I laughed. “Me too, baby. I’m just not sure if I can get up off this couch or not.” She stood up then and I looked at her. Even after five years, just looking at her naked body set mine on fire. “Maybe we should do it one more time,” I said with a grin.
She bent down to pick up her clothes and said, “Maybe later, at home. First, you’re going to feed me. I’m gonna get cleaned up.” I watched her sweet ass disappear into the bathroom before I pulled myself up off the couch. I looked down and could see cum stains where I’d been sitting. Grabbing a sweat towel from underneath the counter I did my best to dry it up. “Did we ruin the suede?” Elly asked with a smile when she came out of the bathroom.
“Nah, I wiped it up. It’ll be as good as new when it dries—I hope.”
I went over and tried to kiss her again but she moved her head away and said, “Nope, Casanova. Get dressed. I swear my insides are eating themselves.”
I laughed at her dramatics, but I went into the bathroom and washed up and got dressed. We straightened up a little more and then turned off the lights in the studio and locked the door on our way out. It was a warm, California night and I was glad we’d brought the bike. We both put on our helmets and I drove the three blocks to Elly’s favorite restaurant in Burbank. It was the first place I took her after I started getting paid and it held kind of a sentimental component for both of us. It was the first time I’d really taken her out and paid for everything. I hadn’t let her pay for anything since. It felt so good to finally be a man and be able to take care of her for a change. I’d never even been able to take care of myself before I met her, so I owed even that to her.
The restaurant was in the heart of the Burbank Media District. It’s called Backstage Café and it sits along the front corner of the Burbank credit union. It’s a favorite of the media crowd, but most importantly, Elly loves it. It’s a sandwich shop, but a gourmet one with a long list of sandwiches on homemade breads, soups, and pastries. The atmosphere is casual, but nice at the same time. We took a table on the front patio since it was such a nice evening and Elly ordered an iced tea and a Reuben sandwich. I got the specialty turkey and their homemade soup, which is not even close to sex with Elly but closely rivaled sex that I’d had with other women before her. The moon was starting to come up behind the tall buildings and the hills in the distance. There were gas burning tiki lamps set up around the patio and it gave it a romantic feel.
“So, how do you feel about being on The Dialogue?” she asked me as we ate. Elly was the only one who knew the absolute truth about me and my sobriety and my messed up fucking family. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone else much other than I was sober now. I had no desire to talk about my parents, to bad mouth them or otherwise.
I shrugged, “You know I don’t like shit like that. I wonder if they’ll let you go on with me. You’re part of the new CD, too. You could do like you used to do with my therapist and field the hard questions for me.”
She laughed, “I don’t think so. I’ll go with you, but I’m more of a wait for my husband off-stage kind of girl.”
“That face and body were made for the stage baby,” I told her.
She laughed again and said, “I’m glad you think so, but no thank you. That’s your thing, and you do it well. Just flirt with all the ladies and play to the crowd. They’ll love you.”
I smiled at her. I wasn’t afraid they wouldn’t like me. Being with Elly had made me a better man, but it had only served to fuel the already burning fire that was my massive ego. I just didn’t like all that fake kiss-ass stuff you had to do when you were promoting a record. I would do it…because I had to. I didn’t have to like it.
“You know,” I told her, “my biggest complaint is that I’m not allowed to use the language I’m comfortable with.”
She smiled and said, “You’ll live. The show is only a half hour long once they add in the commercials so your segment will be ten or fifteen minutes. You need the practice.”
Her phone rang then and she pulled it out of her purse and looked at the face of it. “It’s Susie,” she said.
I held out my hand and said, “Let me answer it.”
She handed it to me, but she said, “Be nice.”
“Hello?”
“Hey, Tristan, it’s Susie. Where’s Elly?”
“Mrs. Rodgers is enjoying dinner and time with her sexy, god-like husband at the moment. Can I take a message?”
“Yeah, tell her to get her eyes checked if she thinks her husband is sexy and god-like and tell her husband to put her the fuck on the phone.”
I laughed and said, “You have a filthy mouth.”
“I know. I learned it from my old roommate’s loser boyfriend.”
“He sounds kind of hot,” I said.
“Good, then you’ll be happy to go fuck yourself. Let me talk to Elly.” Susie cracked me the fuck up. I handed the phone to Elly. I heard her tell Susie to come by the house in the morning.
After she hung up I said, “What’s the emergency this time?”
“It’s not always an emergency,” she said, defending her friend.
“Only ninety-nine percent of the time,” I said with a grin. “What does she need?”
“She has a job interview tomorrow. She wants to borrow my coral sandals to wear with her coral skirt and tan blouse.”
“Coral? Really? You don’t think the tan pumps would have been a better choice?”
Elly threw her napkin at me and said, “Shut up!” with a laugh.
