until tonight, but I’m not sure I’ll get a more memorable moment than this, so…�
� He takes a deep breath and pulls something out of the depths of his front pocket, holding it up between us. “Laura, will you do me the honor of making me stupid happy for a long, long time? Hopefully until we’re perverted grandparents, sneaking into Chloe’s room to bang on Christmas Eve day?”
My jaw drops and my eyes fill, while shock, joy, and terror burst inside me all at the same time, sending a sonic boom of confusion thundering through my ears, leaving a high whine of white noise behind.
“I love you,” Brendan continues, the look in his eyes assuring me that it’s true and this is really happening in my childhood closet, a mere month after we started dating. “I love you, and I can’t imagine anything better to do with my life than spend the rest of it loving you and Chloe and any other babies we might pick up along the way.”
Babies. He wants babies.
He wants to marry me, make me Chloe’s stepmom for real, and eventually get me knocked up so we can have an even bigger family.
And on one hand, it’s a dream come true because I love him, and I love Chloe, and yes, oh yes, I want babies with his blue eyes, the same obnoxiously red hair I had as a child, and elegant, artist’s fingers just like Chloe’s. But on the other hand, it’s only been four weeks, and I spent the past week barely keeping my head above water, and Brendan has no idea how close I came to failing him. To failing him and Chloe and myself because maybe I’m not cut out to be a mom. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to juggle work, kids, romance, and all the rest of it.
And if I don’t have the right stuff, then I have no business with this beautiful man or his beautiful little girl, and they should move on, keep looking, keep searching until they find someone better, stronger.
Someone more like Maryanne, who, according to everything I’ve heard from Brendan and the Gibbons, never got stressed out or overwhelmed or felt like she was having a panic attack when she got home starved and exhausted from a long day at work only to find that the fish she’d bought to cook is filled with worms, the soup in the fridge has gone moldy, and Chloe refuses to eat anything from the freezer because it “tastes funny, like soap and burning mixed together.”
“Laura?” Brendan leans down, bringing his eyes level with my no-doubt panicked ones. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I squeak, even as I shake my head quickly back and forth. “No. No, I’m not. I don’t know what to say. Or to think and I—” I gulp in a breath, suddenly dizzy, as if all that oxygen Brendan brought home with him has been sucked away again.
I stand, hands braced on the closet wall as my stomach does a woozy backflip. “I need to think. I’m sorry. I love you so much. I just need some time to think.” Fumbling for the door handle, I flee the closet at a jog.
By the time I hit the stairs, I’m flat out running, even though I know it’s crazy, and from what I can hear, it doesn’t sound like Brendan is following me, let alone chasing me through the house. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need anyone flesh and blood chasing me. The doubt demons in my head are doing a perfectly good job all on their own.
I streak through the kitchen, ignoring my mother’s sharp—“Laura, what’s wrong? Laura, are you okay?”—and head for the front door, snagging my purse on the way. As I dash across the snow-covered grass toward where my car is parked on the street, I’m dimly aware of Libby and Chloe calling out to me from the other side of the yard where they’re still hard at work on their snowman, but I don’t stop.
I can’t talk to them right now.
I can’t talk to anyone. I just need to drive. To drive and drive, until I’m far enough away to figure out what to do next.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laura
Libby finds me forty-five minutes later, parked in a corner booth at Wicked Good Donuts, with my Damn Dirty Bastard donut still untouched on the plate in front of me and the coffee in my mug slowly going cold.
She rests a hand on the bright pink vinyl seat with the tiny skulls-and-crossbones painted across the top. “Mind if I join you?”
I shrug. “Sure. Sit down. Have some donut.”
“No way, that’s your favorite.” She sits and reaches out to spin the plate in a semi-circle, pointing to the place where the peanut butter frosting is oozing out of the hole in the pastry. “And look how much filling is in there. And double the dark chocolate mini-chips on top, too. That’s going to be a good one.”
I press my lips together, wondering if this is the moment that the dam breaks, but my eyes remain dry, and that curiously numb feeling that took hold as I pulled away from my parents’ house settles deeper into my chest. “I think I’m going into shock.”
Libby’s expression dimples sympathetically. “Understandable. Brendan told Justin what happened. You want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think so. I don’t… I still don’t know what to think. It just… I had no idea he was even considering…” I sniff, pulse picking up as a whisper of fear penetrates the numb fog. “And now everything’s ruined, isn’t it? I’ve ruined it.”
