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She’s back.
I pull back, and I see it in her eyes. I know it in that moment. She’s back. Now we just need to continue on this path and not waver. I look into her smiling eyes, the brightest blue I have seen in a long time.
She kisses me once more and says simply, “I love you.”
I grin at her and round the corner of our SUV and slide back into the driver’s seat feeling a million times lighter than I had just a few moments ago. She turns and faces me after I get settled, and I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the chocolate bar I bought with our coffees and hand it over to her. Her excited squeal makes me chuckle and shake my head.
“Gah! I’m not even going to pretend that I’m not excited. Barrett, I totally wanted some chocolate and this is perfect. My favorite. Thank you!”
I smirk. “So predictable.”
She leans over the console and kisses me on the cheek with a loud smack and sits back in her seat with a little bounce. We both buckle up our seatbelts, and I start the car up, put it in drive, and head out for the last leg of our journey to the cabin.
I hear her tear open the package, and she breaks off a square of the chocolate and places the whole thing in her mouth. She moans in delight and sinks farther into her seat, her eyes closed like the chocolate is damn near giving her an orgasm.
“Shit.”
She looks up at me completely innocent, even though I know she isn’t. She’s doing it on purpose. The little minx.
“Hmm, you really know how to eat that chocolate, you know that? But you do have a little bit of caramel on your lip.” I’m driving but still do a quick reach-over with my body and lick her chin up to her bottom lip, not seductive in any way at all.
She laughs out loud and dramatically wipes her hand at the place where I left my mark.
“You’re such an ass.” She giggles telling me how happy she is.
“That’s what you get, trying to get me hard while driving us to the cabin.”
She opens her mouth to rebut but closes her mouth quickly when I grab her thigh, high enough that my pinky finger can graze where I really, really, really want to be.
“I think maybe you need to just drive. Faster.”
“On it, pretty girl.”
“Barrett?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Thank you for reminding me what it feels like to be falling in love again.”
I take a deep breath through my nose because, dammit all, I’m choked up. I grab her hand and squeeze tightly, which she returns. My reason for taking her on this trip was to remind us both of our love for each other. Getting her to fall in love with me all over again makes my heart beat faster, makes my chest swell with pride. Once was amazing enough. Twice is, without a doubt, a miracle, and I can’t wait to see it happen.
As we continue down the road, I pull up the playlist I made especially for this weekend. Actually, it’s one of three playlists I made. This one is meant to remind us of when we fell in love and in the early stages of our lives together: Full of Firehouse, Journey, Boston, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and a few others. It might be cheesy as hell. It might only be a step above a mixed tape, but I know that she’ll love it. As Bon Jovi starts singing “I’ll Be There For You,” our song — being children of 80s — I see her smile begin to glow. She reaches down to where my hand still rests on her thigh and clasps it tightly in her own.
Soon we’re both singing at the top of our lungs like of a couple of lovesick lunatics to songs that I chose especially for us. She keeps dancing in her seat like a goofball and completely letting loose, which was my plan. She’s waving her hands in the air like she doesn’t have a care in the world, and her hips are moving all over her seat. Our car ride club reminds me that no matter what we’ve been going through, I know we can get back to us.
WhenI Wanna Sex You Upstarts up, and I start singing in my best high-pitched impersonation, one shoulder hitching up as I try to reach notes that are unnatural. She laughs so hard that she doubles over and may or may not have snorted. (She did.)
“Barrett,” she wheezes, “I’m gonna pee. Seriously.”
“Cross your legs, woman! No peeing in the car.” I laugh at her and begin looking for a place to stop. Giving birth four times has definitely added interesting elements to our relationship, one of those being we make way more frequent restroom stops on our car trips.
Chapter Fifteen
Tess
When I got into the car, I am in a full-blown panic. I know our marriage is more important than anything else, but leaving the kids is never easy. Everything that’s happening with Grady right now has me on edge a bit, even though it seems that we’ve got it all under control. But what I’m most worried about is not having our jobs and the kids around for a buffer. I think I forgot how to be Barrett’s wife, his lover and girlfriend. It’s been so long since my identity shifted from being that woman into who I am today.
As many times that Lauren told me that I was being ridiculous, it’s still something that my mind can’t seem to let go of. What if he doesn’t like me anymore? What if we find ourselves sitting around just staring at each other, completely forgetting how to be alone without all of life’s distractions?
