One of the other things I could now do was visit Carina any hour of the day … which I did, pretty much every day at three.
I would work on the blog, do photo shoots, design marketing campaigns, and try on samples I’d been sent in the morning, all before about noon. And then I’d head to Morgan’s, where she was just getting back from a six hour shift sitting in the NICU with Carina. I’d bring her lunch and eat there, then head over to see my niece for an hour each day.
My family were practically regulars now at CHOP. The security guards knew our names, and Mom’s famous cobbler. The doctors all knew who we were, and although I technically wasn’t allowed to visit my niece by myself, Reese helped make an exception for us. Good thing I was dating someone who could give us NICU perks.
Jesus, how many times did you hear that in your life? Remind me next time to date someone who can get me concert tickets for free, or maybe a ride on a private plane. For now, this was working out perfectly.
Although, the other benefits with Reese were turning out to be spectacular …
Though things with my mother were not. She had a bit of a freak-out when I told her that we were dating. I’d gone to her house for lunch last week, and dropped the news on her. Typically, she was a bit of a nervous person, anxiety riddled her, but after the divorce it amplified by a hundred.
She’d been gobsmacked, told me I was reckless, asked how I could throw away a good friendship for something as unstable as love? It made me doubt everything, and even though she was going through her own shit, I’d run to my sister to talk me down off a ledge. Morgan was obviously pissed at our mother for never being able to see past her own insecurities. She’d told me to take whatever she said with a grain of salt, and that we weren’t going to change her so just trust my own gut instinct and be happy.
I scrubbed my fingernails with the red sanitizing soap they have on the surgical sinks in the entrance room of the NICU, and donned a yellow scrub jacket that covered practically my entire body.
Walking in, there are two other sets of parents sitting across the room in their individual spaces, their babies in either cribs or incubators. Carina’s bassinet, she’s been downgraded from the enclosed plastic box, sits in the corner in a different row, and I quietly make my way there. I nod to one of the female nurses I recognize, and Preston is speaking to another family halfway across the room, by the nurse’s desk.
Reese is nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t come here for him, just to spend some time with my girl. I picture her as I walk, black hair, pale creamy skin, an impossibly pink mouth, she was a perfect mixture of Jeff and Morgan. They said that all babies were born with dark blue eyes, but the couple of times I’d actually caught her awake, they were bright green, the exact color of my sister’s eyes.
When I finally reach her bassinet, I stop dead in my tracks, as if I’ve seen a ghost.
Because I am. I’m staring right at a ghost, holding my baby niece.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” My voice is too loud, and someone in the row of bassinets over shushes me.
Sitting in front of me, like a deer caught in headlights, is a man I have barely seen over the last five years. Holding my niece, who is attached to wires and machines coming out of the wall.
My father, the man who left his family behind, is sitting there cradling his granddaughter like he’s been any part of this family for the past five years.
“Erin …” He looks like he wants to get up, to hug me, to say something, but Carina is in his arms.
He’s graying, more than he was the last time I saw him two years ago. Still the picture of my face, I always did look more like him than mom. It rattles me at times when I look at my own reflection in the mirror. He still has that scar above his left eyebrow from the time he hit his head on the roof cleaning out the gutters. And he’s looking at the baby like this isn’t the first time he’s seen her. Which obviously makes me seethe with anger. Has Morgan been allowing him to come see her? We were going to have words about this.
“No. Why are you here?” I don’t want to hear any of his bullshit.
It has taken me five years to even set my rage toward him to simmer … before it had been on full blast, high heat. The way he left his wife, my mother, telling her that he didn’t love her anymore … it was a dismantling of our family. Thirty years of marriage down the drain, all because he couldn’t stay invested.
“She is my granddaughter. I have the right to know her. I’m so sorry, so sorry. I’ve been trying to tell you for so long now …” My father rocks Carina as she begins to squirm.
“I don’t want to hear it. You should say you’re sorry to my mother,” I rage whisper.
His eyes grow cold. “What happened between your mother and I was my fault, I’ve admitted that many times. But that is between us, and frankly, Erin, you’ve never been fully clued in to what’s going on. I’m glad you haven’t, because you grew up with a childhood that seemed blissfully perfect. That’s what I hope for all children, what I hope for Carina. But as an adult, you need to grow up. Things are not always as they seem, and we’ve lost a lot of time because of your inability to realize that. I won’t let it happen to my granddaughter and me.”
The old man doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere. I’m either going to stay here, or risk leaving and not having my day with Carina. As much as I love her, I don’t think I can sit across from him and make small talk about the weather. Plus, I’m too fired up to have calming energy around my niece, who needs to heal.
What I do need is to find the two people who have known that he’s been coming to visit and haven’t told me.
Thirty-Two
Reese
For the second time in a matter of months, Erin shows up, pounding at my door in the middle of the day when I should be sleeping.
I open it, expecting her to jump my bones or say that she forgot I’d been on night shift. But instead, she stomps past me, yelling words that my sleepy brain only half comprehends.
