“So Chloe’s still dating that doctor?”
“Yep.” They lifted the edge of the dance floor section. “On three.”
Once they’d slid the plywood into place and secured it to the mending plate to keep it from sliding around when it was in use, Mac held out a hand for his work gloves.
He handed them over. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Stop with that look. I was only asking.”
Mac snorted, and shoved both pairs of gloves into the work tote where he kept all his dance floor paraphernalia.
Mac was the kind of guy who had work gloves and mallets he stored with the dance floor, along with a small pot of touch-up paint and a foam roller. His gardening tote had different sets of gloves to fit him and Wendy. His indoor tool box had another, and his outdoor tool box—stored in the garden shed instead of under the kitchen sink—had three sets of work gloves. Just in case he lost a pair.
Gabe sometimes wondered if the rent he paid made him an enabler.
“Seems to me you’ve asked me or Wendy one about Joe every month since we told you Chloe was dating him.”
“Not true.”
“Okay, I admit there was the one time you asked Paul instead.”
“You heard that?”
Mac laughed a lot more since becoming a dad. It was a fine thing to see. Even if sometimes it veered towards the mocking. “Oh, we heard it.”
“You got a nanny cam on me or something? Don’t trust me with your boy?”
It shouldn’t have been a bit of a surprise when Mac shoved the dance floor tote into his arms with a tad more than the necessary amount of violence.
“Man, if you don’t know we trust you with Paul by now, why are you even in my house?”
“Cause you love me.”
“Not that much I don’t.”
“Cause your son loves me, then.” Not that Paul had proved to be a picky kind of baby; he flirted like mad with anyone with eyebrows. Maybe anyone without, too. Kid was charmed by the world at large. Gabe put the tote back on the correct shelf in the shed, because Mac was standing at his shoulder. He slid it in label-first for the same reason.
“This is Joe,” Chloe said, and she sounded as brisk and unaffected and casual as a person could sound. And he ought to focus on shaking the man’s hand, instead of the nuances of her voice.
Didn’t mean he was put off noticing her scent. Something rich as the dark strands of her hair, clean like the crisp lines of her structured shirt. This year’s white was a rosy one, the jeans a half-hue darker than the top. It was all her usual but nothing tired or old about it.
He’d worn the painted shirt she gave him. Over the years he’d made a point of donning it when working with reds and greens, so it was just about festive, and only the two of them would be capable of spotting the nail polish that had first marked its canvas. And only he knew about the sketch of her in white gouache, now obscured by the colors flecked over the rest of the sleeve.
Joe was making small talk. It was a thing he should learn how to do better, but he was in no mood to look up to Doctor Joe for an example.
“Hey, you’ve got to see this,” Gabe interrupted. Chloe didn’t seem to find him rude.
“What?”
“Hang on, let me grab Penny.” His brainwave to cut her away from her date started when the Yorkshire Terrier settled into her basket under the dining table. It wasn’t but a second before he’d scooped the pup up and took Chloe’s elbow to lead her out of the front room.
They’d set Paul's crib in the master bedroom, to keep him as insulated from the party noise as possible. His babysitter hopped off the bed when they entered, pausing the movie on her laptop.
“Parrain checking on us again?” she asked.
“Don’t be impudent. I’m just showing off my godson. If he gets fussy, shut the door and I’ll stop dragging guests in here to prove what a blessing he is.”
The babysitter rolled her eyes and put the buds back in her ears. “Do not wake that sweet baby. The War Boys are about to catch up to Furiosa.”
He gave her one of the teacher looks he’d thought he’d retired. “Is that a legal copy?”
The babysitter pretended she couldn’t hear him. He’d tell her dads about it later; he could always find one or both of them lounging on the sofas.
“Ignore her,” he told Chloe. “Come see.”
She was already standing over Paul. Entranced, as far as he could see, by his cute-as-cute sleepyhead pose, arms flung out, rosebud lips and black eyebrows twitching as his dreams carried him wherever babies went in their imaginations.
“He’s grown so much,” she whispered. She rested a light hand on the rise and fall of his tummy. “All day long I’m with babies half his size. Smaller. Every time I see him I feel like I’m an intruder in another reality.”
