“I just…” He let me kiss his tears away, didn’t try to hide them, didn’t act ashamed of them. “I’ve never belonged to anyone. Never…never thought I could have this. Have a life like what we’re building. That I could have…a wife. Children. A future.” He touched his forehead to mine. “I always thought I’d die like Tommy.”
“Not happening. I won’t let it.”
“Promise?”
I kissed and kissed and kissed him. “Promise. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and our future is here, together, with Isabela and the little one I’m hoping you put in me, either last night or this morning.”
“Aren’t you on birth control?”
I laughed. “Yeah, but a girl can hope this will the one percent chance that it fails.”
He cackled, sniffled, and laughed again. “Never hoped for that before.”
“I’m going to go off the birth control. It’ll take a few months before we have any real chance of conceiving. Unless you’d rather wait.”
“No. I want it all. I’m not scared of it. Any of it.”
I led him into the shower, and we were wreathed in steam. “Wash me off and feed me, husband.”
“Did you know I make killer pancakes?” he asked, running a bar of soap over my breasts.
“I did not. You’ll have to show me.”
“Don’t we need the certificate to be husband and wife?” he asked.
I shrugged. “A technicality. I’m your wife right now because I want to be. The certificate just makes it formal and legal. The real marriage is when you decide that’s what you want. And I want, so therefore, I declare myself your wifey.”
He laughed, continuing to soap me up, more out of the desire to caress my naked curves than to actually do any cleaning. “Well then, wifey, I guess by that logic that makes me your…what’s the husband equivalent of wifey? I don’t even know.”
“Hubby,” I answered.
“Hubby. Huh. Okay. I hereby declare myself to be your hubby. Now and forever.”
I took the soap from him and washed his manhood. “Now rinse it off good so I can show you how excited I am to be your wife…with my mouth.”
He growled as I dropped to my knees. “Have I ever mentioned how much I love the way you think?”
“You may have, once or twice.”
A pause. “Oh, shit, Laurel. Your mouth feels so fucking good.”
I was totally focused on the enjoyable job at hand—or, rather, mouth—and had him thrusting into my mouth and groaning, when—
“Why are you in the shower together?” a small, sleepy, confused voice said. “What are you doing?”
With a shriek, I fell backward to my ass on the wet marble, turned and saw Isabela in the doorway of the bathroom—or, rather, a faint outline of a small figure just barely visible through the swirling fog, which I hoped also helped disguise us, somewhat. “I thought you locked the door last night,” I muttered, standing up.
“I thought I did too,” he answered. “Hey, uh…we’re just…uh…saving water. By, um, taking a shower at the same time.”
A pause. “Oh. Okay. Well, I’m hungry.”
“Give us a minute, and we’ll be right out,” he answered. “You like pancakes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, well, let us finish getting clean and then you can help me make pancakes. I’ll even show you my secret ingredient.”
“Okay.” A second later, the bathroom door closed with a click.
When she was gone, I laughed. “Well that was unfortunate timing.”
A laugh. “No kidding.” A groan as we finished cleaning up. “So I guess that’s what being a parent is like, huh? Ill-timed interruptions?”
“I guess so,” I muttered. “Now…where was I?”
“Laurel, you don’t have to…oh god. Well—I guess maybe you do. Fuck, fuck yeah, you do.”
“Just be quick about finishing,” I muttered, picking up where I’d left off.
“With the way your mouth feels, that’s easier than I’d like.”
When I’d drained him of every last drop and was wiping the last smears of him off my lips, I stood up and we made quick work of washing off. Titus shampooed his hair, rinsed it, and palmed my ass as he tugged me against him for a quick kiss. “Take your time finishing up. I’ll get breakfast started.”
“You sure? She may have questions.”
“What should I say, if she does?” A laugh as his voice went falsetto. “‘Why was Laurel on her knees, and what was she doing to your bathing suit area?’”
A shrug and a laugh as I doused my hair under the spray. “I dunno. Maybe just distract her so she doesn’t realize you didn’t answer the question?”
A nod as he stepped out and grabbed a towel off the rack. “I like that plan—don’t answer the question and distract. Hey, just like politics.”
I laughed as I began rubbing shampoo into my hair from the ends upward. “Exactly.”
He finished drying off and peeked his head back into the shower. “Hey—you’re amazing and I’m in love with you. In case that didn’t get communicated clearly enough.”
I smiled in the direction of his voice without opening my eyes—I was rinsing the shampoo out. “I know, you too, and you too.” I laughed at his grunt of annoyance at my nonanswer. “Go make pancakes, Titus. I love you.”
16
Titus, Isabela, and I exited the county courthouse, Isabela between Titus and me, her hands in ours. Titus and I were legally married before the judge and the court-appointed witness, and I’d begun the process of filing to have my name legally changed to Laurel Bright. We’d decided to wait a few months, in the end, just to finish the process of settling in and getting to know Isabela more.
She was, we discovered, a precocious, adorable, curious, funny little girl with a mischievous streak a country mile wide. She was an early riser, a ravenous eater, and far too insightful for her own good. Or rather, for ours. Every time we turned around, she was up to something else—trying to make her own breakfast and making a godawful mess, or “helping” with the laundry and adding way too much detergent, or bringing a garter snake inside from the backyard and playing with it in her room without telling anyone.
We brought her to therapy once a week. I continued seeing Dr. Hines, but the sessions were reduced from twice a week to twice a month. After Isabela’s therapy sessions, we always went to get ice cream together.
Business was good, life was good, being with Titus was better than good. We got to make love every night—and, as the weeks slid by, we discovered the benefits of morning sex over night sex, because keeping track of the whirlwind that was Isabela was a full-time job for both of us and we were usually wiped out by the day’s end.
Titus was still doing pop-ups all over the country, but he worked the dates out ahead of time so Isabela and I could attend, and watch him from the side of the stage.
As the weeks slid by faster and faster, I watched Isabela fall in love with Titus every bit as much as I had. She and I were slower to find emotional bonding, but as she learned I wasn’t setting out to try to replace her mom, she began to warm up to me, and to accept me.