“You knew he was visiting! And you didn’t tell me! How dare you, Reese Collins!” She slaps my bare chest and then storms away again.
“Huh?” I scratch my head, the sting of her slap reverberating through my skin.
“And Morgan, Jesus, how could she?! He’s a liar and a ruiner of lives … and she let him around her daughter!” She throws her hands up, incensed.
“What are you talking about?” I have to pause in the middle of my sentence to yawn.
She’s in heavier makeup than usual, and her hair is all curled and long … she must have done a photo shoot this morning and she smells delicious. Like spring flowers and strawberries. Angry Erin is fucking sexy, and my boxers tent a little at her furious expression.
She must notice it, because her brown eyes turn black and her expression could kill me if it actually wanted to. “Don’t even think about it.”
Her tone could melt flesh. I touch my face, checking if she’s done it to mine. “Peas, I have no idea what’s going on.”
“My father, that’s what.” She crosses her arm and taps her foot in the middle of my kitchen.
Shit. I forgot to tell her when I’d seen him for the first time visiting last week. Well, maybe I’d just avoided the subject. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and Morgan and I had agreed that maybe we should allow David to get to know Carina without the stress of having to answer to Erin for a while. I had never said this to my best friend, but he deserved the chance to be a part of their family.
Erin thought about love and trust in such one dimensional ways, when in reality, those two things were made up of so many elements.
“Peas, please sit down and listen to me.” I grab a T-shirt that I had discarded over the back of my couch and pull it on.
Reluctantly, Erin sits down on the couch, eyes still full of piss and vinegar. “You lied to me.”
I roll my eyes and sit next to her. “Stop that, we’re not playing that game. We’re too old, and you’re not mad at me. You�
��re not mad at any of us really. You’re just salty over this situation, and I know that because we’re best friends and have been for decades. I’m sorry you had to find out like that, but don’t become a drama queen on me. You aren’t one, but if you need to, you can claw at me and we can have angry sex.”
Erin scowls deeper at me. “Nice try. Maybe you’re right, but God, he’s such an asshole. Sitting there, holding Carina, acting like nothing even happened.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t acting like that …” I raised an eyebrow at her.
She pouted, sticking out her bottom lip. “Why are you not on my side? Stop playing devil’s advocate.”
“I’m always on your side, except for the issues that I think you’re wrong about and will end up regretting.”
Erin continues like I haven’t even spoken. “He has no right to be in our lives. Leaving our mother like that. He never even loved her. How can you love someone when you do something like that to them?”
I sigh, knowing this might cause World War III. “I’m going to say something now and you’re going to let me finish, even if your blood is boiling by the end. Okay?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she nods. “Fine.”
Breathing, I compose myself. Because no one ever wants to tell someone that they love deeply that they’re wrong. And that most of their views are wrong. But, I try to tell myself it’s coming from a good place.
“Because your view on love isn’t realistic, not in the way you think. I’m sorry, but it’s true. You think that love doesn’t exist, that romance is dead and falling for someone is only for fools. But you’re wrong. Deep down, you know that’s wrong. The reason you’re so fucking scared is because you know the truth. And the truth of it is, you think love is supposed to be perfect. This swirling ball of brilliant brightness that eclipses every bad thing. That conquers fears and solves war. But it’s not. Love is so far from perfect. Love means standing by someone’s side even when they’re an asshole. Even when one of you gets sick, terminally so. Love means saying you’re sorry when you argue about directions and then realize the other person was looking at the map right all along. It doesn’t mean sunshine and rainbows twenty-four seven. So you don’t have to believe in love, not in the form of perfection you think it exists as. But, you do have to believe that loving the right person means you’ll also hate them sometimes, and that’s okay.”
Erin blinks at me as if I’ve just dropped a truth bomb so explosive on her, she is shell-shocked.
I continue. “And clearly, your mom and dad didn’t have the love that can outlast something huge, like a zombie apocalypse. I know that hurts when I say it, but someone has to. Morgan has grasped that, she’s been seeing him for years without discussing it with you. We all walk on tiptoes around you when it comes to your father, but we can’t do that any longer. He’s a good guy, the same Dad that you grew up with. That took us to Six Flags and baseball games and grilled dozens and dozens of clams for your birthday every year because he knew that you loved them. Your mother, and I love her but it’s true, has played a miserable spinster victim since they split. She did the one thing you’re not supposed to as a parent if you divorce; she poisoned the kids. I think it’s about time you sit down and talk to your dad, get past this. If you don’t … you’ll regret it, I’m telling you, you will.”
I take hold of her hands, and a tear leaks down her cheek. “I just don’t know how not to be so angry with him.”
Kissing her cheek, I nod into the tear and wipe it away with my own face. “It won’t be easy, but this much fury is not good for you. Especially my little peas.”
“I hate you for knowing me so well. For picking the other side.”
I cradle her into me. “Like I said, I’m always on your side.”
There is a pause, where Erin just breathes in my shirt and I stroke her hair. I could tell her right now that I love her, that I’ve always been in love with her.
