Cross Drop

by Elizabeth Hartey

“And look!” Nikki screeches and pulls me to the next drawing encased in glass on the wall. “This is an original Max in his tree-covered room by Sendak. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

  “No. Not exactly,” I mumble, because I’m watching the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen getting all excited about a drawing of a kid in a monster suit.

  “Eeep! Dalt!” she screeches, moving to the next drawing. Did she just say eeep? Is that even a word? “It’s Garth Williams!”

  “You mean the country singer?” I tease her.

  “What?” Her sweet face pinches like I just spoke Martian.

  “It looks like Stuart Little to me.”

  “It is! Garth Williams is the artist. Oh my gosh, Dalt,” she turns and throws her arms around my neck, “this is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you. Thank you.”

  She’s squeezing me so tight I’m having a hard time breathing. I love how much she loves this and how happy she is. I’m okay with suffocating in her arms.

  “I just wanted you to see what it was like,” I cough out.

  “See what what’s like?” She loosens her grip and steps back to study my face.

  “To know what it’s going to be like when your illustrations are hung in art galleries all over the world and millions of people are admiring them.”

  She chuckles. “Oh right. I’m going to be the next Sendak.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She frowns in confusion. “Not quite that admired, huh?” She smirks.

  “Nope. You’re going to be way more famous than Sendak or this Seuss guy or whoever.”

  “I think you’re my greatest fan. Maybe my only fan.” She throws her arms over my shoulders and plants a kiss on my lips. “But it’s okay, because you’re the only one I want.”

  Man. I really love this girl.

  “You’re the only one I want too, Nik.” I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her into me. “But I know someday I’m going to have to share your artistic talents with the rest of the world. You’re good, if not better than any of these people. Let’s check out the rest of the exhibits so we can get out of here.”

  I brush my nose across hers and I swear she purrs like a contented kitten. I know exactly how she feels.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nikki

  The hostess at the Reading Room leads us to a quiet candlelit table in the corner. Dalt pulls out a chair for me, taking a seat on the other side of the small table. The second he sits down he reaches across the table for my hand. I lace my fingers through his and we sit in silence for a moment. The way his crystalline eyes twinkle in the candlelight as he drinks me in says it all. Without saying a word, he has my heart thrumming in double time and every one of my nerve cells sizzling. The heat of his touch moves up my arm and travels down to the core of my body like a lit fuse racing toward dynamite.

  I have to break the silence or there’s no way I’ll be able to make it through dinner without finding a storage closet or bathroom stall or some other equally unromantic hidden alcove to tear off his navy blazer and jeans.

  “This is so beautiful. The whole day has been amazing and one of the best days of my life. Thank you for all of it, Dalt.”

  “This is just the beginning of everything I’m going to give you, Nik. Anything you want. Anything.” His words are soft, like he’s trying to maintain the serenity of the atmosphere

  It’s early for the Saturday night dinner crowd, leaving most of the tables in the high-end hotel restaurant empty. They won’t fill until the eight or nine o’clock reservation slots. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination or if the man on the grand piano across the room is playing the Nino Rota theme from Romeo and Juliet. The floor to ceiling window we’re seated next to offers a gorgeous view of Frenchman’s Bay. The full moon shimmers on the water, providing the most magical dinner theater experience Mother Nature has to offer. A gigantic cruise ship is docked several miles offshore, its lights twinkling as if signifying the merriment taking place onboard. Throughout the harbor, boats in various shapes and sizes dance in the moonlight. The soft music combined with the gentle rocking of the boats provides a soothing ballet for the senses. It’s like a scene out of an enchanted story. Dalt might be wrong. Our life together just might be a fairytale.

  A young man in a tuxedo interrupts the tranquil moment. “Your server will be right with you. I’m Jason, the sommelier. Can I interest you in our wine list?”

  I let go of Dalt’s hand as the waiter places the large leather covered binder on the table.

  “Can I get you a cocktail this evening while you’re deciding?”

