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Mine.
But the sound of Axel getting up and out of bed beckoned, and the sun had long since started shining around the edges of the blackout blinds and curtains covering the window. “Calla, I have to get up,” I whispered, brushing her platinum hair back from her face.
She groaned in complaint, wiggling away from me and murmuring sleepily. “Too warm,” she mumbled, drawing a hoarse chuckle from my throat.
Even with my body heat still warming the bed, when I pulled away from her, she turned to follow me in her sleep, and it made it even more difficult to leave her when I glimpsed the little crooked smile on her face. Her eyes remained closed, still lost to that place where she didn’t know what was going on.
But I forced myself to leave anyway, because she needed the sleep and Axel needed food.
I leaned over her, staring down at her in the same way I had for so long. The only difference was that this time I could touch her without fear. If she woke up, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I didn’t have to sneak out of the house before the kids woke up or the neighbors could wonder about my car parked down the street.
Calla mumbled in her sleep again, and I smiled down at her. “Go back to sleep, Sunshine,” I whispered, leaning forward to touch my lips to hers. In her sleepy state, she arched into me, taking what I gave with a brief moan. The feeling of her lips against mine was like the strongest shot to my system, and it killed me that I had to leave her. I wanted more,
the first brush of my mouth on hers nothing but a tease that made me crave everything she had to give.
I’d have it all soon enough, but not right that moment. I couldn’t take what I knew she would offer in her half-aware state of being. Our first time wouldn’t be with her son awake and wandering the house and with her half-asleep so she could blame me when she came to her senses.
She’d be fully aware when I finally took what was mine for the first time.
I tucked her back in to fight off the chill in the room and then grabbed some sweatpants to go feed my boy.
???
After getting both kids up and making them French toast for breakfast, we headed outside. The day was already warming up, and I wanted them to enjoy the beautiful weather. Having already called Axel’s school and explained he wouldn’t be in for the day, I didn’t have it in me to wake Calla up. She was always up at the ass crack of dawn to get herself and the kids ready for their hectic mornings, and even on the weekends she had to do it to bring the kids to her dad’s so she could teach morning yoga. She deserved to sleep for once.
I wouldn’t want to face her wrath if I took the kids off the property without her permission. So I wrote her a note and stuck it on the nightstand, then let Axel get himself dressed. For Ines we slipped some pants on under her nighty and pulled a princess dress over her head since I wasn’t comfortable getting her changed just yet. No matter how pure my intentions, when it came to the kids, I tried to remember that I was a stranger to them. I wouldn’t give Calla any reason to question my behavior with them.
In time, she’d learn that I would kill anyone who even looked at a child the wrong way, but first I had to give them all the chance to get to know me.
Axel bounced happily, all his energy from the previous night bubbling up to the surface as we went through the hallway to get to the back of the house. Ines carried one of her new dolls in her hands, the one I’d practiced with in car seats, coincidentally, and I chuckled as the poor thing dragged on the floor. But she was determined to carry her, determined that it had to be that doll, while I carted a blanket and two more dolls in my hands.
Axel opened the door that led to the pool room, yelling in excitement. With a glass ceiling and glass paneled walls, the sun came in through the windows but let me keep the pool heated year round. And if I wanted to let in some fresh air in the summer, one of the walls opened up to accommodate that too. “This is insane!” Axel shouted.
Ines didn’t look so sure, her little face pinching in distaste. I’d watched Calla attempt to get her to go into the small pool they had in the backyard last year, and even with floaties, Ines hadn’t been a fan.
She’d screamed bloody murder, in fact.
I hoped the fact that she was nearly a year older would work to our advantage when she trusted me enough. “You don’t come in here without your mom or me, got me?” I asked Axel in all seriousness. “Swimming is supervised. In fact, I’ll make sure that door is locked.”
“I get you,” he said, and I realized it was the first moment he’d really heard me be anything close to serious.
Most people who knew me would have said I didn’t know how to not be serious, that there was no humor to me or emotion aside from the glee I felt when I tormented someone who deserved it. But in reality, I’d spent most of my life grieving the things I’d never had or the things that had been taken from me.
Until Calla.
And finally, having her and the kids here with me felt like it brought me back to life. It reminded me I could laugh, and I could banter with my woman and enjoy every second.
That I could feel again.
As soon as we got to the exterior door and Axel saw the soccer net, he flung it open and ran out. “I heard you like sports.” I smiled at him.
I settled Ines near the house and in the shade so that her fair skin that was so like her mother’s wouldn’t burn, smiling at her when her dainty hand reached up to brush against my scar in the same way her brother had all those years ago.
When I turned back to Axel, he eyed me curiously with his nose scrunched up in concentration. Like he could remember the day we’d first met, but couldn’t quite grasp the faint edges of memory. I turned to grab a few soccer balls out of the bin tucked against the house. Ines sat happily with her dolls, jabbering away in her mostly pretend language without a care in the world as I tossed a ball to Axel.
“Where did you get that scar?” Axel asked as he caught it and dropped it to his feet where he slid the ball back and forth under his foot.
“Not all of us are lucky enough to have a mom who would give anything to protect us,” I told him, making his lips purse into a pout. So like his mother, the curiosity would eat away at him as he tried to navigate my vague statement. But he didn’t ask another question, respecting the tentative boundary I’d set.
