“I’m going to leave my car,” Jill said. Sandy’s attention jerked to Jill. “You can go home whenever you want.”
“I’ll go with you. I’m sure Aden would like to be with his kids,” Sandy said.
Jill shook her head and hugged Sandy.
“I think he’ll need your special help,” Jill said in Sandy’s ear. “You know what it’s like to come home from an awful experience. You could really help. I bet Aden will need you when the kids get to bed.”
Jill gave Sandy the Lexus keys.
“Your car?”
“Yeah, I just found that out. I guess Jacob bought it for me for our non-date.” Jill hugged Sandy again. “I’m going with Sam. Love you, Sandy.”
Sandy stood at the front door to Aden’s house and waved. When she closed the door, Aden came running from the back of the house. Seeing Sandy, he slid across the hardwood floors to a stop.
“Will you stay? The kids are exhausted. Noelle’s already asleep. Nash should be out in a moment. I could really use . . . a friend.”
Sandy nodded.
“Good.” Aden kissed her. “Thanks.”
~~~~~~~~
On the living room couch of Aden’s Park Hill bungalow, with her leg tucked up under her, Sandy felt a part of her unwind, or melt. Her soul listened to this man talk about his life. His eyes and mind turned to her with an open caring she’d never imagined coming from a man. She craved more — more connection, more warmth, more of Aden Norsen. With her head on his shoulder, she fell asleep on the couch. He woke her aand insisted she stay in his guest bedroom.
Sandy came out of the small guest bathroom to find Aden asleep on the twin guest bed. He’d waited for her to say good night. His eyes opened the moment she was close.
In a rush of emotion, he reached for her. After six years of longing, his simple gesture sparked a blaze inside her. She was swept away by her own passion for this man.
Lips pressed, hips merged, and they joined in a dance of sensation. Her fingertips burned with the plush texture of his skin. Her body responded at the nip of his teeth against her nipples, her neck, and her ears. Her mouth pulled kiss after kiss from his lips. Each pulse brought deeper waves of connection. Fast and slow, on top and under him, she felt only her fervor for this man.
Their final blaze of glory brought up Sandy’s long-held pain. While his lips kissed her face and eyes, she wept. His arms held her tight through the passing of nameless pain and sadness.
When the storm passed, Sandy attacked. She pulled and pressed at him. She bit at his body and allowed her fingernails to rake at his flesh. Aden matched her with sheer animal passion. In this pure, honest physicality, Sandy’s soul opened to him. Her hands above her head, her body conquered, she called him to join her. Without hesitation, he followed her into oblivion.
Sandy’s very being joined his to dance among the familiar stars. Around and around they waltzed until, one breath at a time, they rejoined their bodies on the cramped bed in the guest room of his Park Hill bungalow. They fell spent to the bed. Wrapped around each other, they slept.
~~~~~~~~
Mike had asked, but Valerie didn’t want to go out. In fact, Valerie didn’t want to leave the bed. She wanted to be tickled, cuddled, and loved. He got up at some point and brought Brie, strawberries, and champagne back to bed. With her head in his lap, he fed her the fruit and cheese. Looking into her hazel eyes, he saw her love for him shining back. Around midnight, they migrated to the large bathtub.
“It’s been a week,” Mike said.
He slipped her hair over her shoulder to use a sponge on her back. She lay back into his lap. He kissed her lips and she smiled.
“Are you . . . Do you . . . I mean . . .” Mike scrunched his eyebrows together. Valerie’s thumb smoothed out the crease between his eyebrows.
“There’s only one time in my life that I’ve felt this right . . . complete.”
“In Monterey?”
“In Monterey.”
He pulled her between his knees. She tucked her arms over his knees and leaned back against his chest.
“Are you going to start . . .”
“Our usual argument?” Valerie finished his statement. “You always start our usual argument.”
“I do? How?”
“‘You’re just going to leave again,’” Valerie imitated his voice. “‘You may as well just go.’ Or, my personal favorite, ‘If he’s that great, why don’t you just marry him?’”