Chapter Thirteen
Elly
I was feeling completely satiated after we ate. I had sex with the most incredible man in L.A—twice—and I’d just put away three-quarters of the best Reuben sandwich in the world. I was a happy girl. I slipped on the back of his bike once more, put on my helmet, and wrapped my hands around his waist. Once he took off out of the parking lot, I let my hands slide all the way around his middle and laid my head against his back. I closed my eyes and, as we drove through the hustle and bustle of San Fernando Blvd., I reveled in the feel of my body against his and the cool air in my face. He pulled onto I-5 and pointed us in the direction of Orange County, where we lived. After Tristan proposed, but before we’d gotten married, he had put a down payment on this house we looked at once near Newport Beach. It’s one of those houses that every time I walk into it, I had to practically pinch myself as a reminder that I really live there and it’s not all a dream. First of all, it’s right on the beach, which I liked and Tristan loved. He took a walk every morning along the surf line and then in the evening, when we’re home, we took one together. I loved watching the sun dip down into the ocean at night and cast an orange glow across everything. Something about the ocean kept Tristan calm, too. I don’t think we could ever live far from it.
Behind us, the hills looked close enough to touch and the neighborhood had a feel to it like you’re in some quiet little village in the mountains, when the truth was that we’re only a few miles from major shopping centers and restaurants. It’s in a gated community and at three thousand plus square feet with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, it was a little big for us when we first bought it. Tristan said he didn’t care; he wanted me to have the nicest house in town. He tried hard to make up for the times he let me pay for everything. He’d done that and then some. He still didn’t seem to realize that I would have continued to pay for everything forever just for the chance to spend my life with him.
The house had a pool and a fully-equipped gym where my sexy husband and I worked out together every day. The bedrooms all had private little terraces, and in the back we had a large courtyard surrounded by gorgeous, colorful, fragrant flowers. Some days I liked to just sit out there and read or think…I’d never imagined being that happy. When my mom came to visit, she said that she’d always imagined my life like this someday. It’s funny how a parent sees you so differently than you see yourself. I can only hope that someday my kids will think that I was half the mother she has been to me.
We left our helmets in the garage and let ourselves into the side door through the kitchen. Brandi, our babysitter, was sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by text books.
“Hey, guys! How’d it go?”
“My wife made the CD, it’ll sell billions now,” Tristan told her.
“I bet,” she said with a smile.
“How are the babies?” I asked her.
I was suddenly craving them and almost disappointed when she said, “Perfect. They’ve been asleep for an hour already. I checked on them a little while ago and they had their little fingers together, holding hands. It was so sweet I almost cried.”
“Aw, I love them!”
Brandi got up to gather her books and put them in her backpack. She was studying to be a dentist. She lived with her parents in the gated complex we lived in and she’d come highly recommended. To me, she was a huge blessing. I hadn’t wanted to hire a nanny to live in the house and I refused at first to leave them with anyone but family…my family, that is. Tristan still hasn’t agreed to let his parents meet them. His dad has supposedly been out of rehab and clean for over a year, and his mother for almost two, but he still had issues with them he needed to resolve. I leave that part of his life alone. I can’t make that kind of decision for him. They’d read in a magazine that I’d given birth to the babies and started calling all the time. Tristan had all of our numbers changed and he rarely trusts anyone enough to give out our address.
My mom comes and stays in town as often as she can. She can’t get enough of her grand-babies, but eventually she had to go home and we had to have a babysitter. I found out one day from a friend in the complex that almost every family with kids had used Brandi at one time or another since she was thirteen years old. She was the daughter of a movie producer mother and a camera man father. No one had anything bad to say about her. She’d told me she wanted nothing to do with show business. I can’t say that I blamed her. I had a lot of respect for her though, growing up where she did and being seemingly unaffected by the wealth and grandeur of everything around her. Her parents did a great job. Most importantly though, she was amazing with the kids.
I watched as Tristan handed her two one hundred dollar bills. Her eyes went wide and she said, “You really don’t have to pay me so much. I wasn’t here that long.”
“It’s worth it to us, Brandi; to have someone here we can trust,” he told her. She didn’t argue with him, she’d tried before and hadn’t gotten anywhere. He could definitely never be accused of being stingy with his money.
She threw her backpack over her shoulder and said, “Thank you.”
Tristan followed her out. Even though we live in one of the best neighborhoods in Orange County and it’s constantly patrolled by security, he insisted on making sure she made it to her house four doors down from us every time she left after dark. While he did that, I went to see my angels. I made my way down the long hallway to the nursery. The door was cracked open and I could see their nightlight shining stars on the ceiling as I pushed it open.
I tiptoed past the giant giraffe that Tristan insisted on buying and the pile of Thomas the train cars and tracks over to the crib. I’d read a lot of books when I found out I was having twins and most of them said that the babies would sleep better at night together. Tristan and I had ordered a specially made crib for them that had one mattress the size of two regular crib mattresses. The boys started sleeping through the night when they were six months old. I looked down at their sweet, curly heads and as I watched their little chests rise and fall my heart filled so full with love that it almost ached. Patrick was on his right side and Eli on his left. They did have their hands stretched towards each other and their little fingers intertwined. People asked me all the time how I could tell them apart. I don’t really have an answer for that other than a mother always knows her own child.
