The doomed girl he loved.
The ‘shrooms had just enough hold on him to give real pop to the shadows and sorrow that always lived in his head.
EIGHT
Analisa awoke and opened her eyes in the full sun of late morning. Her chest ached heavily, and she could feel a coughing fit sitting at the bottom of her throat. If she let it loose, she’d freak Nolan out. Swallowing, she tried to push it down.
She was curled at his side. He was sitting against the headboard. When she looked up, he smiled and brushed her hair from her face.
“Good morning. How’re you feeling?”
“Good,” she lied. Then she remembered that she’d spent the night before tripping on ‘shrooms, and she considered if, in addition to the weight on her chest, she was feeling any ill effects. No. No, actually—except for her chest, she felt okay. “I’m good.”
Her memory of the night was odd. It seemed clear, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. Everything seemed to have flowed together. She remembered lying outside with Nolan for a long time. She remembered how amazing his body had felt, and her body, and everything she touched. She remembered the way the ocean had sung to her, with actual words. She remembered watching television and the cartoons jumping around in the room with her. And she remembered feeling It wrapping her up in black ropes.
She remembered that Nolan had told her he loved her, and that he had insisted it was true.
Settling her head on his chest, she ignored the way her lungs demanded more room. “How are you?”
“I’m good, too.” He combed his fingers through her hair, and she closed her eyes and let the gentle sweetness of that caress distract her from her tightening chest. “What’s left on your list, Ani?”
“Let’s see…Make a movie. Which reminds me.” She started to turn to the nightstand and get her phone, but he held her in place.
“Let’s just keep this moment between us, okay?” She nodded, and he asked, “What else?”
“Invent something cool. Buy a house.”
“I know those. What about your secret list? What other scary desires are lurking in your pretty head?” He tapped her temple lightly.
There were three. Or, she guessed, after their talk about condoms, now only two. But she didn’t want to tell him the last one. She was pretty sure she knew how and when she’d cross that one off. “Just one. Make Thanksgiving dinner for my family.”
His finger curled under her chin, and he lifted her head so that she was looking up into his eyes. Their blue was a wonder—sometimes the color was so deeply vibrant they seemed faceted; other times the blue was so dark they were almost black. Her blue eyes were just weird, the color pale and watery.
“Why is that on your secret list? That seems like the easiest one on either list.”
“Because I want to do it in my own house, and I want to do it myself. I used to cook with my mom. It was fun. But if my dad knows about it, he’ll want to fix it up for me.” She moved her head off his finger and settled back on his chest. “And I have to be alive for Thanksgiving to be able to do it.” Thanksgiving was six weeks away.
His arm tensed around her. “I love you, Ani.”
Those words were so wonderful to hear that her eyes began to burn. But she wanted them to be real. “I changed my mind. I don’t want you to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I was wrong when I said I didn’t. I just hadn’t let myself see it.”
Her burning eyes ran over and wet his chest, but she fought back actual sobs—if she started to really cry, she wouldn’t be able to hold back the coughing. As it was, she was nearing a crisis and needed to send him off to take a shower or something soon. She didn’t want him to know that she was getting sicker. She didn’t want him to be different with her, the way her father was different with her.
“I love you, Nolan.”
He rolled her onto her back and hovered over her. She thought he was going to kiss her, but he only brushed his fingertips over her cheekbone. “How about ‘be a mom’? That’s on your list, too, right?”
Lying flat like this made her chest hurt more, but she forced her mind to overcome that matter. She shook her head. “You were right yesterday. I can’t have that one. It was shitty for me to even think that way.”
“What if I could make it happen?”
“What?”
“If you can stretch what it means a little, I think I know a way for you to be a mom. Maybe just overnight, but still. Would that work?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grinned. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” Then he did kiss her.
~oOo~
She was able to get him into her shower just a few minutes later. When the water was running, she grabbed her inhaler from her nightstand drawer and hurried to the kitchen. Once at the sink, she let the coughing have her. She coughed and coughed until her middle ached, her throat stung, and she was spitting blood into the sink.
She took her morning meds, then slid down the cabinets to the floor, taking hits off her inhaler until she no longer thought she might actually die right there on the floor.
Six weeks until Thanksgiving. Ten weeks until Christmas.
Analisa considered adding something new to her secret list: ‘Spend Christmas with Nolan.’
It was a pipe dream, and she had too many of those on her list already. Like being a mom. But for now, feeling like she’d won this morning’s skirmish with It, she rinsed out the sink, put her meds away, and went back to her room.
Nolan was still in the shower, so she pulled off the t-shirt she’d grabbed on her way to the kitchen and went in to join him. She’d never showered with anyone before.
