Chapter 24 #2
“I think it took me this long to realize what moving on meant. It doesn’t mean forgetting what you’ve left behind. It means making her a memory and deciding to have a future without her in it.”
“Wow. That’s sad and beautiful at the same time.”
He took my hand. “This feels right. So, to answer your question…am I able to move on now? It feels like I already have.”
Chase was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. Setting my container down on the table next to his, I climbed over him, straddling his hips, and gently kissed his lips.
“That was a really good answer,” I whispered.
“Oh yeah? Do I get a prize for the right answer?” Chase’s thumb brushed gently along my jaw.
“You do. You get your pick of rewards. Tell me how you’d like to receive yours, and your wish is my command.”
I felt his cock harden beneath me. “Any way I want?”
I nuzzled into him. “Any way you want.”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled hard, gaining access to my neck.
Leaning in, his tongue licked its way from the top of my throat down to my collarbone.
Reaching the soft spot between my neck and shoulder, his teeth sunk in, not breaking the skin but strong enough that I suspected I’d have a mark tomorrow.
I moaned, and Chase ground up, pushing his erection into me with a groan.
“Does any way I want include tying you to the bed for days?”
Just as he pulled me down to him again, sealing his mouth over mine, his cell phone began to ring.
“That’s you,” I mumbled into our joined mouths.
“Ignore it.”
His hand slipped under my blouse and found my pert nipples, which made ignoring the ringing cell easy. But then thirty seconds after it stopped, it started again. Someone really wanted to reach Chase.
“Don’t you even want to see who it is?”
His dexterous fingers unhooked my bra. “Don’t care.”
But when his phone stopped and started a third time, even Chase couldn’t ignore it any more. He groaned and reached into his pocket to dig his cell out.
“Shit. It’s my brother-in-law. He never calls. I need to take it.”
I leaned back and gave him room.
“What’s up?”
I heard a man’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Isn’t it too early?” And then, “Yeah. Okay. I’m on my way.”
He swiped to end the call.
“What’s going on?”
“My sister’s in labor. She’s a month early, but her water broke, and they said the baby is far enough along that it’s safe to deliver. Sounds like she’s going to have him really soon.”
“Wow. That’s exciting.”
Even though it had sounded like he was going to leave right away, Chase made no immediate attempt to move. So I prodded him.
“Go. I’ll take a rain check on tonight. Besides…” I teased. “I didn’t have any rope anyway.”
“Will you come with me? Keep me company. Meet my new nephew?”
“Sure. I’d like that. Let me quick clean up so Ugly Kitty doesn’t polish off the rest of the Chinese food, and we’ll go.”
***
Evan, Chase’s brother-in-law, had just given us an update and gone back in to his wife. He’d been dressed in blue scrubs and a hat with matching blue paper booties over his shoes.
“How is what he was wearing any different than street clothes?” Chase asked. “He just walked through the hospital and out into the waiting room wearing that outfit. It’s not like it’s any more sterile than what I’m wearing now.”
“You have a point,” I said. “Maybe they just make the father wear it so he feels like he’s part of the team.”
“Maybe. But if I know my sister, Evan’s the only teammate she’s berating right now while she’s in labor.”
I shrugged. “That seems fair, if you ask me. He didn’t have to walk around carrying a bowling ball for nine months, and doesn’t have to suffer through labor. The least he can do is take some abuse.”
Chase smiled at me. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
We were the only two in the waiting room, so I pulled my legs up and snuggled into him. Chase pulled me closer and wrapped an arm around me.
“You want to berate your husband some day?”
That was a strange question. “Not on a daily basis, I hope.”
He chuckled. “I meant in the delivery room. I was asking you if you wanted to have kids some day?”
“Oh.” I laughed. “I totally missed that.”
“Kinda figured that from your answer.”
I thought for a minute before responding.
“I never really thought I’d get married, much less have kids.
I guess my parents didn’t give us the best example.
Even before everything happened with Owen, all they did was fight all the time.
I remember playing house with my friend Allison when we were in elementary school.
She’d pretend to be the mom and be baking a cake in the fake oven, and I’d be the dad and come home and pick a fight.
Her mom overheard us play-arguing one day and thought we’d gotten into a real fight.
When we told her we were playing house, she asked why we were yelling, and I said because the daddy came home.
I remember her just staring at me, not knowing what to say. ”
Chase squeezed me.
“I started to see things a little clearer as I grew older, realizing not all families were as dysfunctional as mine. But by then, I was already checking under the bed two and three times when I walked in the door. I guess I just couldn’t imagine having a family of my own when I was afraid of imaginary things that lurked in my apartment. ”
“Sounds like what you really need is someone to make you feel safe. The rest will just fall into place.”
I pulled my head out from its comfy place in the crook of his shoulder and looked up at him. “You might be right.”
If only it were that easy.
***
It was after five in the morning when a booming voice woke us. Evan looked exhausted, stunned, and out-of-his-mind happy when he announced he had a son. He and Chase exchanged hugs and talked for a few minutes before Evan said he’d better go check on his wife.
“Room 210. I have to get back before she convinces the doctor to give me a vasectomy without anesthesia. But they said she’ll probably be in her room within the hour.”
Chase headed to the lobby to get us some coffees while I went to the bathroom to wash up.
I had some dried drool on my cheek, and my hair looked like a giant rat’s nest, even though I’d slept sitting up in one position.
Splashing some water on my face, I realized I was about to meet Chase’s sister for the first time.
Over the last few days, it felt like our relationship had changed.
It wasn’t just physical anymore. Chase and I had shared a lot about our lives and the things that made us who we were, and now I was already about to meet some of his family.
Things moving this fast would normally scare the crap out of me.
Yet I found I was more anxious and excited than nervous.
***
Anna was the spitting image of Chase—only somehow his rough edges were smoothed out, and his masculinity had been replaced with feminine beauty. I smiled at the way his sister lit up when she saw him.
“You’re here?”
He pecked her cheek. “I couldn’t listen to you complain about missing it for the next fifty years. Of course I’m here.”
Evan slapped Chase on the back. “Come on, walk with me to the nursery. They should be finished cleaning him up by now.”
Chase did a quick introduction for Anna and me before leaving the room with his brother-in-law.
“I had a feeling I’d meet you eventually,” she said.
I was surprised she knew anything about me—even that I existed.
“Congratulations. I’m sorry if I’m intruding. I wanted to keep Chase company while he waited. I can wait outside and give you some privacy.”
“I just had half the hospital staring up my gown. Getting to shut my legs feels like privacy at this point.” Her smile was genuine.
I laughed. “Did you pick out a name for your son yet?”
“Sawyer. We’re naming him after my Dad. Sawyer Evan.”