La Vie en Rose {Life in Pink}

  “What did you get at the store, Rare?” Emma asked as she stood and moved toward the bathroom.

  “Goodies. Wanna play in the kitchen with me?”

  “Sure. Let me use the bathroom first.” Emma smiled, which she’d been doing a lot lately, and that made him happy. He wanted to make other people happy.

  “You wanna help, too, Ri?”

  He tossed the remote aside. “Sure. What are we making?” He hoped it was food because he was hungry.

  “Deodorant.”

  “Oh.”

  Emma returned and washed her hands as his sister set up a bunch of ingredients. Rarity opened a bag of something called arrowroot and dumped a measurement of the powder into three bowls. She slid one in front of each of them and cracked open a jar of coconut oil.

  Riley dug a spatula into the semi-solid oil. “Is this what we’re mixing with it?”

  “Yup,” his sister said. “Get a glob and mush it with the arrowroot until it makes one big lump.”

  He took some and passed the oil to Emma. The three of them blended and poked, each working with their own concoction.

  “I’m adding essential oils to mine,” Rarity said. “I’m thinking lavender.”

  Emma frowned. “Mine’s not working.”

  “Just keep mushing.”

  Today they were making deodorant. Yesterday they made laundry soap and tomorrow they were scheduled to make a new batch of kitchen disinfectant. Each product was derived from completely organic materials and one hundred percent toxin free.

  “Now it’s starting to gel together,” Emma said as she squished the ingredients around in her bowl.

  Rarity, the orchestrator of all this, had her solidified clump and was already fitting it into a jar. “Do you realize it costs less than a dollar to make deodorant for all three of us? The stuff I was using cost almost five bucks a stick.”

  Last week she made chapstick, they were stocked for the next decade. “How much do you think the chapsticks cost per stick?” They had to be a little more costly, since she’d purchased the lip balm tubes.

  “Roughly? Maybe ten cents a tube?”

  “Ten cents?” Emma remarked, seemingly impressed. “The ones I usually buy sell for around four dollars.”

  “That’s the cost of mass production and marketing. I’m giving you a tube of balm. No labels or fancy artwork. My stuff’s naked.”

  “Au naturel!” Emma laughed.

  She showed him her progress, smiling proudly, and he slid her an empty jar. “You should sell this stuff, Rare. I bet a lot of people want to use cleaner products, but they don’t have the time to make them.”

  His hand stilled. Sell green products?

  His sister paused as well, her eyes going wide at the possibility. “Could you imagine?”

  He could. He could very easily imagine selling stuff like this. His heartbeat went from a slow trot to a thundering gallop. “How would you market it? Online?”

  Emma shrugged. “Why not a store? Oooh, it could be like an old apothecary! I’d shop there.”

  While Emma was simply fantasizing, he was strategizing. “Rare, what else have you made?”

  “Well, I made shaving cream, which was awesome—Lexi’s addicted to it. Hair gel, moisturizer, body wash, plenty of cleaning products, and next week I want to try shampoo.”

  His mind rapidly put together a rough inventory list. “Where are you getting the recipes?”

  She shrugged. “I read up on a lot of stuff and once I’ve learned what uses something has, I play around with different mixtures and oils. There are plenty of ideas online that can be adapted. Why? Do you really think I could sell this stuff?”

  “I do,” Emma said, capping off her deodorant and frowning. “I’m definitely not the person to help you with presentation though. Why does mine look like a four year old mixed it?”

  Riley laughed. “What did you do?”

  “I just mixed the ingredients Rarity gave me.”

  Rarity shoved Emma’s sad jar away. “Don’t worry about that now. Let’s go back to what we were saying. Do you think I could incorporate produce if I had a little stand?”

  His mind took flight. Why stop there? Why not grow an inventory? No additives. No toxins. No worries. “If you’re going organic you’d have to be certified and everything would have to be labeled.”

  “Definitely. How cool would that be, a totally home grown operation with everything people need to live, made fresh like the good old days? But we’d have a website.”

  “You could photograph your inventory for an online store,” Emma added. “You could even teach people about your products, make it like a little school and host events like jarring nights for people like me who need help.”

  “Aw, cakes, I like your sad deodorant.”

  She sulked. “It is sad.”

  Rarity’s smile bloomed. “And when they’re too busy, they could place an order, personalized down to what scents they prefer and we’d jar it and label it like Chanel no. 5, but it would be Lexi no. 2 or Emma no. 1.”

  His stomach flipped. Would it really be that complicated? “We should write down all our ideas.”

  Emma stopped pouting over her jar and looked at them. “Are you guys seriously considering opening a business?” Her expression seemed slightly withdrawn.

  He frowned. “Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  Rarity tipped her head, obviously noting Emma’s averseness too. “What’s wrong, toots?”

  “Well, you guys are going to have this really cool thing and I’m going to be doing what exactly? Working as a clerk?”

  “No,” Riley objected. “You’d be a partner. It would be ours.”

  “I don’t have any money to contribute to that,” she argued.

  “Do you think we do?” Rarity asked and snorted. “We’d have to start small with what’s in our savings.”

