by Lila Felix
“Don’t you know, Nixon?”
“Know what?” We were now cheek to cheek, my words and his flowing directly from mouth to ear. I let my fingers skim the small of his back underneath his button down shirt.
“I don’t ever want to be separated from you again. Don’t you know by now that I’m in love with you? Don’t you know that I want you with me always?”
“Unlock the door—now—before I give you a bad reputation right here in front of your apartment.”
So I turned, his hands never left my hips, merely grazed against them as I turned. I unlocked the deadbolt and he locked the door after we got inside.
“Wait, I forgot something.” He ran back outside and came back with a plastic grocery bag full of—something.
“What is it?”
“Just look,” he answered.
I opened the sack to find a stack of perfectly folded t-shirts and boxers. I wanted to stick my nose inside the bag and just brand the smell into my lungs.
“Are these for me or for you?”
“Either? Both? I don’t care,” he moved, pinning me to the refrigerator. “I just want to know that when you’re not with me, you’re here, wearing my stuff, so at least something of mine is touching your body.”
“But you’re here now,” I started my mouth’s assault on his neck. He always smelled like heaven, but tasting it brought the sensation to a whole new level.
“Tell me again, Journey. Tell me. I’ve needed to hear that for so long,” he replied, hoarse and gruff. His palms were above me, one on each side of my head, leaned in, purposefully keeping the rest of his body from me.
“Tell you what? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I smiled against the hollow of his neck. I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I shouldn’t have made him beg, but it felt so damned good.
“Tell me you love me as much as I love you. Tell me you think about me every hour, on the hour and every minute between. Tell me you want me to take you to your bed, not to sleep.”
“Nixon, don’t tempt me,” I ducked out from the cage of his biceps and went into the bathroom, taking the bag of his shirts with me. I needed a minute to breathe.
I came out minutes later, swathed in one of his old Sailor Jerry t-shirts, some tattoo person and a pair of his gray boxers, with the waist band rolled up. He sat on the edge of my bed, hunched over, elbows on his knees, face in his hands, heart on the floor.
“I’m sorry, sometimes my need for you is overwhelming. I shouldn’t have said that,” he laughed at himself.
I sat beside him and pulled my knees to my chest, holding hands to wrists, keeping them in place.
“You should have. You can’t know how much I wanted to hear that. But we have to be careful,” he finally looked up at me. “I’ve,” I’d never been so embarrassed in my life, not because it was Nixon, but I was ashamed of who I’d been, “I slept with every guy I dated in high school, Nixon, some of them before the second date. And I’m ashamed of that. But with you, I want it all right.”
I crawled behind him, wrapping my legs and arms around his torso. “And no, I don’t love you as much as you love me,” he tensed in the prison of my limbs, “I love you so much more. You loved me when I was too stupid to know what I wanted. You loved me when I wasn’t even here. I know now how much I risked when I refused to admit that to you before. I won’t ever risk you again.”
He kissed the palms of my hands as I spoke but there was so much more. “And just so you’re clear once and for all, I love Scout.” He unraveled my hold and turned around to kneel before me, “I love her so much that sometimes I wish she was mine.”
“I didn’t go see her. I hated to see her like that, in a hospital gown, barely knowing my name.” I finally registered that he was talking about his mother. “I had gone to see her every Saturday morning since she was committed, but I didn’t that day. It didn’t help that somehow she’d been hiding her medication in a splice between the closet door and the wall, but ultimately it was my fault. I didn’t go see her and the next morning, she hung herself by a rope made of braided strips of a flat sheet.”
My stomach soured. He thought his mother’s suicide was his fault and where was I? Screwing screw-ups—that’s where.
He continued, “After that I drowned myself in anything I could get my hands on—pot, pills, alcohol—women. But when I’m with you, it all goes away. Except Scout, she’s the only good thing that came from my screw-ups.”
I slid off the bed and sat on his bent legs, “Feel better?”
“Yeah, I do. The roles have certainly changed.”
“I missed your scruffy jaw line and your glasses.”
“I missed your freckles. But don’t worry, I plan on getting to know them all by heart.”
“When are we gonna tell Scout?”
His hands were everywhere, and if he didn’t stop, I’d let go of my resolve in an instant. “Tomorrow, is that ok with you?”
“Yes. Do you want to tell her and then I can talk to her? What do you think is best?”
“No, we tell her together. Can you be at my apartment at three?”
“Of course, anything you need.”
“What I need right now is for you and I to get some sleep. I’m not sure tomorrow is gonna be a picnic.”
We got up and I crawled into the bed first and then cracked up at the vision of Nixon getting in the bed.
“What?”
“We’re not virgins here, Nixon. You can take your pants off. I’ve even seen you naked, so there.”
He scooted over to me, pant clad, “You wish you’d seen me naked.”
I propped myself up on my elbow, “No, I did. I’d heard you were taking Katie Landry skinny dipping. And I didn’t believe it. So I followed you. I was so jealous I couldn’t breathe.”
He scooted even closer the length of our forms lining up perfectly, “She didn’t show up.”