He’d never thought about that. Wendy must get the same feeling sometimes. To him, Paul seemed miniature, unfathomably fragile. But Chloe and Wendy and all their colleagues would see the miracle of his hearty appetite and sturdy neck and sputter-giggles and wide, interested eyes. No wonder Wendy teased for how tentative he was while handling the boy.
“I’m glad you’re in this reality,” he said, and meant it more than she knew. What a sap he was. He cleared his throat as quietly as he could. “You haven’t even looked to see why.”
His words got her focused on him again. Speaking of wide, interested eyes. He lifted Penny a little higher, so Chloe could read the text on the dog’s tiny faux-white-fur hemmed shirt: “Naughty.” He raised his eyebrows, and she glanced away so fast he almost missed her bright flush.
That hadn’t been what he meant at all. Well, not entirely. He lowered Penny so she was beside the bassinet, and Chloe let out a laugh loud enough to earn a glare from the babysitter.
Paul wore a coordinating sleeper, except the gilt print on his read “Nice.”
Chloe had him hold Penny in place so she could snap a photo. That done, he deposited the Yorkie on the bed, where she gave her attention to whatever dystopian battle was playing out of the laptop screen. He pulled the door half-shut behind them. While he still had her away from the rest of the party, he said, “I wasn’t—you’re always noticing the dog’s holiday attire. I thought you’d get a kick out of those two together.”
She nodded. He was still talking quietly, and maybe that’s why she stood so near to him. He did not raise his voice. “I wasn’t alluding to your thong.”
She shook her head. “Of course you weren’t. It was so long ago.”
Her voice was soft, too. He edged closer so they could hear each other. “I’d pretty well forgotten all about them. What they said. How they looked on you.”
“How you ran your thumb over the words while I was wearing them.”
“How they matched your pretty little lacy bra.”
“How,” she licked her lips, “you reached inside them to touch me.”
It was pure coincidence and nothing more that they’d fetched up against the bathroom door. He nudged it open. She backed into it. He closed it behind them.
“How hot it was when you came for me.”
“How hard you were. How much I wanted you inside me.” She hitched herself up on the counter, spreading her legs. He filled the gap.
They were both in jeans, so maybe it was nothing more than sense memory, but he swore he could smell their commingled arousal. “How wet and hot and ready you were when I fucked you.”
Her arms circled him, her hands reached down to tug his shirt out of his waistband. The weight of her breasts was just as perfect as he remembered. Her nipples furled under his thumbs.
“How slow and fast and well you fucked,” she whispered, and their mouths met, their tongues an echo of that night, their moans stifled, their hips grinding uselessly, the contact desperate and rapid and desperately sterile. He was going to wrinkle her shirt trying to get at her breasts. He knew it wasn’t fair, he knew she was there with a date, but damn fucking spitfire diablo hell she set him aflame. And she wasn’t running from his kisses, wasn’t pushing his hands away.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, lifting his damn hands clear of her. Not his mouth, because damn, but he stilled his body.
“No. Don’t be,” she said, and unbuttoned his fly.
“Chloe.”
“Just.” She leaned away, too, and they were staring at each other, the tiny close space of the bathroom unbearably bright and impersonal and loud with their breathing. She raked her fingers into her hair, and he stared at her wild eyes, at her swollen lips. At her straining nipples.
“How?” He swallowed, tilting his head toward Joe. “How serious is that out there?”
She blew out a breath. Winced. “On his side or on mine?”
He backed to sit on the edge of the tub. “Shit.” Then he stood, because the position made his balls even bluer. He stroked a calming hand down his fly, but he was watching Chloe, and she was watching him, and she moaned. Every sound was magnified in his mind, maybe in reality, maybe it was an echo chamber in this small tiled room, but he was damned if he his brain possessed the clarity to figure it out.
“Not like I have a condom on me anyway,” he said, trying for levity.
“Me either.”
“And you’ve got a boyfriend.”
She hitched up her shoulder and hopped off the counter, turning to look in the mirror. Her hand went to her swollen lips, and he was the one to groan.
They were almost side-by-side. She reached over and twisted the door lock.
