Chapter 18
Tilly
I can’t sleep.
I don’t know why I’m so antsy tonight. Even with all the extra help I’ve gotten since Blaise pitched his fit that first day of training, I’m exhausted all the time.
I’ve seen Doc Keltner twice more since then.
Both times, he’s reassured me that this time of year, most of his job is preventative care, which is a lot of arguing with men twice his size who look ready to body slam him or burst into tears the moment a kale leaf is waved in their faces.
He’s all for something exciting and different.
Like recovery from a major surgery, plus the usual postpartum issues.
He says it’s like reliving his intern days, when he was debating which field he wanted to go into.
He chose sports medicine, of course, but he says he had a soft spot for obstetrics, too.
“Both are healthy patients,” he explained. “Both are motivated to do the right thing. Both are trying to recover as quickly and effectively as possible, and neither is likely to ask for things that won’t help. Plus, babies? Who doesn’t love babies?”
Doc Keltner says my recovery is right on track now that we’ve taken care of that initial infection, and unfortunately, it’s simply new motherhood. I’ve been telling myself the silver lining here is I’m sleeping harder than I ever have before. But then tonight, I can’t sleep.
Because Blaise isn’t here.
He doesn’t come home at the same time every night, so I didn’t notice until it was after dark and I was already half asleep. And I didn’t want to text him, because it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t gotten home, but I ended up sneakily checking in on him through Joss.
He went home with Merrick, which made me feel sad and then entitled because it’s not like I thought this would last forever. And Joss, being the concerned friend that she is, may have let it slip that he was probably going to a sex club.
I laughed off her concern with a reminder that there’s nothing like that between us. He doesn’t even like me. But then I felt mad. And then even more entitled.
And on top of all that, I can’t sleep. I try laying Donovan down beside me, but that makes it even worse.
The whole time the three of us shared the bed, I staved off all the lectures about the dangers of sharing the bed with him.
I felt really proud of myself when we finally did move to the crib, so now that guilt is hitting me.
Donovan fusses like he knows he’s in danger. This is awful.
I settle him back into his crib so at least one of us will get some sleep before I return to tossing and turning.
I count sheep but get stressed over where all the sheep come from and where they go.
I attempt the breathing exercises from the time I got super into yoga.
I try the visualization techniques an older patient taught me at the chemo center.
Then I remember she died. Same cancer as me, ovarian. It has one of the worst prognoses. They caught it early for me, so the odds are good that I’ll see at least five more years of this world.
But there’s a one in four chance I won’t see Donovan graduate from kindergarten. The odds are even worse for high school graduation.
And he won’t have a father because I never bothered to track John down despite the many times Emerson offered to fund the investigation. Donovan isn’t two months old yet, and now I’ve run off the man who decided to be his dad even though he hates me, no matter how hard I try to not be a nuisance.
Sometimes, I secretly hope Blaise will tell me he doesn’t hate me, he’s just embarrassed by me, and he’ll happily hold me forever and love me just as much as he loves Donovan if I just don’t tell anyone about us. I could do that.
I try the breathing exercises again to stave off the panic mounting inside over all the ways I’ve set my son up to fail.
It’s stupid, but what finally calms me down is turning the TV on and finding one of the anime Blaise watches.
He always has the audio on at a low volume but in Japanese — no subtitles — so it’s just voices and occasional action sounds.
The incomprehensible chatter and the gentle flickering of light are enough to have me dozing, and then I cave into my baser instincts and scoot onto his side, burying my face into his pillow.
It’s so incredibly stupid and pathetic, but every night, when he’s breathing heavily enough I’m sure he’s sound asleep, I roll into him.
He’s warm and feels good against me, and usually, he puts his arm over me.
I sometimes pretend that he’s John, my John, whatever his real name was.
I know so little about him, but they have roughly the same build, and in the middle of the night, when the fantasy really gets going, it’s so easy to imagine that we’re connecting the same way I connected with Donovan’s biological father.
Pathetic.
