Merrily Ever After--A Novella Read online

  “No way!” The joking she’d done in her mind about his office becoming the nursery had been a defense mechanism. In reality, the last place she’d put the baby was Jay’s space. “I’m not displacing you!”

  “You’re not doing anything. We’re reconfiguring our house to accommodate a life change.”

  A life change. That seemed a rather clinical way of putting it. Something about the way they were rushing forward with this logistical discussion unsettled her.

  “I don’t use it much anyway,” he went on. “I have a huge office at work. The home office is mostly just glorified storage.”

  “You’re not being displaced by…this life change.”

  He shifted around to get his wallet out of his back pocket. They were almost home. “Well, we’ll figure it out. We have enough space—we just have to reconfigure it.” He winked again. “Too bad I don’t know anyone who has the right professional skills to do that.”

  * * *

  Jay had never thought about sex having magical healing powers. That was for other people. Hippies. People doing breathing exercises and chanting mantras. But clearly there was some healing to do here.

  And sex was going to be his method.

  Because he had heard her talking to her friends. And what she’d said confirmed, put words to the vague feeling he’d had earlier, that she was holding him at a distance. That she didn’t trust his devotion to her. He had to fix that.

  Elise had been right, earlier this evening, when she’d pointed out that they had never gone this long without having sex. He had to fix that, too.

  So, it was time for some magical healing sex—Elise and Jay style. The cab pulled up in front of their house, and he slid out then leaned back in to help her out. Inside, they shed their coats, and she kicked off her heels. Her dress had a zipper up the back, so he unzipped it, right there in the entryway, summoning a giggle from her.

  She headed for the stairs, but before she could mount them, he put his hands on her hips, turned her, and aimed her for the living room. “Take off your dress and sit on the couch.” He didn’t want to wait a second longer than was necessary. This might be magical healing sex, but it had also been way too long since he’d fucked his hot wife.

  She hesitated, which was not normal. Usually, she scrambled to do what he said.

  He started working on his tie but didn’t bother taking any of his clothes off.

  “We should talk,” she said, her back still to him.

  He reached his hands inside her open dress and pushed her sleeves down her arms. Then he gave her a gentle shove toward the couch. “Sit.”

  She sat. He realized belatedly that he should have had her take her dress the rest of the way off, but there was something even sexier about her sitting there with her dress half off, her breasts exposed but her lower body covered.

  He sank to his knees on the floor in front of her, reached up under her skirt, grabbed the waistband of those maddening red tights, and pulled.

  “We really should talk,” she whispered, but she lifted her hips automatically, giving him the clearance he needed to work her tights and underwear off.

  “We’re going to.” When he’d dispensed with the tights and underwear and shoved the skirt of her dress up so it joined the top half in bunching around her middle—why was that so hot?—he said, “This is how this is going to work. I’m going to eat you out, but you’re not going to come. When you get close, you’re going to tell me, and then I’ll stop and we’ll talk.”

  An incredulous laugh burst out of her.

  “Does that work for you?” He spread her legs while he asked the question, but he didn’t go any farther.

  She stopped laughing. They stared at each other for a few heartbeats until she whispered, “That works for me.”

  He licked his lips. Let a few more heartbeats elapse before he lowered his head and went straight for her clit.

  Usually, when he went down on her, he took it slow. Drew it out on purpose to tease her, but also because she was so fucking delicious. This time, though, he pushed her as hard and as fast as he could to the edge. It wasn’t a minute before she said, “I’m close.”

  It was hard, but he sat back. Took his face away from her and held his hands up like he was in one of those cooking shows and the timer had just gone off. “Okay, talk.”

  “What?” she breathed. She was panting and pink and bewildered.

  He forced himself not to smile—he was going for focused and serious here. “Did I not just explain that this was how this was going to work?”

  “Yeah, but I thought you’d be the one doing the talking.”

  He just raised his eyebrows.

  Her face grew serious, and she sat up a little straighter. “Okay. What if I’d gotten pregnant when we first got together? Would you still have proposed? Would we still have gotten married?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how do you know? It’s easy to say that now, but this is real life, not a fairy tale. You can’t just unilaterally decide that you’re fine with everything and wave your wand and we live happily ever after.”

  The fuck he couldn’t. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he lowered his head again.

  She growled a little. She was frustrated.

  He put his mouth back on her, and she said, “I never believed in that happily ever after crap anyway.”

  He just grunted, spread her open, and got back to work. As with last time, his aim was to push her as quickly as possible to the edge, so as he swirled his tongue over her clit, he penetrated her with a finger, too. Soon, he had her moaning. He could tell when she was about to pop, because she did this thing where her whole body froze. So he sat back again and wiped his mouth with his forearm.

  “What do you mean, you don’t believe in happily ever after?”

  She glared at him. It took her a moment to answer. “Well, I’ve worked hard for everything I have. So have you. My dad used to call me his princess, and I hated it. I never had a fairy godmother, and I never wanted one. Happily ever after is fairy-tale bullshit.”

