11. JACOB
Chapter eleven
JACOB
I am almost home.
Home. I think, with a slight smile on my face. Home has had a lot of different meanings for me. It had meant both my mom and Emily for sixteen years, and right after that, home had become just the two of us.
Losing my mother at sixteen meant that I had to fight for the right to be considered a legal guardian to Emily after we had spent close to two years hiding from social workers.
I had been responsible for Emily for all of her teenage years, and that meant that we were each other’s only family, and home, too. Becoming part of the navy SEALs had given me another family, but not a home. My home has always been Emily.
Receiving the news from the officer announcing her death had meant more than just losing my sister. It was losing my home, too. The only home I had. Until now.
Emily had not left me alone. She had left me another family: Maddie and Allison.
I thought it would be difficult to live together with Maddie and Allison, but contrary to my fears, it has all been smooth sailing.
Settling into the dynamics of having someone living with me feels like having a family. This is something I’m not familiar with at all, but it is something that I think I can pull off. I had gotten used to leaving the house for errands and returning to the warm welcomes of Allison and Maddie.
Tonight is no different.
Getting out of my truck, I make my way inside. I am welcomed home by the smell of something cooking, and the sound of Allison playing with Maddie is magical. It feels like all of it is coming together to heal the part of my soul that was damaged by the worst parts of the mission in the basin and losing Emily.
Lying in bed after dinner and putting Maddie to sleep I think about the entire day and everything that has come with it.
I could get used to this. I think, and I fall asleep.
For the first time in a while, I don’t have nightmares.
* * *
Like most of the previous week I follow my schedule like clockwork. First, check up on Maddie in the morning on the wonderful days she doesn’t wake me up first. The next thing I do is change her diaper and feed her, and after that we go on a run.
Maddie seems to love it more than me, giggling as I complete the last few miles of my routine like I have done religiously every single day. My princess claps—her way of encouraging me to greater speeds—and I oblige her by taking it up a notch. When I finally stop, having completed this last lap, we are both out of breath. Me from the punishing pace I set up, and her from her incessant laughter.
“Seems like you enjoyed that far more than I did, Princess,” I coo, unstrapping her from my stroller and lifting her into my arms so I can take a good look at her. Her hazel eyes are gleaming, delighted at the bouncing motion my arms provide.
“Your daughter is very beautiful.”
I had seen her in my peripheral vision, but I hadn’t really concentrated on the woman—dismissing her as a threat on gut instinct—and so, while I kept her in my line of sight, I hadn’t focused on her until she spoke to me.
“Thank you.” I respond lightly. I am not unused to compliments like these from strangers, so I take the compliment in my stride. As it always does, hearing Maddie referred to as my daughter instead of my niece sends a tremor of pain through me, but I force myself to ignore it. It’s bound to happen, and I need to get used to it before Maddie is old enough to feel badly about how I react.
“Haven’t seen you here before, but in all fairness I’ve only been here a couple of months. I'm Janice.” She extends her hand for a handshake and I take it in mine. A cursory glance at her is instinctive, born from a lifetime of searching for hidden weapons, but I already know what she looks like from when I spotted her earlier. Red hair and brown eyes complete her pleasant features.
“Haven’t been here long, really. Nice to meet you, Janice. I’m Jacob.”
“Nice to meet you, Jacob.” She smiles before she puts her earphones back in her ears and continues her run. Janice looks like the stereotypical helpful neighbor.
I need more of those, I think humorously, but I know I’d decline help if she offered. Sherry is different, just because she is Sherry, and because she didn’t really give me a choice.
I make the remainder of my journey back home swinging Maddie as I go.
Spending most of the afternoon coaxing Maddie into eating her dinner of mashed peas is difficult because, for some reason, she seems to think her dinner is better spent as paint for her bib than as actual food. I understand and sympathize with her reluctance.
“I know kid, it isn’t exactly gourmet dining.”
An expression of utter disgust crosses her face as she takes another spoonful of it. “Yep. You’re almost done, baby. I know I’d be making that exact face if I was the one eating it, but you’re a big girl and pretty soon you’ll be much bigger than me.” I encourage her, even though I know most, if not all of my words, don’t make any sense to her yet.
When I am finally done feeding Maddie, she is resting on her back, eyes closing as she fights sleep at every turn. I assign my focus to the next horseman of the apocalypse: laundry.
There are four household chores which make the four-man team I personally refer to as the horsemen of the apocalypse. Capable of bringing apocalypse-level despair and exhaustion in tow, they are the only things which fill me with the level of unease that a complete squadron of hostiles armed to the teeth was never able to manage.
Dishes, laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning bathrooms were dreadfully difficult to attend to. Having Allison with me is more than a blessing because I now have someone who doesn’t mind doing most of the cooking and vacuuming, freeing up a lot of time for me, for which I am immeasurably grateful.
Fishing a load from the washer, I open up the dryer to put the clothes in before I start another cycle, but there’s a finished pile of laundry in there. I return the load in my hands to the washer so I can attend to the one in the dryer.
Most of it is easily folded and arranged on a towel, right up until I come across some material I can’t quite figure out. All the gauze and netting makes it difficult to make a good guess as to what it is supposed to be.
“What the heck is this supposed to be? Is this even foldable?” I mutter, as I turn it this way and that, and finally the realization of what it is strikes me.
Lingerie. I am literally playing with Allison’s lingerie.
I quickly drop it back into the pile like a hot potato, furtively scanning around to ensure no one saw me fondling it.
I was not fondling it!
