She nodded. “Of course.”
After his quick consultation and a few vials of blood to rule any issues like anemia or blood-borne infections, he dismissed us.
“If you’re planning on sticking around to visit Jasper, I can let you know how your blood-work came out,” he said. “Now go.”
I grabbed her hand and kissed its top before pulling her along the halls to Jasper’s room. It’s not like she’d have given me the choice to steer her away from the little guy anyway.
When we walked in, a nurse was there to adjust his IV’s and make sure that everything was right with the equipment that surrounded him at the head of his bed.
“How’s my little man doing today?”
“Very well,” she said and gave me a genuine smile. “I expect that Doctor Messing will be in shortly. He should be making the final decision on taking him off the barbiturates.”
I nodded. “So does that mean that his scans came out clear yesterday?”
The nurse’s smile brightened further. “Yes.” I turned to look at Alissa who squeezed my hand and smiled with about as much relief as I felt.
Thank God. “And what of the transplant?” I asked.
“That you’ll have to discuss with the doctor,” she said and turned to Alissa. “Say, aren’t you the donor?” The nurse sized her up but in a kind manner.
Alissa blushed. “How’d you know?”
The woman beamed. “You guys have been the talk of the ward for the last few days,” she said and looked between Allie and me. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s this handsome boy here that I’m worried about.”
I let go of Alissa’s hand and wrapped my arm around her waist, kissing her temple as she melted into my side. The nurse’s gaze stuck to us and I could have sworn a look of envy had flashed across her face before she took her leave.
***
Julie and Todd had arrived and Doctor Messing had come and gone telling us about the good news. Alissa was healthy and Jasper’s drug-induced coma was indeed going to be discontinued. His basic blood-work had come out clear of any secondary issues for the time being but he would be monitored closely for quite some time. As for his JMML and if the transplant had worked, it still remained to be seen. We were looking at a very lengthy monitoring phase to make sure everything worked out along with the continuation of anti-rejection medications and regular blood transfusions.
“Let’s get you back home,” I said.
“Sounds good,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind a do-over on our movie night.”
“But it’s barely lunchtime,” I said. “You can’t expect to watch movies for the rest of the day.”
“Sure we can, but-” she said and looked at me with an arched brow that told me plenty. She wasn’t planning on just movies.
“I should have known,” I said in her ear and kissed her cheek, “but I think we should wait that out a little longer.”
The woman gave me a pout. Something told me I’d have one hell of a time winning that battle like I had with all the others.
As we said our goodbyes, Alissa made sure to whisper words in Jasper’s ear that made Julie and I look at each other. I shrugged in response to my ex-wife’s questioning gaze. She kissed his forehead and ran her hand over his shaved head.
“What’d you tell him?” I asked as we left the hospital room.
She smirked and said, “It’s a secret between that prince of yours and me.”
“I’ll let you have that,” I said and kissed her knuckles, “just this once.”
***
“God, Pax! Pax!” she said. I thought my eardrums would burst she was so loud.
I had her on her back, legs up in the air as I had weaseled myself overtop of her. She had thought my after-dinner misfortune to be a hoot.
“I’ll show you how wearing ice cream is funny,” I said. “It’s your fault anyway.”
“How is it my fault?” she asked. “You’re the one with two left feet.”
“You tripped me!” She howled and I proceeded to rub my chest against hers and smeared the melted treat I had on my hands, onto her face.
She shocked me when she latched on to my wrist and sucked in one of my fingers. My eyes bulged out of my head, my manly appendage twitched as I felt her velvet tongue twirl and massage the digit clean. I guess tripping and landing flat on your face could always end worse.
“Allie,” I said with a warning groan.
“Shower?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and you, my little vixen, are coming with although I’m sure I’ll regret that decision.” I got to my feet and picked her up off the floor in a bridal-style hold.
“Paxton Lowell, I can damn well walk,” she said and giggled.
“I’m well aware of that, gorgeous, but I’m making sure that you won’t try anything funny on our way there.”
Standing in her birthday suit, she leaned over into the stall and turned the water on. I groaned at the sight of those cheeks of hers that again, for the second day in a row, were presented to me, ripe for the taking.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I asked, my feet taking me to a stop right behind her, my erect shaft rubbed up against her heated core.
She hummed at my horny act and straightened up, melding her back into my chest as my hands found their place on her hips.
I groaned. “Get in.”
She sure didn’t waste much time. Once the shower stall door was closed, she turned and had me pressed to the cool tiled wall. Her lips ate at mine as our bodies hit a fever pitch. If it were possible, the water beads on my skin would have sizzled and evaporated into steam, she had me so hot for her.
Her hands remained on my pecks as she slid herself down the front of my body until she found herself on her knees. Without missing a beat, her mouth was on my length, like it had lassoed her in. Taking me in deep, I felt my tip hit the back of her throat. My head tilted back and leaned against the wall as my eyes rolled to a close and my jaw went slack. “Damn, Allie, your mouth is pure sin.”
