Chapter 25Trust the process #2
We kiss a little more, and then I have to roll off of her to go pee. When I return, she’s got her back to the headboard, sheet held tight to her breasts. I stop at the bathroom door. “You look so beautiful like that.” I reach for my phone on my dresser and hold it up. “Can I take your picture?”
She nods demurely. “Sure. Just for you, though, right?”
I nod and then put her in the frame, slightly off-center. Goldenrod light pours from the bathroom behind me, leaving a perfect trapezoid of color on the foot of the bed. In the fading glow, Delane sits covered but with just enough flesh exposed to make the entire photo incredibly erotic.
When I rejoin her in bed, we settle in, Delane lying her head on my chest, my arm looping her back. “You know… if there’s ever anything you don’t want to do, you shouldn’t do it just because I want to. I mean, tonight–”
“I wanted to do that.”
She pauses for a moment, and I notice when she speaks again insecurity is thick in her tone. “So you didn’t mind going down on me when I’m, you know, full of your cum?”
“Laney, trust me if you ever wanted to try or do something that I really didn’t want to do, I’d tell you. But until then, I can’t think of a single thing that I wouldn’t literally die to do with you.”
She pulls me closer, and I love that. “Really?”
I nod proudly, my chin bumping into her curls. “Really. I waited twenty-six years to have sex and say fuck. I’m not gonna do anything now I don’t wanna do.”
“Good,” she says. “Good.”
Peace and quiet wash over us as we realize we have no issues anymore. We’re just a happy couple, being happy, living and discovering, and… loving.
Sleep comes easy and holds us tight and warm until morning.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Christmas?” I ask her again, holding her gift above her head as she reaches for it wearing nothing but a big grin.
Seriously.
It’s Christmas Eve, and all I wanted as my gift was Delane naked in my apartment all day. She delivered. In return, she wanted to open her gift a day early.
“I’m sure,” she giggles, perfect tits bouncing as she reaches. I could play keep away forever at this rate.
“But you won’t have anything to open tomorrow,” I tell her because this secondary notebook I made for her has taken any and all of my free time. It really is the only gift I have for her.
“Please,” she groans one last time before I lower the gift and place it in her hands. She twists her lips to the side as she stares down at it, considering it for a moment.
“This is the same shape and size as what I got you. ”
I cock an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? I thought you didn’t get me anything.”
I look over at the tiny Christmas tree on my kitchen counter, the one Goldie and Beck brought over last year and decorated out of pity when they heard I didn’t get myself a tree. Beneath it, which wasn’t there last night, is a wrapped gift that looks almost identical to the one she’s holding.
“Wait,” I say, looking back at her. “You’re serious.”
She nods. “I know. Weird, right?”
My eyes narrow on her. “What did you get me?”
She narrows her eyes back on me. “What did you get me?”
I grab the gift from the counter, and we sit across from one another on the couch.
“Same time?”
I nod. “Same time.”
“One, two, three.”
I don’t know what Delane’s reaction to her gift is because I’m stuck staring down at what’s in my own hands.
It’s… my notebook. The one I gave to her. Only… it’s… been loved.
Where there were worn edges before, now they are strengthened with thicker paper and taped perfectly, closely resembling a new edge.
Where the graphite had smudged from years and years of touching and wear, she's traced with an ultra-fine tip black pen. Along the edges, she’s cleaned them up either with eraser or whiteout.
Each page I turn reveals a new way she’s redeemed the old work on the pages, bringing it back to life.
In the margins on some, she's added new notes and new doodles. And when I flip to the very back, I see she’s even added a few pages.
And at the end, on the final page of the book, at the very bottom, I see “D&M” in thick, sturdy, lasting black ink .
I close the notebook, knowing I’ll be going through this with a fine tooth comb, over and over, just to understand how amazing she is and how much she loves me. But right now.
“Thank you,” I murmur, finding her looking at me with wet eyes.
“You made another?” she asks, bottom lip wobbly.
“Don’t cry,” I sniffle.
She points at me with the notebook pinched between her fingers. “You don’t cry.”
Then we laugh. And we cry. And we hug.
“I can’t believe you went through and fixed the notebook,” I say against her hair as we hug, neither of us ready to let go. “That was so thoughtful, really.”
“And you made an entire second notebook full of new stuff!” She peels herself off of my body. “Baby, that was so sweet.” She lowers her voice, and it puts bumps along my flesh. “You’re a good boy. The best. ”
I take the notebook from her and rest it on top of mine. I pick her up only to deposit her on the kitchen countertop. I begin making dinner as we talk about how funny it is we both had the same–or at the very least–a similar idea.
As I’m cooking bacon to crumble for our chef salads, she reminds me of something. “You know, I’m a good cook. You don’t always have to cook, you know.”
I steal a kiss from her. “I know, but honestly, I really like doing things for you. And it’s kind of the thing that makes me feel best–taking care of you.
So if you ever wanna do your own wash or cook your own food, tell me, and you can.
But if you don’t mind, I like doing it all.
Because I love you and all I want to do is serve you, Laney. ”
She shakes her head. “Where did you come from, Miller?”
I shrug. “A place that never understood me.”
Pinching a piece of cooked bacon off the paper towel, she takes a bite, motioning for me to come to her. Resting the spatula against the skillet, I push between her legs, resting my curled knuckles along the edge of the counter. She kisses me, pushing bacon into my mouth.
A beautiful woman who I love more than myself right here on my counter.
Bacon in my mouth.
And tomorrow, we’ll pick up Zeth and head to Delane’s folks’ place and share our first true family Christmas ever.
“Hey.” I feed her more bacon as my hands massage up and down her thighs. “Thank you for everything. For being you and loving me, and everything that falls between.”
Then I seal my words with a kiss, long and slow, and while my eyes are closed, and my heart is full, I get a vision of a full life on the horizon ahead, and it all starts with us.
“I’m so glad you were my first,” she says.
I shake my head. “Not just the first. The only.”
She nods. “The only one for me is you.”