Chapter 24
Andi
The bedroom is much colder than the living room, and after we blow out the candles, it’s pitch-black. All my nonvision senses are tuned into him, though. The bulk of his body, pressing down half of the mattress I usually have to myself. The sound of his quiet sigh as he gets comfortable on the other side of the bed. The warm brush of his knee against mine when we roll to face each other as if we could see. The scent of my soap and my toothpaste on his skin and his breath.
He showered, but he did it quickly, insisting on leaving some warm water for me.
Having him here now, inches away, and not being able to touch him is killing me.
I hear a slide of skin over the cotton sheet and reach out with my own hand to meet his, here under these covers I’ve layered on the bed. His little sigh this time sounds like contentment.
“Thanks for getting me to stay.” His voice is soft and rough.
“My pleasure.” Kinda. Also kinda my torture.
No, really this is nice.
He tugs my hand up and presses warm lips to my fingers, and now I’m the one fighting a little sigh.
“I’ve been wondering what pregnancy’s like for you.” His words whisper over my knuckles.
If he’s just acting, he deserves an award for “most convincing sweetness.”
The darkness and intimacy call for hushed voices. Mine comes out almost a whisper too. “At first, before I knew…I guess there were little twinges of difference, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to them. Just thought, ‘Oh, I’m tired’ or ‘That food didn’t agree with me.’”
His hand is warm under my thumb. He doesn’t pull it away.
“And then in Asheville when I couldn’t ignore the twinges anymore, I got scared, thinking I might be seriously sick.”
He squeezes my fingers.
“And then, in the doctor’s office, when I got the test results…” I shake my head, remembering. “I was stunned, and relieved it wasn’t a serious illness…and confused, and amazed. And kind of in denial. All at the same time.”
“And now?”
“Now…” I think about how to explain it. “Now it’s like…I’ve got company. I’m not alone anymore. But it’s somebody I’m comfortable with. Somebody I don’t have to explain things to, because they’re living it with me. A constant little companion I look out for. It’s…kinda nice.” It surprises me to think it, much less say it out loud.
He kisses my knuckles one by one and then holds my hand against his heart over the worn T-shirt I’ve loaned him. The strong, slow thump of it is so comforting and lovely I have to fight the urge to press my other palm there too.
“Do you want them to tell you whether they think it’s a boy or a girl?”
“I’ve thought about that. Not sure I want them to say. Would you want them to?”
He’s silent for a long minute. “I can see pros and cons both ways. And I guess sometimes they’re wrong, anyway.” Pause. “Would you raise a boy differently than a girl?”
His question surprises me. I’ve thought about it, but I wouldn’t have expected him to.
“Purposely? I don’t think so. I mean, kids’ll choose their own interests, right? And there’s a lot of things I want my child to know and to be able to do, whatever their gender.” I stop, holding my breath, not sure how he’ll react.
I hear a soft rustling sound I think is him nodding. “Yeah. I think I’d want to instill pretty much the same stuff too.”
“Such as?” Yes, this is a test question, but I’m genuinely eager to hear his thoughts.
“How to be kind. Responsible. Stand up for what’s right. Work hard. Stuff like that.”
Now I’m the one nodding. I could have made that list. “Yes! And…a love of reading.”
I hear a smile in his voice when he says, “Yeah. I’ve always pictured reading to my kids.”
I remember him doing math with the little boy on the patio at the shelter. The image morphs into him holding a toddler and a picture book on his lap, and I’m smiling too.
My heart is getting mushier and mushier. “Do you read to your nephews and nieces?”
“As much as they let me, yeah.” His soft laughter so close in the dark makes this bed seem like our special, secret hideaway. “After a while they always drag me out into the middle of the floor to wrestle. They’ve always liked kicking my butt one way or another.”
Damn it. I’m trying to stay objective here and evaluate the risks he poses, not swoon and sigh and melt into a useless sentimental puddle.
We’re silent in our thoughts for a long moment and then, from out of the darkness, I hear him say so softly I have to lean in, “Do you ever feel scared to be having a baby?”
His words press every bruise from my past and my present. Every fear I’ve ever had.
“Yeah.” I let the cracked syllable hang there in the air. “Every day.” A silence falls between us then.
Finally I hear his other hand slide over the blankets toward me.
“Do you think”—his voice is scratchy—“you could sleep with my arms around you?”
I inch to the center of the bed. He does the same, and I settle into the comfort of his solid embrace with something that feels like relief. Or homecoming.
***
I wake up slowly. The light peeking in around the edges of the blinds tells me I’ve slept in. I’m toasty warm and comfy…except for my nose. My nose is oddly cold. So is the air I suck into it.
And then I remember, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of the hard forearm banded beneath my breasts. The firm biceps under my cheek. The delicious warm ridges and planes pressed all along the back side of me.
“Good morning.” His husky whisper stirs my hair where it spreads wild over the pillow and his arm. He doesn’t move away, and I’m sure not going to.
“Good morning.” I keep my voice as soft as his. “You sore? Bruised?”
“Pretty sure I feel great.”
Yeah he does. But I’m his damn best friend, so no commenting on that. No turning over to wrap my arms around him. No shifting to rub against him in any way that might call his attention to…all the things I feel like doing with him. Gotta just lie here and pretend I don’t notice and appreciate his morning wood and the way he’s holding me and the tantalizing nearness of his hand to my breast. If I shift just a little…but no. Dammit. Best friend. Best friend.
I have never been a saint, but I have never deserved the title more than at this moment.