Her tongue, teeth and suction had me on the verge of collapsing to my knees in worship for her. I could tell that she was enjoying her ministrations. The sure-fire confident shimmer in her eyes as she looked up at me and the amused hum she made around my shaft were perfect indicators.
My hands tangled into her wet hair in an effort to guide her to a more needful rhythm. I was throbbing and I felt the blazing heat in my balls as they began to constrict. I was going to blow between those swollen lips of hers if she kept going like that.
In a moment of clarity, I took charge. I didn’t want to explode like that—not this time. I pulled on my fistful of her hair and tilted her head back. Her flushed face made me want to give in and let her have her way with me. She looked up with confusion as if she thought she had done something wrong.
“Goddamn, it’s too bad you’re sore,” I said. “Get up.”
“But-”
I pulled her up to her feet. My mouth covered hers. My hands held the sides of her face as if she was the most precious thing in the world to me. “There’s only one place I want my release in right now and it’s not your mouth,” I said. “But first…”
I never finished with my words. I chose to show her instead.
I kissed her hard, wrapping my arms around her as hers surrounded my neck. I nipped her jaw, causing her to hiss. “I need to be in you right now, baby,” I said by her ear.
Reaching for the valve, I turned the water off.
I was the first to turn and open the shower stall door. She was pressed to my back, trailing kisses down between my shoulder-blades, her palms, smooth over my chest.
I grabbed one of her hands and pulled her around so she faced me while I grabbed the towel that hung on the hook beside me. Slow kisses were exchanged as I wrapped us up in the large terrycloth sheet.
I guided us toward the bed, lowered her down to the mattress, and covered her body with mine, our lips never parting. The phon
e began to ring as I hovered over her cleavage.
Instantly, Jasper popped into my thoughts. The doctors had taken him off of the drug that kept him in his coma. Had something gone wrong? I rose and reached for the cordless phone on my bedside table. I looked at the caller ID—it was Julie.
Please let it be good news.
I looked at Alissa who gave me the small ounce of courage I needed to hit the button that would either bring me up or tear me down. With a deep breath, I did just that.
“Hello?”
Chapter 26
He’s awake.
I kept repeating those words to myself as Julie kept talking her end of the line.
To be honest, I only registered her first statement and the rest of what she’d said had pretty much fallen as mutterings much like that of Charlie Brown’s teacher.
Alissa sat up as I stared off into space with the receiver stuck to my head. Her hand had been rubbing on my leg for who knows how long as I sat there repeating Julie’s first two words internally.
I grasped Alissa’s hand and squeezed. The hand that held the receiver shook and when she realized that I was in some sort of shock, she made a grab for it.
“Julie?” she asked. I turned to look at her as she spoke to my ex-wife, barely registering what she was saying until she hung up the phone.
“He’s awake,” I said, as I felt my emotions coming around. “He’s awake!”
Elation had finally taken over.
Alissa sat there and watched me pace the room and ramble on in excitement as if I were a child that had just found out he was headed to Disneyland. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at her when I heard her giggle.
“We’ve got to go,” I said.
“I was just about to say that.” She got up with the towel wrapped around her body. I eyed her with hunger. The memory of what we were about to do came back to me and I groaned. “You can show me how happy you are when we get back,” she said and walked by me as I stood there naked, following her with my eyes, “now get dressed.”
***
Forty minutes later, we were walking into Jasper’s room. I saw him sitting up and telling Julie and Todd about something in that classically animated fashion of his. You could have sworn the little guy had only been napping and that nothing had ever been wrong. Aside from the fact that he looked like a human pin-cushion and his pale complexion was still visible, it was the best picture of him I’d seen in weeks.
“What’s all this commotion about?” I asked and couldn’t help the boisterous laugh that rang out when everyone in the room jumped.
When my son looked up to beam in excitement at my presence, had it not been for the machines he still was connected to, I’m sure he would have jumped off the bed to leap into my arms.
“Daddy!”
I rushed to his bedside and held Jasper to my chest and kissed the top of his head for what must have felt like hours to the poor tyke but he never complained. When I released him, he turned to Alissa and began to bounce around in his seat.
“Boy they didn’t lie when they said that the recipients bounce back quicker than the donors,” she said as she made her way next to me and giggled.
Jasper had scooted over and demanded that Alissa sit beside him on the bed. He reiterated his story about this angel who had come to visit him in his dreams and told him a story. Most of us were laughing except for Alissa. When I looked up, I noticed her eyes glistening.
“Why are you crying?” Jasper asked when he looked up at her after she’d given him a quick squeeze. He was just as perceptive as he always had been.
“It’s nothing, sweetie,” she said and smiled while wiping her escaped tears and hugged him again, his tiny hand patting her arm.
“When do I go home? I want to go home, Daddy,” Jasper said.
Soon I hope.
“It depends on Doctor Messing, sweetie,” Julie said, “but I think you’ll be here for a while yet.”
My son grumbled his frustration at it all.