I do get some sleep in, but I’m mostly just dozing when the door opens. Donovan startles before I do, and Blaise’s soft, loving, “Shh, I’m home,” has me relaxing into the pillows.
Even though he’s speaking to Donovan.
He’s quiet, moving silently and gracefully as a cat in the glow of the TV, but Donovan fusses when he’s picked up. I know why, too; I can smell smoke, stale sweat, and a medley of clashing perfumes on him.
So this is what a sex club smells like.
There’s a bottle, a burp, a diaper change, and another burp before Donovan’s back in the crib and Blaise heads to the shower. I tell myself it’s a good thing, that I don’t want that stench to be in our bed, but that comes with a bright, blood-slashed pang of undeserved anger.
He really did go to that place.
The door to the bathroom is open a crack.
Blaise messed with it, loosened and shifted some things to make it latch.
We realized quickly, however, that this studio is so poorly constructed that there’s no proper ventilation in the bathroom.
The fan just makes a loud sound, nothing more.
So we both leave the door open when we shower if we want any hope of getting dressed in there afterward.
It usually works fine, but now, in the quietude of the night, with only the hushed Japanese voices and the rush of water muffling any other sounds, I hear Blaise in the shower.
And yes, he is noisy in the shower. If nothing else, the poor quality of the shower head means we’re absolutely battered with the water pressure.
It feels good, and with the abuse his body has been taken since he started training again, it makes sense that he would display his relief audibly.
But this is a different sound.
I think . . .
I tell myself to bury my head in the pillows to drown out all the sounds.
For everything else and all the ways he’s seen me and helped me in the most intimate, humbling ways, he’s been respectful of my privacy whenever possible.
So, too, he has the right to his privacy, and it’s hard to come by in this tiny studio.
I tell myself not to listen, not to pick apart not just his sounds but the splashing, not to listen for a tell-tale rhythm hidden within. The shower’s loud enough, though, that it would be imposs—
Oh, no.
I hear it, the rapid cadence of a man taking care of himself, at first just a pulse, a beat, but then it blooms. Perhaps I imagine it, but I swear I can actually hear the sound of slick flesh stroking over slick flesh, an entity entirely separate from the shower raining down on him.
His vocalizations become more distinct, too, like it was crazy for me to have a second’s doubt that this was the sound of him working his cock and not simply appreciation for the shower.
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I turn away from the bathroom door, telling myself that if I’m not facing him, I can’t peek, but that only invites my imagination to take over.
Living in tight quarters means I’ve seen nearly every inch of him.
Not quite full frontal, but I’ve seen all the puzzle pieces.
And there was an incredibly unfortunate time when he was naked and bending over, and I accidentally walked in on him.
I’ve literally seen his ball sack and his butthole.
It should have been gross. Blaise isn’t John.
He’s not perfect. He has smooth flesh rounded over his abs, dulling the lines, and a pinch of fat at his waist. He has sparse, uneven chest hair and some hairs he’d be better off without.
There are splotches of pale flesh on his right thigh and his left shoulder, birthmarks or vitiligo.
But when I got the full backside Monty from him, I thought some things.
I remembered all the crazy shit John talked me into doing that I would never admit to anyone else, and yeah, I thought that there could be an alternate reality where Blaise was here for me, and if he wanted me to, I’d lick his butthole.
I’m not proud of that, but there it is.
And now, listening to him jerk himself off in the shower, I’m picturing those firm ass cheeks of his clenched tightly.
I’m picturing his biceps bulging. I’m wondering if he uses his right hand, which he seems to favor in a lot of activities, or if he’s using his $10,000,000 left hand that he throws the game-winning footballs with.
I can hear exactly how fast his hand slides along his cock, but I’m wondering if they’re short, tight strokes or if he’s covering his entire length.
I’m wondering about that length. I know the color of the tip, a deep, rich plum, and have a good idea of how long it is flaccid, but now I have to wonder how long it is when it’s erect.
His hands are giant, so do they dwarf his cock?
Or are they perfectly scaled, his cock thick and meaty and heavily veined on the palm of his hand?