by Anna Martin
I nodded, not trusting my words to be as perfect as his.
He pushed my shirt off my arms and continued to explore my chest with his fingertips as he leaned up and caught my bottom lip between his and licked it quickly. I wanted everything from him: the sweetness, the heat, the edge of wild that simmered just below the surface, ready to come out if anyone was willing to search for it.
We didn’t know everything about each other yet, and there was a lot I needed to tell him. At some point I would tell him more about when I married Oliver. How, that night, we both got so drunk there was little we could manage except to get out of our tuxes and fall into bed. Then the next day we were too hungover to even crawl out of bed, let alone have sex, so our marriage wasn’t consummated until days later.
I would tell him, one day, about how he fit in my arms like no one ever had before. How the simplest touch of his body against mine made me shiver and tingle, like the spark between us continued to sizzle and grow whenever we were close.
Getting married this early in our relationship was probably stupid and irrational, but I’d long since learned that sometimes the best things in life don’t always happen with careful planning. Harrison came from a quick jerkoff in a cup when I was rushed on my way to a meeting, no time for anything more.
Zane came from an impromptu night out.
Our marriage came from the fact that I was terrible at picking birthday presents.
“Mine,” I whispered as I helped him out of the rest of his clothes. “My husband.”
“I like the way that sounds,” he said with a grin. “Your husband.”
“Me too.”
He shuffled back on the bed, reaching out for my hand to tug me on top of him. I took my time with his body, wanting to worship every inch of him, outside and in.
“Most beautiful thing,” I murmured, “I’ve ever seen.”
Zane laughed breathlessly.
Tonight was about keeping it pure, simple. We made love facing each other, his knee pulled up close to his chest so I could move easier inside him. His lips were never far from my skin. If we weren’t drinking kisses from each other’s lips, Zane had his face pressed to the curve of my shoulder, each gasp and exhale cool against my chest.
I teased the noises from his throat, from breathy moans to the low, guttural grunts when I found a good, deep spot, and stored each sound in my memory. He told me he loved me, over and over, until his words became another part of the background noise of our lovemaking.
His heel dug hard into my lower back, urging me on when my movements grew slow and lazy. Any thoughts of controlling this—controlling him—were forced away. The feel of his fingertips scratching through my hair, rubbing my scalp, made me come undone.
“Tell me again,” he asked.
It took me a moment to understand. Then my gut twisted, and I clenched my eyes tightly shut as I whispered, “My husband,” right next to his ear.
Zane’s palm, which had been spread wide over my back, suddenly clenched into a fist, and he came between us, crying out with need and pleasure and something much more raw than all that.
“My husband,” I told him again, and he whispered my name as I came inside him.
It took a long time for us to disentangle ourselves from each other, to wipe the sweat and come from our skin, before he tucked his body around mine and murmured, “Wow.”
I laughed and rearranged our bodies so he was even closer to me.
“Night, Zane.”
“Good night.”
Chapter 19
“I brought cake,” Nae said when I opened the door to her. Sure enough, she had a large bakery box filled with the leftovers of last night’s celebrations.
“In that case, you can come in.”
“Thank you.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek and rubbed my arm quickly before ducking into the kitchen.
“Zane,” I called. “Cake.”
Harrison toddled around the corner just before Zane. He seemed to only have one speed at the moment, which was fairly fast, making for more crash landings than controlled stopping.
“You want cake too, huh?” I said and lifted him up onto the counter.
“And me,” Zane said. “Hi, Nae.”
The slices were a little bashed but still good, especially when I topped them off with a scoop of frozen yogurt (the kind Zane liked best). The fact that it was only eleven in the morning and probably too early for cake and ice cream was beside the point. All rules were going out the window this weekend—we’d get back to normal soon enough.
There were wheels on Harrison’s high chair, meaning I could take him through to the living room, and I positioned him in front of me so I could help him with the ice cream. The cake was mostly smeared over his face or squashed in his little fists, and I had to take a photo of him because he looked simply too cute. These pictures were being stored in a file on my computer called “future blackmail.”
“I’m going to try and get him to nap for a while,” I said, hoping Nae would hang out so Zane wasn’t left on his own. Sometimes he’d join us for a snuggle, but Harrison usually wanted to play, not sleep.
“No worries.”
In our room, I kept the curtains closed and the fan on, to keep the room cool despite the heat of the day, and got Harrison to settle down on my chest. There was a baseball game on, which wasn’t something I normally watched, but it was a good distraction while I hummed songs to Harrison under my breath.
He seemed to sleep in fits and bursts during the day, drifting for ten minutes at a time, then waking himself up. Each time I had to soothe him back to sleep, holding my breath and hoping he’d drop off again.
I could sort of hear Nae and Zane chatting in the living room, about weddings, from what I could hear. She had told me they were looking for somewhere to book for next spring, a big, family-oriented white wedding. Nae was a princess—I expected nothing less.
