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Thankful because, though I am going to lose him soon…it’s not right now and selfishly, I’m okay with that.
thirty-two
aden
“You still awake, Hope?” I ask her softly, almost afraid to wake her up.
“Yeah,” she whispers back, curling her body into me deeper.
We’re lying on the sofa, her back against it, I’m lying flat and she’s on her side. Her body is draped over mine and her head is resting on my chest, while mine is on the arm rest. I have one arm propped behind my head and one arm wrapped securely around Hope.
I don’t know how many times I’ve hugged her in the past. I can’t remember that and I mourn the fact. What I do know is that having her in my arms right now has to be the single best feeling in the world. It even feels like I might belong here. After the week I’ve had where I feel like I’ve been lost in a maze, bumping into walls and unable to find my way out—that’s heaven.
“You never told me why there’s no pictures of me. Did you destroy them when you were kicking me out?”
“I… uh…”
“It’s okay, honey, I understand.”
“Aden?”
“Yeah?” I answer, as she shifts so that she can pull her upper body away from me, her head raising up to look at me.
“Can I just say I like it when you say honey even more than babe?”
“Duly noted,” I whisper, my lips moving to a grin, and again something else happens for the first time since I woke up in that hospital room.
I’m happy.
I watch as she returns the smile. I let my fingers move down into her hair, sifting the strands through my fingers, enjoying their soft texture. She’s special. I might have been a blind fool before, but I’m not now, and I can see it shining in her eyes. She’s special. I don’t know why she wasted time with me—with someone who treated her as anything less, but I’m glad I get a second chance.
“You know…you gave me a wonderful birthday, honey.”
Her smile broadens and those eyes of hers warm further.
“I did?” she whispers.
“The best,” I answer. “But you forgot one thing,”
As if on cue, that wrinkle on her forehead appears as she looks at me. Instantly, my hand moves toward her and I use my thumb to smooth it.
“What did I forget?”
“My birthday kiss,” I answer, moving both my hands to her neck, my thumbs sliding against her jawlines. I bring her to me at the same time I bend down, our lips touching.
“Oh…” she gasps, whether in answer or just a breath in response to the touch of our lips, I don’t know. I just know her sweet breath feathers out against my lips and I like it.
Our lips barely touch, but even then I can taste her and that taste is definitely familiar and further proof I’m where I belong. My tongue darts out against her lips, teasing, stroking and priming. She leans further into me, her fingers curling into my hair as she tries to force the kiss. She sucks at my tongue, taking it into her mouth, and since that’s exactly where I want to be most I let her. She takes my tongue in a way that makes me moan, in a way that makes my dick ache and finally, in a way that I know eventually, when I earn my way back inside of her, she’s going to be the only place I ever want to be.
It’s crazy, but it is no less true.
I let her play because I like it. Soon however, I couldn’t hold back. I took control of the kiss, my tongue pushing deeper into her mouth, drinking her in, plundering and memorizing everything I could absorb. It was a kiss to remind me of what I once had and forgot. A kiss to remind me it could be mine again and it was definitely a kiss to let her know I was claiming it.
Claiming her.
thirty-three
hope
“Where’s Jack?”
It’s a horrible question for a mother to ask, but here I am finding myself asking it. I woke up in my bed, the morning after falling asleep in Aden’s arms on the couch. The morning after we kissed and Aden definitely made it to second base and I definitely wish he had made it to third, but he didn’t push it. I woke up to an empty house.
No sign of Aden and no sign of Jack.
I had no idea if Aden slept with me that night. I didn’t smell him on my sheets, but I don’t guess that means anything, I mean we didn’t have sex… so it’s possible he did, but I got the feeling he didn’t. That made me sad, and for obvious reasons—the foremost being I’m a lair of epic proportions—I didn’t want to investigate why that made me sad.