  But his savings was all he had left and he couldn’t tie it up in some half-baked business venture without calculating the risks. What if they needed that money? What if Emma needed more treatment? “I can’t touch my savings, but we have the money.”

  His sister stilled. “Riley—”

  “If the proposal was right—”

  “No,” his sister objected. “No one said it has to be that big. I’d be happy with a produce stand.”

  “You can’t live off that.”

  “Who says I need to?”

  “Think about it,” he argued. “If we did this right, it could be our livelihood. We’d be doing something great that helped others. We’re always talking about how we need to get back to basics and get rid of all the chemicals. We can’t be the only people thinking that way. We could afford this, Rarity.”

  “I can’t,” she snapped. “I don’t have the start up costs for something that big, neither does Emma, and for the record, neither do you.”

  She was wrong. If they presented it right, they could make the proposal and possibly have everything they needed. And he wouldn’t have to worry about their future, because this would be an investment in it. “But we do have the money.”

  “Riley,” she warned, shaking her head.

  “Rarity, it’s our money.”

  Emma’s gaze bounced between them. “Are you talking about asking your parents for help?”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he spoke over his sister.

  Rarity stood. “I’m not doing that, Riley. I’m not playing their games. Forget it.”

  “You won’t have to play their games. They have to follow the rules as much as we do. The money’s ours and if we meet the criteria, they can’t deny us. This would fall under part of the requirements.”

  “Your trust is different than mine!” She snapped. “Mine requires I marry a man.”

  He waved away her anxiety. “We wouldn’t even have to touch your money.”

  Emma’s shoulders lowered. “How much money do you guys have?”

  “A lot
,” they both answered.

  He looked at his sister. “Come on, Rare. Think about how cool that would be. Think of all the people we’d be helping. You love all this holistic stuff. You could go to school for it and actually do something that makes a difference. Emma could organize the business and design a brand for the company and I could run the financial end, I’d be your investor and allocate the funds for start up, because there’d be a return.” He laughed. “See, I can talk like a businessman.”

  “You can’t even match your clothes.”

  He winked at Emma. “I’ll have a wife to dress me. Please. We’d all be partners. Emma will keep us organized, you’ve got the know-how and I—hopefully—will have the funding. Say yes.”

  He held his breath, waiting as he pleaded with his eyes. “Please.” Maybe this was the fresh start they all needed.

  She sighed. “Fine, but everything has to be affordable. I’m not into extortion. I want to sell good things that ordinary people can afford. If our deodorant costs less than a dollar we sell it for less than a dollar.”

  He held out his hand. “Deal!”

  ****

  Riley placed his keys by the door and quietly entered the loft. Marla lifted her head from Rarity’s empty bed as he walked down the hall, but even she knew it was too late to play. Grabbing a towel, he went to the bathroom and showered.

  When he made it to their room, Emma was curled up in bed on her back. Soft blonde curls pressed to her ears as she slept soundly. She’d gotten in the habit of sleeping in panties and a strip of stretched lace over her chest, claiming it made her feel sexy. She was always sexy.

  Draping his towel over the chair, he climbed into bed and crawled over her. His nose nestled into her throat and he breathed. Emma.

  Kissing down her shoulders to her elbows, he explored. She shifted, and hummed sleepily, from that tranquil place between sleep and awake. His body hardened as he dragged his tongue over her belly and leisurely peeled away her panties.

  Sex was different now. It had taken some time to adjust. Mostly, he wanted Emma to be comfortable. It was an ongoing battle, getting her to realize her beauty had changed, but not faded. If anything, her strength made her more attractive. But he’d gladly remind her how incredible she was every day for the rest of their lives if that’s what it took.

  His mouth dragged over the gentle slope of her thighs, playfully biting and nibbling her tender spots as he scooted lower and parted her knees.

  “You’re boisterous tonight,” she whispered. The moment she awoke was always his favorite part of coming home.

  “I fantasized about this all night. I couldn’t wait to get home and in between your legs.”

  She giggled and stretched, presenting him with an incredible view. “I’m happy to oblige.”

  His palms caressed up her inner thighs as he lowered to his elbows, scattering slow kisses over every inch of her delicate skin. Sex had definitely evolved. He preferred thinking in terms of evolution rather than change, because change implied something might be lacking, but, to Riley’s thinking, they’d never been closer.

  It had taken a great deal of trying to get to the comfortable point they now enjoyed, and he was certain there would be momentary setbacks still to come. But talking about it helped.

  He liked sex. For him, it had always been a release. With Emma, they enjoyed silly banter, spontaneity, dirty talk, and fun. He didn’t see why boobs were necessary for that to continue.

  Initially, he’d been patient because she was healing. Abstinence was expected to a point. He understood her avoidance of sex, but it never occurred to him that her confidence would be so shaken after the mastectomy that she’d completely avoid intimacy.

  Sex he could go without. Intimacy he could not. But after her surgery the mere possibility of sex seemed to tie her in anxious knots, creating a void so wide she’d dodge his hand when it reached for hers. His heart broke the day she avoided sitting on the couch with him and started sitting on the chair across the room, simply unreachable.