My inner voice is thick with indignation, but at the same time, I can’t stop looking around like a child who has dipped a couple of fingers into the cookie jar. My apprehension is not born out of guilt, but rather a desire not to be smacked upside the head by an irate Allison. It is just the sort of thing she would do.
Realizing that I have to finish folding her laundry before I can continue with the pile I have ready, I continue with my task, but my mind is stuck on these articles of clothing and their purpose.
While I had intellectually acknowledged that Allison was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, I have somehow managed to always see her as nothing more than Emily’s friend. Discounting that one night a decade ago, I’d managed to never think of Allison in that way.
Things have been different lately. Whether or not that’s because we’re older now or because of the extreme close proximity I don’t know, but Allison has been… lingering in my mind.
And in my glances.
I don’t know how my lingering glances have remained unnoticed for this long, but I am grateful for it. I can’t afford to have her feeling uncomfortable being in the same home with me.
That’s why you have to stop imagining her in the lingerie, Jake. I warn myself.
It’s not like I’ve never dated women before. Kate was a fun if not unimportant six month fling. Naomi was the closest I ever came to the life I’m living now.
Though that’s not fair. I almost married Naomi. Allison and I…
Well, even if I stare at her, I know she’s uninterested in me. Her negative opinion of Emily’s “meathead” brother has always been apparent. This is no more than playing house.
Fully chastised, I gather the laundry, and my mind doesn’t wander.
I take her clothes to her room, fully intent on just giving them to her. I knock on her door, but I don’t get a response immediately, so I knock again. Finally I hear an answer. “Come in!” She yells, prompting me to push open the door, and I see her propped up against the headboard, with her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
I take a second to just stare at her. Propped up against the headboard like she is, she looks like a goddess receiving tribute from her faithful followers. I shake myself out of the vision I find myself trapped in, returning to the present as I do so.
“Here’s your laundry.” I tell her, dropping the clothes on her bed and turning to leave.
I am almost at the door when I am hit with the impulse to tease her just a little bit.
“You know, I always had you pegged as a granny panties kind of girl, with the glasses and book thing you have going for you. Who would have thought it? Tsk tsk.”
I expect a harsh response, but instead, Allison flings herself off the bed and charges at me, screaming with rage.
“You. Are. Such. A. Jerk.” She screams, pummeling me with a throw pillow after every word.
I know I should be taking her assault a little more seriously, but I can’t help the uncontrollable laughter that follows her pitiful attempt at violence, and I decide to let her know what I think of it.
“Seriously, Maddie can hit harder than you are doing right now. If this is meant to hurt me, then trust me, you’re doing it right. I’m dying…” I pause, and Allison suspends her hits with the pillow to hear me out, “…of embarrassment.” I finish, and she goes berserk.
“You deserve to burn in hell, Jake.”
“Now what’d I do to deserve that, Allie?”
“For going through my laundry. Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed.” She’s finally stopped hitting me, and I can tell that she truly is embarrassed. I don’t want her to feel this way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having lingerie.
Somehow in the middle of our mock fight she has ended up straddling me while I am trapped underneath her.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her sincerely. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Honestly. I didn’t go through your laundry, either. I was trying to get a load in the dryer, and I saw some clothes were already in there. Your stuff. I just wanted to get them to you and I saw them by accident.”
In the middle of my explanation I have somehow found myself leaning against the headboard with her on me. I don’t realize this until she moves the tiniest bit.
She is pressed up right against me!
I don’t know what to do, but I can feel my body reacting to her. My muscles tense up a bit, while other parts of me tingle pleasantly and harden. I try to act naturally in hopes that I can get out of this without making it awkward.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I just wanted to tease you about it. They’re nice! Honest! I think they are really pretty.”
“Really?” There is a note of vulnerability in her voice when she asks the question. I don’t know what or who has made her doubt herself in this way, and all I want to do is reassure her.
“Yes. They are sensual and tasteful at the same time.” I lose control of my words, her scent and the feel of her intoxicating me. It feels like I am breathing in fumes and losing my mind in the process. I can’t even hear what I’m saying.
So much for my chastised pep talk.
Allison looks at me. “Are you still teasing?”
My heart beats heavy in my throat. I feel it all over my body.
My mouth is dry. “I think you might be the one teasing me.”
Allison inhales sharply. I’m not sure I’m inhaling at all.
I don’t know who leans in first, but before I know it, her lips are on mine and I finally get a taste of her.
A taste is not enough. With my hands on her hips, I deepen our kiss, pulling her into me and pressing my hardness into her.
Allie is soft and warm, and I couldn’t imagine anything better than this. Her soft gasps transform into moans that drive me out of my mind. My hands begin a journey, the left moving from her hips to run across the nape of her neck as I taste her lips over and over, running across them in a sensuous caress.
My hand plays with the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck, making her shiver and sending pleasant vibrations through her body and into the parts of me that are pressed against her. My right hand moves from her hips, to the small of her back before it returns to her side. My fingers move up her rib cage with tantalizing slowness until they finally cup her bust.
She feels impossibly soft in my hands, and I can feel every bit of her through her nightgown. I pluck gently at a nipple, drawing a tortured moan out of her.
Stopping this is the most difficult thing I have had to do, especially with her sinuous grinding into me as she moves with the natural rhythm of her pleasure, but I find the strength to separate my lips from hers.
“Why?” She protests, but I know she knows why. Because she doesn’t move closer, either. Her wide eyes are trained on me even as I pull away and climb off the bed.
You are Maddie’s godmother. And I’ll be damned if I ruin that because I can’t keep my hands to myself.