by Nikki Ash
“Condom?” I asked. Unprotected sex was what got us into this mess.
“I want to feel you completely. If I have my way, I’ll put ten babies in your belly. We can have an entire house full of adorable kids just like Viviana.”
I bloomed at his words. The idea of another baby should have terrified me, but the fact that he was so thrilled by our family had me position myself over his hard cock and sliding until I was fully seated on him. It was crazy, but I just wanted him. All of him. “Fuck,” I cried out while stretching to accommodate him. He was so big. I felt so fucking full.
I started riding him. Sunbeams illuminated us, casting a baptism of light on our sweaty skin as I fucked him. There were no secrets between us now. Everything had come to light. A car honked on the street below, and I moved faster. My legs burned. My body tensed with the impending orgasm.
“Mine,” Nico murmured, sending me over the edge.
My mouth parted in ecstasy, his declaration an anthem to my pleasure.
Mine. Mine.
I had a family.
I had Nico Mariano.
Epilogue
One year later
“Mrs. Mariano, would you like our specialty drink?” the bartender asked. I was visiting a new club, one that Nico was considering buying out.
“No, thank you,” I murmured before patting my flat stomach. I found out just last night that we were expecting our second baby. I couldn’t wait to tell Nico; I just didn’t know how. With Viviana, he missed out on so much. I just wanted to make this special for my husband and the father of my children.
My husband was over in the corner, talking to the current owners of the club. Satin Sheets was doing so well that he wanted to expand. I supported him completely. I really wanted to handle the drink menu. I’d started my own consulting business and was building back up my brand.
My husband eyed me and excused himself before walking my way. “Do you not want a drink?” he asked, which was code for, is this place a bad investment? He knew that I could sniff out a bad club within the first five minutes of walking inside. It was why he brought me with him to all his investment opportunities.
That and it was hard to separate us.
I bit my bottom lip. “I’m taking a break from drinking,” I replied with a sigh.
His brow furrowed. “A break?”
I waved down the bartender and asked for a water. “Yeah,” I replied nonchalantly. “For the next nine months at least.”
A hand wrapped around my wrist and I was gently pulled off my barstool. I smiled at Nico while realization settled in his expression.
“Nine months?” he asked.
“Viviana is going to be a big sister, Daddy,” I said with a grin. He wrapped me in a hug and spun me around.
Nico was dangerous. Our life was unconventional. But we were a family.
And we were happy.
A Piece of Us by Heidi McLaughlin
Chapter One
Jack
My head falls forward, startling me awake. I look around and readjust in my seat before looking out the plane window. It’s then the flight attendant announces our descent into Logan International Airport. My friend Mitch sleeps next to me with his mouth open, inhaling the stale and stagnant air. I poke him with my elbow, enough to wake him. Once he’s alert, he looks at me and smiles.
“We’re in freaking Boston, man!” Within seconds, Mitch has gone from a sleeping, germ huffing passenger to a full-blown tourist. The only issue is, we aren’t staying in Boston. Our destination is Montreal, Canada, for a friend’s wedding, and then Mitch and I will return to base.
“I think we have time to drive around, but from what I remember, traffic is a pain in the ass, and we have to drive north for a bit.”
“Still, we’re in freaking Boston!”
I love his enthusiasm. Mitch is from the west coast, near Sacramento, California. We met in boot camp, somehow managed to stay in the same unit for the past ten years, and have been best friends this entire time. Right now, we’re stationed in Tirrenia, Italy, at Camp Darby. We’ve been there for almost three years, and I still don’t know a lick of Italian, although I’m rather fond of the food.
We’re currently on leave for the week, and both up for re-enlistment. We have a month to decide whether to re-enlist, retire—although ten years doesn’t give us crap for benefits—or join the Guard. I’m leaning toward re-enlistment. The work is stable, as is the housing, and it’s not like I have family waiting for me to come home. On the other hand, Mitch has an on-again, off-again girl back in Cali, and his parents want him to come home. He’s always talking about how they want him to settle down, get married, and have kids because they’re not getting any younger. Mitch wants to party and play the field. Personally, I’m not sure he’s ready to be an adult yet.
Mitch and I have also talked about what we’d do if we left the Army. We’ve tossed around the idea of opening a business, maybe a brewery or a winery. After living in Italy, we have both discovered the fine art of wine drinking and eating pasta.
The flight attendant announces our arrival. “Welcome,” she says and then adds, “benvenuta” in Italian.
“I say we leave Montreal a day or so early and tour Boston. I want to see where they dumped the tea.”
“I’m game,” I tell Mitch as I unbuckle my seatbelt. I do this every time I fly commercial because it makes me feel like a rebel. This one time, the flight attendant came on over the intercom and said she could see who wasn’t buckled in. You could hear the clicking of belts over the roar of the engine. Everyone feared some sort of wrath I have yet to see.
We reach the gate, the plane jerks to a stop, and everyone unclicks their buckles to stand and open the overhead compartment for their belongings. I grab mine and Mitch’s bags. He slides over to my seat and stands, stretching and yawning. Jet lag will be a bitch tomorrow, but thankfully we’ll be in Montreal with nowhere to go until later.
