Which is what happens minutes later when we come together, my face buried in her neck, her long legs impossibly twisted around my back, her warm and melting center encasing me, my breath unsteady and my body more at ease touching hers than I’ve felt in years.
“Nice,” she murmurs, “now I understand why they call you Focus Man at work.”
As I chuckle, she reaches up to cradle my jaw in both hands, giving me a smoldering kiss that tells me we’re not done yet.
Thank God.
The ringtone for the song It’s Raining Men jingles from the floor.
“I know that’s not my phone,” I mutter, my mouth now full of sweet nipple.
“Henry likes to change my ringtone,” she groans. “But no one actually dials my phone unless the spa’s on fire,” Chloe says, twisting out from under me, leaving me throbbing and slightly chilled as cold air replaces warm woman.
She picks up the phone. “Private number.”
“Telemarketer?” I say hopefully.
She shrugs and answers. “Hello? Yes, this is Chloe. Excuse me?” Her eyes look like she’s wearing coke-bottle glasses as Chloe turns to me, gloriously nude, one hip jutting out as her arm extends to me, phone in hand, holding it like it’s a live, poisonous snake.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s…your…daughter.” Chloe gently places the phone in my hand and steps back, turning away, snickering.
“What? My what?”
“DADDY!” Elodie screeches from Chloe’s phone. “You really are there with her!”
This is not happening.
Red rage pumps through me, replacing desire, a poor substitute for passion, but it will have to do for now.
“You did not call me on Chloe’s cell phone,” I grind out, trying not to explode with expletives the kids have only heard from my mouth when I banged something.
Other than a woman.
“I logged in to the family cell plan and found her number on your line, because I had to make sure you’re safe, Daddy!”
Chloe is now wheezing with laughter, hugging a pillow. Our eyes meet and she sobers up suddenly, her face slack with surprise.
“I’ll go make coffee,” she whispers, leaving the room, her ass the gift that keeps on giving.
“YOU!” I bellow into the phone.
“Daddy?” Elodie replies in a small, soft voice.
“I cannot believe you did this, Elodie Laurence Grafton! My private life is mine. MINE!” I can feel the bed shake as I shout, a cat jumping off a chair in the corner and shooting out of the room, my own voice gaining volume as my ire pours out of me.
“But—”
“I am speechless! My private life is off limits. Period. Do not ever do this to me again. Are we clear.” It’s not a question.
“If you were speechless, you wouldn’t be yelling at me,” she whispers.
“And I am yelling at you, so what does that tell you?”
“But Daddy, I thought you were—” She’s crying, her voice hitched.
Good.
She should cry.
“Don’t even try it. Once I hung up on you the first time, that was it. Done. End of discussion, and now I’m ending this discussion.”
Click.
I felt passion when I woke up.
Then rage, followed by boiling misery.
Trying on a suit of guilt for size now.
A suit that would fit the Incredible Hulk.
“That sounded intense,” Chloe says from the other room. “Coffee’s brewing. I’ll bring some back in on a tray.”
And embarrassment joins the soup of emotions.
I am naked in Chloe’s bedroom. My co-worker’s bed. My child just tracked me down via my bedmate’s cell phone to chew me out for not coming home last night.
I am pretty sure that’s a Dan Savage, Dear Abby and Maury Povich event rolled into one.
“Damn!” I shout into a pillow, pitching it across the room, knocking over a towel rack. It clatters to the floor with an anemic series of clicks.
Futile.
“I never liked that accessory anyhow. It falls over every time the cat sneezes,” Chloe says with an overly-bright smile, watching me like one would watch a staggering raccoon in the alley. I don’t blame her.
I’m feeling pretty damn rabid.
Flashing her a grateful, but tight, smile, I take the coffee from her extended hand, forcing myself to sip the scalding liquid just to buy some time.
Men’s Health magazine never has articles on how to handle this kind of mess.
My burnt tongue feels like a rebuke, insult added to injury, and I finally explode.
“This is what happens when you have kids! They rule your life and take all the oxygen in the room. You breathe for them when they’re little and when they’re older, they think they’re entitled to all the air.” I huff, trying to drain off the anger, wishing I could stop my tirade, unable to control it. “I’m so damn close. They’re all in college now and I can breathe again. Freedom tastes good.”
Freedom tastes like you, I nearly say.
And then our eyes meet.
Chloe looks stricken.
What the hell did I say that’s so wrong?
* * *
Chloe
Okay.
Okay.
There aren’t that many times in my life anymore when I just don’t know what I think.
But this is one of those times.
A kid falls into a gorilla habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo, and suddenly everyone in the country has an opinion on the parenting skills in that family. Sure, it looks bad, but what do I know? I’ve never been responsible for a bunch of active kids at a zoo. Am I entitled to judge?
So when Nick’s daughter calls looking for him, frantic with worry, and he yells at her, is that bad? He’s her only real parent, her only security, right?
But what he’s saying about kids ruling your life, and having no freedom—well, that’s maybe my biggest fear right now. The fear I can’t admit to anyone. I think and pray that the best part of my life will begin when the baby comes, but what if it’s too much? I’ve never had to be utterly responsible for another human being before.
