Everything Unexpected (39 page)

I look up, biting my lip.

So will I. I know without a doubt I’ll take him for all the years I have left.

After Charlize is fed and has fallen back asleep, Shane reminds me of one final thing we need to do before we let the cavalry that’s been sitting in the waiting room come in. He pulls out a camera from the overnight bag we packed. “Family picture for the wall,” he says.

I groan, arguing that I look awful and am too tired, too much of a mess, but he silences me with a kiss. “You look more beautiful to me now than you ever have,” he says pulling away.

Fuck him for always having the right words.

He gives me a minute to put my hair up in a loose messy braid and apply a little lip gloss. If this picture is going to be up on the wall for everyone to see, the least he can do is give me five minutes to freshen up a little.

He sets the camera on a tray near the end of the bed and sets the timer. He quickly makes his way back to both of us and sits on the bed with me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders, the other hand caressing the top of Charlize’s head. The timer rings and a flash goes off, but we aren’t paying it any attention. Not when we have something so beautiful between us to concentrate on instead.

Two years later

ALL IS QUIET in the apartment. Too quiet. It’s not something I’m used to these days. Years ago, silence would have been one of my favorite sounds. I could work away at my computer on photo edits for hours without any distractions. I would accomplish so much in those hours of peace, getting lost in my work. I thrived in those hours.

Now, when I sit in front of my computer screen and there’s no noise, it’s unsettling. I find it hard
to
concentrate. I don’t like it. Peace and quiet are not my normal anymore.

Normal to me is the squeals of young laughter. Of jumbled words that don’t make a complete sentence but I can understand exactly what’s being said. Like a secret language only Leah and I understand. Screams and shrieks echoing in every room no matter where the source. Pots and pans banged together, toys being thrown, educational cartoons on the television. That’s my normal.

But none of those are happening right now.

If you would have asked me how much money I’d be willing to pay for this kind of silence a year ago, I would have offered all I’m worth. I still shudder at the memories of those middle of the night cries.

Everyone was right when they said I would have no idea what that first year would bring. The frustrations and irritations mixed with annoyance. Every failure as a parent highlighted and emphasized with each scream I couldn’t soothe away. The fighting, name calling, the blame Leah and I so easily threw around.

That year was hell on earth. I thought Leah and I had already seen the worst in each other. Those few weeks we were separated, the fighting and pushing and pulling? That was nothing. Add weeks of no sleep and then you really see what people are capable of, how terrible they can be to each other. And we were, but I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it.

Because for every awful, plug your ears, want to stab someone moment, there were handfuls of perfect, beautiful, funny, picture worthy ones to help you forget about the others. Between all those moments of anger and animosity, I fell in love with her more and more every day. I didn’t think it was possible to fall more in love with her than I did while she gave birth to Charlie, but it happened. And every day since, I’ve found a new depth.

I would watch Leah do the most ordinary things and it would have me falling to my knees. Giving Charlie a bath or dancing around the kitchen, holding her in her arms. Watching Charlie rest her chubby little hands on Leah’s face while she pretends to eat them. The squeals of joy Charlie reserves only for her mother. My heart pounds out of my chest every time.

I have no idea why Leah was so nervous to become a mother. She’s amazing at it. It’s true, the first few weeks were rocky with neither of us knowing what we were doing. Those books were obviously a waste of money. But after a while, once we found a rhythm, she definitely took the helm and paved the way. And not once has she let me forget how lucky I am that I just have to follow her lead. But she doesn’t need to remind me. I’m well aware of how lucky I am.

When Leah went back to work, it was an adjustment. She was incredibly nervous to leave Charlie but also nervous to be back in an office setting. After accepting the extended maternity leave, her day to day outings were made up of Mommy and Me classes. Topics of discussion ranged from diaper rash to which baby is sleeping through the night. Charlie was not one of them. Leah worried the only intellectual contribution she would be able to make would come from something she heard on
Baby Einstein
.

But that first day back, when she put on her form fitting pencil skirt and V-neck blouse, held a briefcase in one hand and Charlie in the other, I was in complete fucking awe of the woman she had become. She put on a brave face when we dropped Charlie off at daycare and forced a smile as she left to go conquer the world of law. I was so proud of her. Even more so when she told me she waited ‘til ten thirty before calling the daycare to check in. I didn’t dare bring up that first hour she spent calling me, near tears with worry. But we survived that first day and all the rest that have followed since.

Leah left to go put Charlie down twenty minutes ago. Some nights, Leah and I are counting down the minutes until our rug rat goes to bed. But there are the others when I’m disappointed it’s that time already, where I’m the one begging for her to stay up for just another five minutes so I can keep playing with her.

I get up from my barely touched work and quietly make my way to Charlie’s bedroom. The door is slightly ajar, the only light coming from her princess nightlight. I open the door a little wider so I can get a better view of inside the room. And then I’m hit with another one of those instances where I become acutely aware of how much more I’m able to fall in love with this woman. How lucky I am to have fallen in love with her. Because falling in love is a great thing, but falling in love with your best friend? That’s everything.

