::FORTY TWO::
I had fallen asleep as we had curled up together on the porch glider out back. I insisted she go back to her book, all I wanted was to sit with her. To just be with her. It was a little strange at first because when we’re around each other, all we want to do is touch each other, but this was nice too. I shifted the pillows around and got comfortable before pulling her to my chest, letting her curl up. One foot outstretched to slowly rock us. I had watched over her shoulder as she read the same page what must have been a dozen times before she fell into her book too.
She smiled softly at me when I woke up about an hour or so later. “I could get to like this, ‘Nette. I like you being here.” Her fingers tangled with mine, across her belly when she put her book down, my love note marking her page. I was going to have to pick up paper so I could leave her more.
“I like this too.” She’s humming softly, her toe pressed against the supports to rock us gently. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable. When I picked up the song she was humming, I hummed along with her, my voice deeper, but perfectly in tune with hers. We would have gone in earlier I think but this was so perfect it seemed a shame to stop.
We moved lazily into the kitchen; everything about the day seemed slower, because of my nap. It didn’t help me feel any less tired but it did slow me down a little and got rid of some of the nervous tension I had been feeling all day. Now I just felt incredibly lazy and didn’t want to be apart from her. She giggled when I wrapped myself nearly around her as she stood at the counter to make us more coffee, my nose buried in her neck and my arms around her waist. I don’t think I even had the energy to make love to her; it would have been too much work right now. That’s a thought that has me laughing too, a quiet laugh muffled against the skin of her neck.
We stay standing at the counter, my arms wrapped around her. Looking out of the window over the sink to the canyon beyond, waiting for the coffee to finish. I told her about the Alvarez’s stopping by for a little bit after work as she poured me a cup of coffee, and we talked about what we would make them to eat. Such a normal completely average everyday conversation, and I’m grinning like a fool. I can’t help it.
In the end I could think of nothing more perfect than sandwiches to make for them, and Jeanette’s singing filled the kitchen as she made cookies, for the boys. A flicker of sadness crossed her face for just a second, as she began, and then it was gone again; this is her favorite thing. We both stood at the counter and giggled like a pair of kids as we decorated the cookies with raisins, making smiley faces on them before she put them in the oven. I had cooked for her once but now we were cooking together, for the first time.
Adriana beat Alvarez and the boys in her race up to the house, her rapid fire Spanglish hard to understand but her excitement and joy for us crystal clear. She pulled Jeanette into a fierce hug and then she was hugging and kissing us both, pulling me nearly into a headlock to do it. She only let us go when Alvarez, laughing pretty hard about it, intervened.
Miguel, the older of the two boys, shook my hand in a very serious manner before running out of the house into the back yard, scrambling over the fence into the canyon. Sandro wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, or which one of us to give the card that he had made. So Jeanette and I both knelt down to look at it while he held it out for us to read. He had drawn a picture of Jeanette and I on the back porch surrounded by the pink flowers he had planted back there. We were holding hands. It was a kids drawing but it choked me up all the same. ‘Nette too. Emily wouldn’t have been old enough to draw for her.
I didn’t have any magnets on my fridge so all of us laughed a little as I found some stickers from a pizza delivery place in one of the kitchen drawers to tack the card up on the fridge. Sandro didn’t want to wreck the card so I showed him how to roll up the sticker and tuck it behind, so the tape wouldn’t show. It earned me a smile from Jeanette, and got Sandro rewarded with a cookie before he had anything else to eat.
He nibbled around the edges of the cookie quietly for a moment, his face stern and serious for a moment, before he asked. “You’re going to be my REAL Auntie now, aren’t you?” It had been one of the first things he had asked her, and I think it made her happy to let him know he had been right all along.
Jeanette leaned in to kiss him, making him blush a little and grin up at me. “Don’t look at me kid; she still makes me feel like that every time she kisses me.” She gives me a look as both of them sit out on the porch glider; she’s going to talk to him by herself. I watched as they spoke together, the pair of them as thick as thieves, before he hugged her tightly, and raced off to find his brother. “What was that, ‘Nette?”
She grins up at me, sticking what’s left of a cookie in my mouth. “Kid stuff.” She doesn’t answer and I don’t believe she intends to, but leans against me, smiling contentedly, as she watched the two boys chase after each other in the yard.