Her bathroom had an open shower, sectioned off from the rest of the room with a glass-block wall. When she walked in, she could see Nolan, his body distorted through the wavy glass, leaning on the wall, his arms extended, his head down, the spray running over his back. She stood and watched for a couple of seconds, but he didn’t move.
She crossed the room and went around the glass wall, standing just inside the shower, but he still hadn’t moved.
“Nolan?”
He jumped and turned fast, his eyes fierce, like he was expecting to fight. But that eased from his face and body as soon as he saw her, and for a flash, what she saw in his eyes was the kind of sadness her father showed her.
But then he smiled and held out his hand. “Hey, you. C’mere.”
He pulled her against him, and she felt his erection growing as it pressed into her belly. She wished that she’d known him earlier. It would have been nice to have this feeling, this desire, this kind of love, for more than only a few weeks.
He kissed her, and his hands slid down her back to cup her ass. As the hot water cascaded over and between them, slicking their bodies, she hooked her arms around his neck and held him as closely to her as she could, feeling as much of his body on hers as possible, lifting up onto her toes, trying to keep up with his tongue.
When he groaned, she felt it on her lips and against her chest. She felt it between her legs.
She was practically climbing him, and then he lifted her off her feet and shifted his hold, hooking her legs over his arms, one by one, and then lifting her even higher until she couldn’t keep contact with his mouth any longer.
“Nolan, what?”
“Shhh.” He lifted her until he could set her thighs on his shoulders. Then he stepped to the wall, pressing her back to it.
“Oh. Wow.”
Looking up at her, he tucked his face between her legs and opened his mouth. When she felt his tongue against her clit, she grabbed his hair in both hands. Then he sucked her clit into his mouth, his tongue still moving, and she shouted, “Oh, fuck!”—the words echoed against the glass tiles.
He chuckled, and the feel of it on that sensitive part of her made her shake. He sucked and licked and nibbled, his tongue moving from her clit to dip inside her as if he were tasting her; then he returned
his attention to her clit. His nose brushed against the little crystals of her piercing, and that light twinge made everything all the more potent.
The wet heat of the shower had eased the last of the rigor in her lungs, and that was a very good thing, because she was panting and heaving as if she’d just finished one of the Tough Mudder competitions her brother was so fond of.
She couldn’t hold still. God, oh God, it was like nothing she’d ever felt. Different from what they’d done the day before, different from anything ever. She realized that she was rubbing herself against his face, but she couldn’t stop. She was coming, and it was amazing.
When it really hit her, she let go of his hair and slammed her palms back against the wall. “God! God! Nolan, God! Oh fuck, God! Yesyesyesyesyes!” Then words became impossible, as every muscle in her body locked down tight.
Like a switch, what he was doing changed from something she never, ever wanted to stop to something she couldn’t stand for even one more second. She pushed on his head and flexed away. Smiling, he leaned back and changed his hold on her, shrugging her legs off his shoulders and letting her slide slowly down his body, over his long, solid erection, until her feet touched the wet tile of the floor.
“You like that?”
“Oh, my God, Nolan,” she gasped. He kissed her, and she tasted herself. He was still hard, digging into her belly. With their mouths joined, she brought her hands between them and took hold of him. He grunted and twitched at her touch.
She broke their kiss and looked up at him. “Can I do something like that for you?”
Pushing her wet hair from her face, he smiled and kissed her forehead. Then he turned and leaned back against the wall.
~oOo~
“On the weekends, Lexi and Ian go to bed at eight-thirty. Ian needs a bath at night. Lexi prefers to shower in the morning—but she’ll handle that on her own. In fact, Lex’ll help out a lot. She’s a little mom. She’ll tell you if she needs help, or if there’s something her brothers need.” Riley laughed. “She’ll tell you what they’re allowed to do and what they’re not. Ian will try to get over, but Lex will keep you straight. Right, sweetie?”
Standing next to her mom, Lexi looked at Analisa and nodded seriously. “Yes. I know the right way to do everything.”
Riley and Analisa looked at each other and chuckled quietly. Lexi Elstad was a typical firstborn: Type A and a little bit of a know-it-all.
Declan squirmed in Analisa’s arms and reached for his mother. “No, Deck,” Riley said. “Analisa has you.” She moved away. “Deck sleeps through. We put him down around ten, and he’ll be down until seven, sometimes eight. He naps twice during the day, at around ten in the morning, and then again around four. If he has a big day, he might want to nap in the evening, too, but it’s better to keep him entertained. If he falls asleep for the night too early, you’ll be up before dawn with a very energetic baby, and then Lex and Ian won’t be far behind.”
Odin, the Elstads’ gargantuan fawn Great Dane, walked through the kitchen, right between them, bumping everybody’s legs and whacking them all with his thick tail. He went to an equally gargantuan dog bed in the far corner and plopped down with a heavy sigh.