“Don’t, you’ll wake them.” Tristan had snuck in behind me and whispered in my ear.
“Don’t what?” I whispered back. I knew what he was talking about. He knew I wanted them to wake up so I could hold them.
“Take a picture, or touch them,” he said with his lips to my ear.
I stuck out my bottom lip and said, “Can’t we just wake them up for a little bit? I want to hold them.”
I felt his face curl up into a smile against my cheek and he said, “Me, too. But since you’ve done that before and we’ve each ended up holding one all night, I’m guessing it’s not the best idea.”
“Fine,” I said, still pouting. I kissed my fingers and touched each one of their soft warm cheeks. “Aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen?” I asked Tristan. “It’s such a shame not to get a picture of them holding hands.”
He smiled again and said, “Yes they’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, except for their Mama. As far as pictures go, I can’t imagine that in the fifteen or twenty you snap every day that we don’t have one of them holding hands already. Good night, little men,” he whispered.
We tiptoed out, taking the baby monitor with us to our room. The boys were fourteen months already and hardly ever woke up at night any more. It was nice to finally get some sleep…the first six months of their lives I didn’t get any. I’d often sat in the rocking chair in the nursery all night with one in each arm. Tristan helped a lot…for a guy who’d never been around kids, but he had work and I didn’t, so I did most of the night call. I guess I’m never satisfied. Now that I got to sleep at night, I missed holding them. They were getting big too fast. Sometimes I wished I could turn back the clock just a little and re-live all the good things that had happened over the past five years again…only slower this time.
When we got to the bedroom, Tristan kissed me and said, “You want to share a shower? No sex, but I’ll wash your back. California is in a drought you know. We’d be doing our civic duty.”
I laughed, “Well, if it’s our civic duty how could I say no?”
Our bedroom was huge with a granite fireplace and an attached little sitting room that made it comparable to a suite in a nice hotel. There was a huge set of French double doors that led out to the veranda and double walk-in closets. The bathroom was all made of grey and black granite with double sinks, a sunken tub with power jets and a double headed glass shower. Tristan and I shared it a lot…and most of the time it wasn’t just for a shower. That night though, we were both satiated and tired. We helped each other undress slowly while the water warmed up and then we stepped in. I stood under one of the shower heads and got wet while Tristan let the other cascade over his hair and down his back. He was so beautiful that sometimes I felt almost sexually satisfied just looking at him. When we were both wet he stepped over to my side with a sponge in his hand. He reached up and grabbed my body wash and after squirting a more than generous amount on the sponge he stood behind me and began washing my shoulder blades. He ran it down my back then and across my ass cheeks before kneeling down and running it first down one leg and then the other. He even rinsed it and bent back down to do my feet. When he finished soaping my back he turned me around and started on the front. He washed my neck and chest and then down my arms. I couldn’t help but shudder a little when he ran the sponge gently across each one of my breasts. He washed my belly and down both of my legs in front. After he had me all soaped up, he guided me back under the spray and kissed my lips as he rinsed me off.
“Thank you, baby. That was wonderful,” I told him.
“I’m not finished,” he said. He reached up for the shampoo and poured some into his hand. Stepping behind me again he began to massage it into my head. In spite of standing on my feet in the shower, I swear I nearly fell asle
ep right then. It felt so good, even better than when my hairdresser washed it. When he finished, he rinsed it and did the same thing with the conditioner. He kissed me again and said, “Now I’m finished.” I smiled and reached for the sponge. “Nope,” he said. “Dry off and get ready for bed. I’m gonna do this quick and then I’ll join you.”
By the time I was dried and dressed for bed he was out and doing the same. We climbed into our California King bed together and, as usual, we used a portion of it the size of a twin bed. He lay on his usual side and I snuggled into him with his arm around me and my head on his chest.
“Good night, baby. I love you,” he said as my heavy eye-lids started to close.
“Good night. I love you too.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tristan
“Tristan, we have to go baby,” Elly’s voice floated down the hall.
I was sitting in the living room with one baby in my lap and the other sitting down by my feet playing with his blocks. Some days I woke up with this crazy urge to be a stay at home dad. It was getting so hard to leave them, especially since that they were old enough to notice and make a fuss when I did. It was also hard for me to imagine that my entire life I swore I would never make a baby. Bringing kids into the world was cruel and unusual punishment for everyone involved. I looked at them and realized how wrong I had been. I shuddered to think about what would have happened if I’d never met Elly and they’d never been born.
Little Eli started saying Dada first when they were about nine months old. I wish I could describe how that made me feel, but there aren’t any words for it. Patrick picked it up quickly after that, and when they know I’m leaving, they chase after me saying it over and over until I think I’m going to have to quit leaving and stay home with them forever. Either that or take them with me everywhere I go. I love them more than I ever imagined loving anything or anyone besides Elly. It was a different kind of love, but just as strong. Sometimes it made me resent my parents that much more for being able to do the things to me that they did. I could kill anyone that tried to hurt these babies in any way, with my bare hands…I was sure of it.
Dirty Stepbrother - A Firefighter Romance (The Maxwell Family) Page 67