I was a bit confused when I heard them duck into Harrison’s room. Then I heard him clearly over the baby monitor.
“Oh, my God, Nae.”
“Tell me everything.”
I smirked to myself. They clearly didn’t realize the monitor was still on.
“It was incredible,” Zane said. “Just… perfect.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were going to get married!”
“We didn’t tell anyone. I swear, Nae, we didn’t. He asked me a couple of weeks ago—”
“Wait,” she said, interrupting him. “Go back. He proposed?”
“Not really. He asked what I wanted for my birthday, and you know what I’m like. I asked him for paint.”
“You ask everyone for paint.”
“Exactly. He said he wanted to do something special… then we just got talking about Harrison and how I wanted to be his dad. A couple of days later he came back and said Oliver was never going to give up parental rights, not for me, but the next best thing he could do as far as making it official was making me his stepdad.”
“Ellis is a fucking nightmare.”
I rolled my eyes at that and carefully turned the volume on the monitor up a bit louder.
“He was so sweet about it,” Zane said, defending me. “I knew he never wanted to get married again, but he wants this to be his family, so fucking bad, so he kind of changed all his beliefs just to make this happen.”
“Okay, he’s a nightmare and a sweetheart.”
“Yeah. We only went and got the marriage license a couple of days ago. The center gave us the space for free, and I managed to find a company willing to cater for us at the last minute.”
“So, last night….”
Naema was such a pervert.
“We came home and put our son to bed.” He was being coy. I liked that.
“Don’t be like that with me. You were limping for days after the first time he fucked you.”
Or maybe not.
“It was fucking incredible,” Zane said with a sigh. “Just, like, the last th
ing we had to do to make it real, you know?”
“Are you limping today?” she asked, and I could hear the fucking smirk in her voice.
“No. But it’s not easy to sit down. I usually try to be quiet because of waking the baby up, but… oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“The fucking baby monitor is on.”
“He’s listening to this?” Nae exclaimed.
“Probably. If the one in the bedroom is turned on as well.”
Nae snorted, then burst into laughter. With Harrison still sleeping on my chest, I tried not to laugh too hard in case I woke him up. It was actually pretty cute, that Zane had the sort of relationship with Nae that they gossiped about sex… and slightly weird that the gossip included the size of my cock. Still, if he was saying good things, I didn’t really mind.
A few moments later, the two of them appeared in the doorway to our room, looking like contrite little children.
“That was rather fascinating,” I said quietly.
“So… you heard us?”
“Crystal clear. These things really are excellent pieces of technology, aren’t they?”
“Are you mad?” Zane asked.
“Not at all. You can compliment my skills anytime you like, baby.”
He blushed then, which I thought was adorable. “Is he sleeping still?”
“Mhmm.”
“Okay. We’ll go back into the living room.”
“Good idea,” I said with a smirk.
It turned out our apartment would become a hive of activity over the coming weekend as people stopped by to congratulate us in turn. We hosted Zane’s family for dinner, even though there was hardly enough room to cook and definitely not enough room for everyone to eat. That didn’t seem to matter, though. They were happy to sit at the breakfast bar, or with plates on their knees, or even standing as we picked at the enormous buffet of food Zane had “just thrown together.”
A few minutes after the Hadlins left, Az turned up, and while he was eating more leftover cake, his sister arrived too. It was at that point that I threatened to replace our front door with one that revolved.
We woke on Monday morning to an envelope that had been pushed under the front door, which was strange, because our mail was delivered to a tiny metal box inside the main entrance to the building. Zane looked at me and shrugged, then pulled the flap open with his thumb.
It was a handwritten note.
Dear Mr. & Mr. Broad,
We wouldn’t dare go against your wishes, and donations have been made to the Harmony Center in lieu of wedding presents. However, we are all in agreement that we could not, in good conscience, ignore the fact that you haven’t had a honeymoon.
Much debate occurred last night while the two of you were making kissy-faces at each other, and we eventually agreed on something that will hopefully suit you all.
Therefore, we will be sending the three of you on a cruise for two weeks. It picks up from New York the weekend after Zane graduates and will take you around the Caribbean before returning home. We have found a company which has excellent childcare facilities, without resorting to the very real horror of a Disney Cruise ship.
(That means there’s plenty of time for SEX.)
There’s no need to thank us. We’re just modestly being the best friends you could ever ask for.
All our love,
Everyone you know.
“I can’t believe them,” I said with a laugh, reading over Zane’s shoulder. “That’s so nice.”
“Meg’s handwriting?” he asked in an awed voice.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never been on vacation before.”
“What? Not ever?”
“No. Wait—do school trips count?”
“Not really,” I said, rubbing my hand up and down his arm.
“Then no. Meg knows that too. I think I told her once that I always wanted to go on a cruise. I used to love boats when I was a kid.”
“She’s a pretty awesome friend.”
He turned and practically leaped into my arms. “We’re going on a honeymoon!”
“With Harrison,” I added and kissed him hard.
“That just makes it even better.”
