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She hands Grayson over, and I sigh, blowing out some of the newly built tension now that James has him securely cradled against his chest. I don’t know how she can be so cruel to James or critical of her only grandchild. Calling Lauren “your sister” instead of “my daughter”, or even just by her name, seems unnecessarily callous.
I hurry to follow James out of the kitchen, but I stop right before we cross the threshold and turn to look back at his mom. “Grayson isn’t ‘difficult’. He’s hungry and just wants his—” mom, is what I was going to say, but I stop myself just in time because he’s not my baby, he’s not my baby, he’s not my baby. “The only one being ‘difficult’ right now is you.” I turn my back on her, and the crowd immediately starts up again, a din of angry voices that trail behind us.
James leads us up a wide staircase into the spare bedroom that used to be his, and we settle on the edge of the bed together. I maneuver Lainey onto my lap, and she tugs at the neckline of my zip-up. I pull the zipper down and quickly unclip one side of my nursing bra to feed her, and her tears drip down my chest. Small whimpers accompany the sound of her suckling, and I hold her a little tighter and hum a lullaby.
I startle slightly when James unclips the other side of my bra himself and pulls the fabric down instead of handing Grayson to me and giving us privacy. With one arm around my back and the other supporting Grayson’s weight, James brings him to my chest. He’s so upset that it takes him a few tries to latch properly, but when he does, he immediately settles.
And that’s when I start to cry. I cry for the babies and their little ears that hurt so much on the plane, for how scared and upset they have been since we stepped into this house. I cry for James and the horrible way his family treats him when they should all be leaning on each other right now. I even cry for his mother, who just lost the man she has loved for over three decades. I can’t imagine what that must feel like or how I would react if the same thing were to happen to me in the future, and I have second thoughts about the way I spoke to her.
“I’m sorry,” James whispers in my ear. He scoots closer ‘til we’re sitting hip to hip, slides his hand around my back to grip my waist, and pulls me in closer to his side.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to your mom that way, and I understand if you’re upset that I overstepped or—”
“Stop. You have nothing to apologize for, angel. And I’m not upset, at least not with you.” He sighs and seems to gather his thoughts. “My mom wasn’t always like this. She wasn’t very affectionate growing up, but I knew she loved me and cared about me. But now she just seems bitter. Like a switch flipped when Lauren and I moved out. My dad became a buffer between her and us, and now, with him gone…”
I twist my head to the side so I can look him directly in the eye. “I’m sorry about your dad. About your mom. I’m sorry for all of it.”
He gives me a sad smile as he rubs his hand up and down my side, and I close my eyes as I lay my head on his shoulder. We stay huddled like that until the babies are done nursing, and I sigh as I look around the room with its full-size bed and little else. I’m not sure if this room is for someone else and there are two other separate bedrooms for us or if we’re all supposed to squeeze ourselves in here for the next two nights. I don’t even want to think about sitting down for breakfast with his family in the morning and pretending that everything is ok just to keep the peace if possible.
When James pulls out his cell phone and brings it to his ear, I tilt my head, silently asking who he is calling. I hear a muffled greeting on the other end of the line, and James answers, “Hi, yes, I’m calling to see if you have any vacancies…Yes, I know it’s the holiday weekend, but…uh huh. That’s the only one you have available? Ok. Yes, we’ll take it…”
I manage a genuine smile when I realize he’s booking a hotel for us, then a bigger one when he taps on the Uber app. When we make it downstairs, James doesn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone. He simply leads us to the front door, where our bags are still discarded just outside. Our moods lift as we wait for the driver to pick us up at the curb.
Chapter 11
James
It was humiliating showing Shayla first-hand how dysfunctional my family is, but the way she stood up for me, putting my sister and my mom in their places…well, I just fell for her that much harder. Though she’s been affectionate with me today, I’m not confident it will lead to anything if her stricken reaction to what we did last night is anything to go by. So when she told them she was my girlfriend, my already abysmal mood dropped, knowing it was just a nice white lie, one she told for my benefit and nothing more.
I use the keycard to unlock the door to our hotel suite and hold it open to let Shayla and Lainey inside first, then follow them in with Grayson. The suite has a kitchenette, a small living room with navy blue and white accents, including a plush couch and mounted TV, and a separate single bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.
