Take a Chance (15 page)

“You have a date with justice O
ne-eyed Bart!”

Startled by the voice and in pain, Eben hopped around holding his
injured foot in the air as something dangled below it. The foot on the floor hopped back on several pieces of lego and he found himself trying to keep his cursing down to a volume which wouldn’t wake Aidan.

After several seconds with his eyes squeezed shut
, the pain eased enough for him to ease the object off his toe which he did. Something landed amongst the lego with a crunch. Eben placed his foot back on the floor and instantly the discomfit of standing with lego embedded in his other foot eased considerably.

He looked down
and saw Woody from Toy Story smiling up at him. His toe had caught in the ring of the pull-cord on Woody’s back which had activated the comment.

“I liked Buzz Lightyear better,” he muttered.

He glanced over at the bed and was relieved to see that Aidan hadn’t budged. Luckily he appeared to be a sound sleeper.

Relieved, Eben investigated the surface of Aidan’s chest of drawers then moved towards the bookcase. It sat in the darkest corner of the room and on the top shelf behind a large panda he found a little wicker basket. Eben picked it up and did his best to dodge lego as he hobbled nearer to the hallway light spilling through the door. Hopefully the contents were worth it.

Under a couple of gauze cloths there were containers that looked promising. He picked up the closest tube. Nappy rash cream.

No.

Then a bottle which turned out to be baby shampoo followed by a small pot of zinc and castor oil ointment and sample bottles of antibacterial cleanser. He had high hopes for the next couple of bottles which turned out to be gripe water and a lotion for cradle cap. He was about to pick up the last bottle when out of the corner of his eye he saw Aidan lift his head off his pillow and turn as though to look at him.

Eben froze. Aidan held his head up for several seconds then dropped it back on the pillow. Eben let out the breath he’d been holding.

Is that some kind of inherited thing?

It was something he could do without. He picked up the last bottle.
Baby oil.

Bingo.

He hobbled back to the bookcase, returned the basket to the shelf and stopped to pick lego from between his toes before he left the room. His mission a success he suddenly noticed how cold he felt.

The heat pumps had been turned off for the night after the children went to bed and the heat from the shower had worn off. He collected a spare towel from the linen cupboard and ignored the goose
bumps rising on his arms as he limped down the stairs.

When he got to their bedroom he was relieved to find that Jem had turned on the heater earlier and the room was comfortably warm. He draped the towel he’d been carrying over the column heater and sat on the end of the bed to better look at his foot.

Is my toe supposed to be at that funny angle?

While doing this he heard the shower shut off and shortly afterwards the hairdryer started from behind the closed ensuite door.

He gently lowered his foot to the floor. Although painful, his toe was temporarily forgotten with the anticipation of finally having Jem between his thighs.

So I can massage her back easier on the low bed
,
he reminded himself.
I have oil and a towel. What else do I need?

He thought a moment.

I know, candlelight and music.
Then added,
maybe breath mints.

Eben limped quickly to the dining room to look for candles. After a search only came up with matches he had to settle for the large silver candelabrum on top of the sideboard. He recalled it being a belated wedding present from Coco and Jess griping every time she had to polish it, saying she
would rather have had something useful. He had always commiserated with her but now he was happy it was there.

Holding the box of matches in one hand and the candelabrum in the other Eben limped back to the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He set the candelabrum on the dresser which nudged his bottle of Bulgari cologne. Eben opened the bottle and splashed a little on his neck.

As he lit the pristine wicks of the beeswax candles he felt momentarily guilty about being the first to use them. Then he thought of how much Jess would approve of the purpose and smiled. He shook the match out when the blaze closed in on his fingertips and lit another.

Once all the candles were lit he turned out the overhead light and crossed to the bedside drawers where he opened the top drawer and pulled out a pack of tic tacs. He stuck a couple in his mouth and sucked on them as he set up his ipod to play randomly selected music from his collection. Eben hummed to himself as Eric Clapton’s
Beautiful tonight
came through the speaker.

