“No, it was fine. This is how I end every day.”
“It’s true,” Jon says. Shea nods her head, petting the sleeping puppy in her lap. “I got everything from the pet store you asked for. It’s in Edie’s closet… so Shea wouldn’t find it and wonder which of us was switching to The Honest Kitchen dog food or wonder why we were going to keep Willow in a crate.”
“I saw the crate,” Shea admits. “I wondered, but I just assumed it was a gift for someone.”
“For you,” I tell her.
“He’s going to outgrow that crate in a matter of months, you know?”
“I know. Then we upgrade. But we have to train him. I’ve been reading up on this. I’ve got about two months to whip him into shape before I leave.”
“You have about twenty-four hours to get him potty-trained,” my brother says. “Because I lose my patience after that. When you said you were staying with us, the dog wasn’t a part of the deal.” He’s smiling when he’s saying it, so I know he’s not serious, but I don’t want the dog making a mess of his loft any more than he does.
“I’ll be watching him like a hawk while I’m here–”
“His first lie,” he interrupts, talking to Livvy. Yeah, I do have other things on the agenda. Sleep… sex… I can’t do either of those things and watch the dog.
“Shea’s also narrowed down our search significantly, so I bet we’ll be out by next weekend.”
“Will, don’t let him bully you. Stay as long as you need to. Or until Willow comes. When the baby’s born, I need you out,” she says bluntly. “I can’t do one-year-old, newborn, nearly-twenty-five-year-old brother-in-law and puppy.”
“How the fuck did I get lumped into that?”
She and Shea both laugh at me as we pull into the drive at their building. Their doorman greets me by name, welcoming me back. I help Livvy out of the car, handing her over to Jon as soon as he walks around.
Before Shea and I head upstairs, we cross 5th Avenue and walk Gunner in the park for a few minutes. When we get back into the building, I let her in on my secret.
“I need you to go upstairs and pack a bag. We’re staying somewhere else for the next two nights.”
“We are?”
“Hell, yes. My first few nights back with you? I don’t want to spend it in my brother’s place. Not with their whole open loft thing going on.”
“We have a door,” she says as the elevator takes us up to the twelfth floor.
“That’s not enough.” I see a faint tinge of pink on her cheeks as she smiles.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“I booked us a room at a very nice hotel.”
“But what about Gunner?” She picks him up, hugging him into her body and pouting after she asks the question.
“Of course he’s coming with us. We’re responsible pet owners. It’s his first night with us. The hotel is pet-friendly. They even have a crate waiting for him in our very nice room. Did I mention it was very nice?”
“Is it nice?” she asks me, playing along.
“Very. A suite on the twenty-third floor, overlooking the city and Central Park. Liv told me you were planning to take a couple days off, so I was hoping that was to spend some time with me.”
“To look for a place, yes.”
“Just to look for a place?”
“That’s what I told Livvy.” She knocks on the door to the loft before trying the handle and walking inside. I take Gunner from her, setting him on the floor but keeping him on his leash.
“Livvy’s no fool.”
“It’s our private life,” she whispers after she shushes me.
“Hey, guys,” I say to my brother and sister-in-law. “Shea and I are going to stay at the Sherry-Netherland to look for a place for the next two nights.” I use air quotes for added emphasis. Shea elbows me in the stomach.
“Thank God,” Jon says. “I was just discussing that with Livvy, and how awkward this could potentially be.”
“I’m just going to go pack,” my girlfriend says, scurrying out of the room quickly.
“Shea, it’s okay!” Livvy calls after her, then turns her attention to me. “We didn’t hear a thing when you stayed over Christmas.”
“I wasn’t quite as… fuck, I wasn’t quite as horny then, Livvy.”
“Shut up, Will!” Shea yells. “Get in here and pack your stuff or something!”
My brother throws a pillow at me. “Your stuff is… everywhere. In the back living area, mainly.”
“Is it in your way?”
“We’ll deal with it until you get the whole looking for a place thing out of your system. Livvy knows the urgency of that really well.”