“But that didn’t stop you from jumping in by yourself.”
“Next time, you’ll have to join me.”
“And what will we do once we get in the water?” I traced the lines of his abs with the tip of my finger.
“What everyone else does—naked, in the warm water, your flushed cheeks shining by the moonlight—we swim laps.”
“Liar.”
We snuggled into the blankets and I started to drift off.
“By the way, the pants are more for your safety than anything else.” He quipped in a half-sleep stage.
“I love you, Nixon. I always have.”
“I’ve loved you all my life, Journey, and I always will.”
~~~
I woke sometime the next morning by calescent lips pressed to the back of my neck.
“Sleep,” I swatted at him
“I’ve got to go soon. I need to go home and shower, change clothes, and then pick Scout up. Do you want something to eat?”
“Yeah, I’m up. You can just shower here and wear one of your t-shirts if you want. It would give me some more time with you.”
“That’s a good idea. You got coffee around here?”
“Definitely, and I’ll go get us something to eat.”
He was torn, I could see it on his face, “Nixon, he’s not gonna come after me at,” I looked at the alarm clock, “Seven thirteen on a Sunday morning.”
He flexed his fist, “Just hurry and be careful, and one more thing I forgot to tell you last night.”
“I don’t care, Nixon,” I thought he was referring to something else buried in the casket of his past.
“Oh? You don’t care that I love you?”
“Of course I do. I love you too, so much. And you did tell me last night. Plus, you talk a lot in your sleep—a lot,” I pecked him quickly, brushed my teeth in a frenzy and grabbed my keys and ran down to the donut shop.
I grabbed two peach cobbler muffins and two blueberry bagels with cream cheese, plus coffees for both of us while I was there. I drove back home in record time and he was still in th
e shower. But as the shower turned off, I couldn’t help myself, I knocked, and he let me in, a forest green towel hung on those chiseled hips, one end tucked into the other.
I sat on the sink after finding an extra toothbrush beneath all of my junk in the drawer and handing it to him.
He brushed his teeth beside me and I loved thinking in the future we could do this every day. Brushing teeth had never been so promising.
Chapter 18
Nixon
Sometimes I wish for a regular kid.
I left her hesitantly but excitedly drove to pick up my other girl.
I thought about the night before and how at close to four a.m. she’d wriggled around me until I gave in and gave her the attention she craved.
I looked down on her eyes were half mast and remembered how many nights I watched her funny lip shape as she spoke. And I couldn’t believe she was there then after I’d spent the night blabbing about being together and divulging all my secrets to her.
“Nixon?” The moist heat of her breath tingled my neck underneath my jaw and I shivered, loving the sensation.
“Yes, darlin’,” I answered, deciding which part of her I would taste first.
“Are you ever going to want more kids?” She bit the side of her lip after she asked as if she regretted the question. That now swollen lip would be my first target.
“That’s what you want to know in the middle of the night?” She nodded, but it didn’t take much deliberation to give her my answer, “I thought I didn’t—until you showed up. You’ve got my mind swirling with possibilities.”
A heartbeat fast image pulsed in my mind, Journey with a swollen belly, carrying our child—it kicked my instinct into overdrive and our conversation was forgotten.
I lied. I didn’t begin with her lips. I began with her sternum, so close but so far from where I really wanted my mouth to be. My tongue tingled with the taste of nectar as it trailed upwards towards her neck. It fluctuated between sucking kisses and searing licks.
But when my lips met hers, the world around me ceased to exist. Fires could break out, earthquakes could shudder, mass panic could explode in the streets, but there was nothing in that moment but her and I.
And it was one thing to kiss her, to concentrate the adoration I had for her onto her mouth but when she began her descent down my jaw line, she shattered me.
She pressed feather light marks on every inch of my neck, her fingers skimmed down my torso—waist—down to the waistband of my jeans and it took everything in me to cover her hand with mine and make her halt.
“Not tonight,” I breathed into her ear.
She pouted but relented and settled for her place on my chest. And I’d thought she was the responsible one.
When I arrived at Mad’s house, Scout and Storey were still getting primped and prepped, which was fine because Mad looked like he had something on his mind.
“What’s up, man?” I stood next to him, leaned against the kitchen counters.
“You got a minute?”
“Course. Something up with Simon?”
“No, we haven’t heard anything from him other than seeing him around campus. Storey’s kinda worried about something and I just wanted to put it on your radar in case she brings it up.”
I nodded for his continue, “She thinks there’s a chance that with Journey in the picture, she might be cut out from Scout’s life.”
Mad knew better and Storey knew better too. And I wasn’t the type to wait for someone to feed me gossip, I went straight to the source. I tore across the kitchen and straight into the bathroom.
“Hey! Daddy, this is girl time. Butt out.”
“Hey little girl, watch your manners,” Storey scolded her.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“It’s fine. Can you go ask Uncle Mad to help you draw a picture while I talk to your aunt?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Storey looked at me like I’d traded my horse for magic beans.
“I need to set you straight once and for all.”
She looked scared, “Ok?”