Once we deplane, we make it through the airport and outside, where we get on the shuttle for our car rental agency. We both packed light, mostly because we own minimal clothing. I never had much when I enlisted, and we wear the same thing to work every day. I think at last count I owned a pair of jeans, a couple of pairs of shorts, a nice pair of pants, and maybe five or six shirts. I’m not even trying to live the minimalist life, but I do not need a closet full of clothing I’ll never wear. That’s another reason to stay in the Army. I don’t want to have to buy a houseful of items. I can’t even imagine the cost of things these days.
As promised, instead of getting right on the Interstate, I drive through Boston and point out what I remember. It’s been a long time since I took a high school field trip to the Revolutionary War sites, but there are a few things I haven’t forgotten. Before we drive north, I make a stop at Dunkin Donuts, something Mitch has never experienced.
“Nope,” he says after taking a sip. “It’s bitter. Nothing like the stuff we have back home.”
“Back home as in Tirreni or Sacramento? Because that shit in Cali is probably Starbucks.”
Mitch laughs and continues drinking. Over the years, I’ve come to drink whatever caffeine source will keep me awake and functioning. I’m not picky, nor can I afford to be. Awake and alert keeps my team and me alive.
Not an hour into the drive, Mitch is itching to pull off for something to eat. I haven’t paid attention to signs, but one town grabs my attention when I start looking at the upcoming exits. “Wow,” I mutter.
“What’s up?”
I shake my head and contemplate telling Mitch my thoughts. There are a few things I haven’t told him, mostly because I don’t want his pity. I don’t need it. I’ve long accepted the fact I come from nowhere and my family doesn’t exist. That, if I were to die, the service secretary takes care of my body. It’s pretty sad when I think about it.
“There’s a town coming up, Holyoak. I lived there for a bit, right before I enlisted.”
Mitch leans forward and looks o
ut the window. I catch his expression. He looks confused. “Is it a real town?”
His question sparks laughter from me. “As opposed to a fake one you build on Sims?”
“You don’t really build towns on Sims,” he replies. “Just houses.”
“Same diff,” I mutter. “And yes, it’s a real town, with real people. Actually, one of the nicest places I lived.” At the last moment, I signal to get off the Interstate. My heart races, for what or why, I’m unsure. It’s not like I remember much. It was only six months with a woman I haven’t spoken to since I turned eighteen and became free from the system. The lady I lived with was nice, but I was seventeen, the state placed me with her, and I had pretty much checked out on life.
“Are you going to turn right or left?” Mitch asks, pulling me from my thoughts. If I go straight, I get back on the highway, and we continue our trek north and can stop in the next town or any of the others we’ll come across. Or, I turn right and head into Holyoak. There were a few places to eat that had something to offer everyone. It would be nice if I remembered the names, but I don’t. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to my surroundings, except for one of the girls in my history class, and to my grades. I needed them to be fair enough the Army would take me.
Mitch clears his throat, and my finger pushes up on the leveler to signal my intent to turn. I don’t understand my hesitation and why I’m so reserved around returning. The town was fun and good to me. The kids I went to school with were nice for the most part, and I had a good time. I can recall a few stories about what the kids planned to do during the summer, and for a brief moment, I wish I could’ve stayed behind to spend those last few days sitting on the beach or water skiing, but I had other plans. Plans I set in motion on my seventeenth birthday, enlisting in the Army. Being a ward of the state—no one really cared if an adult signed for me or not.
The drive into Holyoak takes only a few minutes from the exit. The roadway into town is tree-lined, giving most people the impression there is nothing for miles. It’s only after you come around the bend, does the lake, the houses, and finally the bustling town come into view.
There’s a line of traffic, which makes me consider turning around and heading to the next town, but Mitch has put his window down and is taking in the sights. I swear, the simplest things make this guy smile. Honestly, it’s sort of refreshing.
“This town is hopping.”
“Yeah, seems so.”
“And you lived here?”
“Yeah, not for long though.”
We inch along Main Street until I find a parking spot along the curb. I feel sorry for the car behind me as I maneuver into place. There is nothing I hate worse than parallel parking when there is a line of traffic behind me. I somehow manage to get the rental parked without holding up the people behind me for too long or scratching the cars on either side.
Mitch and I take a few minutes to gather a couple of things from our bags before we get out of the car. I stretch and shake my legs out to wake them up. After an eight-hour flight and now stuck in the car for at least five hours, my legs are going to cramp. I’m hoping to prevent this with a few more stops. I motion for Mitch to follow me across the street and onto the sidewalk.
“You don’t want to walk by the lake?” he asks, keeping pace with me.
“I do, but the crowd is smaller on this side. On the way back, we can.” I don’t remember Holyoak being much of a tourist town, at least not until summer. In the few months I spent here, I barely had a summer. I was gone by July, but those last couple of weeks, right after school let out for vacation, the town was lively.
We walk in silence until I stop dead in my tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Mitch asks.
I swallow hard and look at the sign that definitely wasn’t there when I left, Lottie’s.
“Do we like Lottie’s Pub?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah, I think so. Although I think the place had a different name.”
