“Nope, free to sleep in. Or well, catch up on sleep. Night shifts beat the hell out of me, you know that.” Reese looks at me, his eyes tracing my body.
Was I supposed to heat under that stare? Because I did. How had I not noticed any of these things before? It was like my mind subconsciously blocked these feelings until I checked a box to turn them on, and then they’d suddenly started. Like notifications on an app, they were vibrating straight to my heart.
It was a short distance to my apartment, but I’d drank too much, and I was wobbly on my feet. Stumbling, I steadied myself.
But Reese had caught it, his hazel eyes missing nothing, and his warm hand enclosed mine. How many times had I touched him? Hundreds, and yet I’d never registered the topography of his skin. How his fingers eclipsed mine, the way his hand wasn’t rough, but wasn’t smooth. How our hands meshed together, the way it felt good to have skin-to-skin contact. It had been a long while since I’d been with a man.
Ew, been with a man? Who was I, some corny rom-com character? And I realized, in this moment, yes I was. He was going to walk me home, I was going to fumble my keys. He would step in and help, and then slowly, our eyes would lock.
“Er? Where is your head?” Reese and I had stopped walking while I was having a silent freak out.
Looking up, we were in front of my apartment building. “I was just thinking how cheesy a swoony good-night kiss at my front door would be. The building tension, the fumbling excuses.”
Reese smirks. “So let’s not do it that way.”
Before I can ask what he means, his palms neatly cradle my jaw, and his lips are on mine. I’m surprised, letting out a squeal of shock, but he drives right through my reaction, holding me in place so that he can properly kiss me.
And properly kiss me he does. Moving our mouths in tandem, my body adjusting to his without my brain even being conscious of it. My knees actually may go weak, my stomach drops … like I said, it’s been a long damn time since my body was attended to.
But this is Reese. This man who just so blatantly went for what he wanted, no asking, no excuse or foreplay or flirting. He wanted to kiss me, so he kissed me. It was sexy, it was strange … I was extremely turned on.
But underneath that arousal was a sensual longing. Reese was kissing me like he’d imagined doing this for a long time. Like he’d thought about it, and was finally getting a test drive on the real model. Like the training wheels had been taken off, and he was allowed to fly free.
It felt like hours that we made out like teenagers locked in the closet during seven minutes in heaven. Except that we were standing on a busy Philadelphia street. I think someone even wolf-whistled out a window.
When we finally broke off, I couldn’t catch my breath.
“So, can I call you again sometime?” Reese’s nose was resting on my nose.
I got that shivery, goose bump feeling that ran down my spine … the one that all of the girls get in those cheesy rom-coms. Lord, why did I feel like this? Why did they even invent feelings to be had like this? Nothing good could come from it.
“Maybe,” I finally said, not wanting to play his sarcastic game, but also feeling weird about wanting to go on a second date. With my best friend. Who had seen me puke on the sixth grade field trip.
One more squeeze of his hand and I let go, turning to walk inside. We didn’t say bye, or that we’d call each other tomorrow. I didn’t look back, but I knew Reese waited until I got into the elevator inside before he turned and walked home. Or more likely, called a cab.
While I washed my face and put on the four anti-aging creams I was currently testing, who knew if any of this shit worked, I ruminated.
I was so conflicted, I felt more confused than when I watched Pink Floyd: The Wall for the first time as a kid because my parents had forced me to watch “real music and art.”
On one hand, it was one of the best dates I’d ever been on. We’d laughed, joked, the only awkward tension felt like … flirting. Flirting, with Reese, how insane.
But at the same time, it hadn’t felt like a date. I was comfortable, ate pasta instead of salad, didn’t shrink away in embarrassment when he pointed out I had parsley in my teeth.
Was that what it was supposed to feel like, when you really liked someone? Like you were eating dinner with a best friend, rather than a guy who was silently fat shaming and image shaming you? What a novel concept.
And that kiss. God, that kiss. I wasn’t one for heart-eye emojis and teddy-bear feels … but even I could admit that I’d never been kissed like that.
I fell asleep that night like I’d overdosed on NyQuil, but I hadn’t. My brain was just so heavy with confusion and kissing hangover that it knocked me out.
* * *
Morgan called me the next morning, to talk about plans for the baby shower that she wasn’t supposed to know about, and I found myself breaking. Finally.
“I went on a date last night.”
Silence from the other end of the phone went on so long that I thought maybe we’d gotten disconnected. “Hello? Morg?”
“No, yeah, I’m here. I was just trying to catch my breath from that bomb you just dropped on me. Warn a pregnant girl, please. I can barely suck in a lungful as it is. Okay, now who is this guy? You never date.”
I shuffle my feet in my slippers, the blush pink fuzzy slides so cute for summer. “Um … Reese …”
This time, there is no silence about what I hear. “WHAT!? You went on a date with Reese? Is this a joke? Are you punking me?”
I blow out a breath, knowing that this would be a thing and just allowing her to spew every thought that jumps into her head. “Are you done?”
“Not in the slightest. What the actual fuck, Erin? When … I can’t even form a sentence. You might send me into early labor.”