  After everything they’d gone through, her nearness was something he depended on and he couldn’t understand why she would take that away when they’d already lost enough. It all became clear one afternoon while watching a movie. There was a love scene playing and the man was kissing the woman’s breasts. Emma stood and left the room.

  When he found her, she said it gave her a visceral ache in her chest, because she’d never feel such a thing again. He had no response.

  It wasn’t helping matters that her treatment interfered with her body’s natural responses. Emma was a sexual person and he knew she experienced arousal deep in her heart, but her body wasn’t cooperating the way she wanted it to and that destroyed her.

  When he finally insisted they talk about it, she cried, “I’m twenty-four years old and I feel like I’m never going to have normal sex again. That isn’t fair, not when I just found you and realized how wonderful sex can be.”

  “It can still be like that, cakes.” He’d kiss every square inch of her body if she’d just let him.

  “But it doesn’t feel the same. I want it to feel like it used to, but nothing’s the same! My chest is numb, but I sense my nipples where they used to be. I’m aroused but I’m not wet—everything’s broken!”

  It was in that moment that he understood the depth of the issue. This was more than insecurities, more than a fear that he might find her undesirable. This was about... lubrication. It was totally inappropriate, but he laughed.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “I’m sorry. I know we have rules about laughing and sex...but sweetheart, this is not the end of the world. You need to talk to your doctor. There are non-hormonal moisturizers, lube, and all kinds of other stuff to make you more comfortable. We can work around that. It’s silly to let something that irrelevant stop you from getting everything you want.”

  They made an appointment that day and within a week she was back in control. He noted the transformation in her openness immediately. Flirtatious glances turned to sweet affectionate caresses and he was confident they’d find their way back to each other.

  Once they opened Pandora’s box a sense of security blanketed them. They mutually wanted to restore the sexual side of their relationship. It was important to both of them. The more they experimented, the more comfortable they became, which led to a brand new awakening.

  When a person faced the terror of losing the one person they loved above all else, gratitude became a spice that intensified every element of living. The grass was greener, the sky was bluer, and the fucking was ridiculous.

  Not only were he and Emma having sex regularly, they were having it obsessively. In the shower, on the couch, over breakfast, on top of the washing machine, in the backseat of his car—if the mood struck they were crack-a-lacking.

  Their connection was stronger because of their desire to salvage the intimate parts of their relationship. Touching her, like he did now, had a way of spilling over into their day and seasoning all the small acts of love with a sense of chemistry. She was still his Emma and though their flame had flickered, there was no extinguishing the fire that burned in his blood for her.

  “God, you’re hot.” Her eyes found his and he groaned, never growing tired of the way she looked at him when he pleasured her. He drove his fingers into her, pressing firmly as she arched and came. Beautiful.

  Sliding up her body, she opened to him and he was home. She hummed as he kissed her. His body swelled as she pulled him close, her nearness blanketing him. Yes, this was an essential part of who they were, because nothing felt better than her arms holding him tight.

  ****

  The frosted glass doors opened and the receptionist returned. “Mr. Lockhart will see you now.”

  Riley nodded, wiped his clammy palms down the front of his pants, and stood. His father’s professional preferences differed drastically from the style his parents kept at the condo. Here, everything was blue with gaudy gold accents and drippi
ng crystal to complement the rich, over-polished wood furniture.

  Last time he was in this office he was about nine. It hadn’t changed.

  Muttering a thank you to the secretary who left him at the door, he stepped into his father’s office.

  His dad stood. “Riley.”

  “Dad.”

  “Your sister’s all right?”

  “Rarity’s fine.”

  He nodded and waved out a hand for him to enter. “Have a seat. I’m interested to hear what this visit’s about.”

  He cleared his throat and continued to do so as some sort of nervous tic. As he settled on the blue chair he focused on not clearing his throat again, so he licked his lips and incessantly swallowed instead.

  “How are things?” his father asked, most likely in an attempt to be polite and pretend they shared a normal interest in each other’s lives.

  “Good.” This should be the moment he announced he was engaged, but he stowed that information for now. “I came to talk to you about the incentive trust.”

  His father tipped his head, giving no impression that this surprised him. “I suspected. You’re familiar with your grandparents’ expectations. Are you still tending bar?”

  “Yes, but that’s going to change.”

  “Something’s inspired you. I’m curious to hear what it is.”

  “Rarity and I are starting a new company.” There was no point in asking. They were doing it with or without his support, because once he’d laid out the plans on paper, it seemed stupid not to follow through. But without the trust, he’d have to downsize a lot of their ideals.

  “And what sort of company do you have in mind? Is Rarity struggling with her photography hobby?”

  It pissed him off they never gave his sister the credit she deserved regarding her talent behind a lens. Her work had been featured in Time, but never garnered the slightest acknowledgement from their parents. But he wasn’t here to have the same old arguments.

  “It’ll be green based and located in New York. A little seed money would help. We’d rather own than rent and our startup costs are substantial for the products we’ll be producing.”

  “Define green.”

  “We want to produce holistic, organic merchandise for home, health, and hygiene.”