Chapter Thirty-six
“Listen,” said Kerry, looking up from her tablet, where she’d been reading the same passage over and over again. On this gray Saturday afternoon, even her favorite author couldn’t distract her from Alex’s misgivings about moving in together.
“Hear that?”
She and Alex sat in overstuffed chairs, sharing an ottoman. Alex was on his computer while Ella napped and the kids played in the attic.
“All I hear is the rain on the roof.”
“Exactly.” Kerry’s bare feet hit the floorboards and her hands came down on the armrests. “It’s not normal for four kids to be this quiet.”
“I’m finally making progress on my blog. Why not let sleeping dogs lie? The last I checked, Ty and Shay were drawing and Chloé and Travis were trying on clothes from that old trunk.”
They heard footsteps on the stairs.
“Whelp. You were right. Looks like that’s it for today.” Alex closed his laptop with a snap and turned to see all four kids hurrying over, their faces alight. “There they are. We thought you got lost. Hold it. Where’d you get those?”
Travis’s hands were cuffed in the front. He grinned. “On the table next to your keys.”
“Tyler,” he snapped. “Did you do this to him?”
“He wanted me to,” said Tyler, eyeing Alex uncertainly. “He’s the one who took them.”
“Don’t you two ever touch these again, do you understand?” he said sharply as he reached up and deposited the cuffs into an old ceramic mixing bowl of Kerry’s mother’s on the top shelf of the buffet.
Shyly, Ty thrust a piece of paper under Alex’s nose. A ruler stuck out of his back pocket.
Alex took a cleansing breath and straightened the hem of his shirt. “Now. What’s this we’ve got here?”
“A plan.”
Calmer now, Alex turned the paper around, looking at it from different angles. “Plan?”
“For how me and Shay want to make the attic after we move in here. See? I drew a straight line down the middle with a ruler, the way you taught me.” He came around to Alex’s side and leaned against him familiarly.
Kerry observed the cozy scene from where she was curled up in her favorite blue chair. When it came to kids, he truly had a gift.
“Here’s the girls’ side and here’s the boys’ side. And then, this here’s going to be where me and Travis’s fort’s gonna be—”
“And this is my private area.” From behind the boys, Shay inserted herself, pointing to a small square.
With some difficulty, Chloé wedged herself in between Shay and Ty. “And here’s where I’m going to put my desk.”
“Nice,” said Alex.
From upstairs came a whine.
“Someone’s up from her nap,” sighed Kerry, rising to get Ella.
Alex glanced at Kerry’s retreating form on the steps.
“Looks like you guys have this all figured out.”
“We do,” said Shay importantly. “Ty and I are going to ride the middle school bus, and Chloé and Travis will both be on the elementary.”
“Chloé thaid I get to thit with her,” said Travis.
“Annnnd,” said Shay, “guess what else? You know how I always wanted to be a cosmetologist?”
Alex nodded.
“I changed my mind. I decided to become a teacher.”
“That’s awesome.”
“I’m going to be a psychologist,” said Chloé importantly.
“Me too,” said Travis. He frowned at Chloé. “Whath a thychologith?”
“What about you, Ty?” Alex asked. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A cop,” Ty said shyly, “like you.” Suddenly embarrassed, he buried his pink face in Alex’s arm.
Alex’s heart swelled. “C’mere, you,” he said, tucking Tyler beneath his arm, giving him a giant squeeze.
Tyler’s arms reached around his neck.
Not to be left out, Travis fell into Alex’s lap, and Chloé embraced him from the opposite side.
Even Shay sidled over, perched on the arm of his chair, and touched her temple against his.
At the sound of footsteps, he swallowed the baseball-size lump in his throat and glanced at the stairs to see a wavy Kerry with Ella’s sleep-dazed head on her shoulder and her thumb in her mouth, observing him with a face that radiated love.
Not ready? What had he been thinking? This was everything he’d ever wanted.
“What would you think of having a sleepover?” Kerry was addressing the kids, but her eyes were glued to Alex’s.
Cheers erupted as the kids fell all over one another in their enthusiasm.
“Yay! Yeah, let’s! A sleepover!” shouted the girls.
“Can we? Huh?” the boys pleaded, tugging on Alex’s shirtsleeve.
A smile grew on Alex’s face. “How can I say no?”
From that moment on, whether they were rearranging the attic, hauling a bunch of old junk out to the trash, or making pizza, he and Kerry were more acutely aware of each other’s presence than ever before. The afternoon seemed to stretch on for days, the blasted kids never letting them out of their sight. They had an uncanny way of popping up just when Alex was about to steal a kiss or cop a feel.
At long last, supper came and went. Waiting for Kerry to put Ella to bed and for the rest of the kids to devour their popcorn and ice cream was a delicious agony. Finally, when his boys and her girls had finally passed out in their sleeping bags on the living room floor, they tiptoed upstairs, wincing at each creak of the floorboards.
When they made it to the top, Kerry held out a halting hand and put a finger to her lips. Blood pounding in their ears, they held their breath, listening.
The second Kerry nodded the all clear, Alex’s hands snatched at her, but she dodged his grasp and scampered down the hall on her tiptoes, Alex hot on her heels, both giggling like teenagers and shedding clothes as they went.
Carefully, Alex closed the bedroom door, watching Kerry slip her bra straps down off her shoulders. He stepped out of his shorts, abandoning them in a puddle on the floor, and reached around to her back and undid the hooks and flung it across the room. Then he slipped his knee between her legs, toppling her backward onto the faded, patchwork quilt, both of them cringing through their grins at the screech of protest from the ancient metal bed frame.
It was steamier upstairs, despite the box fan beneath the window screen. In the country night at the end of the lane, they were finally free to do what they’d been fantasizing about doing all day. Hands dragged along curves and dips. The pace slowed. Smiles faded as their breathing deepened and filled their ears.
The time for rushing was past. Now they had the luxury of years stretching out before them. Alex lavished Kerry with attention, taking his own pleasure in pleasuring her until she was thrashing in sheets worn thin and soft with age. To keep from being overheard, they made their desires known using body language, finally forgetting to be quiet when, together, they fell over the edge.
In the middle of the night, Kerry felt Alex stirring.
“Did I wake you?” she asked softly.
“No. I’ve been awake for a little while. I was trying not to wake you.”
“I guess neither of us is used to sharing a bed.”
For a while, they lay facing each other in the dark, sharing trivial intimacies and comfortable silences.
“Something I meant to ask you. Why’d you freak out when you saw Travis with your handcuffs on? You were really bent out of shape.”
“I should never have set them where the kids could get them. Childproofing is something I’ll have to get used to. You’re right, though. Cuffs give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“That’s funny. You must use them almost every day. Handcuffs are a tool of the trade.”
“Ever since I was seven and I got this big splinter in my foot and the docs wrapped me up in a sheet, mummy style, while they dug it out, I can’t stand the thought of being bound.”
“Poor baby.”
“Go ahead. Poke fun. You don’t know what it was like, being tied up for hours.”
“Sounds like you better stay on the straight and narrow, Detective.”
“Know any good defense attorneys, in case I don’t?”
She tickled his ribs, and he grabbed her hands, rolled onto her, and kissed her.