“No, not at all.” Libs reaches out, covering my hand with hers. “Brendan was upset, but he was also really sweet to Mom and Dad while he and Chloe were getting ready to go. I think he realizes that he jumped the gun.”
“They left?” I squeeze my eyes shut. “Right. Of course they left. Poor Chloe, she was so excited about Secret Santa. I guess I ruined that, too.”
“No, you didn’t. They took their presents home, along with a huge plate of cookies, and Justin is going with her next week to pick out a hedgehog at this breeder he found. She’s over the moon excited.” Libby rolls her eyes, a half-smile curving her lips. “And apparently we’re going to get one, too, because Justin has decided that bonding with a baby hedgehog is all he needs to make his life complete. Of course, I’m going to be the one taking care of the little guy while Jus is out of town, so hopefully we’ll be able to bond, too. And I’ll be able to keep it safe from Terrible. I’m not sure how the cat will feel about having another four-legged thing around the house.”
“Right.” I drop my gaze to the oily surface of my coffee, wishing I’d added more cream, but I’m too rooted in my misery to go fetch any from the bar. “That’s part of the problem. It wasn’t easy last week. There were times when I was so tired, and Chloe was still going strong, and I started to wonder…”
Libby pulls her hand from mine, threading her fingers together on top of the table in a light fist. “Okay, well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up, I have to confess that I thought that was a bad idea. And not very cool of Brendan.”
I glance up, frowning. “Why? Chloe and I usually get along really well. And I used to watch her all the time, even before we started dating.”
“You watched her for an afternoon, or for a few hours while he did a PR event, not for a week straight. You were thrown into the deep end of the single-parent pool, Laura, without a flotation device.”
My first instinct is to spring to Brendan’s defense, but Libby stops me with a hand held up between us.
“Brendan’s been raising Chloe alone for a long time,” she continues, “so maybe he didn’t think about how hard that would be for you, but I did. I get to send all my six-year-olds back to their parents at two o’clock every day and go home to rest. But there are still some days when I feel like I’m too tired to do anything but nuke leftovers and sit in front of the TV drooling on myself until time for bed. And I have a college degree and years of experience to help me convince my kids to behave. All you had was good intentions.”
My chest softens, allowing another fear whisper to hiss in and out between my ribs. “That’s all most parents have, though, right? If I had what it takes to be a mom, or a stepmom, or whatever, then I wouldn’t have struggled so much. Maybe I’m just not strong enough. Or good enough. Maybe I’m a selfish jerk who should stay single so I don’t fuck up Brendan and Chloe’s chance at happiness.”
Libby’s eyes narrow as she flips her long brown hai
r over her shoulder. “Well if that isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is. I thought you were upset because Brendan was a doofus who popped the question way too soon. I mean, a sweet, romantic, clearly wildly in love with you doofus, but still…” She shakes her head. “But no, you’re sitting here being ridiculous.”
“I am not!” I pick up my fork, stabbing it into the edge of my donut. “I’m trying to be honest with myself.”
“No, you’re not. You’re making excuses to play it safe. The way you always do. But this time, you’re pushing away someone really special.”
I pop a bite of chocolate and peanut-butter-flavored sugar sin into my mouth and talk around the explosion of bliss. “That’s a bunch of horse shit, Libby. And since when did you get so mean?”
“It’s not horse shit, and I’m not being mean, I’m being honest.” She lifts a hand, uncurling her index finger. “You ended it with Theo when he asked you to move to Seattle.”
I stab my donut again. “I didn’t want to move to Seattle. My career and my family and my friends are here.”
“Fine, but you didn’t even try to make it work long distance or ask him to stay. You just broke it off, even though he was wonderful and sweet and you guys were clearly good for each other. And then there’s Dodi, Benjamin, and Henry, all of whom were crazy about you, and all of whom you dumped within a few weeks of giving them a key to your place or them giving you a key to theirs.”
“Henry was sneaking around and wearing my underwear without permission, Libby.” I point my fork accusingly her way. “That was not my fault.”
She sighs. “Fine, take Henry off the list. But you see the pattern here, right? The pattern of bailing when things are entering a new stage of commitment? Because maybe you’re a little bit scared of commitment?”
I gather icing onto the tip of my fork tines with tiny swipes before dipping the frosting in the mini chocolate chips, and consider Libby’s theory.