by L. B. Dunbar
“Do I really know that?” I question. “I went along with this crazy scheme and then built up a fantasy in my head.” I believed what Logan said to me when he was only trying to be nice. I wasn’t pregnant and I was sad. He comforted me. He wrapped me in his arms and said what I wanted to hear. I took it to heart. This was all on me.
“I’ll just move down the list,” I flippantly state, finding no conviction in my tone.
Anna’s eyes widen. She doesn’t believe me either. “You don’t mean that. You didn’t even have a list.” Her sassy tone suggests she hopes I don’t continue this phase, as Ben crudely called it.
“Who would even be next?” Her breath hitches as if she has an idea, and then her eyes narrow as if she doesn’t like it.
“Not Mason,” I scoff while Anna stares at me. “I was thinking Archer might be a candidate.” I burst into laughter after suggesting her older brother, and Anna lifts the nail polish bottle from the tray, acting as if she’ll pitch it at my head, which she’d never do.
“Very not funny.” She snorts. “I’d have to know where my wayward brother even is to endorse him, which I don’t. He’d make a terrible father.”
“Ah, but that’s the point. I don’t need a father. I just need a stud.” I wink at her, and she laughs again. The truth hurts. The plan started because I only wanted a baby, not a man. I didn’t think I’d want a dad for my child, just a father to produce a baby. My heart aches at the conflict within me.
“You don’t really feel that way, though, do you?” Anna softens her voice, knowing me well. Like I’ve often said, she’s the sister I never had, which gives her the right to sometimes be a pain in the ass.
“No. I don’t.” My voice lowers. Despite the live-in boyfriends, I’m a traditionalist at heart, and I want to be married someday. I want a man by my side, and I want a baby in my arms. Neither is in the cards for me yet, and I’m tired of wallowing over it.
“Enough about me. How is Ben? How is the packing and unpacking and moving?”
Anna sighs at my dismissal of this conversation but spends the remainder of our pedicure time explaining the stages of their move and how she’d like everything settled by Labor Day, which is only a few days away. The kids will start school the following Tuesday, and life will forever be changed for all of them.
26
[Logan]
I was a fucking idiot.
Nerves were eating me up inside, and I was sweating more than usual. The guys had planned to surprise Ben by arriving in time to help move in the furniture and unpack boxes. We’d even coerced Anna into allowing us the chance to repaint rooms if need be, especially for her boys. They were giving up a lot as high schoolers, especially Calvin, to make this change for their parents.
Anna knew of the plan, but Ben didn’t, and he looked exhausted when we invaded on Saturday morning. I was a hot mess of anxiety, working on little sleep and too much coffee. And at some point, Autumn would be here. I hadn’t called. She’d reached out to me, but I hadn’t returned her calls.
I was a fucking schmuck.
With Zack’s help, I gently but firmly informed Chloe she could not take our daughter out of the country to live. This led to a huge argument, but I wasn’t willing to give in. Lorna was just as much my child as hers, and I was beginning to question whether Chloe wanted her child for herself or because she was growing angry with me.
Finally, we came to an agreement. Last night had been painful on a multitude of levels. Lorna was strong until the final boarding call. The tears and sobs seemed inconsolable, and I finally had to tell Chloe to just leave.
At a small dining table in the sitting area off the kitchen, I nurse another coffee and a cinnamon swirl danish I have no business eating. Mason, Zack, and Ben also sit with me. The table is tucked into an oversized bay window with a great view of the lake in the distance, but my eyes keep wandering to the front hall. My hands anxiously rub down my shorts because sweat moistens my palms. I don’t remember being this nervous before my own wedding or at my child’s birth, but I’m melting under the anticipation of Autumn’s appearance.
When she finally does arrive, it’s in a rare second I’m not glancing over at the hallway, and all conversation slowly comes to a halt. Autumn stands completely still near the kitchen island, which is only feet from me but feels miles away. She is so fucking beautiful it takes my breath, and I decide at that moment to do whatever it takes to deserve another chance with her.
“Hey.” Her voice cracks as she addresses all of us but stares at me. With another swipe of my hands down the thighs of my shorts, I choke around a weak response.
“Hey.”
We stare at one another, and the heat crackling from over there to over here turns up my body temperature by one thousand degrees. Then she looks away from me.
“Don’t just sit there, dumb ass. Go to her,” Mason mumbles under his breath. Unfortunately for me, Mason’s been chastising me about my poor communication with Autumn. He’s been a good friend, checking in daily on the Lorna situation, as he called it, and then dropping hints about Autumn.
She looks sad.
She misses you.
You should call her.
Maybe I’ll have better luck with her.
This final comment was meant to torture me into motivation, but Lorna took all my energy. I didn’t know what to say to Autumn, and the more time that passed, the less I knew how to recover us.
Slowly, I stand, swiping at my shorts one more time. With our eyes locked once again on one another, I approach.
“Autumn.” Her name is too stiff against my tongue. “It’s great to see you again,” I weakly state, feeling the daggers at my back. Ben wants to crack me over the head, and Zack exaggerates a cough. Mason is ready to laugh his ass off when I fail with this woman.