“Yeah. It does.”
Zane’s first major art show was in Manhattan, and even though he was sharing it with a few other artists, it was a pretty big deal. I managed to round up most of our friends for the evening and dragged them into the city (kicking and pouting, in Meg’s case—she hated going into Manhattan) and to the big, scary white gallery.
My mom was watching Harrison for the night, not because I wanted to leave him out (I didn’t) but because it was likely to go on late, and I didn’t want to be dragged home early. Plus, art galleries weren’t really designed for babies.
Zane tried to talk me into wearing my suit. I knew him too well by now, though, and called Nae, who confirmed it was definitely not a suit-able occasion. I did put a shirt on, though, over a decent pair of jeans, and rolled the sleeves on my shirt up to my elbows since it was a warm night. Zane kept undoing the buttons when he kissed me. I had a feeling my chest hair was going to be on display for most of the evening.
He had spent a stupid amount of time at the gallery in the week leading up to the show, leaving the house early in the morning and not getting home until after Harrison had gone to bed. I knew he felt guilty about it, that he wasn’t getting the chance to spend the time with Harrison that they were both used to. I tried to talk him down from his freak-outs as gently as I could. The show was important, to all of us, and I wanted him to do whatever he needed to do to make it perfect.
He came home to eat and change, fidgeting the whole time until I dragged him through to the bedroom, stripped out of my carefully ironed clothes, and fucked him hard and fast on the bed, digging my fingers into his hips from behind until he screamed his release into my pillow.
By the time we were both clean and dressed we were running late and had to jog down the block to the subway to try and get there on time.
We arrived fashionably late and a little out of breath, and by the look on Naema’s face she knew exactly what we’d been up to. I didn’t care.
Zane threaded our fingers together and led me through the gallery to the area where his exhibition had been set up.
“It’s about fathers,” he said. “It started out as being about my own, the type of man he was and how that affected me and my brothers. Then it grew into being about you, and Harrison, and then how I became a father too. I only finished this yesterday.”
He pulled me to a stop in front of a framed piece, small in comparison with the others, a pen and ink sketch of the drawing I’d seen in his sketchbook. It was Harrison, sleeping, his lips puckered in a silent kiss.
I was no art critic, and probably biased because I loved everything. I could see his style. Even though it was clear he was experimenting with different media, there was something very Zane about it all.
The portrait of his mother caught my attention and that of most of the other people at the show too. Zane had painted her wearing a head scarf, something she didn’t wear all the time but had when she was still married to his father. It was a large, wide piece in bright acrylics and a hyperrealistic style which showcased his talent in all its glory. I had never asked about the dynamic of his parents’ relationship. It seemed to be something he’d tell me about when he was ready.
People wanted to talk to him, and I was fine with that, even if he did try to hang on to me while professors and critics talked through his process and his work. I managed to escape to one side with Naema, who was being a noncritical critic for the night.
“Allison,” she said, smiling as a woman in a terrifyingly sharp suit approached us. “This is Zane’s husband, Ellis. Ellis, this is Allison Witt, one of our lecturers.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand.
“Likewise. I was hoping to run into you.”
Nae slipped away discreetly, eve
n as I tried to beg her into staying with silent glares alone.
“Oh?” I asked, trying to be polite.
“Yes. I’ve been working with Zane on this project for some time,” Allison said and sipped daintily from her glass of wine with dark purple lips. “It’s changed considerably over the past six months.”
“Since we met.”
“Yes. I’m not sure if he told you this, but on the Monday morning after you were married, he came into my office with your marriage certificate and asked to change his name with the school. He wants to graduate as Zane Broad, not Zane Hadlin or even Zane Al-Jazari.”
“I didn’t ask him to take my name. It was something he insisted on.”
“Oh, that I don’t doubt, Mr. Broad. If you look around this space, the progress in Zane’s thought pattern is laid out for anyone to see. He started with that piece of his mother, which is very emotive. Then he spent a long time trying to come to terms with his relationship with his father and what it meant for his family after his father died. And there—you can see it—the moment you and your son came into his life.”
Her arm swept demonstratively around the small space, pointing things out in an order I hadn’t seen them in before.
“A few days ago Zane had something of a crisis of faith with this exhibition. He felt it unfinished, and I agreed. There was no time to do another full-size piece, and I directed him back to the sketchbooks he’d filled over the course of the semester. That image of your son seemed to capture where he is in his life now, a picture that represents Zane as a father himself.”
“He loves Harrison very much,” I said softly.
“Another thing I don’t doubt,” she said. “I’m showing you these things for a reason, Mr. Broad—”
“Ellis,” I said, interrupting her.
“Ellis. These are things that I think Zane wouldn’t tell you, but he wouldn’t mind you knowing. He is an extraordinarily talented young man.”
“Yes,” I said as he looked up at me from across the room, seemingly surprised to see me talking to his professor. “Thank you for your time, Professor Witt.”
“Allison,” she said. “And you’re welcome.”