In the bathroom the dryer was switched off. He leaned across the bed, pulled back the blankets and top sheet then took the towel from the heater. The towel was soft and warm in his hands as he unfolded it down the centre of the bed. Just as he uncapped the bottle of baby oil the ensuite door opened and steam wafted out.

Eben looked over and his eyes widened. In his wildest imagination he had never considered her wearing what she had on. He swallowed the tic tacs.

Jem walked into the room covered from neck to toe in pale pink flannelette pyjamas covered with bright pink flamingos.

I hope she hasn’t changed her mind
.

She smiled at him so he told himself the pyjamas were a good thing.

Half the fun of getting a gift is in the unwrapping
.

Going into the bedroom made Jem feel a little nervous. She knew Eben had hopes beyond a massage but she hadn’t expected him to go to the trouble he had. The room smelled a little like beeswax and the faint scent of Bulgari wafted from Eben as he stood beside the bed in the flickering candlelight dressed in only a towel.

He wasn’t a tall man, only about five centimetres taller than she was, but he had presence. His shoulders were broad, his biceps clearly defined and his chest had a dark sprinkling of hair which tapered down below the edge of the towel. Although he didn’t have a six pack, his stomach looked firm and she wanted to run her hands over his chest and follow the beckoning trail of hair.

His dark
brown hair had been freshly washed and fell close to his shoulders, gleaming in the soft light. The sight of him, with his eyes darkening blue and the hint of a dimple from his slight smile made her felt warmer inside.

When he briefly turned away she saw several small scars on his back. She took them for chickenpox scars and smiled at the thought of how determined he must have been to have scratched them in such awkward places to reach.

As she moved closer to the bed the scent of Bulgari grew stronger and knew she was done for.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

Anywhere will do. Is on your knees in front of me too much to ask for on a first date?

Eben mentally smacked himself in
side his head.

“Lie on your stomach on the towel.”

As she kneeled at the end of the bed Eben grabbed the pillows off the bed and dropped them on the floor. Looking back he saw her lying down on the towel as requested but she was still wearing the pyjamas.

“You need to take off your top,” he said.

Jem looked at him as though she was trying to figure out if it was just a strategy he was trying out to get his “extras”. Eben jiggled the bottle of baby oil in his hand.

“I can’t rub this through your clothes.”

Jem turned away from him to undo the pyjama top buttons then awkwardly got her arms out of the sleeves and rolled back onto her stomach.

If Eben hadn’t been able to see her reflection in the mirror above the dresser at the foot of the bed he would have been very disappointed.

Jem lifted her head to look at him.

“You were watching me in the mirror,” she accused.

“Of course I was. I’m a guy. We do that sort of stuff.”

How did she know?

He glanced down and saw that the front of his towel had tented out.

Never mind.

He knelt beside her on the bed and dr
ibbled baby oil across her back making her flinch when the cold liquid landed on her warm skin. He put the baby oil back on top of the bedside drawers then knelt beside her and started working the oil into her shoulders.

Her
muscles were tense and he kneaded them until she relaxed and groaned. After working on her neck and her upper arms he dribbled more baby oil across her lower back.

“Would you mind if I straddled you to massage this in?”

“Mmmm.”

Eben took that to be a yes.

He knelt on either side of her upper thighs, taking care to keep his weight off her. Every sweep he made towards her hips was thwarted by the top of her pyjama pants.

“Would you lift up a bit so I can move your pants out of the way?”

Jem raised her head to look at him. Without saying anything she put her head back down and raised her hips. Eben took the opportunity to pull her pyjama pants down as far as he could. It wasn’t as far as he would have liked.

“What sort of massage do you get with your pants this far down?” Jem mumbled into her arm.

“It’s so I can do the tops of your legs too,” Eben improvised when Jem looked at him again. He tried to look as innocent as possible. After another moment she put her head back down.

He worked the oil into her lower back, soothing out any spots of tension he found. With each ache disappearing
she groaned her appreciation.