I don’t see it, but I hear the smack of her palm on his arm and the ouch! that follows. He may have let it slip when he was in LA that both pregnancies have been really good for his sex life, as well. Her hormones are apparently out of whack very much in his favor.
“I have a path to walk, Will. That’s what he meant to say.”
“That’s what I thought I heard.” I say, turning around and nodding at her before heading toward my things. My guitars are lined up against the wall. I always take my Martin everywhere I go, but I decide to leave it here this time, wanting to devote all my attention to Shea. Since I’d known our plans, I had already packed my duffel and stowed it in a larger suitcase when I was in LA, so now, all I have to do is get Gunner’s things together.
It takes about an hour to get the puppy settled in his admittedly luxurious crate at the hotel. We’d played ball with him and took him outside one last time, then babied him until he fell asleep in my lap. He didn’t want to be put inside his cage and he cried for awhile, but eventually, he dozes off again.
Already changed into more comfortable clothes, Shea and I lie across the bed on our stomachs, watching him growl and bark as he sleeps.
“Like that little thing is going to provide me protection,” she says, looking at me skeptically. “He’s afraid of his own dreams.”
“Like you never had nightmares as a child,” I respond. “Once you learned self-defense, you fought back. Gunner won’t let you down. I give you my word.”
She smiles and leans to her side. I take that as my invitation to move in for a kiss. As soon as our lips are touching, her hand is on my naked back, scraping, trying to pull me on top of her.
That’s my invitation for a lot more, and I don’t waste any time. Her legs have me trapped between them as I move against her in expeditious foreplay. She easily slips out of her oversized satin robe, leaving her in a matching top and relatively modest underwear. I push myself onto my knees and lightly press my palms flat against her abdomen, dragging them slowly up with the hem of her shirt in between my fingers. My hands linger on her breasts until they beckon to be caressed with my tongue and lips. Shea vocalizes her satisfaction in a long, airy hum that I can feel with every point of my body that touches hers.
She finishes taking off her top and fists my hair, eventually bringing my mouth up to hers. I roll over onto my back, bringing her on top of me, just to make it easy to undress her the rest of the way. As she’s kicking off her panties, I slide my hand in between our bodies and groan when I feel just how badly she wants me right now.
She breaks our kiss, first to laugh at my reaction, and then to crawl down my body to carefully remove my boxers. Before I can even move, her lips are around me, her tongue swirling and jutting against my sensitive skin.
“Shea?” I’m barely able to speak.
“Mmmm?” she murmurs, and I sit up abruptly to keep myself from coming right then and there.
“What?” she asks, surprised by my response.
I’m up on my knees, meeting her eye-to-eye. “I am not immobile, and I don’t want to have sex with you like I am…”
“That’s… intense…” she says, suddenly turning from sexy to smitten and allowing me to take her into my arms and lay her against the bed with a little more force than I’ve probably ever done befor
e. “What are you gonna do?” she asks me, breathless.
“I’m gonna make love to you–because that’s all I ever want to do with you–but I want it bad tonight.” She gasps when I say bad, surprised to feel me inside her. I stay still, enjoying the ecstasy I feel in the warmth of her.
“Oh, god,” she sighs. “Do it again.”
I thrust again, going harder and faster and deeper.
“Ohhh…” Her eyes shut, but her mouth is open; her tongue lingers just behind her teeth as if it’s looking for words, but I realize it’s just yearning for mine. When they finally touch, they entangle, mimicking the motion of our bodies, and weeks of pent-up frustration carom between us: in pushes and pulls, in yells and in whispers, in pleasure and in good, good pain.
We end up at an odd angle with me grasping the side of the headboard and holding her leg over my back with my other hand when I feel her entire body tightening around mine. I’d managed to hold out until I could make sure she was with me, all the way.