“Restaurants change owners all the time,” Mitch says as if he has some experience in the matter. His parents are everything you read about in books or see on television. Mitch’s dad is a psychiatrist, and his mom is a kindergarten teacher. Our lieutenant teases Mitch that his family is like the Seavers from Growing Pains—only we really don’t understand what he means since the show is way before our time. “Are we going to go in?”
“Yeah, we should.”
Mitch is the first one to move toward the building. I can’t explain why I hesitate. Maybe it’s because I’m waiting for memories to surface. Nothing comes. I’m not surprised in the slightest. I’ve spent most of my years blocking out my past. There isn’t much I want to remember, and it’s not like I ever made any long-lasting friendships. My Army friends are the only family I have, and even they’re not forever. Some of us move around a lot, going from station to station. Mitch and I have just been lucky to have stayed together this long.
He opens the door to Lottie’s Pub. It’s bright, airy, and lively. We stand there, looking around, and for some odd reason, I feel like a cowboy walking into a saloon. “Do we seat ourselves?” I wonder aloud.
“Is that a thing here?”
“From what I remember, sometimes.”
Mitch points to a table, and we take a few steps toward it until the bartender hollers out. “Seat yourselves. I’ll be over with a menu.”
We sit, and Mitch says, “This place is busy. The food must be good.”
“I didn’t eat out a lot when I lived here, but from what I remember, the place this used to be was decent.”
The bartender approaches us and sets two menus down. “First time in Lottie’s?” he asks.
Mitch and I nod.
“Well, welcome. We recently remodeled and now have the longest bar in New England with over two hundred beers on tap and growing. Our seafood is fresh, and according to my niece, we have the best chicken tenders she has ever had.” He laughs at his joke. “Our burgers are one pound locally grown beef, made to order, and our vegetables are grown here as well. Let’s see what else am I supposed to tell you,” he pauses and thinks.
“You’ve sold me on the burger, and I’ll take whatever IPA you recommend. It’s my first time here,” Mitch says, although the bartender has already asked us.
“Welcome. Your first time, too?” the bartender asks me. Okay, so maybe he doesn’t remember or wasn’t paying attention to us when we nodded.
“Actually, no. I lived here for a few months about ten years ago.”
“No shit,” he says. We make eye contact for a brief moment. I search my memory, trying to place him, but I’m unsure. “Wait, are you, Jack?”
I’m surprised when he says my name, but surely there must be a million Jacks. It’s a relatively common name. But I have nothing to lose, so I say, “I am. Do we know each other?”
“Yeah, man. You hung out with my family when you lived here. I’m Krew Scardino. If I remember correctly, you dated my cousin, Charlotte, for a bit until you left.”
His words hit me like a Mac truck going one hundred down a steep incline. “Wow, I . . . uh . . .”
“How you been?” he asks, skipping over my lack of vocabulary.
“Good. You?”
“Not too bad. Charlotte owns this place now. How long are you in town for?”
“Just passing through on our way to Montreal for a wedding.”
“Marines?” he asks.
“Hell no,” Mitch blurts out. “Army. Huah!”
The battle cry is lost on Krew. He looks at me, smiles, and says, “You should call Lottie.” He scribbles on his notepad and hands the piece of paper to me. “She would really love to hear from you, and I think you’d definitely like to see her.”
“Okay, I will.” Krew takes my order and then leaves us be.
“You never told me about this Lottie,” Mitch says.
I stare down at the piece of paper with her name scrawled over a set of numbers. I never told anyone about her because there wasn
’t much to tell. We were young, she was hot, and paid attention to me. She never cared that I didn’t have a family, and neither had her family. Which, if I remember correctly, is massive.
“I only knew her and her family for a few months.”
“You gonna call her?”
Again, I look at her name. This time I smile. “Yeah, I have nothing to lose by saying hi.”
Chapter Two
Charlotte
When most people have a day off, they do their cleaning or run errands. Me, I go to my grandparents, Gentry and Arlyne Carmichael, to sit on their deck or curl up on their sofa. I could do both things at home, but there’s something about being with my grandma that centers me. She’s my best friend, my confidant. Right now, we’re in her kitchen. It’s her favorite place to be. I’m watching her prepare dinner for tonight—homemade buttermilk fried chicken—a recipe she learned from her grandmother. It’s my grandpa’s favorite. Mine too. And I’m listening to her rant about the women in her knitting club. Every week, she has something new to tell me, and I think deep down, this is one reason I come here on my days off.
“Anyway,” she says, bringing my attention back to her. “Gertrude is dating Margaret’s husband.”
My mouth drops open. Not only at the fact that my grandma drops this bomb and somehow doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to dipping the piece of chicken into the buttermilk, but also how Gertrude is openly having an affair with her friend’s husband.
“Did Margaret stab Gertrude with her knitting needles?”
Grandma chuckles. “Elaine almost did. Trudy was so flippant about the whole thing. Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention to their bickering until she blurted out that she and Todd have been sleeping together. I swear, it was like we were back in high school.”
“You didn’t go to high school with them,” I say, fearful that her memory could be fading away. Ginger, my best friend, her grandfather has dementia, and the stories she tells me are heartbreaking.