“Blake’s ticklish, too!” Jake informed him, digging his fingers into my sides, and as Freddy joined in with devious intent, I don’t think I had ever laughed harder in my life.
***
“You boys are filthy,” Mom pointed out with a sour look on her face.
She wasn’t lying. In just ten minutes, I had dirt beneath my fingernails and smeared all across my face, and Jake and Freddy looked even worse. But while Mom never liked us to get dirty, even as kids, Audrey laughed gently and took a shoulder from both Jake and Freddy. “Come on, guys, let’s get cleaned up before dinner. Blake, you coming?”
“Yeah,” I answered, meeting my mother’s eye for just a moment before heading in the direction of the bathroom.
Mom and I hadn’t spoken since Halloween, and other than a brief hello when we’d seen each other during the week, our interactions had been minimal. I couldn’t gauge whether she was still annoyed or not, but knowing her, she was and would be for some time.
I crowded into the bathroom with Audrey, Jake, and Freddy. Jake sat on the toilet seat while Audrey picked Freddy up to sit him on the sink’s vanity, and I took a place against the doorframe. “What did you guys do out there?” she asked the room, but mostly herself, as she turned on the faucet and grabbed the soap.
“Blake ran,” Jake told her. “Blake never runs.”
“I rubbed dirt on his face,” Freddy informed her, wearing a prideful grin.
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me. “I see that.”
Audrey scrubbed the dirt from Freddy’s hands and face, then kissed his forehead, before placing him on his feet and sending him out of the room. When she moved to work on Jake, I stopped her.
“Hey, you don’t have to do that. I got him.”
“Oh, stop. I don’t mind,” she insisted, grasping Jake’s chin in one hand and the washcloth in the other.
The act was innocent and mundane, nothing unlike what I or his teachers did for him every day, but this seemed like more. It seemed serious, like real commitment, and I knew I was too close to the edge and in danger of toppling over into a void I wasn’t prepared to handle.
As a distraction, I glanced in the mirror and snorted at my reflection. Streaks of dirt lined one cheek like war paint, and on the other, I could make out the distinct imprint of small fingers. “Freddy got me good,” I laughed, shaking my head.
“Yeah, he really did,” she agreed, scrubbing at Jake’s cheeks.
Then, the room was quiet, dangerously so, as she finished cleaning his face. When she was done, I reminded him to wash his hands, and Audrey and I stood back and supervised as he lathered and rinsed.
“Go help Mom set the table,” I told him.
His head lifted with a purposeful nod. “Okie dokie,” and he was gone, leaving us alone and open to way too much opportunity.
I turned on the water and set to washing my face and hands, while feeling her eyes on my back. All I could think was that she and I hadn’t been alone in a week. A week since I was drunk and had kissed her. A week since I had slept with her and then found out she was a mother. A week wasn’t a long time, but with her, right now, it felt like it’d been an eternity. All that time, forcing a distance between us, and my hands, wet and working together, begged to touch her again.
“I’m glad you invited us today,” she said in a low, quiet voice as she stepped forward to stand beside me. “Freddy’s having a really good time. He hasn’t stopped talking about Jake all week.”
I scrubbed at my fingernails and laughed. “Jake likes him, too. The other day, he told Miss Thomas all about his new little buddy,” I turned to her smiling eyes and added, “his words. I guess Jason had told her about—”
“I told her,” Audrey confessed hurriedly. “I had called to tell Jason I wouldn’t be dropping Freddy off until Sunday and Amy—Miss Thomas—answered the phone. It just kinda came out.”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said, shrugging it off.
“I didn’t know if you wanted her to know, but I just couldn’t keep it in. I know you’re kinda private, but—”
“Audrey. Really, it’s fine. And anyway, Jake loves it. He doesn’t really get the whole stepmom thing, but he thinks it’s awesome that he gets to see Freddy’s other mom all the time.”
She hummed a gentle laugh as her head nodded. In the conversational lull, I focused on washing the dirt from my face, then grabbed a towel from the rack to dry off. Audrey caught sight of me and giggled gently, shaking her head.
“You missed a spot,” she said.
“What?” I glanced in the mirror and searched my face until I spotted the smear of black just above my beard. “Fucking hell,” I grumbled and turned the water back on.
“Here, let me do it,” she insisted, taking the washcloth she’d used on Freddy and Jake, dipping it back underneath the tap before shutting the water off.
I thought to protest and remind her that I wasn’t a child or incapable, but the words wouldn’t come as her palm cupped my shoulder, leveraging herself as she stood on her toes. The cool, wet cloth touched my cheek with tenderness, and she gently worked the spot off my face. When her eyes lifted, she found my gaze, hooded and affixed to hers. This was a moment, it was ours, and without a word, I took the cloth from her stilled hand and dropped it in the sink. Her fingers spread over my cheek and against my beard, before pushing toward my hair as I framed her face with my hands and pulled her to my anxious lips.
Kissing Audrey had previously been an act of drunken urgency. An insatiable hunger that’d swept us away in a wave of need. I had spent days wondering if I’d ever find the courage to wrap my arms around her while sober, and if I’d ever be brave enough to let her taste the honesty on my tongue without gin to taint the flavor. But I kissed her now with a slow, passionate patience, memorizing every movement of her lips and every pulse of her fingertips against my shoulders and hair. I held her face, holding her to my mouth in a lock I hoped to never break, and her arms looped around my neck to hold me back.
Her mouth opened, welcoming the intrusion of my tongue with a whimpered moan. It was an invitation that I gladly took, while my chest rattled around my frenzied, screaming heart. Telling me this was too good, too real, too sober, and that I needed to back off, back away, far away, before I threw myself into the deep end without learning how to swim. But I couldn’t stop myself from pulling her closer, plunging deeper and holding on tighter. I just couldn’t let go, and maybe that could be okay, if she was there, to keep me from drowning in her abyss.
“What is taking so long?” I heard the annoyed voice of my mother from the dining room, and I groaned at the premature interruption.
Audrey pulled back and turned her head away from my mouth, but I held on tighter, encouraging her to forget my mother and the world, by moving my lips to her neck. Tasting her skin and inhaling her scent.
“Blake,” she giggled breathlessly, pushing against my shoulders, “we need to stop.”
I shook my head. “No.”
She laughed again and the hairs along my arms stood on end. “I don’t want to either, but we have to. They’re waiting.”