A single parent.
What if I am overwhelmed?
Even Nick appears to be overwhelmed right now, and he’s been doing it—being a single parent—for more than fifteen years.
What if, someday when my child is at college, I am having the most romantic night of my entire life, and my cell phone starts ringing and ringing? Will I feel needed and loved, or will I feel harassed beyond enduring?
Moot point. I just had the most romantic night of my life. Nothing will ever top last night.
Except this morning, of course.
Usually the first time is a little bit awkward, right? Exciting, sure, and new, and fun (usually). But neither of you knows where to touch, or when, or how, or for how long. There’s no choreography.
That’s not how it felt with Nick.
It just felt right.
And that’s terrifying.
I need to talk to Jemma.
You see? I just don’t know what I think.
“Chloe. Come here,” Nick says. He puts down his coffee and opens his arms. “Looks like second runner-up for Father of the Year again. Third if Amelie gets to vote too. Damn.”
“Maybe you should call her back?” I offer tentatively.
“And what does she take away from that? That there are no boundaries? The house was not burning down, no one was hurt or missing or even upset. Once she reached me the first time, she knew I was fine. For her to call your phone was WAY out of line. She was playing a game.”
“You told me the girls are used to being first in your life. That story about dressing up in your date’s lingerie?”
“Yes, but they were ten. It’s not okay anymore. And if they start thinking they rank above you, we will have a big problem. Not unlike pack animals.” He smiles, his cheek against my hair. “Or toddlers.”
<
br /> “In less than two years, I’ll have one of those,” I whisper.
“And then you will begin to understand.”
He sits on the bed, pulling me down with him. We settle into spoons and he pulls the sheet over us.
“Getting this baby feels like when you go on a trip to a country you’ve always wanted to visit, but you’ve never been there before.” I try to explain this. “It’s a completely different culture, and you don’t speak the language. So it’s exciting and fun, but when you get off the airplane, you don’t even know how to get to your hotel. And reading all the guidebooks really doesn’t help at all.”
He laughs. “Fair enough. But you only have to learn one neighborhood at a time.”
“But I’m moving there for twenty years!” I sit up, and turn to face him.
He laughs harder. “Just when I am moving back to my country of origin.”
And then he stops laughing.
Chapter Ten
Nick
“Wait a minute,” my brother, Charlie, chokes out in between deep, uncontrollable bouts of laughter. “You’re telling me your kid called your lover while you were in the middle of hot sex?”
“We’d just finished having hot sex,” I correct him, draining my Sea Belt Scotch Ale. The soundtrack to Brother, Where Art Thou? strums away in the background. Charlie and I are eating pizza out of the box. Feels like twenty years ago. His half has banana peppers, anchovies, and pineapple on it.
My half is trying desperately to escape his half, the pepperoni offended by his taste buds.
I haven’t told Charlie exactly who my lover is. I also hate the word lover. Lover is what Simone called Rolf.
I preferred the term schweinhund. Google it.
Charlie shakes his head. “Elodie. Remember when she was four and she insisted on dressing like Coco Chanel and refused to speak English at school that day?”
“How could I forget? My kid was almost expelled from Montessori for perpetuating cultural stereotypes.”
As Charlie picks up his final piece of pizza, an anchovy breaks in half and lands on the cardboard.
“Hey!”
“What?” he says, his dismissive look one I’ve seen since he was little. Charlie looks like our mother, with dark brown hair and pale brown eyes the color of cafe au lait. No one ever thinks we’re brothers. Aside from the same body type, we’re nothing alike.
“Your piece of salty fish nearly ruined my dinner.”
“Maybe removing the stick up your ass will improve your appetite. The sex was that bad?”
“Shut up,” I growl. I’m not talking about sex with Chloe. After one of her many margaritas, Chloe whispered the fact that Charlie had been her first. Knowing we’ve both slept with her is bad enough. Having to tell Charlie is worse. If I can hold off a little longer, maybe it’ll be easier.
“Is that why Elodie’s not here? She’s staying scarce?”
“So far, yeah. Amelie brought an extra bag of laundry with her yesterday, though.”
“Those two are each other’s best friends and worst enemies. Frenemies. They fight over who gets the washing machine, but give them a common enemy and they’re tight.”
I shoot Charlie a look. “And we’re any different?”
His grin is filled with pizza.
“Jesus, Charlie. Swallow before you smile.”
“That’s what I always say, too.” He leers.
I groan. “For that, I pick the movie.”
“Not another foreign film,” he groans, then perks up. “Unless it’s French. Love the French films.”
“That’s because they all have threesomes in them. At least, the ones you watch.”
“YouPorn has an excellent selection of high-quality foreign films.” He pops open another beer and shrugs.
“Please tell me your laptop has a screen protector on it.”
He nods. “Keyboard, too. You really have to, with the USB attachments they make now.” His eyes go blank, and he begins to talk in a businesslike, clipped tone. “If you don’t, the keyboard gets sticky, and no one wants to go to the Apple Genius Bar with the equivalent of an artificial insemination sample.”
