Broken Course (44 page)

"Fine. Rain check. But I want you to do something for me before we go." I turn her in my arms and lift my eyebrows suggestively.

"Sorry to break it to you, big boy, but I just did my lipstick." She pats my chest.

"No, gorgeous. I want to hear you say it. Tell me what you want, and use something a little more descriptive than ‘freaking.’"

She stares at me blankly, her cheeks growing pinker by the second. "Um…"

"Wrong answer." I scoop her off her feet, causing her to scream.

"Brett, stop!" She tries to sound stern, but she begins giggling.

"Say it, gorgeous." I drop her onto the bed and quickly cover her with my body.

"I love you," she says, leaning up to catch my mouth.

"And…" I prompt before kissing her again.

"And…I want you to fuck me tonight," she whispers, knowing exactly what I wanted to hear.

"There she is," I purr. "I’ll be more than happy to oblige you when we get back."

"Ew!" Madeline cries when she walks into the room. "You guys are disgusting. Why can't you just be normal old people and not touch?"

Jesse’s eyes go wide in embarrassment at having been caught in such a provocative position, but I just shake my head and stand up off the bed.

"I’m glad to hear you think that’s disgusting. Now, let’s talk about Adam Andrews?" I toss Jesse a wink and guide Madeline from the room.

"EMMY, WHAT happened to the garage door?" I ask, walking into our bedroom.

"What’s wrong with it?" she replies, fastening the necklace around her throat. Then she nervously drags her long, blond hair up into a ponytail.

"Um, it won’t open and there is a huge-ass dent in the front of it."

"Oh, I’m not sure. I haven’t noticed that." She turns away from me, but I can see her mouth, "Fuck," to herself in the mirror.

"Really. So you have no idea what happened?"

"Caleb, you need to get dressed. We’re going to be late." She tosses me a smile that I know is only there to distract me.

"Collin!" I yell over my shoulder, and Emma’s eyes go wide.

"Yes, sir," he replies from his room down the hall.

"You know anything about that dent in the garage door?"

"Um," is his only response as he walks into our room. His blue eyes flash to his mother, and I watch her give him the smallest shake of her head.

Collin has really filled out over the last year. It’s hard to believe he’s only fourteen. He looks just like I did at that age. If it weren’t for Emma’s white-blond hair, I would question if he got anything from her at all.

After Collin was conceived the old-fashioned
accidental
way, Emma and I were very careful for several years. We never really had time alone before starting a family, so keeping it to just the three of us was important to both of us. Right after Collin turned three, Emma sat me down and told me that she wanted another baby. I’d been thinking about it for a while, so that chat ended with us naked. Practice never hurt anyone.

The day Emma found out that we were expecting, she swore while hanging over the toilet that she would never get pregnant again. I laughed. She threw the plunger at me. It was pretty much business as usual in the Jones household. There was no way I was stopping with two kids, and she knew it. I made some lame excuse about the symmetry on my back tattoo, but the truth is that I loved Collin so damn much that I became greedy.

Eight months later, we both got our way. Lily Kate and Grant Walker Jones were born just two days shy of Collin’s fourth birthday.

"Where are the twins?" I ask Collin. "Let’s see if they know anything about the garage door."

"Shit," Emma mumbles, knowing Lily would never lie for her. She might have gotten her mother’s attitude and looks, but she’s a daddy’s girl through and through.

"What’s wrong, Emmy?" I toss her a knowing smirk.

"Okay. Collin, I need to talk to Dad for a minute. Tell everyone to be dressed and in the car in thirty minutes." She walks to the door, locking it behind him.

I stand in the middle of the room with my arms crossed as I watch her remove her panties from under her skirt. She reclines back on the bed and drops her legs wide.

"Come her, Caleb." She rubs a hand up her thigh, pausing on her wet pussy.

"Start talking, Emmy," I say but quickly make my way to the bed.

"Kiss me." She sits up to claim my mouth.

I’m more than willing to take whatever she is offering to bribe me with. I don’t give a single fuck what happened to the garage door. I’m reasonably sure she hit it with the new SUV she begged me for. I tried to tell her that it was too big for our single-car garage, but the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can’t tell Emma anything. You have to let her figure it out for herself. She won’t ever admit that she was wrong. She will, however, apologize with her body. I chalk it up as a win.

"Take your pants off," she mumbles against my mouth.

"Now why would I do that, sweetheart?" I feign ignorance.

"Because you’re about to fuck me and we only have a few minutes." Leaning forward, she pops open my button.

"Oh, Emmy, but then I would miss feeling you suck my cock with the sweet little mouth that keeps lying to me."

Her eyes perk at my comment before a slow smile creeps across her face. She stands up and pushes me to the bed, making quick work of pulling my pants down.

"Since we are running short on time, I think this would be an excellent opportunity to multitask." She climbs on top of me and spins to straddle my face. With one smooth movement, she takes my cock to the back of her throat and lowers her pussy to my mouth.

