Chapter 4 The Vibrators? We Keep Those in the Kitchen Cara #3
An uncomfortable feeling flutters in my stomach. I place my hand there, over the flat planes I’d do anything to get rid of.
Because contrary to my earlier thoughts, there is something that could make this moment better. Something I’ve been craving, chasing for over two years now. And maybe this isn’t as good as it gets. But it’s good enough for now… isn’t it?
“Adam!” Carter shrieks, knocking me out of my thoughts as he runs across the patio, soaking wet. “Get in the pool! I need you to hold me in your arms so I can be in the picture with everyone else.”
“I’m not holding you.” Adam shuts the barbecue. “You’re a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man, not a small child.” He flicks him between his eyes as he strolls by him. “Despite your maturity level.”
“You know,” Carter starts. “I’m getting real tired of all the ‘Carter’s childish’ jokes. I’m the oldest one here—”
Emmett raises his hand. “That’s me, actually.”
“And as your captain, I’m your leader.”
“You’re not my anything,” Jennie grumbles. “Except my over-the-top older brother.”
“I deserve your respect. I should be feared. And—oh my God!” He rips a package off the table in the cabana, spinning back to us with it cradled to his chest like a newborn, eyes lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. “Special edition cotton candy Oreos? Rosie! Did you get these for me?”
“I saw them at the grocery store and thought of you,” she says with a grin, and the rest of us groan. “What? He likes Oreos.”
Carter’s eyes water. “You’re so thoughtful.
” His gaze shoots to the rest of us. “You all could learn a thing or two from Rosie. You know what?” He rips open the package, shoving a cookie in his mouth.
“Wosie, you da best. I gonna do fom-thin’ ”—he swallows, thank the fucking Lord—“special for you.” He hightails it to the gate at the side of the house. “Be right back!”
“Rosie, what the fuck?” Garrett smacks the water.
Adam sighs. “Great. Can’t wait for the neighbors to complain.”
“I was told today would be a relaxing day,” Emmett grumbles.
“Should we all leave while he’s gone?” Jaxon asks.
Olivia rubs her temples. “I have a headache from the sun. I’m dehydrated. But worst of all, I’m sober, and I can’t fix that. Thanks, Rosie.”
“What?” she asks, palms up, green eyes wide and innocent. “What did I do?”
Lennon hands me a frozen margarita, clinking her glass to mine. “Buckle up.”
And boy, do I need to, because five minutes later, the man returns, lugging with him too many accessories, one of them a microphone.
“Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another show-stopping evening of Karaoke with Carter! Rosie, this one’s for you.”
And that’s basically how a video of Carter serenading a red-faced Rosie with “Be Our Guest” and an absolutely horrifying interpretative dance winds up online. Four hours later, when the kids are long asleep, that video has over four hundred thousand views.
“Give the people what they want, am I right?” His eyes widen as he looks down at the video Lennon posted to the team’s Instagram page. “I just hit half a million views. Ollie, half a million people watched my performance!”
“Great,” she mumbles, but there’s that telltale hook in the corner of her mouth, the smile she tries to hide. My girl doesn’t like attention, and yet her husband is an utter whore for it. Despite it all, Olivia wouldn’t change a thing about him.
He flops down in the chair next to her, the flames of the fire Adam’s currently stoking lighting his movements as he roots through a bag, dropping marshmallows, chocolate bars, graham crackers, and Oreos on the table next to him.
I hand him his newest prized possession, which is just a gigantic roasting stick, but you can roast twelve marshmallows at a time on it, which is, apparently, a necessity. “I want mine—”
“Lightly toasted, golden brown shell, medium gooey on the inside,” Carter finishes for me.
“And if you light it on fire—”
“You’ll light my dick on fire.”
I smile. “You know me so well.”
“I fear for my life when I make you unhappy.”
“As one should.” I make to find a seat by the fire, but Emmett winds an arm around my waist, tugging me down onto his lap. Reaching back, I thread my fingers through his hair, closing my eyes to the feel of his mouth on my neck, his hands roaming my body.
Being with him is like stepping into the light, lifting my face to the sky, and bathing myself in everything warm and good and safe, not knowing how I ever lived before my soul found his.
Turning my head, I capture his mouth with mine. “Thank you for Stockholming me.” I don’t see the eyeroll, but I definitely feel it. The way he hangs his head, the pinch of his fingers on my ass. I bite back my laughter as our friends snort theirs out. “You did such a good job, baby.”
“For the last time, I didn’t Stockholm you!”
“Call it what you will, Emmett, but most people call handcuffing a woman to you and demanding she date you, and then that woman proceeding to actually fall in love with you, Stockholm Syndrome.”
“You handcuffed me!”
“Well, I had to assert my dominance.”
Another eyeroll, but this time Emmett slides his hand over my thigh, shifting the hem of my shorts higher, the pad of this thumb sweeping over that four-letter word gracing my skin.