  “We’ll have a bottle of Dom Perignon ’66,” Dalt says, handing the wine list back to the waiter without looking at it. “Uh. Wait. Is that okay, Bud? Can you break your drinking fast to have some champagne to celebrate?”

  “Champagne? Sure but…” I glance at the waiter who’s patiently waiting to take our drink order. “Sure. Champagne would be great.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I wait until the waiter is far enough away from the table he can’t hear me ask, “Isn’t that an obscenely expensive bottle of champagne?”

  “We have a lot to celebrate and two years to make up for.” Dalt picks up the gold-lettered menu in front of him.

  “Yes, but Dom Perignon is—”

  “I don’t think you’re hearing me, baby.” He drops the menu and reaches for my hand. “I’m grateful for everything my mom left me, but it’s not what’s important. I finally have something, someone who is important. And I just want to use some of the money to overindulge her. Got it?”

  He’s telling me I’m more important to him than anything, his money is insignificant. It’s beautiful and…overwhelming.

  “Got it,” I concede. “As long as the her you’re referring to is me.”

  “Just you, baby girl. Only you.”

  God. I’m falling so fast and hard for him, again.

  Please don’t let him walk away when he finds out what I’ve done.

  “Nik?” his voice tugs me out of my apprehensive thought.

  “Hmm?”

  He runs his thumb across my bottom lip, making me aware of my nibbling on it. “You wanna’ dance?”

  “I…no one’s dancing. I don’t think there’s dancing in here,” I whisper, like the dancing police are on the lookout.

  “There is now.” Dalt stands and extends his hand to me. He leads me to an open area in the middle of the dining room, wraps his arms around my waist and I drape mine around his neck. We pull toward each other, our eyes locked.

  We begin a slow sway to the piano player’s melodic cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.” And it is. The lyrics, the moment, everything couldn’t be more perfect. I’m lost in Dalt’s arms, his warmth, his scent. Adrift in his vivid blue eyes, the same way I was the first time he glanced at me my freshman year—even though I tried to resist it back then. I’ve never felt this immersed in someone else; this consumed. He leans in to kiss me. When his tongue moves across my lip, my mouth parts in a sigh of his name.

  “Dalt.”

  “Nikki.”

  Our tongues tangle in their own dance of fervent exploration. This is real. Everything I’m feeling, he’s feeling, everything we’re sharing, it’s real. The way he’s holding me, kissing me, worshiping me with his eyes, I’m not dreaming it or imagining it. Dalt loves me and I could burst into a million pieces of happiness with the love I have surging through me for him. My breathy moan of contentment gets a raspy groan in return from him.

  “Let’s eat and get out of here,” he rasps.

  I give him a dreamy nod. Words are as impossible as they are unnecessary to tell him what I’m feeling, what I want, right now.

  “Better yet, I’ll get us a suite here for the night and order room service. Then I don’t have to wait any longer to be inside you.”

  God.

  I love the way he uses his words. But a suite at the Bar Harbor I
nn, just so he doesn’t have to wait an extra hour to get me naked. It’s going to take some time for me to get used to this overindulgence stuff.

  “No, let’s just eat here. Home, Netflix and chill, with you, sounds perfect to me.”

  “Like I said, let’s eat and get the fuck outta here.”

  ***

  A dozen oysters, a shared bowl of lobster bisque, a Maine lobster pie, and a bottle of Dom Perignon later, I float—more like roll—on the after effects of champagne bubbles and the excess of food, into my house.

  “Oh God. I’m so stuffed I can’t even move. Wasn’t I just stuffed with blueberry pancakes?” I groan my way into the living room.

  Dalt walks into the kitchen with a bag. “I hope you saved room for the two pieces of gooey chocolate caramel cake we brought home.” He chuckles at my groans of gluttonous pleasure.

  There was no way I could think about putting another morsel of food into my mouth after the rich, delicious meal, but Dalt insisted we had to have dessert to complete dinner. I agreed, only if we could take it home to eat later. Like in a month after I digested everything else.