  “It isn’t. Not for us. Sometimes you do get to ride off into the sunset with—” He stopped himself because she’d just said she didn’t like to be called a princess. “A person who is not a princess but has many admirable qualities.”

  “Okay”—she rolled her eyes, but it was an affectionate eye roll—“granted. But nobody’s happy all the time.”

  “So it’s the happy part you object to?” He was teasing, but when she didn’t say anything, he regrouped and focused on answering her original question. “Do you remember the first time we had sex?”

  “What kind of question is that? Of course I remember. It was only preceded by two months of foreplay.”

  He chuckled. “Right. But do you remember how it played out—logistically, I mean. You texted me. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until the next day, so it was a surprise.” He grinned. “A happy surprise.” He emphasized the word she professed to hate.

  “Yeah, I’d just dropped Gia off at the airport. It was late.”

  He grinned, remembering how thrilled he’d been to get that text. “So I hightailed it to the bathroom to brush my teeth and, I don’t know, stare at myself in the mirror and freak the fuck out.”

  “What?” Her brow furrowed. The idea of him “freaking the fuck out” was foreign to her.

  “Yeah. I suddenly knew I was going to marry you. That you were it for me.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Me.”

  He knew what she meant by that—she meant her only. Not her and a baby.

  His intention with this little game had been to reassure her. To get them back to where they used to be. To have “the talk,” but to simultaneously use their intense sexual connection to the same end. To right the ship with words and orgasms.

  But now he thought maybe he’d misstepped. Suddenly, what he was doing seemed too pushy. Yes, he could make her come, but she wanted to talk. She needed to talk. This was new territor
y for them, but he should have seen that. So he lifted himself up and sat on the couch next to her. Turned in place and took her hand.

  “Here’s the thing—and I should have told you this back then. I went through this whole process in my head as I stood there waiting for you that night. I knew my life was going to change. And one of the things I thought was that I would want you even if you wanted kids.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. It was just a fleeting thought. It popped into my head because I was a bit overwhelmed by how…unconditionally I loved you. How fiercely. But then I dismissed it because it seemed theoretical. You’d just told me you couldn’t get pregnant.”

  “I probably should have been more careful. I just…Well, I only have one ovary, and after the surgery they said there was so much scar tissue. And we’ve had so much sex.”

  He had to chuckle at that. They had indeed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Hey, none of that.” Well…“Or at least don’t be sorry about that. If you’re going to be sorry about anything, be sorry you never told me you wanted a kid.” Because if they were really talking here, she should know that still stung.

  “I didn’t. When we got together, at least.”

  “Yeah, but that changed. You should have told me. There are other ways to have kids besides biologically.”

  She scoffed. “Right. So if I had come to you and said, ‘Hey, I want to adopt a kid,’ you’d have been like, ‘Sounds great, honey!’”

  He dipped his head. “Point taken.” But he still couldn’t shake the sense that she should have told him.

  But he hadn’t done everything right, either. He shouldn’t have freaked out the way he did when she had come to him with news of a baby.

  They needed a time machine. Then they could both go back and tell the truth at critical times. “Look. We need to get past this. We’re having a baby.” The thought was still scary, but that same excitement he’d felt seeping in earlier was there, too, and it still outweighed the fear.

  “A baby you didn’t sign up for.”

  “Will you stop with this stuff about what I did or didn’t sign up for?” That had come out too vehemently, so he gentled his voice. “I told you that I signed up for you.”

  “But you married a different person than I am now.”

  “People change.”

  She smiled. “That’s exactly what Jane said. But this is a big change.”

  He dipped his head in agreement. He couldn’t credibly argue with that, but how could he make her see that it didn’t matter? That the biggest of changes was never going to be bigger than his love for her. His need for her.

  He had taken too long to formulate his thoughts, because she spoke again before he had the chance. “I wish we had a time machine.”

  He smiled. Because of course she did. They were always so in sync, it sometimes felt like she could read his mind. They’d just…lost their place for a little bit here. “I wish we had a time machine, too. We’d go back and I’d tell you then what I’m telling you know, which is that I would have married you no matter what.” He tried to infuse his voice with the urgency he felt. “But since we don’t, you’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that, sweetheart?”

  “Of course.” But there was a sadness to the way she said it, almost like she was resigned. Like she was going through the motions of trusting that he meant what he said instead of actually trusting.

  But then he thought maybe he had imagined it, because after a few moments, a slow smile spread across her face and she looked like his old Elise.

  “Are we done talking now?” She glanced meaningfully down at her lap.

  He knew what she was doing. It was what he’d been trying to do before—to let their sexual connection do its work. And it seemed that there wasn’t any more talking to be done, though he felt like despite the words they’d spoken, things were still not entirely resolved.

  But he played his role. Hell, he relished his role. “I’m done. So unless you have anything else to say, I’ll just get back to work.” He shot her a hot look. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “That is okay with me. That’s perfect, in fact.” She sighed as his mouth made contact with her again, then she whispered, a little wistfully, “Well, almost perfect. I wish it would snow.”