I go back inside for the sandwiches and the rest of the cookies, making more coffee and bringing out the gifts we had brought back for everyone. I had once mentioned to Alvarez that I wasn’t very domestic, that couldn’t be further from the truth right now. The two boys play with their Space pens and coloring books, testing to see that they really will write upside down, the candy we bought them disappearing even faster. Jeanette and I get another crushing hug from Adriana, who loves her glass angel, and Alvarez whooped with laughter at finding a copy of the very same brilliant blue and green Hawaiian shirt he was wearing in the book Jeanette had picked out. Alvarez and Adriana gave us an ornate silver platter from Mexico; it was a lot like the gift they had received when they were both engaged; it had the feel of tradition about it. Our first gift as a couple. Alvarez and I had to hop the back fence to go look for the boys, so they could leave. That was a gift in itself; I didn’t think he would make it over the top. “Just make sure you fall back into the yard if you’re going to, Alvarez, it would take forever to find you down there.”
“A Mexican-American eaten by coyotes; that’s just wrong, Vetter.” I looked away, smirking a little to myself as he tried to brush dirt off his electric Hawaiian shirt. There would be NO problem finding him if he rolled to the bottom of the canyon. We help the two boys back over the fence, not that they needed any help, they scrambled over like monkeys. Alvarez is looking at the fence, which is a lot higher from this end and I’m biting my lip to keep from grinning at him. “Too many damned sandwiches, Vetter, that’s what a good woman will do for you. Not a word about this.” He’s laughing at the end, shaking his head at himself as I give him a boost over the fence, following him afterwards.
We both got hugged again fiercely as everyone left, leaving us on the front porch in the growing dark as they pulled out. I was alone with her, my fiancée, in our own home at long last. I had her sit in my lap on the couch when I called Hicks to let him know that she had said yes. She laughed softly, burying her face in my neck, when Hicks yelled the news over the phone. Rachel and Candice both could be heard excitedly congratulating us on the other side. Well, Candice was congratulating, Rachel was running through the house whooping that she was going to have an auntie. I’ll call Mom tomorrow; she would be busy right now.
Everything is done; everyone I’ve needed to call has been called. Jeanette has told Dan, and she laughed a little when she said telling her parents could wait; she wasn’t going to wreck this day, the last day of our vacation, for anything. She held me a little closer when she told me that she hadn’t really made many friends since John and Emily died, and those that she did have were uncomfortable talking to her. She didn’t need to explain that; we have that in common too. Our situation is uncomfortable, and it’s hard to meet people. When people find out you’ve been widowed they either don’t want anything to do with you, or treat you like some fragile thing that has to be pitied, but never really befriended. She told Dan she needed to work, and that she didn’t want to be treated like that. He treated her as a friend almost from moment one. It’s been like that with Alvarez too. Neither one of us really has many friends anymore. Now we have each other.
There was nothing left to tidy; the boys took all of the cookies home with them at Jeanette’s insistence. If they didn’t love her before they do now. The sandwiches end up in the fridge. Alvarez had once said he ate sandwiches all the time because they were easy, and that’s definitely true.
It’s almost full dark when we make our way back into the house, my arms around her waist as I walk behind her. Our bedroom is cool and dark but it’s not what I want. “Wait for me out back, ‘Nette.” I kiss her ear and untangle myself from her, dropping my head and grinning a little at her slightly puzzled look. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I watch her for a moment sitting on the top step looking out over the yard. Her hair is nearly black in this light, falling in a wave down her back; I could watch her every day now, if I wanted. This was real. She was here, and she was staying. The dizzying whirl of emotions has me stand in the doorway silently for a moment longer; until I know I can touch her and not be undone by it. She turns to catch my eye and springs up, grinning, to help me with all the stuff I had brought back out with me. The seat cushions from the couch, blankets and pillows, and the two candles from the bedroom.
Jeanette laughs softly, her eyes dancing with good humour, as she helps me arrange everything on the back porch. “After last time, I didn’t think you would ever want to do this again.”
I fluff the pillow dramatically and press down on the cushions, making her laugh again. “Yeah, but this time I’m prepared.” We both looked up at the same time to look deeply at each other. The last time I had slept with her out on the back porch, a soft pillow wasn’t what either of us meant by preparation.
We both lean over the bed we have made on the porch to kiss gently, my fingers playing through her hair before settling against her jaw. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I know she’s leaving to deal with her diaphragm, and there’s a small part of me that wants to say, ‘to hell with it, just forget it’, but that’s not a decision I get to make. To talk with her if she wants it, but not to make. So we kiss softly again, quickly, before she gets up. I lit the candles while I waited for her, listening to the faint yips of the coyotes. It would be a while before they really got started.
She’s almost shy when she comes back and takes a deep breath at seeing me sitting on the top step waiting for her, on the bed we had made. I took her hand first, my thumb brushing over her ring and her knuckle as she stepped over the blankets and pillows to sit beside me first. It wasn’t quite full dark yet, although it would be in a few minutes, and what was left of the dying light, and the candle light, made her skin glow. We both stopped and started a few times, so unsure of what to say, but ‘Nette said it first. “Thank you…for everything today. Thank you.” Her voice was strangled, straining against the tears that threatened to spill again, but she refused to cry. I held her hand a little tighter and said nothing, so that she wouldn’t break. I didn’t know what to say either, but I could be strong for her, if that’s all I could be.