Shayla smiles through her fatigue as she lays a blanket on the living room floor and puts Lainey down on it with a few of her toys. Then, she takes Grayson from me while I bring our luggage and the babies’ car seats in from the bellman cart.
Once we have our luggage put away, I roll the travel cribs the hotel provided into the bedroom, one on each side of the king-size bed that I look at with longing, and get them set up for the night. When I’m done, I return to the living room just as Shayla is shutting the hotel door. She sets the room service dinner I was able to order ahead of time on the small round kitchen table, and then Shayla, Lainey, and I silently dig into our food.
Shayla and I don’t have the energy to do much more than yawn between bites, though our babies are wide awake after their nap in the car from the airport. We have yet to talk about sleeping arrangements since I first told her the hotel only had a one-bedroom suite available, and we still haven’t discussed it two-and-a-half hours later when we’re both done with our showers and ready for bed.
Shayla, who let me take the first turn in the shower, is a vision of beauty when she comes out of the bathroom with her towel-dried hair piled in a bun on top of her head. She’s wearing an old oversized burnt orange T-shirt with my alma mater’s initials on it that she must have taken from my suitcase at some point, the bottom hem skimming slightly higher than the middle of her thighs. It rivals any racy lingerie I’ve seen, and I have to quickly look away from her bare thighs when my dick threatens to harden.
I’m perched on the edge of the bed with both babies, bathed and dressed in their matching light blue sleep sacks. I was able to get them to each take a bottle while Shayla showered, and their eyelids droop heavily. Shayla stops and spins on her heel, exiting the bedroom and coming right back a second later with her cell phone.
“Smile,” she whispers, and the camera flash goes off in the dim lighting, snapping a picture of the three of us. Lainey jolts at the flash, and Shayla apologizes under her breath as she takes Lainey from me and cradles her, swaying back and forth on her bare feet until her eyes droop again.
When I readjust Grayson in my arms, I find he is already asleep, his tiny lips parted and long eyelashes fluttering slightly. I gingerly stand and lay him down in his crib closest to the bathroom. With another look of longing at the bed, then at Shayla and back again, I gather two of the four pillows and the extra blanket laid at the foot. I quietly leave the bedroom, only partially closing the door that separates it from the living room so I can hear the babies if they start crying.
As much as I want to sleep next to Shayla, I don’t want to make her uncomfortable or force her to ask me to leave if she’d rather sleep separately. Because, of course, she would. Why wouldn’t she? What I wouldn’t give, though, to sleep next to her all night, maybe even spoon her for a few minutes if she allowed me to.
I flip off the living room lights, leaving the small overhead light on in the kitchenette in case Shayla wakes up in the middle of the night and stumbles out for a glass of water. She’s all I can think about as I pull off my T-shirt, arrange my pillows on the couch, and shake out the blanket. I hear Shayla moving around in the bedroom, probably laying Lainey down in her crib and climbing into bed by herself.
I’m dead tired, but my mind won’t quieten enough to go to sleep just yet, so I slump on the couch with my head tipped back against the wall. Last night in my office flashes behind my closed eyelids, and my cock hardens fully in my sweatpants. Shayla was so beautiful, standing before me with such compassion in her eyes as she unclipped her top and slowly pulled one side down. And when she pressed her pink nipple against my lower lip—
There’s a soft snick of the door closing that breaks me from my thoughts, and I straighten up to find Shayla shuffling toward me. She sinks on the couch on my right, tucking her feet under her so she’s sitting on a hip with her knees resting against my outer thigh. Even that little point of contact makes my dick twitch. I cross my hands over my lap, hoping she doesn’t notice it standing at attention. For a long moment, she chews the inside of her cheek while her eyes bounce between mine.
“What’s up?” I ask to break the silence.
She drops her eyes. “I just wanted to say that I really am sorry about today. I know you said I didn’t need to apologize, but I feel like I took a stressful situation and made it so much worse. If I hadn’t come, then you’d—”
I squeeze her knee to stop her. “If you hadn’t come, I’d still be miserable and homesick for you.” I didn’t mean to say that last part, as true as it is. “Grayson would be too. So no more apologies, ok?” She nods, and I sigh, leaving my hand where it is and wondering if she’s even noticed it, seeing as how she hasn’t shifted away from my touch. “If anything, you and Lainey are the only things making this trip bearable. My dad—” Emotional overload hits me like a freight train just saying the word Dad out loud. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