“Ouch,” Mike said. “Wes?”
“The other two were just for the press,” Valerie said. “Yes, Wes.”
Mike stared at the wavy glass block window to the Castle garden. The moon hadn’t reached them yet. The distant streetlights reflected off the glass, creating a wispy dance of light. He sighed.
“Sorry. You went on and on and on and on about him.”
“I did?” Valerie asked. “Really?”
“He was smart and sophisticated and went to all the cool parties and knew everyone and wore designer clothing and produced the best films and . . . I figured you were already fucking him, so . . . Were you?”
“Not until you told me to leave,” she said.
She didn’t dare look at his face because she knew the pain she would see there. She wasn’t proud of herself or her actions. She and Mike had danced this dance so long that she wasn’t really sure what were her decisions and what were his. Did he make her sleep with Wes? No. But he told her to. Or did he?
She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“Oh, I was thinking about us.”
“What about us? Are you leaving again?”
She hit his leg with her hand and he laughed. She tipped her head up to kiss the underside of his chin.
“I . . .” Valerie started.
She shook her head. The thoughts bounced around her head like ping-pong balls until a single image floated to the surface — Mike’s back as he left for basic training.
“I stood at the door for three hours hoping you would come back. You’d change your mind and work for my dad. I was sure you’d never, ever, ever leave me.”
Hoping she would continue, Mike let the silence lag. She almost never talked about herself, and never talked about this time in their lives. She took a breath and let it out before saying anything else.
“I met the mailman at the door every day for three months. And when your random and rare letters came, I’d sit in my room for a day, at least, and read them over and over again. I was sure you’d be home in time to take me to prom or homecoming or . . . see me graduate. When you finally came home, you were so grown up, mature. You’d traveled all over the world. I could almost taste the women on you. I was just some stupid little small-town, high school girl, and you were a man.”
“Val, I . . .” Mike started, then stopped. This was her turn, her story. He could wait. He kissed the top of her head. Leaning back, he stretched his long arms to reach her brush on the marble counter. She almost purred when he began brushing her hair. “I want to hear what you have to say.”
“When I went to UCLA, I was going to find someone else . . . someone who’d stay . . . with me. But I never did.”
Valerie sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was trying to be good enough for you . . . for you.”
“Push, pull, push, pull, push, pull.”
Valerie jerked around in the bathtub so fast that the hairbrush flew out of Mike’s hand.
“Tell me this.” Her index finger jabbed his chest. “Who have you loved? Who? Who? Tell me. WHO?”
“I’ve only ever loved you, Val.”
“THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?”
Her eyes blazed her anger and pain. He saw her, at sixteen, standing at the door waiting all those hours. He saw her clutching his half-assed letters. He saw her face the last time they made love before he left for basic training. And the betrayal on that same face when he returned from his first tour
. He’d changed. She hadn’t.
He left and didn’t come back until long after she stopped waiting for him.
In that moment, her finger bruising his chest, he saw every twist and turn of their relationship. His big hand covered her hand and finger. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“I left because of me and me only. I came back because of you. I’ll never leave again, Valerie and . . .” Mike stopped talking. His eyes caressed her face. “I’m sorry.”
“Please finish.”
“I will fight every day to stay right here . . . by your side . . .”
Their eyes held. She leaned forward and their lips touched. Sighing, she leaned against his chest.
“But if you want to be with Wes, fine. Hell, torture has its privileges. I can tolerate almost anything every once in a while, as long as I don’t have to fuck him.”
Valerie smiled and shook her head. This was one of the things she loved about Mike. He could diffuse any situation with a tangential reference to something absurd.
“He can have you on Wednesday nights.”
“Wednesday?”
“While I play hockey. Our team switched from Saturdays to Wednesdays.”
“Hockey?”
“Yeah, he can spend a couple hours while I’m at hockey, if that’s what you want but . . .”