Yeah. We’re going to be late.

"MOM!" LIV calls from her bathroom. "Where’s my straightening iron?"

I’m elbow-deep in cake icing as I look around to find somewhere to wipe my hands, but I come up empty. Why I didn’t take Leo’s advice and order a freaking cake is beyond me. But it’s my baby girl’s high school graduation party today and I wanted to make her something by hand. Leo hired a company to cater the party, but I quickly staked my claim on dessert. I had these grand plans of making this gorgeous cake. After I burnt the bottom layer, it quickly switched to gorgeous cupcakes. However, the ones sitting on the tray in front of me are seriously lacking in the gorgeous department.

"Ty, can you go tell your sister to stop yelling and to look under the sink?"

"It’s under the sink!" he shouts from the couch.

"Well aren’t you helpful," I reply sarcastically.

"No prob, Mom. I’m here to serve." He flashes me a killer grin that might as well be a Xerox copy of his father’s.

"Right. Well, tell me what time it is at least."

"Four fifty."

"Shit!" I yell before turning to look at him. "You didn’t hear that."

"He may not have, but I did," Leo says as he walks in carrying a cake box. "Go clean up,
ángel
. Everyone will be here soon." He slides the cake onto the messy counter and pulls me in for an all-too-brief kiss.

"Oh God. Have I told you how much I love you?" I breathe a sigh of relief that I won’t have to serve the tragic cupcakes I made.

"No, but I’m fully expecting you to show me later." He winks and turns to Ty. "Aunt Erica and Uncle Slate should be here soon. They picked up some ice, so go outside and empty the big, white cooler and pull it around front for them."

"I’m on it." He jumps to his feet and heads out the door.

Two months after Leo and I were married, I got pregnant with Tyler. The panic attack that ensued after seeing those two pink lines was epic. I literally screamed when I read the test. Leo rushed in and then sat quietly on the corner of the tub while I spent the next hour pacing the room, rambling about how I couldn’t be a mom. I have to give him credit because he managed to only laugh once.

Leo was ecstatic and more than willing to roll with a surprise pregnancy. I, as usual, needed a little time to adjust. Finally, he stood up, carried me to bed, turned off the lights, and held me until my pulse began to slow. Then he asked me to legally adopt Liv. And in that moment, being a mom didn’t seem so scary. I loved that little girl, and he knew it. With one sentence, he put my nerves at ease and showed me that I already was a mom without even having to utter the words. By the next morning, I was completely on the baby train.

I was also on the nesting train even though I was only about ten minutes pregnant. I immediately started looking at houses online. Leo agreed, and four months later, we moved out of our downtown-Chicago apartment and into a four-thousand-square-foot house in the burbs.

"Dad, Johnson’s here!" Ty calls from the front door. "Oh, and Jesse just pulled up. She brought her kids and husband too!" he announces excitedly.

Jesse has been a fixture in our lives for the last twelve years. Liv really took to her, and judging by the tears she shed as Liv was handed her diploma earlier this morning, I think Jesse is pretty attached to her as well. I might even be willing to say that we have become friends. I’ve seen Brett a few times over the years. We don’t do barbeques together or anything, but it’s not earth-shattering if we end up in the same room. We’ve even been known to have a conversation or two. It is what it is, and given our history, it’s more than I ever expected us to have.

"What’s up, man?" Brett shakes Leo’s hand and tosses me a smile.

"Hey, Jess." Liv comes strolling into the room.

"How’s it going, Miss High School Graduate?" Jesse laughs, giving her a hug.

"Soon-to-be college freshman," Liv quickly corrects her.

"Oh, don’t remind me." I feign injury, grabbing my heart.

"Sorry we’re late!" Emma announces, walking in the front door looking slightly disheveled.

"You’re not late." Liv smiles, giving her a hug.

"I thought it started at four thirty? Sarah, you
specifically
told me four thirty." She gives me an appalled look.

"I may have lied." I shrug unapologetically.

"So I see it runs in the family." Caleb laughs, squeezing me on the arm as he walks over to the guys huddled around the cooler full of beer on the deck.

"You want me to get you something to drink?" Leo asks from behind me, brushing the hair off my neck.

"You know, sometimes, I think back to that time period right before we got together and I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have imagined experiencing something as perfect as today. Did you ever imagine we would be here?" I ask, glancing around the room.

"Absolutely." He kisses the top of my head. "Thankfully,
ángel
, nothing’s perfect, because oftentimes, the flaws are the most beautiful part."

I smile knowing he’s never been more right.

In the end, no one was really wrecked or ruined. Our lives may have changed, but we’re not broken and nothing was truly stolen but time. It’s hard for me to reflect on the years of heartbreak and tragedy and feel anything positive about it. It was a journey, albeit a rough one, but we’re all better people because of it. But as I look around the room today, it’s easy to recognize that we all found the right course eventually.

Broken Course

THE END

Coming February 2015

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Fighting Silence

(On The Ropes, Book One)