  Chapter Ten

  It did not snow.

  Jay knew because he’d spent most of the night awake. At one point, after Elise was deep asleep and he’d given up any hope of joining her, he got up and went over to the door to the balcony, which was cracked as always. He stood there letting the cold air hit him. Unlike a couple nights ago, it seemed cold enough to snow, but the sky was perfectly clear. He could even see a few pathetically dull city stars.

  Jay usually avoided thinking about the past. He had spent his whole life remaking himself into someone who was more than where he’d come from, so what was the point? Wallowing in long-ago hurts was only going backward, and he was not a man who went backward.

  Tonight, though, he couldn’t stop mucking around in the past. Maybe it was all the time machine talk. It was like he’d gotten in one by accident and hit the button for Summer; age eight.

  The dialogue looped on repeat in his head, almost as if it had been continuously running in the background all these years…

  “Sorry, kid. It was inevitable. We Smiths are leavers.”

  His dad’s stuff was loaded into the back of his pickup. His mom was standing in the door of the trailer, crying quietly. There’d been a huge fight, but then her yelling had turned into pleading once she’d realized he was serious this time. That had been worse than the yelling. Eventually, she’d given up and stood there with silent tears running down her cheeks.

  Jay’s dad heaved the last of his bags into the truck and turned, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “What about Jay?” his mom asked quietly.

  “Give me a moment alone with him, will you?”

  His mom nodded and turned to go inside.

  For a moment, Jay’s heart skittered with…something. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Excitement? Hope?

  Whatever it was, it was extinguished by what his dad said next. “My dad left my mom. I guess it’s my turn now. Sorry, kid. It was inevitable. We Smiths are leavers. So how do you want to play this? Do you want to pretend that we’re going to have a relationship? And I’ll see you one or two more times before I tap out? Or do you want to just call it here?”

  Jay wanted to do what his mom had done earlier—plead with his dad to stay. But he knew it wouldn’t work. And moreover, he knew showing that kind of weakness would only earn his dad’s disdain. He should not have cared about such a thing, given that they’d just established they would never see each other again, but pathetically, he did. He…wanted his dad to think well of him. To think of him with respect. Remember him as strong. It felt like the only variable he could control.

  So he swallowed, hardened himself, and said, “I want to just call it here.”

  And his dad nodded, chucked him under the chin, and got in his truck and drove away—forever.

  It had been worse than Angus, even though that made no sense, objectively speaking. Cam’s dad had been much more violent. A much bigger asshole. But Angus hadn’t really left Jay. The abandonment hadn’t been personal, because Jay had never belonged to him.

  But had Jay belonged to his father, either? The way a child should belong to a parent?

  He shook his head to clear the thought and turned to look at Elise. His Christmas-crazy wife had a tree set up in their bedroom. This one had a vintage 1960s theme—Elise loved a theme—so it was pink. The actual tree was bubble gum pink. But so were its lights. They bathed her skin in a warm rose glow. She was so beautiful. Like, elementally. Her goodness shone through.

  To think that he could belong to such a person. And he did belong to her, in a way that he hadn’t to anyone, least of all his father.

  He walked over to his discarded pan
ts and retrieved the LEGO piece—which was also pink—and went back to the door to stare at the snowless night.

  He thought it was possible that if he could be worthy of belonging to such a person as Elise, he could do this. That he could want to do this.

  Jay didn’t believe in God. He and Cam hadn’t been raised with any particular religion. But more than that, the idea of a being who stood back and watched while terrible shit happened just didn’t sit right with him. People were responsible for their own messes. Their own mistakes.

  But for the first time in his life, he found himself mouthing a wish that felt more like a prayer.

  Please let it snow.

  He stood there for a long time, until the pain of the edge of the LEGO piece digging into his hand, and the cold air from outside, seeped into his consciousness.

  He knew what to do. But he was going to have to ask for help.

  * * *

  When Elise woke up the morning of Christmas Eve, Jay was gone. But he had left a note saying that Cameron had needed him to help get ready for the Christmas party. The party was being held that evening at Jane and Cameron’s house. Elise had tried to insist that she host—Jane’s place was tiny—but Jay had said that if they hosted, Elise would fuss too much and wouldn’t enjoy herself. Her traitorous friends had agreed.

  Which meant she had nothing to do today except pick up Gia at the airport in a couple hours.

  Her phone dinged. It was Jane.

  I’m picking up Gia, so you don’t have to do it.

  But she wanted to do it. She picked up the phone to tell Jane as much, when there was another incoming one.

  I can sense you objecting, but Secret Santa-ing is involved. Sorry! See you at the party!

  Elise frowned and started typing.

  Okay, well, I’m going to go over to your place. I’m bored, and Jay’s over there helping Cam.

  Jane didn’t reply, which was kind of weird. But by the time Elise was out of the shower, she had a text from Wendy.

  Can you come over to my place? I’ve decided to redo my kitchen.