“Don’t even joke, Morg. And if you’ll calm down, I’ll answer anything you want to know.” I have to sit down for this.
Plopping down on the couch, I stare out the window at the perfect, summer-blue sky as Morgan grills me. I explain about what happened with the kiss when Reese came home for his interview, about the pact that I never told her about, and then everything leading up to last night.
“So, you agreed to go on a date with him? You don’t even date, not even guys who aren’t your childhood bestie. Not saying I don’t love this, but what made you change your mind?”
My sister always showed me the mirror, I could always count on her to never beat around the bush.
I shrugged, even though no one could see it. “I guess … I just, I love Reese. I do. He’s closer to me than even some of my family now, excluding you of course, and I could never lose him. Part of me just agreed because I don’t want to hurt him and he seems truly interested in the pact. But after the date … Morg … he kissed me. And, I don’t know. I can’t say it wasn’t weird, but I also can’t say it didn’t feel like the most right thing I’ve ever done in my life. God, that sounds like a fucking Hallmark card.”
She sighs dreamily on the other end of the phone. “I think it might just be the most right thing you’ve ever done. I’ve told you for years that I thought Reese was the one for you. And now my dreams are coming true. It’s straight out of a fairy tale. If your fairy tale also involved shoes and a lot of emotional baggage.”
“Hey, don’t talk about my shoes that way. Yeah, I’m a regular Meghan Markle.” I rolled my eyes.
“All right, I gotta go, my bladder is going to explode and Jeff promised me a foot rub that I need to collect on. But I love you, I’m so happy, and don’t you dare keep anything like this from me again.”
She hung up without waiting for me, and I collapsed back onto the couch. I didn’t want to be Meghan Markle, I didn’t need the princess hysterics and unicorns and rainbows.
But maybe I would be okay with a two-bedroom apartment that I shared with a handsome fellow. But only if he did the dishes, because I hated that shit.
Twenty-Two
Reese
> For a couple of summer’s when we were growing up, the Carters and the Collins rented a house down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood.
The week was filled with too much sun, sand in all the wrong places, family cookouts on the rooftop deck, the sensation of the ocean as you slept, the boardwalk, and ice cream until we were about to throw it up after the Tilt-A-Whirl.
We hadn’t rented a house down here in nearly two years, because of my move, Erin not being able to get time off, and Barbara’s divorce. This summer, we were a thin bunch. Without Erin’s dad, awkward, and because Morgan and Jeff were so close to having the baby, it was only myself, Erin, my parents and Barbara.
Even though it wasn’t the larger family affair we usually had, we’d still had a fun week. Too much sun, eating until our bloated stomachs could barely walk back from the boardwalk. My mom and Barbara were almost done with their thousand piece puzzle, just like they’d done every summer we came down as kids. My dad and I had gone crabbing one morning, and all of the girls had gone shopping on the boardwalk during the day yesterday.
But this morning, I’d set up something special for Erin and me.
“This is the ‘fun morning activity’ you planned for us?” Erin’s eyes were cautious and skeptical.
I presented the tandem bike as if I was showing off a car she were about to win on a game show, but clearly, I wasn’t selling this idea well.
“How fun will this be? A little workout, a little talking, a little sunshine … it’s like your cycling class but actually outdoor and not in some manufactured sweat lodge where a steroid-user screams at you to peddle faster.”
“Just because you don’t exercise and look like that, doesn’t give you the right to shame us mortals.” She scowls, pointing to my exposed abs.
I subscribed to the thought that when one was at the beach, shirts and shoes were not required. So, shorts it was, while Erin wore a sundress that seemed to float around her, making her look like even more of a beach angel than she usually did when we were down the shore.
We’d spent time together down here, kind of testing the waters … literally. While our parents read on the beach or walked around town, we’d spent our days together, walking and talking, or listening to music as the ocean waves played second fiddle. I’d walked her to her bedroom door each night, burning with the fire to lead her inside but knowing I had to take this slow. Our “dating” was actually going well, I couldn’t rush her.
I had, however, kissed her. Twice. Once on the beach in the morning, after a run we’d taken together. And once when I’d said good night outside her door, all of the parents already asleep. I’d gently pushed her up against the wall, and laid my lips on hers until we both could barely breathe. I’d been hard as a steel pipe when I’d walked away, hobbling to my room just next door. Had she heard me collapse on my bed, jacking myself off to the daydream of her hand on my cock?
It was strange, exciting, familiar and hot all at the same time. We knew each other so well, but not in this light. Not as lovers … which was a cheesy word but I didn’t have any other definition for it.
“These peddles are too big, my feet keep slipping off. And you aren’t keeping in rhythm with me!”
“You know what they say, peas, it’s not about the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.” I turned around and winked, almost throwing us off balance.
“Pay attention! You’re going to get us killed.” We went over a particularly rough stretch of boardwalk and Erin squealed.
Me, I just prayed that my nuts weren’t damaged beyond belief. This tandem bike thing wasn’t the gentlest on the family jewels.
“This is a lot more work than I thought it would be.” I was sweating, and we were working against each other.
“Was this supposed to be some test to see if we could work together? Because I think it shows that we’re failing,” she quipped.
