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Epilogue
I scratch at the equation on my desk, but something's just not right. Is it the function continuity conditions? Or is it the basic physical model invalid? I really can't fuckin' tell.
I sigh and pick my cell phone up to dial the one person I know who could help me. Shit, he's going to love this. He'll take it as another excuse to badger me into going back to school. I'm not going to lie, I've thought about it. But I'm still enjoying my life at home too much to take on something like that.
"What is it, Bran? I'm a little busy right now preparing for class."
"You are not," I retort. "It's four-thirty in the afternoon. You're busy sneaking a can of PBR before you go home to Mom."
Ray, who I've only just started getting used to calling Dad, is silent. But I can hear the telltale sip of beer.
"Fine," he says. "What is it?"
"Can you open the shared drive?" I ask as I snap a picture of the problem I've been working on. Quickly, I upload it to a cloud folder. "Something's up with the new formula. I need your help."
He's as gruff as ever, but I take it with a grain of salt. Ray was never one to show emotion, but as I've gotten to know him better over the last five years, I've learned to understand just how he thinks and loves with his head, not his heart. It's times like these that have done it. No matter where he is or what he's doing, he'll drop just about anything to help with my projects.
Skylar's right, as she is way too much of the time, the cocky little minx. She always said that Ray would like my crazy inventions, the ones I finally took out again after we moved fully into the Brookline house. I remodeled the entire attic as my lab, and after I showed Ray some of my ideas, he started helping with the math side of things. Enough that we were able to get a few prototypes built a few years back. Since then, Sterling Petersen Lab was born. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to go into business with Ray to save my life. But things are different now. Now, we're really family.
"Is this for the ultrasound mapping or the baby monitor?"
I can hear him twisting in his chair and clicking through windows in his office, and soon we're off, launching into a discussion of math that would send most people to their graves with boredom, but which Ray and I both love. This is the one language we both speak. It's the one thing that makes me his son more than anything else. I just wish I hadn't fought it as long as I did.
Before I know it, it's almost five o'clock. My equation is fixed, and I've got at least five more ideas sketched out on a piece of paper. I could start on a sixth, but I hear the rumble of a car pulling into the driveway. I glance out the window, and I can see bright hair the color of the autumn leaves in the orchard shining through the window of the Prius she insists on driving herself every day to work. Ridiculous woman. We still have David on staff, but the poor guy spends more of his time carting me and Jenny around in an SUV than driving the Mercedes, which Skylar insists makes her look like a stuffy rich lady. Which is about the time when I point out the fact that she fulfills two out of three parts of that description, but only because pissing her off usually means tackling each other in the pantry or somewhere we can snag a moment of privacy in our busy house.
I glance at my watch, the new Garmin Skylar bought me last year for my birthday. It's nowhere as nice as my Rolex, but she teased that I'd get addicted to watching my heart rate and steps throughout the day. I'll be damned if the woman wasn't right.
"Time's up," I interrupt Ray while he's going on about a spectral domain solution, which seems to be applicable, but right now means absolutely nothing to me anymore. "Wife's home. Let's pick this up tomorrow."
It's five o'clock on the nose, and I'm half-jogging down the stairs when I hear the front door open. Skylar's home between four and five most days, since she's finally learned to get up to exercise with me in the mornings and goes to work early in order to be home to see me and Jenny. She still grumbles for a solid hour, but she's not complaining about the way I usually wake her up. And I don't mind the griping––but watching her run around the reservoir in skin-tight leggings makes it worth it.
Normally, we're not in such a hurry to see each other. She'll find me in the living room reading to Jenny, or sitting at the counter while Ana starts dinner. But this is different. This is Friday night. Our night.
Fridays are when Sarah and Danny take Jenny for dinner and a sleepover, the night before Christoph and Annabelle arrive for the weekend and our spare time is suddenly swallowed up by Little League games and swim meets. It's the one night of the week when the house belongs only to Red and me and we can do whatever we want, wherever we want. Don't get me wrong––I love my daughter. I love her so much, I decided to work from home instead of building a new office for the lab. She's got red hair and a sharp mouth, just like her mom. If Skylar's my sun, then Jenny's my moon, and my entire world revolves around these two women.
So yeah, I'm crazy head over heels for my daughter. But I need her mom.
I can hear her heels on the wood floors, clipping toward me at a furious pace. I vaguely remember her slipping on the red ones this morning, the ones I tried to give her once before, but which she only accepted after we were engaged. The damn things still drive me crazy, still remind me of when I wanted her so badly I was ready to throw out my reputation, her reputation, put my entire company at risk just to kiss her in the middle of my office. Actually, I think with a smirk, not much has changed.
Luckily, she's since let me do that, and much more, several times over in hers. Now that she's the boss, she's less worried about what people will think. Although I did notice that when she chose offices for the firm, she made sure that hers had absolutely no windows her colleagues could see into.
She tackles me right when I hit the bottom of the stairs, and my arms wrap around my wife like I haven't seen her in weeks, not hours. She's just as starving as I am. In a second, I have her up against the wall, causing two of the family portraits in the hall to fall sideways. I hike her tight skirt over her hips and affix my mouth to hers while she tears at my shirt.
"Uhhhhh," she growls as her hands make contact with skin.
It's the same sound she makes every time she touches my abs. I may be over the hill at forty-three, but I'm making damn sure I don't look it. That's right, baby, I think with a smirk. You love it.
Then her tongue does that thing where it twists around mine like she wants to eat me whole, and I can't think at all. All I can do is unbutton my jeans, let out the goddamn pipe she causes down there, and shove it in with everything I've got.
"FUCK!" she cries out loud enough to echo through the entire house.
Her hands tear at my hair. It's that slight line between pleasure and pain that gets me every time and only makes me harder.
"Jesus, Red."
I can barely breathe, I want her so bad, even though I'm already balls-deep inside her. Two palms full of the sweetest, ripest ass a man could ever want; a strawberry-shaped mouth that's currently sucking on my lips like a Jolly Rancher. That leaves...I look down.
"Take off your shirt," I say in a voice that's more of a growl than a request. Somehow, I lift her up, urge her legs around my waist, and get us over to the countertop in the kitchen, which was magically built at exactly the right height. I pull out, much to her disapproval, but keep myself right at her juncture, teasing but not entering.