“How ’bout you…? You sleep okay?” He does move now, but only enough to gather my wild hair in a bunch and smooth it over my shoulder. To take a handful and sift through it, rubbing it lazily between his fingertips. “So soft.” His words seem more for himself than for me.
“Mmm.” I keep still and revel in his heat and his touch, my eyes half-closed, drifting back toward the sleep of the impossibly comfortable. He presses his lips to the top of my head.
It’s quite a while before we stir again, but eventually my bladder demands a pit stop.
“You getting up?” His sleep-rough voice raises goose bumps—the good kind—on my arms.
“Just for a sec. Be right back.” I duck into the bathroom, brush my teeth while I’m in there, and then I crawl back into bed.
He opens his arms and welcomes me in, warming my feet between his own. “Tell me what little Andi was like,” he murmurs into the side of my head.
I take my time settling back against him. Getting comfortable again. “Little Andi was…quiet. Serious.” Anxious. Scared of loud noises and the dark. “Read a lot. Followed Gram around like her shadow.”
“You were really close, huh?”
“Yeah. I thought she was the smartest person in the world.” I notice different things now in my memories, now that I’m going to be a mother. “I used to ask questions all the time . She never got impatient. Never blew me off. If she didn’t know an answer, she’d help me find it, or we’d try to figure it out together.”
“She sounds great.” He tightens his arms almost imperceptibly around me. “I’m glad you had somebody like that.”
“Me too.” The alternatives are unthinkable. “How about you…? What’re your folks like?”
“They’re…” He pauses as if he’s not sure what to say next. “Good people. I think they’ve loosened up some over the years. The grandkids probably had something to do with that.”
“Do you have pictures of your family?” Maybe I can pick up a vibe from them. Loving? Gentle? Tense? Powder kegs about to explode?
He twists to reach his phone on the nightstand, then pages through different screens till he finds what he’s looking for. He presses it into my hands. “Here. That’s my folks on their fortieth anniversary.”
They’re good-looking people. Both tall and blond like Kevin, and dressed in fancy-dinner-out clothing. They’re surrounded by people but looking at each other, grinning, as if one has just reminded the other of an old joke. They’re holding hands.
The only vibe I get from this picture is love. Well, and…comfort.
“They look lovely.”
He reaches around me and swipes to the next photo. “This is me with my brother and sisters. Pete, Pam and Cathy.” Swipe. “These are Pete’s kids. This one’s CeCe. She’s a hoot.” He points to a tall, thin girl wearing jeans and a Gbr sweatshirt and an adorable smirk.
“Gbr?”
“Nebraska thing. Go Big Red.” Swipe. “This was her when she was newborn.”
The photo knocks the air right out of my lungs. It’s a baby, all right, looking pretty much like every other new baby—red and wrinkled and cranky—but it’s the man holding her I can’t take my eyes off of. Kevin, his jaw covered with blondish-brown stubble, looking as if he’s been up all night, an expression of pure awe on his face as he gazes down at the tiny creature he’s cradling so gently in his big, powerful hands.
“Ohhh!” I can’t help it. I turn in his arms and press a kiss to his cheek before I settle back to look at the picture some more. It’s every bit as holy as any Madonna-and-child image I’ve ever seen.
“Yeah, that was a pretty special moment.” The huskiness is back in his voice. He tightens his arms around me in a brief, sweet hug.
Then he flips through more pictures, telling me way more names than I can remember…CeCe’s younger brothers, his sisters’ husbands and kids, including one that just started college this year. “She came out to the family on her birthday in June, right before I moved. Said all she wanted for her birthday was honesty and to know her family still loved her.”
“Wow, gutsy.” I squeeze his hand.
He nods against my temple. “I’m so proud of her. I mean, I think most of us already knew or suspected, but still… Conservative area, and a family that mostly doesn’t talk about stuff like that? But Mom and Dad came through just fine. Dad reached over and hugged her and kissed her head. Mom handed her a big slice of cake and said, ‘If anybody gives you any trouble, you send them to me.’ And that was it.”
Fucking hormones. I need two tissues from the nightstand to handle this story. “Your family sounds great, Kevin.”
He holds me, seeming unfazed by all the mucus. “They really are. So keep that in mind as you decide whether to accept the Thanksgiving invitation, okay?”
The power comes back on a few minutes later. We climb out of bed. Kevin heads to the bathroom and I step into my fuzzy slippers and robe and out the French doors to the patio. The air is warmer than last night by a long shot. I stand by the low wall and enjoy the view of a hillside full of trees glistening in the sunlight as the ice melts and drips off of them.
Kevin whistles as he comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder at the dazzling vista. “Geez, Andi, this is something!” His hands settle on my flannel-clad shoulders and he looks his fill before he turns me to him and hugs me the way he did when he arrived yesterday. Melts my bones.
I ache for more but…smarter to wait.
We make a big breakfast together, teasing and laughing and feeding each other bites of omelet and ham and honeydew melon. Afterward, we clean up our mess and determine that the roads are just wet now and it’s safe for him to drive home.
I get another long, warm, lovely goodbye hug at the front door.
“I’ve gotta confess,” he says as he finally lets go and steps out onto the porch, “I’m not sure this no-sex stuff is doing any good to keep me from falling for you.”
And before I can formulate a response or drag him back inside to the bedroom, he’s in his car, windshield wipers brushing away the fragments of ice still there, his tires crunching on the gravel as he backs out to the road and heads into town.