  “Ugh. I am never going to be able to dribble a soccer ball down a field again.”

  “Don’t worry, soccer girl,” he says, coming back into the living room to help me out of my jacket. “I’m going to sweat every one of those calories off you tonight.” He sweeps my hair to one side and kisses the curve of my neck. The touch of his lips on my skin sends goosebumps down to my toes, but my dress is beginning to feel like a straightjacket around my too stuffed body.

  “Wait. Let me get out of these clothes and get comfortable. You pick something to watch. I’ll be right back.”

  “I would be more than happy to help you with that.” Dalt nibbles on the shell of my ear.

  “Ahh…why…why don’t you borrow a p…pair of Dak’s sweat…sweatpants.”

  Jesus.

  Will I ever have normal brain function when his lips are within two feet of me?

  “Sounds good. I don’t want to leave you to go all the way home to change.” He steps away from me and moves toward the stairs.

  “All the way home being somewhere around twenty feet.” I laugh.

  “Hey, you made me wait to get home. If we stayed at the inn, I’d already be buried so deep inside you everyone staying there would know my name by the way you’d be screaming it.”

  “God,” I sigh on a huge breath. I have to rub my legs together to ease the ache already building from his sweet dirty talk.

  What is it Alex calls the next-door neighbor hockey boys? Living, breathing sex on two legs. Sounds like an accurate assessment of this particular hockey boy.

  “So humble.” I shake my head.

  “I only speak the truth, sweetheart. And you know it.” He gives me his coy grin and takes the stairs two at a time.

  I gaze at the way his jeans hug his delicious, round ass. Sighing at the sight of all that perfection, I slowly waddle my way up behind him to get to my room. It reminds me of what it felt like to wobble around when I was pregnant with Chloe. The sad thought washes over me. Dalt wasn’t around to experience my pregnancy or the all the firsts for Chloe: her first steps, first giggles, first words. He’s being so wonderful, I have to be honest with him.

  He’s going to hate me for keeping her from him.

  No. He said nothing would ever separate us again. He loves me. He’ll understand. He’ll forgive me. First thing in the morning before I leave for the farm, I’ll tell him.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dalt

  “What did you choose? What are you in the mood for?” Nikki asks as she comes bouncing into the room.

  Okay. Maybe she’s not actually bouncing, but in my full to the brim of happiness mind, she’s bouncing. I’m stretched out on the sofa, fumbling with the remote but not thinking about television shows. My thoughts are consumed by everything Nikki. When she asks me what I’m in the mood for, my love-saturated brain thinks she’s asking me what kind of sex I want: missionary, oral, doggie style. Can’t help it. When I’m with her, and even when I’m not, all I can think about is the next time I can be between her legs. Fingers, tongue, cock, doesn’t matter, as long as I’m there.

  “What did you say?”

  “What are you in the mood for? Comedy, action, horror?”

  She’s wearing leggings with pictures of Archie comic book characters on them and a cropped loose t-shirt, one side of it slipping down her arm, revealing her soccer ball tattoo. Her pebbled nipples are standing at attention, making it apparent she’s not wearing a bra. Her hair is twisted into a long braid which is hanging over one shoulder, almost to the exposed skin at her waist. The way she’s tilting her head has the braid swaying over her breasts, like the pendulum of a clock counting down the seconds before I’m sucking on those rosy tips and peeling Archie and Veronica down her legs.

  “Oh. Right. I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

  “I don’t care as long as it’s not a chick flick.”

  “No shit? You used to love those. How many times did you make me watch The Notebook?” The first time it was pretty good. Even the second time wasn’t bad. But Nikki had it downloaded on her computer and I swear we watched it every weekend for months.

  “It’s still one of my favorites,” she swoons. Damn. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. “But Tracey and Dak are on a romance watching binge lately. And if I have to watch one more episode of Outlander I’m going to strangle myself with one of those Scottish kilts.”

