by Bri Stone
Again, all over again.
As if I have never left and no time has passed.
“Okay, Pete.”
PETE
* * *
“Daddy! Daddy!” Stubby hands clap my face following loud screams, and little people bodies crushing me into the bed. I suppose not crushing, since that would be impossible considering their size and mine.
“Okay, seedlings, I’m up.” I open my eyes, finding my three daughters. I guess Buchanan sperm only makes girls the first three times, since the baby currently in my Melinda is a boy, seven months along.
“Momma gone.” The middle child, Mary, bounces on her side of the bed. Her red onesie is festive, her wildly curly hair coming out of her bun, and her smile glowing up her fawn colored skin matching her sisters who look more like their mother than me.
They have my personality though. For sure.
“She’s around here somewhere—what’s this?” I sit up, used to waking up as fast as possible when they come running in here. Also going to bed clothed no matter what Melinda and I were doing beforehand.
Miranda, the oldest at four, is holding a large rectangle card, red in color. She grins wider, her small teething shining from the light coming in the bay window by the bed.
“Your present. From all of us.” Eagerly shoving it my way, the rest of them scoot closer. Michelle, the youngest, was probably coaxed in here by her siblings. She just turned two-years-old last month so she has started walking around and getting into things, with less spontaneous crying, which is good.
“For me? You girls are so sweet.” I smile and really mean it, but I know it was probably spearheaded by their mother. Who has only grown more beautiful over the years, carrying my children, loving me so damned much, being a badass surgeon—everything.
“We love you daddy!” they say, almost in unison—and I’ll be damned if I cry. I mean I cried when they were born and a few milestones along the way but it’s these moments.
“Oh, daddy has his crying face one—” Melinda comes out of the bathroom, where she must have been before I woke up.
The girls laugh and start squealing when she gets on the bed with them and attacks them with kisses. I love watching the way she loves them so much, how she became a mother so easily. The first time with Miranda, right after we got married a few months after she came down to the farm again in August, was a surprise to us both but easily taken to. She told me on our wedding day, surrounded by the cherry blossom flowers and all my family—now her family. Mary was a little more planned around Michelle’s first birthday, and Michelle two years ago was after I retired. Our son now, was probably conceived around the anniversary of when we met, when we can’t keep our hands off each other.
“I don’t, come on now.” I lean across the girls and kiss Melinda good morning, she smells like the mint of her tooth paste and cherry of her morning face wash. I quickly learned that there are multiple ones.
“Okay, Pete.” She rubs my bare shoulder and sits next to me, carrying Michelle on her lap, Mary settles between her legs and Miranda sits between us.
They watch me open their card, huge and drawn in with the family standing in front of the oak tree in the backyard. I smile immediately and kiss them all in turn.
“I love it.” I laugh.
“We have more gifts downstairs.” Mary stutters through her explanation.
“I know sweetheart. How about we all get washed up and have breakfast?”
“Pancakes with chocolate?” Miranda smiles, jumping up to her feet. She stumbles over and I catch her in my lap, tickling her until she screams.
“Yes, of course. Go ahead.” I usher them on, they clamber out of the room one after the other and we hear their giggles die down as they go.
I turn my attention to Melinda and her swollen belly, she always carries so low and small I can’t tell she is pregnant until close to the end.
My hand is large enough to still cover the lower swell of her belly.
“You feel okay?” I kiss her and lean my forehead on hers.
“Large.” She giggles, cupping my face her fingers curl my hair in behind my ears. I’ve grown it longer since I stopped playing ball, it stops at the bottom of my neck in loose waves. She was averse to it in the beginning but she caught on, along with my always three-day shadow.
“You look beautiful, sweetness.” I kiss her again, my lips coaxing hers open and tongue darting out to taste her.
“It’s not fair, I’ve brushed already.” She leans back and I laugh, kissing her again and blowing in her face on purpose. She laughs and tries to get me off but it’s no use. I may not train anymore, but I’m still built like a bull.
“Fair enough.” I laugh when she licks my face up from my cheek.
Smiling, I lean back and take her in.
Every morning, she looks the same. Here are there she has been on trips back to the hospital, but I can only count on one hand how many mornings we have been apart. Her chestnut eyes are still bright, her lashes batting storms away when she blinks. The soft curve of her lips traced with one age line, and slightly around her eyes too. Her skin is still so lucid and beautiful, bright and russet, just a bit darker than our girls’, who are spitting images of their mother and every time I see them my heart just swells. I love them so goddamned much, I’m worth nothing without them.
And I know they are walking symbols of what second chances can really do. What they really mean.
“Merry Christmas,” Melinda smiles at me.
My eyes roam over her skin glowing under her white chemise, stretching around her belly and breasts. I’ve memorized the way her body changes with each pregnancy but it never gets old to watch.
