“I already told you the story, Dad. It doesn’t matter! If you didn’t listen when we were in the principal’s office then it’s not like you’re going to listen now.”
I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly, trying to think of the words that will make the boys understand best.
“I’m listening,” I promise.
“You’re not going to get mad?”
“I won’t. I just want the truth. Explain to me what happened today and why you called Christine to come to the school.”
“I already told you what happened today, Dad!”
“I know you did, but I want to hear it again. Outside of the school walls.”
“It wasn’t his fault, Dad,” Reece says as he steps forward. “Preston… he… he was egging him on. And I know we aren’t supposed to allow that to happen, but you don’t understand. He’s been picking at both of us since mom left. Always saying how our mom was a…”
“A what?”
The boys glance at each other and do that annoying twin thing where they talk to each other without actually talking. “It’s not my word — it’s his, okay? So, don’t get mad.”
I clench my jaw and nod my head once.
“Slut. He called her a slut. And a whore. And he said that we weren’t good enough. That even our slutty mom couldn’t love us or want us.”
“You know…”
“We know! We know it’s not true! You tell us all the time that we’re enough and wanted. Whatever, Dad. You can say it all you want, but yeah, we heard. We heard how mom did that stuff with other guys. And last with… Preston. Nice name, right?” Reece’s voice comes out shaky.
Holy shit. They know everything.
And if they aren’t my kids, putting the two names together like that.
I scrub a hand down my face and tug on my hair, something I’m doing way too often lately.
“I… shit, boys. I didn’t want you to find out like that.”
Aidan gives me a look that basically screams he thinks I’m stupid. “You think we didn’t already know? We’re not idiots, Dad, so stop treating us like we are! We can’t go anywhere in this stupid town without someone whispering about us. But you know what? Finally, it stopped. When we were with Christine? It wasn’t happening. No more whispering. No more people making fun. Well, except for Preston,” he scoffs and shakes his head. I glance over at Reece just as his eyes roll back down. “Christine always stood by our sides. She was always there for us. And I knew she would be there for me today. Not mom. I wanted her there. You know what? Screw that. I needed her there, and guess what. I still do! Reece still does! You do!”
Shocked, I sit back in my seat and rub between my eyes before pinching the bridge of my nose. I didn’t realize they knew so much. I should have known. No. I should have told them myself. I shouldn’t have let them find out anything from someone else.
“Boys…” I sigh.
“No. Enough already. It doesn’t matter what you think is such a big deal. She loves us, Dad. And if you don’t want her anymore then you’re stupid, too. But we aren’t going to give her up. And not just because she’s pregnant, Dad. Because we love her. You love her.”
Reece stands up and storms away, leaving me staring after him, wondering how they knew that, too.
Aidan clears his throat, and I look over at him. His left is eye starting to swell just slightly. “Dad, he’s right. We love her, and I don’t know what she did or what you did, but please fix it.” His voice starts to waver right along with my conviction. “We need her, Dad. And you’ve been miserable without her. We’re miserable without her.”
“I’m not miserable.”
“Yes, you are, Dad. You’re cranky, and I hear you up in the night. You don’t sleep. I know you want her back. Fix it.”
“So, I just go over there?”
“Dad. I’m fourteen. How the heck should I know? I assume you should probably start by saying you’re sorry because I saw the look on her face today when she left the school, and she was super pissed. And not just at Preston. At you. But we already built that thing, so it’s not like you weren’t planning on winning her back. You just need the courage to do it.”
“You caught that, huh?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“How’d you get so smart?”
“You just got lucky, I guess.” He smiles and shrugs his shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Screwing up. It seems that’s all I do.”
“Dad. You didn’t screw up with us. Yes, we’re mad because we want Christine back and we want her here with us so we can help with the baby, but we’re not mad at you. Just fix it. Or maybe we will be.”
“Love you, kid.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
He gives me a little boy grin and pushes on my shoulder lightly. I pretend he hit me harder than he did, causing me to fall back down onto the couch. He shakes his head, laughing at my antics, then trudges up to his bedroom. I shift my gaze to the window. It’s a cloudy day, gray clouds covering the skies. The threat of rain in the forecast. My knee bobs up and down, a nervous habit. I stand up, anxious, and move to the window.
I wanted to give her the grand gesture, but I don’t think I can wait. I just want to be with her again. These last several days without her in my arms, in our home, it’s been too much. She deserves my admittance to my ignorance and stupidity sooner rather than later.
Decision made, I whistle loudly. “Boys! I gotta go see about a girl!”
“Did you just use a line from Good Will Hunting on us?”
That stops me in my tracks. “How have you seen that movie?”
Their footsteps come bounding through the house. Aidan skids around the corner on the wooden floor in his socks, and Reece bounces into him. “Netflix, Dad. Chill.” They both grin.
“Punks!” I point my finger at them but can’t hide the grin of my own. “No Netflix and chilling for you!” They both give me an odd look, and I hope to God they have no clue what that means. Chances are not good on that.
“Go get her!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Dad! Go!”
The word go is barely out of their mouths before I’m sliding my arms into my jacket and running out the door.