But the moment is not right. She’s too upset, coming down off of her tirade. Or maybe I’m just too chicken.
Either way, I don’t say those three little words for what seems like the hundredth missed opportunity in my life.
Thirty-Three
Erin
My hips thrusted wildly, the bones so spent but a subconscious tic inside of me would not let me stop until I reached it.
Orgasm.
Coming.
Climax.
I rode Reese like my life depended on it, frantically, deranged. Out of my mouth came noises that I couldn’t even comprehend, and my whole body was shaking like I was detoxing from the hardest of drugs. I was teetering, my nails imbedded into Reese’s chest, his words spurring me on.
“Come on, Erin, come for me. Let me see that beautiful face I’m waiting for. Ride me, baby, make yourself come.”
Each time he said the word come, I shuddered. I was so close to the brink of pleasure, and I needed to reach it. Stretching my thighs even farther apart as I straddled him, I ground down, my clit making contact with his groin.
“Oh my God!” I cried, rubbing myself on him that way twice before my orgasm stole over all of my limbs.
For a couple of mind-numbing seconds, the world disappears, and it’s just sensation. My nerves fraying. Sensations only.
And then I’m sucked back to earth as if someone pulled the drain out, and I collapse onto Reese’s chest, spent.
“God, you’re fucking hot,” he growls.
I’m used to hearing him in sex mode now, but the rawness of his voice still rattles me. Deep and tender, like cool silk or velvety coffee poured over ice.
I have to lean back up, because he’s taken over, and I need to see him.
Reese is glorious, his eyes tilted up to the ceiling like he’s trying to pray that he won’t pass out. His face is tensed in concentration as his wrists and hands slam me down on top of him, tingles from my own orgasm shooting out to my extremities, keeping my climax alive and buzzing through my body. His chest is cut but not buff, his arms lean but not bulky. He’s got the build of a swimmer, tall, and lean with muscles that aren’t obvious.
A roar rips from his throat, almost imitating an actual lion’s, when he comes. His hips sway and jut up into me, and I fear I may split open if he goes any deeper.
After, I lie on his sweat-slicked chest, my own sweat mixing with his and creating a gross concoction if you actually thought about it.
“We’re getting pretty good at that.” Reese sighs into my knotted mane.
“Practice makes perfect, as they say.” I trace patterns in the smattering of hair on his chest.
“You going to get off?” He makes a move like he’s going to roll over.
But I keep us in place. “I thought I just did.”
“Har, har, very funny. But come on, I have a cramp in my ass.”
He turns us, stretching his leg once we become dislodged and shaking it to relieve the cramp. We lie intertwined, speaking without words, in that post-sex way that always seems to happen. Soft grunts, sighs, fingertips lightly tickling backs … it’s a language unto its own.
After a couple of minutes, I get up to pee, no one wants a urinary tract infection because they were lazy after sex. Trust me, I’ve gotten one, it’s not pretty.
When I get back in my bed, sliding under the sheets and comforters seeking Reese’s arms, his eyes are drifting.
I pinch his nipple, startling him. “Wake up, it’s only nine p.m.”
He tickles me violently, and I shake him off. “I have constant jet lag, remember? I’m a nurse. Also, we’re almost thirty. We’re old, we should be in bed by nine.”
“I refuse. I’m going to pull all-nighters even when I’m seventy.”
“I’d like to see you try.” He kisses me on the nose.
A couple more minutes of silence go by, and I reach over to turn the light on so that we don’t conk out. I scroll through my feeds for a bit, getting lost in the perfectly pictured flowers, outfits and couples shots.
“How come we never talked about the New Year’s kiss? Or the one on your twenty-first birthday?” Reese looks at me, the lamp light all too bright now for the question he’s asking.
I squirm and put my phone down, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t know, it’s not like you brought them up either.”
“That’s because I knew you weren’t ready to talk about it. To go there. And I initiated both … you had to have known I always secretly wanted more.”
I sit up a little, because this a revelation to me. “Wait, what?”
Reese blows out a breath and scoots up my headboard, leaning against it and crossing his arms over his naked abs. “I’ve had a crush on you since the moment we met, peas. I’ve always thought you were the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And then I got to be your friend, and learn how funny and amazing you are. Those two times … I was trying to tell you without telling you, how I felt. Both of those mornings after, I was waiting for you to realize that, or at least say something. And when you didn’t … I just left it alone. Thought you didn’t want me in that way. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”
Realization blossoms inside my chest, and I slap my forehead. “I have been the biggest idiot. Honestly, Reese, I never knew. I thought they were just drunken hookups, that I was the closest female to you and you acted on a horny impulse. If you wanted me to know about those feelings, you should have just told me.”
He levels with me. “And how would you have responded? We both know you would have freaked-out. It was never the right timing.”
I look down at my hands. “You’re probably right. But I was stupid then, and even after that, my views on love and relationships shifted. And then they shifted again. Because the timing is right now. And the person I’m with, you, shifted them. We never talked about those kisses because it would have sunk us. But we’re talking about them now, and hell, I think we’re getting better at them. Like you said.”
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