  “Outlander? Is that a romance? I thought it was a docudrama about Scottish warriors. Isn’t it the show with all the dudes in skirts cutting each other up with swords?”

  “Docudrama?” She squinches her face. “Yeah, right. It’s the show with all the sexy Scots wearing skirts sans undies, which makes their ‘love snakes’ easily accessible and the likelihood of all kinds of hot and heavy love scenes occurring in every episode. It’s a chick show hiding underneath yards of plaid.” Nikki plops down next to me.

  “Wait. Are you kidding me right now? I walked in Dak’s room the other night and he was watching it. As soon as he saw me he slammed his computer closed but I had already seen the dudes in skirts battling.”

  I stop to think for a second. I know he didn’t say it was romance. I’d seen a commercial for the show a few days before and it looked pretty good. I asked him if it I should stream it. He said something about it being a dope historical docudrama all about Scotland’s war with England, bloody and gruesome. But he didn’t suggest I watch it. Just said he was tired and he’d finish watching it the next day.

  “That sly dog. He never mentioned it was a lovey-dovey chick show. So, captain, my captain watches chick shows.” I laugh at the thought of Andersen curled up and watching schmaltzy chick flicks.

  “Watches it? He convinced Trace it’s one of the greatest shows on television. They never miss it. And they even binged watched the first two seasons to ‘refresh’ their memories of the plot.” Nikki air quotes the word refresh.

  “Oh man.” I fall back in a fit of laughter. “Just wait ‘til I talk to that fucker. He is so not getting away with this.”

  “Don’t come down on him too hard. It is kinda’ cute the way they cuddle together watching a show they both love.”

  “Cuddling to a show they both love, huh? Alien!”

  We shout in unison. “Sy-fy it is.”

  “I’ll grab us a couple of waters while you find it. Or you want a beer?” Nik asks on her way to the kitchen.

  “Water’s good. I’m saving room for our dessert.”

  The one I’m going to smear all over your body and lick off.

  “I could only find the second one in the series,” I inform Nikki as she rejoins me on the sofa.

  “Since we can practically recite the dialogue from the first one, second’s good.” Nik’s fave romance may have been The Notebook, but our mutually favorite sci-fi, when we were together was Alien. We’d yell out lin
es like groupies at a Rocky Horror Show festival.

  About twenty minutes into the movie Nikki has a revelation. “I just realized how dumb Ripley was to not know Carter was screwing her over.”

  “What do ya mean?”

  “Think about it. He swears to annihilate the aliens but then when they find them he won’t let her destroy them. Red flag much?”

  “Hmm. Yeah, never thought about it.”

  Nikki is curled into the curve of my arm. She starts making little circles on my bare chest while pondering Ripley’s dilemma. I never bother with a shirt when I’m relaxing. Sweats and no shirt, the most comfortable way to roll.

  “How would a smart woman like her not have figured out she was being played by the company?” She runs her fingers over my pecs in absent-minded strokes.

  “Hmm…yeah…she…she was…pretty fucking amazing.” Nikki picks her head up, aware of the weird breathy way I’m answering her question. Her fingers stop stroking my chest.

  Fuck. Don’t stop.

  She glances at my tented sweats, hops up from the sofa, and heads toward the kitchen. “Just a second. I’ll be right back.” I readjust my hard shaft who’s begging for another Nikki fix.

  “Time for dessert,” Nikki announces, coming back in the room with a bowl and spoon in her hand.

  “You’re the only dessert I want, babe.” She can’t miss the confirmation of that statement inside my sweats.

  “Just what I had in mind,” she says, sliding the coffee table away from the sofa and dropping to her knees in front of me.

  “Nik?” I’m not sure what’s going on but I say a little prayer she’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking.

  She puts the bowl on the floor next to her knees and tugs at the elastic of my pants. “These have to come off, please.” So polite. It’s only right I agree to help her out by lifting my hips. She slides my sweats down my legs in a slow, drawn out movement. My hopeful cock waves in front of her face. Her eyes meet mine and she sweeps her tongue over her lips in anticipation.