It doesn’t take me long to get to her place from ours, but one thing that keeps rolling through my mind during the trip is her declaration of her love for me while we were in Mr. Moore’s office.
I’m pulling into Christine’s driveway, honking the horn like a lunatic. But the thing is? When you finally figure something out, like how you love someone and can’t live without her, you don’t want to waste another minute.
Great.
I jumped from Good Will Hunting to When Harry Met Sally in a ten-minute span. That’s gotta be a record. Clearly, I’ve had too much extra time on my hands lately.
I kick the car door open, falling halfway out the car before getting hung up on the seat belt I forgot to take off. I quickly hit the button and fall the rest of the way onto my back. I stand up, brush the dust off, throw my leather jacket back into the car, and start walking.
The front door swings open, and an angry Christine appears in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. Still wearing my sweatshirt, and stupid or not, I take that as a good sign.
She’s fired up, pissed off, and beautiful.
Breathtakingly beautiful.
But the look in her eyes stops me where I’m standing.
I quite like my balls, and I have a feeling if I just take her in my arms and kiss the hell out of her right now that I will no longer be in possession of them.
“Hi.”
She raises one eyebrow at me, and I shift on my feet. She remains silent, her bright green eyes never leaving mine.
I clear my throat and take a step toward her.
When she doesn’t move away, I take that as another positive.
“Thank you for being there for Aidan today.”
/> “Of course. Just because his dad is an asshole doesn’t mean I’m going to take that out on him.”
Okay. So her gloves are coming off, and she’s standing firm in her anger.
“It meant a lot to him. And…” I pause, struggling more than ever not to rush up the stairs and wrap her in my arms.
“And?”
“Me.” I point to myself like that will help drive the point home. I then spread my arms out to my sides, hoping she sees the transparency in my presence here. “It meant a lot to me. To see you standing in there, going mama bear on Preston’s mom when she tried dismissing everything he did.”
“Well, someone had to do it.” She sniffs and rolls her eyes at me.
“I agree.”
“What are you doing here, Andy? I think you’ve already said what you needed to say to me.”
I shake my head adamantly, my heart beating wildly in my chest. “No. I didn’t. I said a bunch of bullshit that I didn’t mean. I was angry. Hurt. I was scared.”
“Scared?” She scrunches her eyebrows adorably.
I take another step toward her when I see her body relax just slightly. She’s still on her porch; I’m on the walkway below.
“Shitless, to be honest.”
“Of?”
“You. Us. All of it, my feelings for you. They didn’t come on slowly, building over time. I think that day that I walked into Dreamin’ Beans after walking in on Heather, I started falling. Whether it was because I found this person that understood what I was going through or if it was something deeper than that. I like to believe it was deeper.”
She nods like she understands, which makes me feel like I could climb the Himalayas.
“Mostly, I was afraid of how badly it hurt to think I had been betrayed by you, even though you weren’t the one who betrayed me. What scared me the most? When I saw Heather having sex with that guy? I felt nothing. Well no. I felt disgust, but my heart? It didn’t hurt.” I watch as her eyes soften, but not with pity. “I wasn’t bothered. But the tiny thought that you had kept this secret, this information from me? That you could have possibly been fooling me this entire time I was falling head over heels in love with you? It felt like I was being crushed.”
“But…”
“Let me finish. Please?” My voice is quiet, pleading.
She nods her head and takes a single step down.
“I love you. I love you more than I ever loved Heather. But that’s not the point. The point is that you brought something out of me I thought was gone. No. That’s not right. I didn’t even know it existed in me. I think I knew I loved you when you came with us to the cabin, then again when you saved me in the haunted house. Again, when you peed on a stick right in front of me to prove that I was right. But I fell in love all over again when you stood up for Aidan. When you said he was yours. When you didn’t back down. When you completely ignored me in that room because I wasn’t the reason you were there. Please say I didn’t screw up too badly. Please tell me that I still have you. That we still have you. That we’ll be able to raise her together. When we met, I was in a dark place. I admit that. But you? You made it light. You made everything in my world shine brighter.”
I take another step closer, and she moves down the stairs so she’s on the second to bottom stair, but she’s still taller than me. Which is just fine. I like it that I get to look up to her in this moment.
“Christine. Don’t let me go. Please. I know I have work to do. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m begging you to give me that chance to prove to you that I can be worthy. I know I’m asking you for blind faith here. And honestly, I can’t guarantee anything. But, I can promise you one thing. I won’t treat your heart that way ever again. I’ll never make you doubt me or my love. I’ll never let you feel like you aren’t the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She presses her lips together tightly and places her hand on her stomach. I tentatively reach out and do the same. Her stomach is still small, not much of a bump there yet. We haven’t told a single person aside from our kids that she’s pregnant. I know our friends are curious. She hasn’t exactly been feeling the best.
“Okay, so maybe one of the best things.”
“Yeah?” Her voice is full of the tears that are falling down her cheeks, and her smile is watery.
“Yeah, baby. I love you so damn much.”
“I’m still pissed at you, you know.”
“It’s the red streak in the hair. It makes you fiery.” I smile, and she bites her lip.