As she melted under his hands
Jem almost couldn’t believe Eben chose to be here, soothing away her aches when he could be doing something or
someone
else. Despite her preconceptions Eben was proving to be generous, kind, considerate and funny. She didn’t try to kid herself that his motives were entirely altruistic but his hands felt
so
good as they worked their way over her hips. Despite her wariness she knew she was falling for him.

As though he knew her thoughts were turning to his advantage, the tone of the massage changed. Eben
smoothed massage oil into her buttocks and used his thumbs to rub the oil in ever decreasing circles.

Earlier the massage was relaxing, now she was finding it stimulating. His hands moved to the top of her thighs and repeatedly swept towards her centre, moving under her body, yet tantalisingly not touching where she wanted him to.

His touch was turning on feelings that she had long since forgotten. Would it be so bad to give into the moment? They were both single and if things didn’t work out she’d never known of him to kiss and tell.

Her mind brushed over her unspoken regret that morning and she made a conscious decision to enjoy whatever time she would have with Eben.

Beneath his legs she rolled over.

“That’s it!” she said. “I want extras.”

Eben looked down at her, the candlelight behind him shadowing her body. She had small firm breasts, a rounded tummy with an indented belly button and a neat triangle of light brown hair at the apex of her thighs. He thought he had never seen anyone look more perfect.

“I guess I won’t need this anymore,” he said and dropped the towel from his waist onto the floor.

“Do you want to give me a massage too?” he asked as he lowered himself on top of her.

Jem put her arms around his neck to draw him closer.

“I think your ego’s had a big a massage as it can handle,” she murmured into his ear.

Eben chuckled.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Jem stretched awake, the brightness of the morning light glowing behind the roman blind indicating she had slept in a little later than usual. She ached in places she hadn’t felt in years and she didn’t care.

She smiled and wasn’t bothered by still feeling sleep deprived. Despite her consecutive late nights they hadn’t done much sleeping last night. She rolled over to see if Eben was awake, intending to snuggle up to him. Instead his side of the bed was empty. Sweeping her hand between the sheets showed that his side was cool so he had been gone for a while.

She bit her lip. They hadn’t even been on a date yet they’d
slept
together. Okay, they had literally slept together all week but that was different.

Have I finally been crossed off his “to do” list literally and figuratively?

In all the parties they had both attended in the last few years she had never seen him in the company of the same woman twice. He always seemed to leave early too. Not that she noticed...

Jem was deciding whether she should behave like nothing had happened when she heard a muffled argument which sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. She leaned over the foot of the bed to grab her pyjamas. As she was buttoning up the top the door opened. Startled
, she pulled the blankets over her lap in time to see Eben carry a tray through the door.

He placed the tray on her lap then held the nape of her neck while he leisurely kissed her. When the kiss ended he pulled away and smiled at the sight of her all tousled in the bed.

“Good morning,” he said. “I thought you might like some breakfast.”

“Oh,” said Jem looking down at the tray. It held a mountain of pikelets layered with
kiwifruit and yoghurt which were drizzled with maple syrup as well as a mug of hot chocolate and another of coffee. An untidily arranged collection of flowers in a glass vase sat between the mugs. “You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”

“I wanted to,” said Eben and he moved to sit on the bed beside her. “I made enough for both of us. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

Jem looked at him happily.

I’m more than a notch.

“Of course I don’t mind.”

They speared the stack of pikelets with their forks, breaking off pieces and feeding each other.

“What was all the noise about?” she asked between bites.

He indicated the vase on the tray haphazardly filled with paper whites, freesias, a small branch of daphne and a camellia flower tucked in the side.

“Daisy went outside and chose these for you while I was making the pikelets,” he said. “She was the first up and I had to give her something to do so she wouldn’t wake the boys.”

“But they’re all up now?” Jem asked and picked up her hot chocolate. She took a sip, pleased it was made just as she liked it with marshmallows floating on top.