Valerie kissed him quiet.
“But when we’re in tournament . . .”
“Stop,” she said. “I don’t want to be with Wes. I only want you. I love you.”
He kissed her lips.
“Please don’t leave me again,” she whispered.
“Never by choice.”
“Never by choice,” she repeated his vow.
Mike retrieved the hair brush from across the room. Turning on the hot water to warm the tub, he kissed her head and returned to brushing her hair.
“So, no more hockey tournaments?”
“Now Val, be reasonable . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
What was that?
Sunday morning, 6:30 a.m.
Jill tapped on Mike and Val’s door. When no one answered, she knocked. Naked, Mike jerked open the door just as her hand moved to pounded on it. She thumped him on his sternum.
“Sorry.”
Mike nodded and swung the door closed.
“Wait,” Jill said. She held the door open with her foot. “There’s a bunch of people here for you. They’re in the kitchen. They came through the tunnels. Alex said she knew the codes because she set them up?”
“Alex?”
“It’s Alex Hargreaves and her twin, Max, and a bunch of people speaking French . . .”
“Crap. Val! You have to get up!”
Mike moved into the hallway.
“Clothing?” Jill asked.
“Right,” he said.
He went back into the apartment. Jill stood in the doorway until he came out pushing Valerie in front of him. Valerie was wearing one of his dress shirts and his boxer shorts. Her hair was tied in a loose knot. In this unguarded moment, Valerie was stunningly beautiful. Mike pulled a T-shirt over his head as they started down the hall.
“Pants?” Jill asked.
“Oh, crap. Keep her here.”
Mike jogged back into the apartment for a pair of jeans.
“Why are they here, Mike?” Valerie said.
The sleeves of his dress shirt hung over her hands. She rubbed her large hazel eyes with the shirt’s cuffs. The moment he was near her, she clung to him. He lifted her into his arms.
“Sorry, we just fell asleep,” Mike said. “She’s like this when she doesn’t sleep. She’ll snap out of it when she sees people.”
Jill grinned when she heard them kissing behind her. Jill jogged down the stairs to give them some privacy. When she entered the main kitchen, Alex was making coffee. Jill could see a crowd of people laughing and talking in the main Castle living area.
“Are they awake?” Alex asked.
“Barely. They are a little . . .”
Alex raised her eyebrows. She nodded her head toward the stairwell where Mike held Valerie in his arms. Mike was clearly trying to talk Valerie into meeting their guests; Valerie was only interested in kissing him.
“They’re always like that,” Alex said.
“I never knew there was a ‘they,’” Jill said.
“They have all this drama about whether they are together or not. But get them in the same room?”
Jill nodded.
“ROPER,” Alex commanded.
Mike’s head jerked up. Alex pointed toward the Castle living room. He carried Valerie through the kitchen and into the living room.
Valerie squealed.
Jill stepped out of the way so Valerie could run past her. Valerie took the stairs two at a time. Valerie’s footsteps pounded overhead. Wham. Their apartment door slammed closed.
“What was that?” Jill asked.
Mike poked his head into the kitchen. He looked at Jill then Alex.
“She’s a little excited,” Mike said.
Alex and Jill laughed.
~~~~~~~~
Aden woke alone on the cramped twin guest bed.
And certain he had never felt so very alone.
Jill told him to go slow. He had tried to go slow. But last night . . .
He fucked up.
Standing from the bed, he stretched his sore body and smirked. The guest bathroom mirror reflected the unmistakable marks of passion created by Sandy’s teeth and nails.
And his heart ached with loss.
Sandy was gone, probably forever.
How could one man experience so much wonder and so much loss at the same time?
Hearing the water run, he remembered that the kids were home. He slipped downstairs to his bedroom, showered, and dressed then went to find the kids. They weren’t in their rooms. Standing in the hallway, he heard Nash’s voice, then Noelle’s voice coming from the kitchen. He went down the hall to find them.