“Merry Christmas to you too.” I kneel between her and set my hands beside her head on the black head board, “Can I have my gift now?” I lick my lips, gazing over her body.
“Your gift?” she screeches when my cock juts against her belly, having held off the morning wood while the girls were here it’s in full effect now and much more than that. “Pete, the girls will walk in at any minute.” She hisses.
“There is always that possibility.”
I kiss her as my hands find her bare sex already wet and go to town on my wife this Christmas morning the same way I do almost every other morning too.
Every Christmas is the same chaotic, loving, extravagant event. At the main house, the whole family meets and has dinner. But before we go over we open our gifts as a family. The girls got a plethora of toys, Melinda got me a new pair of riding boots and I got her another diamond charm for the bracelet I got her four years ago. The only other gifts we give or get are to my sisters, mom, and their children.
It’s a lot of wrapping.
After dinner, the kids all stay together and I get a minute to be alone with Melinda.
We don’t really get them that often anymore. Even since I retired a few years ago. I stay at home but home is working the farm, my days run long, broken up by getting the girls where they need to go. Miranda and Mary to pre-k and kindergarten, and Mary with my mother in the main house. Melinda opened a practice within the university, so she works nearby but that is only for her daily surgeries. Her research still operates out of the hospital in Houston, where she flies in to twice a week for a day to check on things. The only time she is gone longer than that is for one of her conferences or talks, but she doesn’t even do those often.
Our life here is next to perfect. The way I imagined it so many years ago, maybe not with the gap in between, but still how I pictured it now.
Out by the tire swing where I told her I loved her the first time, I have Melinda perched on my lap in her deep green dress. Me in my jeans and festive enough red sweater. My nose buries in her neck as she leans into me, her arms around my neck, my hands around her waist with one steadied on her belly. Sometimes he kicks, but he’s quiet. More so than his sisters were.
“We should name him Pete. Keep the tradition going.” Melinda says. She turns to me, the
night sky behind her makes her eyes brighter, her smile wider.
“You think?”
“Yeah. I think.” She giggles. Her eyes stare me down harder for a moment before she kisses me suddenly. I cup her cheek to hold her close, I lean into her and deepen the kiss. She gives me her soul every time she kisses me.
Every time I kiss her I do the same.
“I want him to be just like you, Pete.” We pull away, her lips hover over mine as we breathe the same air.
“Me?”
“Yes. Maybe not exactly the same…” she smiles. I pull back to look in her eyes as she holds my face. The soft pads of her thumb trace my lips before she drags them through my thin beard, her fingers slip into my hair and I close my eyes exhaling into her touch. I wish I could bottle up the feeling I get when she touches me so I could use it at any point. But the real thing is much better anyway.
“You keep all your promises, Pete.”
“Melinda…”
She presses her index finger over my lips and smiles, her eyes watering.
“Twenty years ago, you promised you would marry me, and that you would love me forever. And you did, you do.” She laughs and sighs once, “I love you. For everything. For our family, for who you are… I love you so much.” she smiles at me and I smile back through the clench in my throat.
“Shit Melinda you know I’m prone to crying on Christmas.” We laugh together and I kiss her through my chuckles.
“Yes, I know, you’re a softie.” She smooths my hair back and kisses me again, the intensity is strong and I feel it in my bones. Our passion never dying away, only growing stronger the longer we go on. The more years we build and spend together.
“And you know that I meant it. I’ll always mean it, no matter what happens. I love you.”
We release each other as our girls come running out of the house, followed by their grandma who made sure they got to us safely. Melinda and I laugh, unlinking our bodies as we get up to meet them. I swing Michelle up in my arms as her sisters latch on my legs in turn, I guess I’m more fun to climb up than Melinda. Less hazardous.
I pass Michelle to her, as she perches on her side. Her eyes brighten at her mother, the only one that really has my eyes. I pick Miranda and Mary up at the same time before we settle into the grass, sitting with the girls between us.
“You girls had fun today, huh?”
“Yes daddy, lots of fun!” Miranda answers, the most articulate.
“And toys!” Mary squeals. She does love her toys, and all her dolls too. Miranda is more into the crafty stuff. Michelle doesn’t know yet, she just gets into her sisters’ stuff.
“Food!” Michelle giggles and it makes us all laugh. Their fluffy red dresses add to that too, all matching. Mom likes to compare them to my sisters growing up, doing a lot of the same things. I wouldn’t mind it, she is the only reason Melinda and I do so well. Neither of us really knew anything about kids. I had my nieces and nephews, but it was still a whole new game, and I’m still learning.
Jim and Daniel are probably their favorite because they swoop in and bring lots of gifts. Lots of toys for them to play with. My life is arguably the same it has always been—my family, my friends, and my new family with Melinda.
“Thank you, Momma and Daddy.” The girls say in turn, perfectly mannered of course.