“Yes. They’re all eating breakfast at the breakfast bar. Daisy strenuously objected to me not letting her come in here and wake you to show the flower arrangement she’d made.”

Jem leaned foward and smelled the blooms. The paper whites and freesias smelled like spring.

“I’ll let her know how beautiful I think they are when I go out there,” she said.

When they finished the pikelets they put the hot drinks on the bedside drawers and Eben placed the tray on the dresser which he had cleared of the candelabrum while Jem slept.

He sat back on the bed and put an arm around her shoulders. Jem snuggled against him. Eben relished her warmth and their intimacy so was unsure how to bring up the topic that had come to his mind shortly after waking up this morning and realising that the condoms weren’t in the bedside drawer where he had left them as a prompt.

Just say it
, he urged himself.

“We didn’t use any protection last night,” he blurted.

He looked at Jem to find her looking back at him decidedly unfazed.

“Are you on the pill?” he asked.

“No,” Jem said. She seemed to struggle with herself for a few moments before adding “I can’t get pregnant.”

“How could you know something like that?” Eben asked.

Jem bit her bottom lip. It was clear to Eben that she was uncomfortable explaining how she knew. He held her beside him snugly to let her know she had his support with whatever she said.

Jem looked away and when she spoke she didn’t immediately come to the point.

“Do you remember the dramatics Coco put everyone through when she came out here
to help
when Daisy was born?”

Eben started idly twirling a lock of her hair around his finger.

“That was something I doubt any of us will forget.”

“After watching how she was when Jeremy was born and how she topped her performance at the time of Daisy’s arrival I decided I didn’t want her anywhere around me when my time came.”

“That’s perfectly understandable.”

“So I decided to do something to ensure she’d keep her distance.”

She sounded so serious Eben wondered what on earth Jem could possibly do to have her social climbing mother not want to advertise the arrival of a grandchild among her friends.

“I never told Coco about my engagement,” she said then turned her head to look Eben in the eye. “My plan was to have a baby first and get married afterwards.”

Eben smiled. He could see Coco being unhappy about having an illegitimate grandchild. But he could tell there was more to this story.

“So what happened?” he prompted.

Jem decided to tell him the whole story.

“Alan and I tried for close to a year then Toka got sick.”

Toka was Jess’s father who had raised Jem, Jess and Freddie after he had objected to Coco leaving the children in boarding school for her convenience. He had died of stomach cancer half a year before Aidan was born.

Jem had
used her holiday allowance to visit Toka after the cancer had been first diagnosed. While she was there she had accompanied him to a hospital out-patient clinic where they learned the cancer had spread to other parts of his body and wasn’t treatable.

Upon learning this,
Jess, battling morning sickness, had travelled to his farm on the rural East Coast with Jeremy and Daisy to spend his remaining time together. Freddie arrived soon after, then later Jason had joined them, working remotely and travelling for work only when necessary. Eben recalled that Jem’s fiancé Alan had not gone.

Jem
carefully pleated a handful of sheet between her fingers.

“When
my holidays were almost up I knew I couldn’t go back to work, knowing I’d never see Toka again and I knew it would be unprofessional to ask for open ended leave when there was so much work to do so I drove back to Auckland to resign in person.

“
Although Alan was always on about me giving up work the moment I became pregnant, he was furious when I told him I was giving up my job to go and look after Toka for an undefined period of time.

“
I think he was angry about several things, Jem reflected. “Firstly, I had made the decision without consulting him which in retrospect was inconsiderate of me. I had also used up my holiday allowance which he had wanted to save for a trip overseas together.” Her hand fisted over her careful folding of the sheet. “But even so he shouldn’t have laid down the law and told me that my place was with him and not with a man who wasn’t even a blood relation and wouldn’t have included me in his will. As if that mattered! When his argument didn’t sway me he threatened to not support me financially until we were married which was stupid because I had more money saved than he had.

“
I couldn’t have even cared less about the money at any rate. I knew the doctors only expected Toka to live for another six weeks so I told him I needed that much time to say goodbye. Alan simply said no.