Her breathing settles again and her eyes flutter closed as she listens to the growing yips of the coyotes, as they come closer down the canyon. They stay away in the daytime, when the sights and sounds and smells of people are too close, but at night, the wind changes, and the coyotes come back, to sing behind the house. Serenity is the only word I can think of to describe the look in her eyes. The kiss begins softly; our eyes never leaving each other and quickly turns deeply passionate as we melt into each other, our bodies pressed close wherever they will touch. When we come up for air, that same serenity. Her happiness runs straight through her.
Her hand presses on mine for a moment as I cup her breast, just holding me there, before she takes my hand from her, letting it drop. That softness in her eyes, and the tiniest of smiles, just a slight upturn of the corner of her lip, is her response to my puzzled look. Her skin blushes pink but she doesn’t look away from me as she pulls her shirt over her head. I could have helped her; would have loved to have helped her, but there was something in her expression that told me to keep my hands to myself, for just a moment longer.
She leaves her bra, a beautiful light pink against her pale skin, and takes off her sandals, never rushing, before slipping her skirt off. She swallows hard, watching me the whole time. Maybe she has no idea what my reaction will be and all she has to go on is how I’m watching her. I don’t know what to say, other than to watch her. Not her body; she’s beautiful, heartbreakingly beautiful, but it’s her eyes that hold me. Somewhere between incredible daring and shyness, as she watches me, watching her. Her panties are next, followed by her bra. I’m not naive, I’ve watched women strip before, and have, like a lot of guys I’m sure, paid good money for it. But I’ve never watched anything as sexy as Jeanettes’ slow, almost demure, undressing in front of me. This wasn’t pulling off clothes and throwing them on the floor just to get them off; this was something she did, purely for me, out here on the back porch.
I watched only her eyes, leaning in to kiss her gently, letting my lips brush over hers. The scent of her warm skin in the cool night air is something else I’ll never forget, not as long as I live. Her hand covered my heart, which raced in time with hers. We didn’t kiss any longer, as if kissing would push us both further, and we fought to stay right here, in this moment, as long as we could. In the end I let her undress me as well, watching her as she did it. Lying back to let her straddle my hips and sit above me, with starlight and the pale amber light from the candles making her skin glow.
I whispered the words ‘I love you’, because I don’t think I could say them out loud, not without either falling apart or pulling her hard to me and driving up into her. This was for her, just for her.
I ease into her, slick and wet already; the pace is hers, and she fought herself for a moment as a tremble moved through her body. Her eyes darkened with desire and her breath huffed out at once as she sank. I would give her anything she wanted; even in this; all that was left was for her to fight with her own desire about what it was she wanted. If I could look at nothing else for the rest of my life, I would look at this; her head thrown back, lips parted. Her hands braced on my chest with her breasts pushed forward between her arms. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She pulls up almost to the point of withdrawal, shifting her weight from one hand to the other as she interlaces her fingers with mine, and we make love slowly on the back porch. I had once dreamt of this, the first night we slept out here, nothing could compare with the real thing.
Even her frustration is beautiful, something wild in her that has her growl out a stifled cry. Without my hands to steady her, without her hands to press back, the pressure isn’t enough and she’s nearly feral in her frustration. I pull her up quickly, catching both of her hands at once before flipping us both over and pinning her beneath me. That flash of heat in her eyes is all the encouragement I need, and we make love hard; I still can’t tear my eyes off of her. I can see her orgasm in her eyes seconds before it hits her; another one of those sexy things I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Her tears don’t hit until I come, a blinding light that fills my head. She cries afterwards because the feelings are so intense she has no other way to deal with the emotion. This time she does it for me.
Her own sharp animal cries, and my deeper ones, have barely left us before the coyotes respond, singing with us. Not yips but singing, until it echoes across the canyons, until it sounds as though hundreds of coyotes are serenading us. The singing breaks into howls, but only after we are done, as if they were waiting for us to finish. I kiss her tears away as it dies back down to yips again.
We both giggled when the yips broke out again, in ones and twos, before they all started singing and howling again. My hands untangle to cup her face; my thumbs tracing over her eyelashes. “It’s official now, you know that, right? The coyotes say so.” We both laughed when I said it, but the look in our eyes said we both knew I wasn’t kidding; neither of us was. I had been asked about setting a date, and at the time I had no idea; I just froze up. Now I knew we would have to make official what was already in our hearts, and it would have to be soon.
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