Crashing our lips together, we hold the air between us. I can barely move, but the faint oscillations are all it takes to bring us both to a euphoric state I know I’ve never been in before. The earth moves beneath me in gentle waves. All of the tension leaves my body. I could swear there is a moment of temporary blindness, but my sight is filled with all the colors of the spectrum. And to combat the cold that takes over my body, there’s a tightness around my heart.
When I finally open my eyes, the glow of her cheeks and the glimmer in her eye make her appear more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. Before I saw it, I would have said it wasn’t possible.
If I believed in heaven, this would be it for me.
I kiss her softly and smooth out her wild hair.
“Let’s get you under the covers,” she says, noticing my trembling. We both rearrange ourselves and pick up the pillows off the floor, nestling together under the blankets. “As many touch points as possible,” she whispers, pressing her body against mine before running her fingers through my hair.
I take a few deep breaths, smiling at the familiarity of the smell of her shampoo. I pull her in for a quick hug when I think about the fact that I get to spend a few uninterrupted months with her. We could do this nightly. And daily. Multiple times a day, maybe.
After kissing the top of her head, I glance over at the dog crate. He must be really tired to have slept through all of that.
“Shea, if I ever die while we’re having sex, I want you to know that I died happy.”
“What?!” she says, pushing away from me.
“I’m cold. Come back.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy for about ten more seconds before snuggling back into me. “Don’t ever say anything like that again.”
“Okay. But I don’t want you to feel guilty or anything,” I continue.
“Shut up, Will. Why would you say that?”
“Because tonight it felt a little like a, uh… a spiritual passing,” I tell her with a grin.
“You should just say that next time.” She presses her lips against my chest. “I like that much better.” She traces my collarbone with her tongue. “Just tell me when you’ve been reincarnated, or whatever.”
“Yeah?” I ask her.
She looks up at me and lines my bottom lip with her thumb. “I’m not finished welcoming you home yet.”
“God, I love coming home.” I run my hand down her body and move her leg over my hip, then reposition myself.
“I think you’ve already been revived,” she says, cocking her head.
“You saved me, Shea. You always do,” I whisper to her. “I love you.”
Chapter 30 – Two years later
After securing the diaper in place, I dress Hampton in the clothes Shea had set out for him. He only protests a little when I try to put on the pants.
“Yeah, I’d be pissed if they made me wear corduroys, too, little guy. Who’s doing your shopping? Did your daddy buy you this? I bet your daddy bought you this. I bet you have loafers to wear, too, don’t you?” I look in the bottom of the diaper bag and pull out a pair of tiny, brown loafers and shake my head. “I know your daddy. Didn’t I tell you last night when I was singing to you? I know your daddy. Fucking loafers… sorry. Damn loafers.”
He laughs at me and squirms away as I tickle his belly and pat him on the bottom. “Where’s your guitar? Let’s jam. Go get your guitar.”
His eyes light up in recognition, and he looks around the room until he finds his purple plastic instrument. He does his nineteen-month-old version of running to get it, and then brings it to me.
“You’ve got this!” I tell him, pressing one of the buttons and letting him hear the sound. He claps his hands. “Your turn.”
Hampton takes over from there, playing a song that must sound awesome to his untrained ears, because he’s laughing like a fool right now, happier than I’ve ever seen him. I get out my phone and take some video of him, getting a close-up of his long, blonde bangs that hang over his eyes like the rock star he could someday be–minus the corduroys, loafers, and the name. Hampton. It’s so pretentious, and it doesn’t suit the kid at all.
Peron assured us all a nickname would rise to the surface, but none ever did. All the women love the name Hampton, so Hampton it is. I don’t know what nickname he’d have. Tony? That doesn’t really fit him, either. He was named after Peron’s elementary school music teacher. My friend credits her with saving his life. In the fourth grade, he’d started hanging around some rough kids. His parents both worked two jobs, and he had too much idle time on his hands.