“Charlie!”
“I’m not kidding. You know that company that makes the surfing equipment we sell? They’ve been bought out by the same mega-corporation that’s making dildo drones.”
“Did you say dildo drones?” I look at my beer with suspicion. Two empties are next to me, so unless he spiked this with a hallucinogen, I’m not the crazy one here.
“Sure. It’s like Google Glass, or Virtual Reality. Next great invention.”
“No, the next great invention would be a vaccine that cures the Zika virus. Or cold fusion. Dildo drones rank somewhere above dog bongs and below remote-controlled zippers.”
“Already exist.”
“Remote-controlled zippers?”
“Dog bongs.”
“Someone invented a marijuana bong for canines?”
“Sure. Even doggies need to chill once in a while. Plus, the endocannabinoid system can be very powerful when it comes to inflammatory diseases, and in veterinary medicine—”
“Dog bongs, Charlie. Can dogs even inhale?” My brother’s a Yale Law dropout who couldn’t manage past his first year, but he clearly just picked the wrong grad school program. Biochemistry would have been a better fit. Only Charlie could struggle to maintain a permanent address and a steady job, but know the inner workings of the canine neurotransmitter system.
Then again, he might have become Walter White. Don’t let the man anywhere near an RV.
“I guess so. No one would have invented the dog bongs if they couldn’t.”
“Charlie, who do you think would create such a device?”
Silence.
“Stoners. People who are baked out of their minds. People who go through the Taco Bell drive-thru and buy a ten-pack of soft tacos and who think God talks to them through the microphone while their fingers turn into antennae.”
He shoots me a dirty look.
“Those same people are the ones who look at their mother’s bichon frise in the basement apartment where they live and think, ‘Poor Peanut needs a bong.’” I’m pretty sure they invented most of the television shows my kids watched as toddlers. Whoever came up with The Big Comfy Couch and the French show Téléchat must have been huffing on some very human bongs.
“I happen to be friends with the guy who is waiting for his patent for dog bongs to clear.” Charlie runs a hand through his hair and starts peeling the beer label on his bottle. “And it was a yorkie poo named Fluffy,” he says under his breath.
“I work eighty hour weeks as a corporate drone in the Financial District and there are guys making money getting the family pet high.”
“It’s a growing field.”
“So is Alzheimer’s research.”
“Got to follow your bliss,” Charlie says softly. “When did you turn into a grumpy old man? All you need to do is start wearing socks with sandals, get some Sansabelt slacks, start using Viagra and yell at kids on your lawn. You’re becoming Grandpa Louie.”
“I don’t have a lawn. I live in a townhouse.” I give him the hairy eyeball. “And I don’t need Viagra.”
“We live in a townhouse.”
“You’re only here for a visit.”
“And don’t knock Viagra. It’s great as a recreational drug.”
“I do not want to hear about your twelve-hour erection.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“That’s it. We’re watching The Revenant.”
“What? No, Nick, c’mon. Don’t make me watch Leo DiCaprio having sex with a bear.”
I do a double take. “There’s no bestiality in the movie.”
“I heard it sucked.”
“No. What sucks is listening to you right now.” Dog bongs. What’s next? Edibles for hermit crabs?
The front door slowly opens, the sound making us both tense by instinct. We share a look of pri
mal danger. Then I realize Charlie’s more worried about his beer as he scrambles to catch it.
“You expecting anyone?” Charlie whispers.
“No.”
“Daddy?” It’s Elodie, looking shame-faced, the crease between her eyes making her resemble Simone. It’s been a week since she called Chloe’s phone. I haven’t seen her since. Not a single text other than I’m sorry.
This has been the longest I’ve ever gone without contact. Even when the kids were in France for their annual visits with their mother, we had daily phone calls and texts.
“Hi, honey,” I say, studying her. Whatever she feels she needs to say, I don’t plan to make it easy. Not hard, either. But this is a life lesson, and I don’t have many more to impart to my kids.
“Uncle Charlie!” she chirps as she spots him, running into his arms with a sweet abandon so different from her cultivated worry. I see her face over Charlie’s shoulder as he bear hugs her, lifting her off the ground, her pony tail stuck under his arm as he laughs.
“I can’t believe you cockblocked your dad, Coco,” he says as she’s midair.
Elodie scrambles out of his arms and gives him a look designed to make her uncle spontaneously combust.
“Technically,” I correct him again, “she didn’t—”
“Non!” Elodie shrieks, fingers in her ears. “I do not want to know more! Merde! This is bad enough. It’s been so bad I called Maman for advice!”
When my kids mix French with their English, I know they’re upset.
When Elodie tells me she called my ex-wife to talk about my sex life, I know I’m upset.
“You what?”
“I didn’t tell her why you hate me, Daddy!” Elodie says with great drama, including wide, sweeping hand gestures that remind me of Joan Crawford’s overacting.
Charlie gives me a look that says, This is your kid.
Yeah. It is.
And Chloe wants one of these?
“Please tell Chloe I am so sorry,” Elodie begs.
Charlie eyes freeze on me.
“Chloe? Your lover’s name is Chloe?”
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