Leaning forward, I go in for a cheek kiss, but Autumn turns her head in my direction, and some force of nature has our mouths meeting. We still for a mere second before our lips slowly move, molding to one another’s, working in sync. The kiss slowly builds, like a pot of water set to boil—little bubbles appear, jostling the liquid until atoms erupt and the water rises in a furious froth.
Autumn is in my arms before I know it. Our mouths suck and nip, and my arms wrap around her middle, securing her to me. When her legs hitch up over my hips, I hike her up against my body and walk us out of the kitchen area to give us some privacy.
“I’m so mad at you,” she mumbles with her mouth still against mine. Her fingers tug at the back of my hair. The pinch is a live wire to another part of my body that’s desperate to reconnect with her.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter back, wanting to remain attached to her. We aren’t close enough, but I don’t deserve to be inside her yet.
With her arms around my neck and my hands at her ass, holding her against me, we move into the front hall. Our mouths connect once again in a scorching kiss. Anger. Frustration. Reunion. When her back hits a wall, she pulls her head back and her feet drop to the floor, but I pin her in place with my lower body.
“We should talk.” My voice is hoarse with my need for her. I just want to bury myself inside her, forget the past two and a half weeks, and start fresh.
“I talked to Lorna outside.” The mention of my daughter is both a reminder of the past miserable days and the ice water I need to calm down. Pressing my forehead to Autumn’s, I sigh.
“About that . . .”
“Tell me everything,” she quietly demands. Cupping the back of her neck, as I just want to touch her, I pull back from her forehead and begin.
“Zack helped me find the legal means to tell Chloe she could not take our daughter out of the country.”
“Did you give her an ultimatum?” Autumn’s voice rises with concern and surprise.
“No. I gave her a choice. Peter or Lorna.” Chloe felt guilty deciding. She never wanted to be seen as a bad mother, and she hadn’t been other than her nagging concerns for our daughter’s weight. I tried to assure Chloe I
wouldn’t judge her for choosing Peter. She deserved happiness for herself, but it had me thinking I deserved it as well. While Lorna was the center of our lives, she wasn’t selfish. She wasn’t demanding we put her in the middle. We each deserved more for ourselves. Still, I would never part from my child. “I told Chloe she should go. Rather than me be the one to live without Lorna, it should be Chloe, and maybe Chloe should use the time apart to determine what she really wants in life.”
Autumn’s breath hitches. “Does this mean you have Lorna full time?”
“I do.” Slowly, I grin, proud of myself for not backing down to Chloe. I’m happy while equally scared to have my budding teenage daughter all to myself.
“What if Chloe returns and wants Lorna back?”
“Chloe will always be Lorna’s mother and part of her life as long as she chooses. I’d like to think she won’t disappear on our daughter, but Chloe has become someone I no longer know. At forty, she seems to be on a self-discovery kick.”
Autumn snorts. “I know the feeling, and I’m not even forty yet.”
“You are nothing like Chloe. She’s turned very selfish. If she wants Peter and France, she could go, but she could not take Lorna away from me.”
A heavy pause falls between us before Autumn speaks.
“I would never ask you to give her up.” Her comment shifts our conversation, and my eyebrows arch.
“I know you wouldn’t.” There’s so much more to unpack with her statement, but I need to get back to my apology. I’ve already told Autumn how I felt. I only want her. I don’t want her with anyone else. But I’ve also screwed up. More than two weeks is a long time without communication in a new relationship.
Suddenly, the front door swings open, and Mila runs inside, followed by Lorna.
“Furniture is here!” Mila yells to the open entryway, allowing her little, loud voice to travel in all directions.
I glance at Lorna, who smiles at me before she winks. My sweet eleven-year-old winks at me for encouragement, and my heart skips a beat. Lorna and I have had long meaningful talks about her mother’s decision and dating in general as her parent. I might have mentioned my feelings for Autumn.
“Autumn . . .” I begin, turning back to the woman beside me.
“Time to work,” she says, brushing past me and stepping toward Mila. I catch her upper arm to stop her.
“We aren’t finished.” My tone’s sharpness has more warning in it than I intend, but softening my voice next does nothing to dispel my concerns. “We aren’t done talking, and we aren’t finished with whatever is happening between us.”
Her eyes widen as she chews her lower lip and nods once at me. “Later.”
Later. It’s full of promise, and I’ll take it for now.
+ + +
Later, we’re all exhausted. The furniture is moved in, and rooms are rearranged. I can tell Anna is overwhelmed, and Ben is bone-tired. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it more during our two-week vacation. It could be that all my attention was on Autumn, but I also think Ben was good at hiding his troubles in subtle ways. Maybe now that I know the truth, I’m looking for more signs.
Zack and I don’t want to overwhelm Ben and Anna, and we hadn’t planned to stay the night. Zack intended to head back to Detroit for the remainder of the three-day weekend, but I wasn’t certain what I would do. I had hoped to talk to Autumn and come to some kind of agreement for our future, but I didn’t want to force my way into Ben’s home on their first official weekend living here, nor could I invite myself to Autumn’s place with Lorna in tow.