“I don’t think there’s ever been any doubt who’s in charge in this relationship.
I’ve belonged to you since the second I saw you. ”
“Creepy how obsessed you were,” Carter mutters, tossing a gooey marshmallow in his mouth. “Perfect,” he whispers, then starts assembling his decadent creations.
“You’re one to talk,” Adam says on a snort.
“Me?” Carter sweeps his arms out. “How ’bout you, Mr. Steal Rosie’s Hat So She Has To See Me Again?” He points at Jaxon. “And you. You threw out all your peanut products—even your Reese’s Puffs cereal, which is arguably insane—essentially the first time you met Lennon!”
Garrett raises his hand. “I cornered Jennie in a closet after our first kiss and begged her for more. I was definitely obsessed.” He grins at her, winking. “Still am.”
“Obsessed boy falls first and harder,” I murmur into the safety of Emmett’s chest. “I love this trope.”
“Voila!” Carter stands, proudly showing off his tray of Oreo s’mores.
“For my princess first, because she’s growing two angels and I’m terrified of her when she’s pregnant.
” He says it with an innocent smile just for her, and when she rolls her eyes, I snort a laugh.
He hits up Rosie next, probably because she’s also pregnant.
I check out my nails—perfect as always—because I won’t be next.
I’m not pregnant; he’ll just continue on down the line.
It’s stupid. So fucking stupid, and I don’t know why I care at all, but there’s this piece of me, a chunk of my brain, a pulse of my heart, that wants someone to think about me just that tiny bit extra, like Olivia and Rosie, just because of what’s in my uterus.
The tray of s’mores is shoved under my nose. My gaze rises, meeting Carter’s. He smiles. “Made you a special one.” He points to a giant, goopy mess. “Cookie, marshmallow, icing, marshmallow, cookie. I call it the Cara Brodie Double-Decker Special.”
Stupid. So fucking stupid. Cara Brodie does not cry. Okay, I cry, but rarely. And I am not going to cry over a stupid fucking double-decker Oreo s’more. I’m just not.
I CRIED OVER A DOUBLE-DECKER Oreo s’more.
Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.
“Hey, you okay? You cried over a cookie back there.”
“Did not,” I lie, fingers tangled with Olivia’s as we amble hand in hand down the street toward our houses, Carter and Emmett trailing behind with a sleeping Ireland tucked peacefully in her wagon.
“Yeah, I never cry either. One thing about me? I’m totally in control of my emotions at all times.”
I cast an amused glance at my best friend. She might be my favorite sassy girl, but she’s also the most sensitive person I know. It’s what makes her such an incredible partner, mother, teacher, and friend.
And because I don’t want her to make my problem her own, I squeeze her hand and say, “I can’t believe you’re going to have three kids soon. Have you decided what you’re going to do about work?”
Olivia sighs, one hand running tenderly over her belly.
She’s a high school teacher, and absolutely adores her job, but the stress of returning to work has been eating at her for months, even before she found out she was pregnant.
“I talked to HR, and I don’t have to go back to work to qualify for another maternity leave.
I just won’t be paid for it. Which is fine, it’s just…
I know it’s silly, but I don’t want people to think I bagged a rich husband and just quit my job. ”
“Who the fuck cares what people think?”
“I do,” she admits with a sigh. “I hate that I do, but I do.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth.
“The truth is, I love being home with Ireland more than I ever thought was possible. We have this bond that just…” She shakes her head, lost for words.
“I want to spend as much time as possible with her before these two come, and I think I’m going to struggle going back after that too. ”
“Then stay home, Liv. Enjoy the time you have left while it’s just you two, and take as much time as you need when the twins come.
Putting a pause on your career doesn’t have to be forever, and even if you decide to make it forever, that’s no one’s business but your own.
” I blow out an annoyed breath. “The world is cruel to moms. You get crucified for going back to work too early and sending your kids to daycare, because it’s such a crucial time in their lives, or you get crucified for staying home with them because then you’re raising spoiled kids and not contributing to household finances. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“Amen,” she mutters. “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, by the way.”
“What?”
She bumps her hip into my side when we stop at the end of her driveway. “Changing the subject. I don’t want to push you, Care, but I want you to know I’m listening. I’m here.”
“I’m…” My eyes rise to the midnight sky, searching through the stars for an answer, for something that makes sense. “I’m scared.” The words are whispered and hoarse, torn from the burn of my chest.
A single tear drips down my cheek. “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what my future looks like.”
Olivia pulls me into her arms, and the sharp rise of her chest tells me she’s barely holding it together.
Shifting back, she takes my face in her hands, brown eyes shining with tears as she swipes mine away.
“Your future is full of love, Cara. Full of family. We’ll be here, all of us, every step of the way. You don’t have to do this alone.”
And I think that’ll be the only thing that gets me through this.