Mrs. Hampton held him after choir practice one day because he’d been disruptive. She asked him to dust, organize, and put away all the instruments, so he did–after he did a little experimenting with them all. He liked the keyboard and the banjo the best, and asked if he could come back the next day. That was the beginning of his music career, and over the years, as he watched his old friends get expelled from school, get arrested for grand theft auto, and get gunned down in a drug deal gone bad, he knew he owed her his sincere gratitude.
“Woof!” Sniff sniff. I look at Gunner to see his tail begin to wag quickly, but he stays in his poised “sit” position just beside the apartment door like he was trained to do. That means someone he knows is approaching on the other side of it, and since the doorman didn’t call up, I know it’s my mother. I’d told him I was expecting her.
“Good boy, Gunner,” I say to him, patting him on the head as I open the door. He remains seated, still as a statue. Hampton runs over to me, and I pick him up before he tries to escape into the hallway. “Hey, Mom.” She’s still five paces away. I don’t know how our dog can pick up the scent of people the moment they step off the elevator, but he can.
“Hi, Will. Hello, Hampton.” She hugs me and kisses Peron’s son on the cheek. “Where’s my grandpuppy?” she asks, waving a toy squirrel in her hand.
“Where he’s supposed to be. You don’t have to bring him presents every time you come here. Release, Gunner.” The excited wagging of his stumpy tail at the sight of my mother makes his whole body move, and he happily accepts the toy she gives him, as well as the scratches behind his ears.
“He’s my only grandpuppy. Let me spoil him like I want to,” she says. “Now let me see this little guy.” She takes Hampton from my arms and hugs him tightly, but he starts to fuss immediately.
“He just wants to be free, Mom,” I tell her, making sure she’s not offended that he’s shirking her affection. “He likes to run.”
“He’s a boy, what can I do?” she asks. “All three of you were just like that. Max let me hug him a little longer. Was he good for you this morning?”
“Perfect, yeah. Didn’t give me any trouble. He ate all of his food… only threw a little at me.” I look down at my shirt to point out the evidence. “He took a nap and let me sleep a little more after Shea left.”
“What time did she leave?”
“Five-thirty, I think.” r />
“So early.”
“She has to open the restaurant. She owns the place, you know.”
“That should mean that she can have people do that for her.”
“It’s her baby right now. Someday, maybe she’ll trust other people to do that. Not today.”
“Maybe when she has another type of baby…”
“Don’t you start with me.” I glare out of the corner of my eyes, but smile when I do it, so she knows I’m not angry with her. “That’s why we have Gunner. Sit and give Nana kisses, Gunner.” Mom leans over as my Airedale sits politely, licking her exactly three times on the cheek. “Good boy. Release, Gunner. I need to shower,” I tell my mom.
“That’s why I’m here. I’ll let Hampton run amok. Don’t worry about anything.”
“Shea said he might need a snack before we go. There are some options on the island.”
“Okay.”
Gunner follows me into the master bedroom, happy to go wherever I am when my girlfriend isn’t home. If she’s here, though, I may as well be back in Abu Dhabi. He definitely has a favorite. Since I adopted the dog for her, though, I don’t mind. He made her feel safe while I was gone, and she finally got rid of the handgun. I didn’t ask her to. She did it on her own around the time that Peron and Hampton moved in next door.
So maybe Peron moving in added another layer of safety. It put my mind a little more at ease, too, even though he’d go away a few weekends a month to play with Damon while his parents watched his little boy. That was all the time he could commit to the band now that he was a single dad.
He’s now the band accountant–and ours, too. It’s what he went to school for, so his parents are happy he’s putting his degree to good use.
Before I get into the shower, I go back and lock the bedroom door. Our bathroom is state-of-the-art, with a walk-in shower that has walls on two sides, glass on another side, and no door. The last time Hampton stayed with us, he wandered away from Shea, somehow managed to open the bedroom door with the assistance of one of my shoes, and walked right into the shower with me, fully dressed. I wasn’t even paying attention until he started wailing, obviously surprised by the downpour of hot water he wasn’t expecting. Shea cried for an hour, worrying about what sort of horrible mother she’d be.