Riley smiled at the dog and turned back to Analisa. “Odie is a lug, and he’s in the way a lot, but he’s a good sitter, too. He won’t give you any trouble, and Lexi’s job is to take care of his food and water. But if he’s too much in the way, you can call Muse, and Odie can go play with Cliff for the weekend.”
“He’s awesome. I love big dogs.” She’d never had a dog of her own; Tristan was allergic.
“That’s the third time you’ve gone over this, babe. I think she’s got it.” Bart was leaning against the wall at the entrance to the kitchen. Analisa didn’t know where Nolan was—probably still playing cars with Ian.
He’d done this for her—convinced Bart and Riley to go away for a weekend and leave their three children in Nolan and Analisa’s care. To let her be a mom for a couple of days.
Riley gave Bart a playfully irritated look and then turned back to Analisa. “Sorry if I’m being OCD about this.”
Analisa shifted Declan onto her shoulder, and he grabbed a hank of her hair and stuck it in his mouth. “You’re not. I understand. Thanks for this.”
“We should be thanking you,” Bart said and stepped into the room. “You’ve got our numbers, and Bibi is close if you need help. C’mon, babe. Vegas is waiting. Let’s kiss the crunchers and get on the road.”
Lexi took her mother’s hand. “It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll help Analisa and Nolan. I’ll make sure they take care of us.”
Riley squatted down and hugged her six-year-old. “Thank you, princess. I know you will.”
~oOo~
Nolan ran into the living room with Ian on his shoulders. He put him down, flipping him over on the way, and making him giggle crazily.
“How do you guys feel about pizza?”
“YEAH!” Ian jumped up and down. Odin watched him, lying on the floor near the fireplace, his tail thumping. “PEE-ZAA!” Ian dropped to the floor in front of the dog and gave him a gargantuan hug, for which he was rewarded with a gargantuan tongue bath.
Analisa was sitting in an upholstered rocker, giving Declan a bottle. He’d been dozing off, but he startled and his eyes went wide when Ian yelled. She was glad—it was almost seven o’clock, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to let him sleep, but he was so bloody cute, his sweet grey eyes rolling up in his head as sleep crept on him, that she felt too guilty to wake him.
Lexi was playing dolls in an elaborate dollhouse. Analisa had had a big Victorian dollhouse when she was a little girl, but she’d never been into dolls. She’d preferred being outside, and her fantasies had been more adventuresome. But Lexi had been contentedly playing alone with this English stone cottage for a couple of hours, moving her little family through their days. She gave them all something like a British accent, each doll with a different voice. Analisa had sat and watched, mesmerized.
She had taken probably fifty stills and thirty minutes of video just on this day.
When Nolan mentioned pizza, though, Lexi left behind Jolly Old England and gave him a somber look. “Marta made dinners in the freezer. We’re supposed to have those.”
The Elstads’ housekeeper didn’t work on the weekends, so Analisa and Nolan were on their own. But she had left a freezer full of prepared meals for them.
Nolan knelt at Lexi’s side. “I know. But pizza sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? What’s your favorite topping?”
The girl looked at him, then at Analisa, in clear conflict. “Um…ham and pineapple.”
He grinned. “Yeah? I like that, too. I’d split one with you.”
“Well…I only like whole wheat crust.”
“I could do that. Ian, what kind do you like?”
“SAUSAGE I LIKE SAUSAGE!” He jumped around the room as if he were on a pogo stick. “SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE!”
Nolan laughed and looked up at Analisa. “I think Lexi was right about giving him that soda.”
“I told you, Nolan,” Lexi lectured. “You should listen.”
“You’re right. I should. Are we okay for pizza, though?”
Lexi crossed her arms and thought. “Okay. But no more soda.”
“Yes, ma’am. Milk and juice only. Agreed.”
Lexi nodded and went back to her dolls. Nolan stood, came over to the rocker, and sat on the upholstered arm. “How you doin’, little mama?”
Declan had finished his bottle, so she set him on her shoulder. He wasn’t interested in being burped, though, so she turned the protesting eight-month-old around and sat him on her lap so he could watch his siblings play. “You and Lexi make a great team.”
“I think she could run the show on her own.” He brushed his hand over Declan’s soft hair. Based on the baby pictures everywhere, it looked like he’d been born totally bald, but now he had wispy, white-blond hair. The Elstad kids were all gorgeous.
&nbs
p; Declan began to wiggle and fuss. “I should change him and put him down so he can play.”
“Okay. You do that and I’ll call in a delivery order for Lexi-approved pizza.” He picked up her hand and kissed it.
“PEE-ZAA!” Ian shouted and barreled into Nolan, who laughed and caught him up.
“Let’s find the number, spaz.”
Today & Tomorrow Page 9