“I think it shows that we’re both strong personalities who can peddle together or alone, when we so choose.” I served her back with a glass half full.
Erin stops pedaling, and suddenly the weight is shifted to my front half of the bike, wobbling us. “I decided that I’m tired and you can peddle me, like I’m Cleopatra.”
I laugh. “Anything for you, my queen.”
After our ride, a sweaty hour up and down the boardwalk, we go for funnel cake, devouring the powdered sugar treat. So much for exercise.
The day ticked by slowly. We lounged on the roof, Erin doing some picture editing on her computer of photos she’d taken over the week in Wildwood. Some fashion shots, a beach blog she’d informed me, some of the landscape and architecture. I’d followed her blog over the years, hell, I’d been the one to help her buy her first website domain, but watching her work was inspiring. Erin was so dedicated, and she was really good at what she did.
As the sun went down, I asked her to take a walk on the beach with me.
We walked parallel to the waves, her in a big sweatshirt with the word Wildwood on the front, me in a Phillies pullover I’d had for years. I watched her in the moonlight, and wondered what was going on in that head. I’d known the woman for over fifteen years, and I still had no idea what she thought about.
Reaching for her hand, I went to lace my fingers in hers, but she pulled away. A dagger went through my pride, making my ego shrink back, and I huffed.
“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?” I watched her braid her long blond locks nervously, my eyes tracing her hands every movement.
Erin sighed, and I watched the waves retreat back, taking the sand beneath my feet with it. “Because I don’t believe in this. Marriage. Love. You should know that.”
I should be listening to her, but the way her eyes sparkled in the moonlight, it was distracting. I’d felt her hips the other night when I’d kissed her, I knew what was under that sweatshirt. I shouldn’t have picked the beach to bring up this discussion … I would never win with this beautiful woman in front of me, and alone.
“I do know that … I know that you put this unrealistic stamp on it.” I move closer to her, needing to touch her.
Maybe if she lets me touch her, I can change her mind.
But just as it feels that we’re at some peak, about to dive nose deep into this argument, or whatever we’re having, we’re interrupted.
“Erin! ERIN!” Erin’s name was being hurtled down the beach, frantic on the wind.
That was my mom’s voice, what the hell was she doing out here? I looked to Erin, and it could only mean one thing if my mother was screaming bloody murder the way she was.
Neither of us even spoke, just sprinted back up the beach, our legs burning by the time we reached the wooden stairwell that led back to the house.
“What is it?” She held my mother’s arms, her eyes panicked.
“Morgan …” My mom had tears in her eyes.
And I knew. Immediately, I knew. You couldn’t be in my line of work and not realize that anguish, the unknown when it came to a woman going into labor early.
Because of course that’s what happened. My mom wouldn’t have interrupted us for anything less.
“She’s at the hospital, Jeff called. The baby is in distress …” My mom was motioning with her hands, like that would help explain anything.
Erin began to run, to where I don’t know. I chased her, because I knew all rational thought was out the window at this point.
“Mom!” She screeched as she threw open the French doors of the sun room on our rental.
“Erin. Oh God, we have to go. She’s in labor. It’s too early. Oh, the baby … Jeff called … how, what?” Barbara was frantic, pacing and throwing things in bags and crying.
I calmly walked to the table, grabbing my keys and wallet. We’d come back for the other stuff later, right now, none of it mattered.
“Everyone get in the car. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
Twenty-Three
Erin
Premature.
Respiratory distress.<
br />
Ruptured placenta.
All of these words meant nothing to me, rattled around in my brain like food I could not chew, and just wanted to vomit out so that I’d feel better again.
Mom was softly crying in the corner, finally breaking down after we’d come out from seeing Morgan. The doctors had told us we could stay in the family waiting room, since she needed to rest. My sister was in almost as bad of shape as the baby was, and she had been delirious and weeping when we’d tried to talk to her.
They’d knocked her out with a blissful cocktail of drugs. I wondered if they’d hand that out to all of us. Because right now, I’d really rather go to sleep.
That unfamiliar tugging sensation pestered my eye sockets, and I knew I had to find somewhere private before I broke down. I did not cry. Ever. In front of anyone. It was weird and oddly private to me to have tears run down my face, and if I was going to give in to it, I was not going to commiserate with my mother, who couldn’t seem to be strong enough to get through this with her daughter.
Walking frantically, like I was a five-year-old who had to pee really bad and had held it too long, I searched the corridor for somewhere private. The hospital was basically desolate at this time of night, and I saw a door labeled utility closet and quickly snuck inside.
And there, among the mops and brooms, I lost my shit. Uncontrollable shakes wracked my body, snot and tears mixed until I could barely see.
My niece … she was barely the size of my hand. Two months early, not breathing on her own. I’d never seen Morgan so distraught. She was the stronger one, the more responsible one. If she couldn’t emotionally handle this, how could I? And the baby, lord … please save her. Make her better. I just wanted to keep yelling at everyone to make her better.
The door suddenly opened and I froze, my breakdown only halfway through and tears dripping from my chin onto my sweatshirt. We’d driven here from Wildwood with nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Save the Date Page 9