“That’s it, huh?”
I nod my head. “Pretty sure.”
“Andy, I mean it when I say I’m still a little pissed.”
“Actually, you said you were pissed. In ten seconds, you went from full on to just a little. I’m taking that as a score.”
She rolls her eyes at me while I smile up at her.
I feel a raindrop and look up at the skies that are darkening, but it’s not affecting my mood. Because she’s not pushing me away, and I feel like I’m about to win the girl all over again. That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to pull out all the stops, though.
“Baby, please forgive me. I’m so sorry for saying that you betrayed me. I’m so sorry for making you feel like less. For making you feel like I thought of you the same way as I think of Heather. For all of it. I can’t live without you. I’m not saying I won’t fall again, but I won’t stay down. I’ll always rise up to you.”
“Andy…”
“Please,” I plead, placing my forehead on her belly. I kiss the tiny bump and wrap my hands around her legs. “Please. Please. Please. Please.”
It’s full on raining now, and I don’t know if she can hear me because my voice is barely a whisper, but I’ll continue to beg. Continue to apologize until she tells me she forgives me. Until she says that she’s still mine.
She lifts my head, her fingers cold from the rain, hair dripping wet, mascara streaking down her face.
“I always will, Andy. I will always forgive you. We hit a bump. You acted like an ass. I knew you’d come around.” She shrugs her shoulders like it’s nothing to her. “I learned a long time ago that time is precious. Not forgiving someone is a hell of a lot harder in the long run. Holding on to that hurt and anger just blackens the soul. You will always be forgiven. You will always be my heart.”
I stand, taking her face in my hands, and waste no time pressing my lips to hers. My heart feels like it could burst straight out of my rain-soaked t-shirt. The feel of her lips, her tongue tangling with mine, her fingers gripping my waist.
“Don’t let me leave again.”
My lips don’t part from hers while I murmur the words, still begging her to let me stay. “Never.”
I pick her up, my arms under her butt, her left leg around my waist. I move us up the stairs, reaching a hand out to the rail to steady us, so I don’t trip and fall on top of her. She kicks the door shut after we get inside and slowly slides down my body. We make our way inside, shedding our wet clothes, struggling like hell when my jeans stick to every single inch of skin on my legs. Desperately, she shoves me to the floor, laughing and yanking at them from the ankles. When I stand, she drops them dramatically onto the floor and bites her bottom lip. I shake my head and smile then continue to walk with her while tugging off her clothes, leaving a trail to her bedroom.
Standing before me in just her bra and panties, me in my black boxer briefs, both of us breathing heavy and still wet from the rain, I look at her and drop to my knees, kissing all over her stomach. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but this time it’s not to Christine. She pulls on the band securing my hair, letting it fall, and threads her fingers through the strands.
I close my eyes and rest my forehead against her stomach, my hands wrapped around her waist. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I’ll never leave you. You or your mommy. You’re everything to me. To the boys. We’ll always be here for you.”
A sob erupts from Christine, and I lean back to look at her.
> Her smile widens as a tear slides down her cheek, getting caught on her lip.
I stand slowly, kissing her stomach one more time, and take her hand that’s now covering her mouth. I thread my fingers through hers and lead her to the bed, but she spins around, shoving me so I land on the mattress on my back.
She climbs over me, kissing over my stomach, my chest, my neck.
I groan, welcoming the feeling of her lips on my skin.
“I missed you. Missed this.” My hands make a trail up the back of her thighs, to the dip in her back and down, sliding between the material of her panties and her ass. I squeeze lightly and she bites my neck.
“Missed you, too, honey.”
She rolls her hips and I push up to meet her, causing us both to moan. We’re still in our underwear, providing a barrier between us. A barrier that is both annoying and necessary so this isn’t over before it starts.
“I want you.” Her voice is husky, breath hot on my skin. “If you ever leave me horny and pregnant again, I’ll take your balls and shove them down your throat.”
I laugh. Hard.
“So really, you just want my body?”
“Duh,” she says with a smile in her voice.
She kisses over my chest, my shoulders, teasing me by kissing me over my boxers before making her way back up to my face, mouth, everywhere she can reach.
After she's had her fun, it's my turn. Loving how she feels sitting on top of me, I run my hands over her stomach, swelling with the baby we made together. Then I trail a path up her arms, over her chest, and cup the back of her neck, bringing her closer so I can kiss her. I can't get enough of her, and I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to. Her legs are straddling me, her hot center over right where I want her most. Five minutes ago, I would have had sex with her right on the front lawn, but now that I'm here with her? I want to take my time. We haven't been together for two weeks. She leans down, kissing me on my neck, pressing my hands into the mattress. She loves when I give her control, and I love giving it to her.
I nudge her, wanting her mouth and roll us over, settling between her legs. I have to stop from embarrassing myself by dry humping her like a damn teenager.
I stare down at her, the mother of my unborn baby, the woman who stood up for my son like he was her own, and held both my sons when they felt the weight of their mother leaving them. She became a part of our world so seamlessly, effortlessly… it was as if she’d been there the entire time.
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