Leah’s lying with Charlie in her small toddler bed, the safety bars lowered so that she can climb out easily. Charlie is asleep, curled up to her mother’s side while Leah reads to her in a hushed voice. Charlie’s loose wavy brown hair is being softly brushed back away from her closed lids, hiding her green eyes. Eyes like mine. She may have gotten that from me and taken after my skin tone, but Charlie looks just like her mother. Beautiful.

A few years ago, this was not the image I saw when I pictured my future. But now, I couldn’t imagine a different one. Actually, that’s not true. There are two ways I want to see this picture being different. I’ve casually brought one of them up to Leah a few times, but she just rolls her eyes. But as I watch her fingers skim the smooth skin peeking out from the bottom of her t-shirt, over her flat stomach, I think my words have stuck more than she’s willing to admit.

Another baby.

Leah and I are both only children and I don’t want that for Charlie. I want her to have at least one other sibling to play with, share things with. When I bring it up to Leah, she tells me to pack that thought away for another time. But watching her fingers move over her abdomen the way they are now, I wonder if that time has finally come.

Which brings me to the other thing I want to change. Her bare, ringless fingers. That at least is something that’s already in the works, my proposal plan already formulating.

Thoughts of rings and proposals are interrupted when Leah sees me leaning against the door frame and smiles. She quietly and very carefully disentangles herself from our daughter and slowly makes her way to me.

“Finally,” she says, closing the door behind us.

“How many stories did she need this time?” I ask, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Four. I tried to tell her the faster she went to sleep, the faster it would be tomorrow and her day with Uncle Bryan would be here. She didn’t fall for it.”

I laugh. Even though Charlie is only two, she’s on to our bribery games. No longer falling for our lame attempts to try and outsmart her. Not even promises of Uncle Bryan do it now. That may be one of the other biggest surprises to have come from this.

Uncle Bryan.

From the moment Bryan came to meet Charlie in the hospital, she had him wrapped around her finger. I thought the reality of a screaming baby around would have kept him away, but it was quite the opposite. He refused to leave. He even went so far as to buy a separate baby monitor to keep in his apartment.

“In case you guys don’t hear her,” he said walking around our apartment, holding Charlie when she was two months old.

“You don’t think we’ll hear that fucking piercing scream?” Leah asked, skeptical.

“Language,” Bryan chastised, shaking his head. “Christ, Leah.”

Once Charlie got a little older, Bryan insisted on having a full day with her. Leah was a little nervous about it at first, but I rejoiced. A whole day to ourselves? I reminded Leah of all the things we could do and all the places we could
do
it. I think that got her a little more excited and led her to finally agreeing. We started letting him have her for a couple of hours which then led up to half a day. Now we feed her in the morning and don’t pick her up until dinner time.

Most times Kendall is there, which makes Leah feel better about it. For as much as Bryan has changed when it comes to Charlie, he’s still very much the same when it comes to Kendall. They still have their ups and downs, but for the last year, they’ve been on a steady climb up. But I get it now more than I did then. Kendall is his lobster. He’s loved her for years. Been
in
love with her for years. He’s just a much slower learner than I am.

I lead Leah over to the couch where we fall on it together, her back to my chest.

“What do you want to do tomorrow?” I ask, rolling the ends of her long hair between my fingers.

“Stay in bed,” she manages to say through a yawn.

I grin. “I could go for that,” I say releasing her hair and dropping my hand over her breast, giving it a squeeze.

Leah laughs but doesn’t shy away. Instead, she pushes her chest out a little more, giving me a firmer and better grasp.

“Be careful, Comb,” I say half joking before I slide the tip of my tongue along the skin near her ear. It always causes her to squirm. “You might have me thinking you’re finally on board with my little expansion project.”

“Keep dreaming,” she answers.

But it’s the tone in which she says it that causes me to pause. Usually she laughs it off and pushes me away. But this time she doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, I feel her hand grip my thigh, pulling me closer, my growing hard-on digging into her back. I pull her away from my chest, pushing her down on the couch under me. I take a minute to dissect her expression. I see arousal, much like she must see in mine, but there something else there too. One I’ve seen from her only once before.

Surrender.

“Comb?” I ask, wanting confirmation that I’m reading the signs correctly.

She looks up at me under heavy lids, her eyes a little devious. “You think you have it in you? To make another one as perfect as her,” she says, cocking her head towards Charlie’s room and unbuckling my belt at the same time.

I twist my mouth to the side, grinning. “I know so. Let me prove it to you,” I say, rubbing my groin against her cotton covered middle. I know she can feel how hard I’ve gotten and she knows I can feel how hot she is under those yoga pants.

Her hands come up to my chest, her nails digging into my skin through my shirt.

“Okay, Carlisle,” she says, taunting me. “Show me what you got.”

I laugh.

“Whatever you say, Comb.”