Jem looked beseechingly at Eben. “How can you possibly
accept being told “no” when you want to be with someone you love who has little time left?

He hugged her against him firmly in support. Jem
gave a sigh then continued.

“
It was then I realised he was testing his control over me and I knew then that if I married him he would choose to have me completely dependent on him and no better than Coco.

“
Our argument escalated and he demanded his ring back, probably hoping that I would give in. But I gave it to him and before he could throw me out I loaded up my car with my things which I left in Jason and Jess’s garage before I returned to stay with Toka.”

“I
have never regretted making
that
decision. Freddie joined Jess and I although he is no more related to Toka than I am. We all thought we would only have the expected six weeks with Toka but he battled and we were blessed to have him with us for almost two months. Then he died peacefully in his own bed early one morning with all of us around him. Being with him at that time was worth more to me than any future with Alan.”

Eben used the tip of his thumb to remove a teardrop falling from her eye. Jem sniffed.

“I ran into Alan at a conference about a month after getting back. In that short time he had married someone else and he took joy in telling me his wife was pregnant so it was obviously me with the problem.”

Eben found his free hand
clenching into a fist. If he and Alan ever crossed paths there would be trouble. Jem saw his fist and knowing what he must be thinking put her hand over his.

“Alan’s not worth it,” she told him. “And at any rate I had the last laugh.”

“How so?”

“Freddie and I may not have been Toka’s biological children but we thought of him as our father and he treated us as such. When he died he equally left the three of us his share of the f
arm which we sold to a cousin and we also sold his budding pine forest for a healthy profit. The money was enough for Jess and Jason to have a decent deposit to build their house, me to easily afford the mortgage repayments on my apartment on my own and for Freddie to do whatever he does in style.”

“So you told him this?”

“Of course I did.”

Jem smiled and Eben took the opportunity to kiss her briefly.

“I wish I could have been there for that,” he said.

“Yes, the look on his face as he realised what he could’ve gotten out of a divorce settlement was something worth having a camera for.”

Eben held Jem’s chin so she faced him again.

“He was an asshole and not worthy of you. I on the other hand...”

Jem laughed as he wanted her to.

Eben drew Jem onto his lap, getting excited when he saw she hadn’t put on her pyjama pants. He ran one hand up her thigh, once again skirting her centre with his teasing touch. He imagined her growing round with his child and the thought appealed to him.

“I would be ecstatic if you ever became pregnant with my baby but I am just as happy to have you,” he said against her ear.

“You can’t mean that,” Jem told him quietly. “Every man wants a little bit of immortality through a child.”

Jem felt Eben shrug his shoulders.

“I come from a big enough family and have enough nieces and nephews for it not to matter. We’d also have Jeremy, Daisy and Aidan. We’d get to be the fun aunt and uncle who take them out for a good time.”

“But you’re the only son,” she argued. “The only one who can pass on the family name.”

“I’m adopted,” Eben said bluntly. “After three daughters Dad didn’t want to risk another one. As much as Mum and Dad love me they won’t mind if I don’t have biological children. We could adopt.”

Whoa
, Jem thought.
This sounds serious
.

Jem made a t for time-out with her hands then moved off his lap.

“We haven’t even dated and you’re talking about having children together?”

“We made love together,” Eben said. “Shouldn’t you do the honourable thing and marry me?”

Jem picked the pillow up from behind her and hit Eben over the head with it.

“Do you ask every woman you sleep with to marry you?” she asked, punctuating the words with thumps of the pillow.

“No. You’re the first and only,” Eben said and when she paused in shock he picked up his own pillow and hit her back.

The bedroom door opened and Daisy came in.

“Did you like...? Oh! Can I play?”

At the intrusion Jem stifled a shriek and slid under the covers. Her pyjama top wasn’t quite long enough to be G rated.

Looking up she couldn’t decide whether Eben looked amused or disgruntled. He threw a pillow at Daisy.

“Sure he said. Let’s knock sense into Aunty Jem.”