“Sit down,” I so wasn’t playing around with my favorite sister in law. I’d just have to lay it out, real nice and clear.
She sat on the closed toilet and I crouched in front of her and took her hands in mine, hoping to further convey my sincerity. “Do you remember when Scout was about three and a half weeks old and you knocked on the door at three a.m. because you knew I wasn’t getting any sleep? You came in, took her from me, positioned her on your arm, some cockamamie way and then paced my apartment for hours until she fell asleep. That’s the night I realized how damned lucky I was to have you and Mad. You’re more than a cousin, or a friend, you’re like my sister. There is no one, and I mean no one, who can take your place in Scout’s life. You’ve been there for her almost every day for years. Nothing can trump that. Do I make myself clear?” I smiled at the end to make sure she knew I wasn’t berating her.
“Thank you Nixon!” She threw herself at me, sobbing in joy. She should’ve known better.
We left the bathroom and watched Mad and Scout draw for a minute, him feigning appall at her mad skills. She turned around and saw Storey cleaning up her splotchy face.
“What’s wrong, Honey? Did Daddy spank you?”
“What? No! Honey is an adult, we don’t spank adults.”
“Well…” Maddox chimed in.
I cut him off quick, “Don’t say it Mad. Don’t I have enough?”
I bent down to pick Scout up and get on our way. “Come on Button, I’m treating you to a special Sunday breakfast.”
She did a little fist pump jig in my arms and we said our goodbyes and went to my favorite diner. She had a huge stack of chocolate chip pancakes and I didn’t even bother ordering. Her eyes were always bigger than her stomach and I knew that one –fourth of the way in, she’d give up.
I was right.
I polished off the rest of her pancakes while she slurped the rest of her milk. We headed home and I tried desperately to set a calm mood for her to take a nap. I knew she was exhausted and halfway through The Princess and The Frog, she passed out in her bed.
I stalked through the apartment, cleaning and finishing laundry, trying and failing at not constantly peering at the clock. When Scout woke up from her nap I was shameless in making sure she was happy with a pudding cup and cheese and crackers. I thought maybe I’d better butter her up before Journey got there.
“Scout, Ms. Journey is coming over to visit us today.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, us. Is that okay?”
She shrugged, undid her safety belt and got down from the stool as if she could give a flying flip whether or not Journey was coming over. I hoped she was just as flippant when we sprung the news on her.
I could hear Scout singing in her room and it was eerie. It wasn’t that she never sang, she did, but it was a haunting tune this time and I checked and re-checked on her, making sure she wasn’t defiling a doll or something else that was in line with that creepy lullaby.
She came out sometime later and had a look on her face. I recognized the look, she was about to say something haughty.
“What are you thinking about Button?”
“Aunt Storey said you bought me a new bed but it will be in the house, instead of the apartment. Are we moving?”
That was so not the reason she asked me, but I picked up her crumbs as she dropped them.
“Yes. Soon, we are moving to the house. Is that ok?”
“I want to name my wabbit Frank.”
There it is.
“Who said we were getting a wabbit—I mean a rabbit?”
“Me.”
“Let’s focus on moving to the house and settling in first and then we’ll talk about the rabbit.”
A knock on the door interrupted the rabbit talk.
I opened the door to a white as a sheet Journey. She just stood there, more nervous than I’ve ever seen her.
“She’s not gonna e
at you,” I whispered to her as I reached for her hand and dragged her across the threshold.
“Hi Ms. Journey. Did you come to play with me?”
“I will play with you Scout, but not right now. Your dad and I need to talk to you.”
“Ok.” We filed into the living room and I pulled her onto my lap. Journey sat next to me after mentally analyzing where she should sit. I could see it in her face.
“Scout, you like Ms. Journey, right?”
Bad question to roll out with Nix.
“Yes.”
“Well, I like Ms. Journey too.”
She gave me a hint of stink eye and then softened.
“Journey and I are together.” More of the confused stink eye.
Journey snorted, “Scout, your Dad and I are boyfriend and girlfriend, do you understand that?”
“Are you gonna get married?”
The kid did not waste any time.
“Maybe one day. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes. Now can she come play in my room?”
Journey rolled her eyes and was led out by the hand with a smile.
That was way too easy.
Journey stayed for the rest of the afternoon and had dinner with us. It felt right. I didn’t know it before because I’d never experienced it. But now I knew. I had both my girls around me, happy. I’d never be the same again.
~~~
The next Tuesday night, I invited Journey to have family dinner with us. It was only right.
We had already started in on our dinner when she arrived. She came straight from work, as she worked until seven, sometimes eight.
I could see the gleam in Scout’s eye and knew something over the top was about to emerge from the tike’s mouth.
“Look, there’s Ms. Journey, she’s gonna be my mom!”
If I thought Journey had been white at my door last Sunday, I was wrong, she was damned near seven shades lighter and the shock on her face was priceless. Nellie, Reed and Storey did some kind of ‘Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil’ maneuver.
“Journey, honey, why don’t you sit down. I’ll go get your plate and then we can all have dessert together,” Aunt Sylvia to save the day—again.