Fortunately, I don’t have to make a decision. Mila begs for Lorna to stay in her room again, and Mason has space in the two-bedroom apartment over the garage for Zack and me to spend the night without being underfoot of the newly moved family. Ben insists we stay the remainder of the weekend, and I don’t have the heart to argue as I really want the distraction for Lorna. Hanging out with a friend is a good way to keep her mind off the fact her mother chose France over Indiana and Peter over her.
Plus, staying gives me time to speak with Autumn, which I finally get the chance to do once the sun is down.
“Take a walk with me,” I mutter to her once Lorna seems settled in Mila’s room, and Ben says he needs to go to bed. Mason and Zack head into town for a drink.
Autumn and I go out the back door and down the stairs to the landing between the house and beach. I snagged a bottle of wine from the bar alcove along with two glasses, and Autumn has a blanket wrapped around her as the first weekend in September has brought cooler evening temperatures.
Once we sit in the Adirondack chairs on the landing, I pour us each a glass of wine. We remain silent a second after a wordless toast to her.
“Seems I’m constantly apologizing for being a dumbass toward you on this landing,” I start. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
With her gaze off toward the dark lake, she softly chuckles. A single solar-powered light illuminates her outline. “After those first few calls, I didn’t want to appear needy, and I didn’t want to intrude.”
“How would you have been needy?” I ask, keeping my gaze on her. She turns her head to face me.
“I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Autumn, sweetheart. We can talk anytime you want, about anything you want.” I’d wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what to say. Chloe’s decision was sucking everything out of me, and the more time that passed, the less I knew how to reach out. It occurs to me Autumn had things on her mind as well like baby-making and motherhood, and maybe even Ben.
“Lorna is more important.”
“Could I have talked to you about Lorna?” I ask, leaning on the armrest of my chair. I wanted to talk to her about Lorna. I just . . . I don’t know why I didn’t call.
“Of course.”
“Then I want you to feel the same way with me,” I reply to her immediate response. I certainly hadn’t reinforced the offer, though.
“I didn’t want to be a bother.”
“You aren’t a bother,” I repeat. Where is the confident woman, the one taking charge of her life and wanting a baby despite everything? Softening my voice, I question, “What’s going on?”
“I have a habit of taking over. A man in need, and I’m all over him, trying to help, trying to soothe. I insert myself somehow. I hear things that aren’t really said, and the next thing I know, I’ve got a man living with me that I’m taking care of, and he’s not taking care of me in return. I didn’t want to do that with you.”
“I’m not looking to move in with you.” I laugh, brushing off ideas that had whittled their way into my thoughts over the days we were separated. If Chloe could run off to France to be with Peter, could I run off to Lakeside to be with Autumn? It seemed like such a ridiculous notion, especially as I have Lorna full-time. I couldn’t just quit my job, move my child, and shack up with a woman, even if I’ve known her all my life.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend time with you,” I quickly add. “I want to be with you, but I dropped the ball this week. Lorna had to be my priority.”
“I understand that,” Autumn interjects.
“It doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking of you. Every second of every day. I just . . . I should have called. My fingers hovered over your number a hundred times, but I didn’t know what to say.” Come to me. Be mine. Hold me and tell me I can have it all—my child, your child, you.
“Same,” Autumn softly says, and I laugh.
“We’re so stupid.”
“Speak for yourself.” Her lips slowly curl, and her eyes search mine.
“And you’re too far away,” I quietly admit of her seat over there while I’m sitting here. Setting down her wineglass, she comes to me and positions herself on my lap. I tug her back to my chest, reminding me of when she sat on my couch, between my thighs, and we watched a movie. I want more nights like that and more moments like this. “Tell me I’m forgiven. Tell me we can work this out.”
“As much as we can.”
“Three hours is a long distance,” she states.
“It’s not so bad.” I echo her words from when she drove to my place. “Please,” I whisper to her neck before pressing a kiss to her cool skin. The blanket is still wrapped around her body, tucking in her arms and covering part of her legs.
“What would it mean?” Her hesitant voice warns me I’m on thin ice. I need to get this right.
“Phone calls,” I quickly state. “And phone sex. Dirty texts. Dates. And sex. Coordinating calendars, and more sex.”
“Is sex all you want from me?” she teases. That’s all we were supposed to have at first.
“Yes.” I laugh. “But no.” I suck at her neck a second time. “I want to talk to you and hold you. I want to hear about your day and tell you about Lorna. I want to be around you, and I want you to spend time with my daughter and me.”
“I’d like that,” Autumn quietly says. “And we can take better precautions about baby-making.”
Shifting her on my lap, I force her to look at me. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to feel like the endgame is a trap. I don’t want you to feel obligated or responsible or that I only want the sausage—”
“Shut up.”
“Excuse me?” Her lids blink at my quick interjection.
“Shut. Up. There is no endgame. This isn’t a game to me, Autumn. I’m all in with you. I want to be with you. That’s the end. However we get there.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t understand, so I do what I think will get her on the same page as me. I lean up and kiss her hard and deep. My tongue thrusts forward, invading her mouth, wanting her to hear my words, swallow them, and feed off me. My hand cups the back of her neck, under her hair, holding her to me.