“Oh, don’t worry, Sandy, we know all about sex,” Noelle said. “I haven’t had any sex. I don’t think Nash has had any sex either.”
“Nope,” Nash said. “But we saw a bunch this weekend.”
“Yeah,” Noelle said. “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t like Daddy said it was.”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked.
“Well, Daddy says that sex is how adults play with each other. Like Nash plays soccer and I play gymnastics.”
“It didn’t look very fun,” Nash said.
“Why did you see sex?” Sandy asked.
“Because Nuala was doing drugs and having sex with men,” Nash said. “I told her we couldn’t be around drugs. But she just laughed at me.”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked.
“Daddy says we have addict parents,” Noelle said. “Do you know what an addict is?”
“Sure do.”
“Dad says because we have addict parents, we are more sensitive to drugs and alcohol. We can’t be around it,” Nash said. “That’s why I locked us in the closet.”
“That was a very smart and brave thing to do, Nash,” Sandy said.
“My brother was amazing,” Noelle said. “You should have seen him. He wouldn’t let them take me or . . .”
“Take you?”
“Into the other room,” Noelle said. “They wanted to have sex with me. But I told them that I was not a grown up and I did not want to play with them. Then Nash locked us in the closet.”
Aden’s heart seized with rage. No wonder Nuala was so adamant that she wanted the kids this weekend. Nuala’s party plans included his daughter. He rushed forward to comfort his kids but stopped in his tracks. Sandy’s neutral kindness was helping the kids. He paced back and forth to cool his rage.
“That’s why you called the police?” Sandy asked.
“Yeah,” Nash said. “Dad gave me a phone and told me to call him if I needed him. I was going to call but then I hoped he was
with you . . . on a date. Dad said he was going to see you when we talked. So I called the police.”
“I think you both are very brave,” Sandy said. “Muffin?”
Aden heard the kids move forward. Blowing out the last of his rage, he walked forward into the kitchen. Noelle was sitting on a barstool at the kitchen median while Nash was sitting in front of the kitchen computer. They were both eating muffins.
“DADDY!!” Noelle said.
She jumped off the stool to hug Aden. Nash joined them.
“We were just talking to Sandy,” Noelle said. “We like her a lot. Plus, she made blueberry muffins. Don’t they smell great? She made coffee too. Do you want some? I can get it.”
Aden kissed Noelle’s head, then Nash’s.
“It’s great to have you here” Aden said. “I need to steal Sandy from you.”
“Okay Daddy,” Noelle said. “She has to go anyway. But she said she would come back to see us.”
“Can we go to the splash fountain today?” Nash asked.
“And the zoo?” Noelle asked.
“You bet.”
Taking Sandy’s hand, Aden led her into his basement bedroom. He wrapped her in his arms, and she giggled.
“Last night was . . .”
“Incredible,” Sandy said. “Yeah.”
He brushed her lips with his lips.
“I thought you’d gone . . . that I’d blown it . . . that . . .”
Sandy put her finger over his lips.
“I heard Noelle crying. She was standing in the hall looking for you. She didn’t want to disturb you . . . us . . . She seemed to know who I was — which was weird . . .”
“We don’t have a lot of secrets around here.”
Sandy smiled.
“I’m glad. I told her I would make her some blueberry muffins. She woke Nash. We talked. That’s all that happened. They had an awful time at their mom’s.”
“Sounded like you’re really good with kids.”
“I took care of my little sister and brother a lot.” Sandy shrugged. “I think the kids need you. Can you take Monday off?”
“I can, but keeping to the schedule helps them feel more normal than hanging around with me.”
“Jill’s baby Katy is like that.”
He tugged her to him and she rested her head on this chest.
“I have to get going,” Sandy said. “I meet Jill for breakfast and church every week. We’re hanging out today. Val said she would let us go through her old dresses since we didn’t find anything at the mall. Plus, it’s the one-week anniversary of the non-date. Delphie told Katy she would make a cake.”