He gripped the counter, not daring to turn towards her, but not looking away from her reflection. One by one, she loosed the buttons of her blouse. Her eyes flicked down to the mirror image of his crotch, then back to her torso as she shrugged the shirt off. Her breath quickened. His got deep and ragged.
She removed her bra, and he stared. Was still staring as he lowered his fly, brought out his cock. Neither turned to face the other. The mirror took it all in. The way he unbuttoned his own placket so the once-white shirt she’d bought him framed the full length of his torso. The way she caressed her breasts. The nipples darkening as she thumbed them. The way he widened his stance and planted his feet, bracing as he jacked himself harder and his chest heaved. They way she slid a hand into her own jeans. The column of her throat as she tossed back her head.
The plum and gold and flush of her chest, a swaying, vibrant color palate seared into his memory as her hand circled faster and faster. His one hand tight on the counter, his other pumping his cock, a mess of reds and purples nowhere near as pretty as her own intimate flesh, the flashes of it he saw beneath her hand as she leaned on the cabinet behind her and plunged her fingers into her depths. His jealousy of those fingers, his rigid yearning to touch and taste and plunder her. Her pants and stifled groans, his balls tighter and his wrist faster. Her parted lips. The bounce of her abdomen and flash of pubic curls beneath the sure steady motion of her hand. His cock straining hard and building pressure and at the last moment his lurch sideways to come over the sink. The tiny, breath and chimes laugh she suppressed that seemed to be all she needed before she was undulating against her hand, the other gripping his arm as if he had the strength to keep her upright.
He did. Barely, but he did. Both hands braced on the counter, his dick hanging out above his shorts, throbbing in spite of his release, throbbing which echoed up his body to pound at his heart. But he stood strong for her as she circled back into herself.
In the mirror, her face went from flush to pale, and then red as he stared his fill at the bounty of her body. She licked her lips again, and it made him think things it was better to not express either with words or with action. Accordingly, he rinsed his hands and swiped himself clean, tucked himself in, and did a through job with soap and warm water until his hands and the sink were presentable.
Chloe hadn’t moved, just watched him silently, and he hoped she wouldn’t walk away from tonight with nothing but the risible sight of a forty-seven year old man washing his spunk down the sink like a kid who’d just discovered masturbation. Would serve him right if she did.
He quirked his brow at her. Her answering smile was weak, and she glanced towards her bra on the floor. Before she could bend to it, he dropped to his knees. Whatever else happened tonight, he was going to just once put his mouth on her. She shied back, but stilled when his hands cupped her hips. Gentle, soft, he kissed the fragrant flesh above her panty line, and smoothed her jeans back into place. His hands traced up her sides, and he lifted his head. He scooped up her bra and placed it in her hand, but didn’t rise.
Her other hand caressed the back of his head, and he rested his forehead between her breasts. They heaved simultaneous sighs, and he turned enough to kiss one breast. He felt her heartbeat under his ear, and her low moan. Still so slow, he tongued her nipple, took it into his mouth. Laved it, loved on it. Paid heed to the other, paid attention to the weight and texture and each bump and goose-bump.
Finally he stood, and they were facing each other, flushed, and she nuzzled under his shirt, pressed their bodies flush. It couldn’t have been minutes, but the chrome fixtures and steel-gray towels and rattling exhaust fan and lemon verbena soap all faded away to nothing but Chloe’s breasts against his chest, her head on his shoulder, her gentle swaying and his in return as they held each other.
She kissed his collarbone. And his neck. And his cheek. It was dismissal, and he knew it. He turned his back to work his own fastenings as she put herself back together, and then they were side by side in the mirror with nothing more between them. He flicked his eyes up and down his own appearance, and then hers. She glanced away instead of meeting his gaze. He tried to stop compressing his lips, and almost succeeded.
“Sorry,” she said, and if he had to guess, he’d say she meant it to come out brusque, dismissive instead of regretful.
He shrugged. What was there to say?
“I don’t...”
“No, I know,” he said. Made his shrug more carefree. “It’s a thing. We’ll move past it.”
She nodded.
“I’ll slip out first, will I?”
She nodded again. So he unlocked the door and returned to the party, for all the world as if that was all there was to it.