But not spotty enough, or else Akara would’ve ditched the cell.
“I’m throwing out the rule,” Akara says.
She gapes. “You can’t do that.”
“I’m the boss,” he says with a teasing smile. “I can make rules and take them away.”
Sulli turns to me. “Banks, tell Kits he can’t make the fucking rules and then eliminate them whenever he likes.”
Akara is sending me a stay on my side, man glare.
Sulli is sending me stay on my side doe-eyes.
Doe-eyes are fucking me to heaven and hell, but I scratch the back of my head. “You know what, a migraine is setting in—”
“Fuck, really?” Sulli tries to sit herself up, and I catch her elbow, her breath hitches at the sudden embrace. Her gaze gliding down my chest, and I can’t help but engrain her body in my head, breasts fuller and belly swollen.
Akara thumbs her nipple, and she squirms at his touch, her eyes pinging from him to me, as we turn towards her. God, I could take her again.
And again.
But I breathe out, “No migraine. Not even a headache, Sulli.” My affliction is the thing that hammers at your heart and floods your lungs.
She smiles, then eyes my lips. I kiss her gently, sweetly, and then I whisper, “We have something for you.” Might as well give it to her now.
She’s not going to sleep anytime soon.
“Follow me,” Akara says, first one off the bed. We could go outside naked, but even the notion that someone might’ve followed us on our trek gives us pause and caution. He steps into boxer-briefs.
I pull on mine too.
Sulli ties a loose, white silk robe around her body. She follows our footsteps to the floor-length windows. The sliding glass door already wide open. Morning breeze blows through—the house among the trees is cocooned beneath palm fronds.
Birds chirp endlessly, rainforest noises alive, and floorboards squeak underneath our bare feet as we reach the wraparound porch.
Dew coats the railing, and Sulli reaches out, hanging onto a rope tethered to a tree. She’s been bummed she can’t swing on the rope, not risking that while she’s this pregnant, but she always says, one day, when the baby is here. We’ll come back.
We retreated to Costa Rica before confirming the pregnancy, and like the lake house, it’s peace away from the world and its constant hysteria.
Akara and I left the gift under a blanket outside. While he goes to retrieve the expertly wrapped thing, I grip the rope above her hand.
She stares at my ring finger.
The braided thread is gone. Fallen off—and unfortunately, I did lose my wedding ring for a second there. Akara found the thing stuck in the sink.
His was fraying. So we took ours off, and instead, opted for something a little more permanent. She’s eyeing the ink on my finger.
Something I can never lose. Three lines are tattooed around my finger—the lines waved like water.
“You ready to get a tattoo?” I ask Sulli. We’ve kept our braided rings safe as a keepsake, and she’s planning to do the same. But until the very last minute.
Her two rings are dirty and well-worn. Thread unspooled, and Akara has reknotted them practically every fuckin’ day.
“They’re still surviving,” Sulli says. “It’s not fucking time yet.”
I look her over with a smile that draws her closer. I tuck her to my chest, kissing her cheek. “Whenever you’re ready, Sulli.”
Akara hears the tattoo talk as he comes over. He hands me the present, then reknots the ring on her left hand. She flashes him a rising smile, and he whispers something in her ear. She shoves him but reddens, and I go inside, giving them a second and I grab a bite to eat for Sulli.
Coming back, I hand her a chocolate chip muffin first.
“You read my mind,” Sulli practically moans. She takes a big chunk out with her teeth, then holds up the half-bitten muffin to me. “Want to eat my muffin?”
“Now you read my mind.” I take a huge bite of muffin from her hand. I chew and swallow. “One between your legs tastes better.”
We’re both smiling, and I brush crumbs off her lips and chin.
She brushes crumbs off my unshaven jaw.
Akara is laughing at us. “Always feeding each other, from here until eternity.”
“And let death never tear us all apart,” Sulli decrees, before I pass her the square present. She goes quiet, reveling in the wrapping paper.
It’s professional work. Akara wrapped the gift in Sports Magazine covers with perfect creases. The ones where she’s biting a gold medal. Where we’re hoisting Sulli up on our shoulders after her last gold medal win this summer. Where she has her iconic concentration face: fingers to her lips while she checks out the scoreboard.
Sulli wears a soft smile, then carefully tears the paper. “It’s a picture frame?” She’s opened the back part first.
I nod to our wife. “We were thinking we could hang it in the nursery.” We’re dividing our bedroom into the baby’s space, just while the baby is small. Eventually, the three of us are looking to buy an apartment a floor beneath the penthouse.
But right now, we’re settled where we are.
Akara smiles over at me now and mouths, she’s going to cry.
I shake my head, doubting.
He mouths, watch.
She pries the picture frame out of the paper. Then flips it over in her hands. Her mouth slowly falls, eyes suddenly well. “Wait…Banks.” Overwhelmed tears drip down her cheeks. “You kept it?” Her voice cracks.
“Told you,” Akara smiles at me, then her.
“All this fucking time?” Sulli asks me, then looks to Akara. “Or did he give it to you to hold onto?”
“No.” Akara looks into me. “That was all Banks Moretti Meadows.”
We both took Sulli’s last name after Fiji, so we’d all have the same last name as our kid. But Akara and I kept Moretti and Kitsuwon as middle names. Can’t lie—it’s strange being a Meadows. Seems fuckin’ surreal, but I’m sure, in time, I’ll grow into the name and it’ll feel more like my own.
I do like sharing this with Sulli and Akara.
A name.
Didn’t think that it’d matter. But I feel more bound to them.
Sulli rubs at the wet creases of her eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised you kept it.”
“It’s alright,” I say. “I surprised myself.”
I hope I can keep doing that. Surprising myself. Challenging myself. To be a greater man than yesterday. Expecting more out of myself. Being a man who steps up to the plate of responsibilities and swings a grand slam.
She stares longer at the framed letter. One written with turquoise gel pen. It reads:
Dear Banks. Dear Kits.
I’m pregnant. And I’m keeping this little champ.
I never lost the letter. From the Olympics till now.
“Nine picked out the wooden frame and wrapped it,” I tell her.
“Thank you.” She tucks the framed letter to her chest. “I love it so fucking much.” Once she says the words, a flock of birds starts singing. Flying up out of the palm fronds. We turn and watch. It’s a quiet, still moment.
I extend an arm over her broad shoulders, and Akara wraps one around her waist. She leans into us. I soak in the moment with the two people I love most on this earth. I could be anywhere right now.