***
Having to leave that night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It had been a great day and I didn’t want it to end.
I paused before opening the car door for Alissa. Something begged me to ask her about her earlier display of emotion.
With a light grasp on her arm, I spun her around and backed her into the side of my car. I pecked her lips and pulled away. “About those tears,” I said. “I sense that-”
“It wasn’t an angel that Jasper heard,” she said, “it was me. Those words…well not those exactly, but-”
I laughed. “You told him that?” My hands rubbed up and down the sides of her arms.
“Well, not exactly. You know kids really only hear what they want to hear. Still…I’m shocked he actually heard me,” she said. I nodded.
I waited until we were half-way home before I dared ask my next question. “So what exactly did you tell him?”
“I said that we were worried about him, that he had lots of things left to do and that if he didn’t wake up soon, that I would send him a tickle monster to wake him up. I told him that we loved him and that the princess needed her prince to make the king happy,” she said. “I have no clue where the rest came from.”
Jasper’s version of the tale construed of Alissa’s said tickle monster, kidnapping the princess and Prince Jasper’s blueberry pancakes had been poisoned with sleeping potion. Needless to say, he had to fight to come back to rescue the princess and bring her back to the king with the angel’s help. “Due to his obsession with your pancakes, I can figure why his favorite food got in there.” I shook my head and laughed. “I’m not going to go anywhere near the rest of that story.”
“I’ll hand you one thing, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she said and reached for my hand. “He’s got a great imagination, just like his father.”
“He’s always been smart but this is the first time he’s come up with something this wacky,” I said. “Still, I’m wondering where he got the angel bit about you though.”
“Hey!” She smacked me but judging by the smirk on her face, she was far from insulted. “It’s his dream, let him imagine what he wants,” she said. “I’m kind of enjoying the fact that he thinks of me as an angel. Then again, I enjoy being the devil woman in your dreams too.” She winked.
I guffawed. “I love that you can have a little angel and devil in you, baby,” I said and kissed her palm. “I think I’ll keep you, not just because you seem to be the only one to rouse my son when he’s in a comatose state but because I’m selfish.”
She snickered. “I moved here, you better,” she said. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, though.” She leaned in and whispered the next. “I want you to be selfish.”
I squeezed her hand in mine as she leaned back in her seat and looked out the passenger side window. “Gorgeous, I’m not letting you go.”
She turned and graced me with a sweet smile. “Good because I wasn’t planning on leaving anyhow.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
***
We opted for some takeout to quench our ever-growing hunger and did one of my favourite things which I’d done with Jasper too few times. I turned the lights down low, put the pizza box on the bedspread, stripped down to my boxers and crawled in beside Alissa. We munched on dinner and laughed at the latest re-run of Friends—it was easy; it was effortless; it was comfortable.
Once again, I found myself submerged in one of life’s simple pleasures. I was in heaven. One look from Alissa and I knew she felt the same way.
Pizza box aside, drinks guzzled down, I had Alissa wrapped up in my arms with the TV long forgotten. Her breath fanned down my bare chest at a slow rhythm—she had fallen asleep.
Looking down at her, I kissed the top of her head and smiled. The more I pondered about life, the more I wondered how I could have ever thought that Julie had been the one for me. In retrospect, I deduced that she might not have been the one to make me happy bu
t she had been the one to have given me the most precious of gifts life could bring—Jasper. It was unfortunate that I had to work my way through heartbreak in order to find what Alissa and I have but I had found it nonetheless.
In such a short amount of time, Alissa had come into my life when I least expected to find my luck changing. She made everything better. Her words offered comfort and smiles; her voice rang about in my head like music; her laughter though melodious as it is made all the greys and blacks in the world fade and shine through with more color. Alissa was the missing ingredient in this intricate recipe that which I call my life.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” she asked against my chest before she left a lazy kiss on my skin and snuggled closer.
“You…us,” I said and squeezed her closer to me.
“I love you,” she said and lifted her head to look at me with those sleepy doe eyes of hers.
“I love you too.”
Chapter 27
The following morning, I was called into the office due to some emergency. At Alissa’s request, I dropped her off at the hospital and called Julie to let her know that if she felt comfortable, to sit back and take some time for herself and Todd instead of rushing to Jasper’s bedside.
It was a little after two in the afternoon when I was able to pull myself away from work—a day I shouldn’t have been in at all considering it was a weekend. I was en route to find the two most important people in my world when an idea struck me.
When I arrived, I took my surprise along with me. I was hoping that Julie wasn’t there or else I knew I’d never hear the end of it.
I came to a stop right outside of Jasper’s room door. A smile broke across my face when I heard the giggling.
“How ‘bout you ask Daddy about that? I don’t think I should be the one telling you anything about that stuff,” Alissa said.
“But-” Jasper said.
“No but, mister,” she said and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Daddy should know,” Jasper said with a slight lisp.
Once Written, Twice Shy (The Broken Men Chronicles) Page 18