I only wish my dad could have seen them, out of everything he is the only missing piece. His grave out by the end of the farm line is always there but I don’t believe he’s lying under dirt and mud, he’s just everywhere. A spirit I can talk to whenever I want, it’s why I only went back once and that was to show Melinda.
“We love you girls.” Melinda hugs them close in turn. I smile at them hanging off their mother, her fears of being a mom quickly faded away the first moment Miranda was laid on her chest and never came back.
“Love you,” the girls laugh and coax me into riding the horses, which I normally wouldn’t do when it’s dark. But their eyes… I am a goner when it comes to them.
With Melinda by my side we make the girls smile for the rest of the night, and they make us smile too.
Happier than I ever have been, knowing I can only be happier—it takes my breath away.
Melinda is more than the love of my life, she is my life. Our children, the whole family… everything I am is because of them. For them. As a person, as a man… if a second chance brought me all this happiness I’m signing up for a third and fourth, promising to never need it because Melinda will never get away from me again.
Her, my girls, I love them to death and even after. From the first time I saw Melinda, to every day after, and every year in between that I had to live without her, to every passing breath I spend with her and my family—I have finally gotten to live.
Eventually we venture back into our house, get the girls bathed and ready for bed with minimal arguments about letting them play with their toys, and back to our bedroom.
Exhausted, half asleep as she lays against my chest like she always does. The scent of her hair floods my brain, lulling me halfway to slumber. When she thinks I’m asleep—knowing I’m not—she traces the lines of my jaw and lips, and I try my hardest not to smile.
The softness of her body against me and the tenderness of her touch makes me fail.
“Go to sleep, Pete.” She giggles.
“I am.” I chuckle. Holding her around her waist, careful of her belly, I roll us over and open my eyes to her.
She smiles and wraps her arms around my neck to pull me close. The silk of her pink nightgown brushes my bare chest, the warmth of her body seeping through.
“I love you, Melinda Buchanan. So much.” I gravel. Her smile is soft as it widens.
“I love you, too.” She whispers, though she might as well have roared because it is all I hear. It’s what I live for.
I kiss her, hard and deep, dissolving into her as she fades into me too. Our love once had plenty of jagged edges but not it’s just one smooth surface, encasing our family in it and never letting go. The same way we do to each other.
Releasing her, we sigh and relax into bed, holding each other. Unsure of who goes to sleep first, we wake up the same way. Like we always have, and like I always will. I never fell out of love with her, not for one second.
“We’ll name him Richard. After your father.”
When she wakes up, I say what I have been holding in since last night. Groggy but aware, she smiles softly at me.
We rarely talk about it, if ever.
But I know how much she loved him and how much it still hurts her, how much her parents meant to her. Why we named our first daughter after her mother, too. She gives a timid nod once and I grin at her.
“We’ll name the next one Pete.” I chuckle and her eyes widen in shock. Surely, she won’t tap out at only four—but what do I know?
Melinda is full of surprises.
“Okay, Pete.”
I hope you enjoyed reading Pete and Melinda’s story as much as I loved writing it.
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Just Between Us: A Friends to Lovers Romance
The Brightest Night: Book One in the Brightness Duet
The Brightest Day: Book Two in the Brightness Duet
The Brightest Night
Enjoy this sneak peek of The Brightest Night!
Perrie
Doctor Harrison didn’t have anything remotely exciting to say to us.
I expecte
d more, I mean, we are ‘the future of medicine’ after all. I expected a Shonda Rhimes worthy speech, but all we got was—
“There’s nothing special about any of you. Yes, you have given up the better part of your lives to save others. But that just means most of you will finish your residency, regret missing your twenties and become drunkards. Others may actually do something meaningful. I am excited to see, who is who.”
He smiled without humor, making him look sort of evil, far from a doctor, at least. He was tall and thin, his salt and pepper hair was thick and wavy, he must go to a salon to make it look so good. He was probably good looking when he was younger; the creases in his face showed his age and experience. It was a dream to even be in his class. Probably why I was in the front row.
“Any who; I’m sure many of you will be gone tomorrow, half of you by the nine-week term. So, let us begin.”
The fear of the room clouded over so dark I felt it, but I was still so excited.
I knew this would be way tougher than undergrad, but I was ready for it. Built for it. I mentally separated myself from everyone else in the room to focus on my own path.
We all have our intended specialties, our plans. Like Harrison said, most of us will change our minds. Not me. I know, how boisterous of me to assume I was above everyone else.
I grew up watching all the crime shows and reading the crime novels, and sleep without any nightmares. It was just a fascination then, I expected I would work as a researcher or something.
Until high school.
Mom died in her sleep. Doctors ran test after test, she was cut open three times. They found nothing. I became obsessed with death and what happened after. Dad told me, ‘Things just happen. We have to live for her now.’ I said, ‘Dad, don’t you see? There is no living without understanding the dead’.