“I’m fine,” he says, and his fingers make that lazy trail up my arm again. It’s more of a graze than a rub, and it feels better that I remember it feeling. Eli has always had a way of making me feel desire but right now I feel downright needy. His hand curls and the tips of his fingers brush the inside of my arm rather than the outside. His knuckle skims the edge of my nipple, and I let out a whimper. His hand freezes. “You okay?” he asks, using the same words I just asked him.
“I’m fine.” I turn and kiss his chin. He dips his head and his lips touch mine, a fleeting glance and nothing more. He lays his head back against the chair webbing and stares at the fire.
His hand starts that slow slide again, and I arch my back, pushing my breasts toward his fingers. He makes a low noise from deep in his throat, but he doesn’t deviate from the slow slide up and down my arm. His knuckle doesn’t go anywhere near my nipple, and I stop squirming and stop reaching for it because I realize he’s right. This is not the time.
Eli and I used to have amazing sex. I was never left unsatisfied. He had an almost lazy way of touching me that used to make me crazy. Even after we started sleeping in separate bedrooms, Eli would occasionally, in those early days, come to me late at night. He would wake me up with his head between my thighs or by rolling me over and sliding inside me. I would pretend to sleep through the beginning of it, and he would stroke me until I couldn’t hide it anymore, until he knew I was awake and wanting him.
But then one day he came to me when I was still half awake. I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t know what he was doing, and I asked him to leave. He was devastated, and he stared at me like he didn’t know who I was. But he left, and the next time he came to me in the middle of the night, I had locked the door. I can still remember the way that he’d jiggled the knob, and then he’d made an incredulous noise like he couldn’t believe I’d locked him out.
Then I’d heard him breathe out the words “okay, Bess,” and he’d never come to my room in the middle of the night again.
After he stopped coming to me, I missed him, but I told myself it was for the best, that it would ease the inevitable break between us, but all it really did was make me feel even more lonely. But once it was done I couldn’t take it back. He never again came to my room in the middle of the night and I never went to his.
And that was the beginning of the end.
“Hey, Bess,” Aaron suddenly says from his spot on the other side of the fire.
“Hey, Aaron,” I respond, the way I always have.
He chuckles and says, “Do you have big plans this weekend?”
I look up at Eli and he says nothing. “Do we have plans this weekend?” I ask him. He looks startled for a second, like he’s wondering if the two of us are a we. His hand stops moving, and he takes a sip of his beer like he needs a second to think.
“Not that I know of,” he replies. He addresses Aaron. “Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking about going to visit my mom this weekend,” Aaron says.
“Do you need me to go with you?” I ask.
“Oh, no.” He waves a breezy hand in the air. “I was going to fly up and stay a day or two.”
“All by yourself?” I say. Then I realize what I’ve done. He’s a grown man and he doesn’t need a caretaker—at least not yet.
He looks over at Sam, who grins at him. “No, I thought I’d take Sam with me.” I can tell they’ve already discussed this and she’s a co-conspirator. “So I was kind of wondering if you might let Kerry-Anne and Miles stay with you.” He rushes on to say, “It would only be for a day or two, depending on how things go with my mom.”
“How’s she doing?” Eli asks.
He shrugs. “She has good days and bad days.”
I’m guessing that he wants to go and talk to her about his plans for the future and what’s going on now, but I don’t ask about any of that. Eli tips his head so that he can look down into my face.
“You feel like watching the kids?” he asks me.
“Do you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”
“We can take them,” Jake offers. “If Bess and Eli are busy.” But Katie shushes him with a tap of her fingers to his thigh. “What?” he asks her, like he’s confused.
“Shush,” she says.
That makes me grin. “We can do it,” I say with a nod.
“Are you sure?” Aaron stresses. He stares at me like he’s looking for clues about what I’m feeling.
“It’s not like we have big plans.” I lift my face to look at Eli. “Did you have big plans?”
He shakes his head. “Fishing. Swimming.” He shrugs. “Aside from that, I have nothing going on.”
“So that’s settled,” Mr. Jacobson says firmly. “Thank God.”
“Pop,” Jake says petulantly. “Cut it out.”
“Next week, you boys are going to be busy,” he says. He uses a stick to briskly stir the fire, which makes a shower of sparks rain down.
“Busy doing what?” Jake asks, and I can already see him bristling in the way he sits up straight.
“I’m having a load of lumber delivered so I can build that storage shed I’ve been talking about.”
“What’s that got to do with us?” Jake says.
“Who else would do the building?” Mr. Jacobson says, his voice full of snark.
“Pop,” Jake chides. “I’ll build your building.” He looks at the other two. “You guys are off the hook.” But he obviously isn’t happy about it.
“I’ll help,” Aaron says.
“Me too,” Eli chimes in. “But you’ll have to supply the beer,” he adds.
“Done,” Mr. Jacobson says.
I think I hear Jake mutter the words “manipulative bastard” but he does it so quietly that I can’t be sure.
But then Mr. Jacobson stands up, stretches, and says, “But this manipulative bastard knows how to get shit done.” Then he takes a small bow and adds, “And this manipulative bastard is taking his ass to bed.”
“Don’t go away mad,” Jake says. “Just go away.”
Mr. Jacobson shoots him the bird, but he’s grinning when he does it. As he walks by Katie, he gently scruffs the top of her head. “’Night,” she says.
After the door closes behind him, Jake says, “He’s really good at getting what he wants. I told him two weeks ago I’d build that damn shed.”
“We don’t mind,” Aaron says. “It might be fun.”
Jake stares at him like he has lost his mind. “Building anything is not fun. Not with Pop. He’ll gripe the whole time, and I’ll end up yelling at him, and Katie will be so mad at me that I won’t get any.”
“Eww,” Gabby says from the chair where she’s curled up by the fire.
I laugh. “So, you know you can avoid all that,” I say. “Just be nice to him and you’ll still get laid.”
“He makes it impossible to be nice to him,” Jake explains. “Manipulative bastard,” he says again under his breath.