“I watched you in my rearview mirror,” I told him.
He pulled on my hand and his voice was gruff when he pleaded, “Baby, fuckin’ please, come back to bed.”
“I was so happy.”
“Jesus, Sylvie.”
“I sat on that pier for hours the next day. It was so hot, the Snickers bars melted in their wrappers. I got sunburn.”
His hand tugged at mine and his voice was harsh when he said, “Fuck me, Sylvie, please, come back to bed.”
“I looked everywhere. I couldn’t find you.”
“Fuck.”
“Days, I looked and I couldn’t find you.”
“Baby, please.”
My voice broke on my repeated, “I couldn’t find you,” and Creed was done.
I knew this because he yanked on my arm and I went flying to him. Then I was in his arms in bed, tucked mostly under him, one of his hands cupping the back of my head, pressing it into his throat, both arms holding me tight.
“I couldn’t find you,” I whispered into his skin.
“I’m here.”
“You always protected me.”
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” he murmured into the top of my hair.
“When Daddy gave me to him, I knew you’d come back and take me away. Take care of me.”
“Fuck, Sylvie.”
“You didn’t come back.”
Creed said nothing.
I lay in his arms and it hit me what I was saying and what it must sound like.
“I don’t blame you,” I told him quickly.
Creed said nothing.
“After that, what they did to that girl, I would have done the same thing,” I declared.
Creed said nothing.
“You did what you thought was right. You couldn’t know. We didn’t know Daddy was hooked on blow. Hooked so bad, in so deep, he had to pay Richard off with me.”
Creed said nothing.
“Creed.”
Creed rolled over me and by the time I turned in bed I heard what I suspected was the lamp from my nightstand crash against the wall.
Then I heard his roar, “Fuck me!” and I shot out of bed, pressed myself to his back and circled his middle with my arms.
I pressed my face into his skin, into my tat. “Sorry, baby, sorry, so, so, sorry. I should have shut up. I shouldn’t have kept talking.”
He twisted in my arms and his big hands cupped either side of my head, jerking it back with only a modicum of gentleness and his shadowed face was all I could see.
“You work that shit out, Sylvie, you work it out and you do it with me,” he growled.
“Okay.” I thought it best to agree immediately.
“You give me everything you got, I’ll deal.”
“Okay,” I agreed again, immediately.
“They took a month from me. They took six years from you. I’ll deal.”
“Okay.”
He used his hands on my head to yank me forward and I did a forced face plant in his chest before his arms wrapped around my head.
When I felt his chest expand with a huge breath then release I felt it safe to note, “They took a month from you, six years from me but they took sixteen years from us.”
“Yeah. And we’ll both deal with that shit by me makin’ love to you, planting my baby inside you and both of us, when we make more, all of us livin’ free, easy and happy for the rest of our lives, exactly how they did not want us to be.”
It was easy to agree to that one.
“Okay.”
Creed didn’t let me go and I let him hold me.
This went on awhile. So long I decided to move things on.
“Uh… Creed?”
“Right here, Sylvie.”
“This might not be the time but I’m thinking at least three kids, maybe four.”
His body turned to stone.
“Okay, three,” I said hurriedly.
Creed said nothing.
“Right, then, two. But, warning, I’m sticking on two.”
Creed still said nothing.
“Though, if it’s two boys, we have to go for a girl…” I paused, “and, uh, vice versa.”
Creed stayed silent but started walking me backwards to the bed. We weren’t too far so we went down in two steps, me on my back, Creed on top of me.
After we bounced twice and settled, Creed spoke.
“You want four kids, we best get to work, baby.”
I grinned.
There it was. Creed made it all better.
Unfortunately, he went on, “We stop at three, you get to an age where four isn’t healthy.”
Seriously?
“I’m not old, Creed.”
“Gotta have two years in between.”
“Is that a rule?”
“Yes.”
Seriously. Sometimes a bossy badass was annoying.
“Creed –”
His head was descending and I stopped talking when it froze in its descent for a moment before he dipped his chin and looked at me through the dark.
“It’s two oh five,” he announced weirdly.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s two oh five, baby.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not understanding the information he seemed intent on imparting on me. Or, more to the point, not understanding why he seemed intent on imparting this information on me.
His lips came to mine. “You’re a minute into your thirty-fifth birthday.”
Oh. Yeah.
Right on!
“Yippee,” I whispered against his lips. I was pretty sure he was going to kiss me but he rolled, got on his ass, did something in the dark by the nightstand then he came back to me.
His hand trailed down my arm, found my wrist, lifted it and turned it so my hand was palm up.
I felt a box set in it.
“My girl’s green,” Creed murmured.
Oh shit.
Oh crap.
Oh fuck.
I had this back too.
Not that I forgot it, just that I had it back.
I had it back.
Finally.
Tears clogged my throat and through them, I pushed out a weak, “Creed.”
“Open it, Sylvie.”
I sucked in breath and started to shift up. Creed moved to my side, I got up on my ass and, in the dark, I opened it. I didn’t even look at it, not that I could see it if I tried. I just pulled it out, tossed the box aside and my fingers slid along the chain until I found the clasp.
“Will you lift my hair, baby?” I muttered and Creed moved to do as I asked.
When he shoved a hand under and lifted the mass up, I clasped the necklace on and felt its cold settle next to the one I was already wearing.
My eyes went to him. “Love it.”
My hair tumbled down, I felt his hand cup my jaw and there was a smile in his voice when he remarked, “You can’t see it.”
“Don’t care. Still love it.”
For a moment, yet again, Creed said nothing.
Then he said something, he just didn’t use words.
He moved into me, covered me and used body language.
Magnificently.
Thus my thirty-fifth birthday, unlike any of the thirty-four before, except one, started perfectly.
This was it.
The life.
It was evening. I lay on my back in my backyard, elbows in the turf, bare feet crossed, gut filled with Creed’s homemade, shredded chicken barbeque sandwiches, store bought macaroni salad and Charlene’s birthday cake. I was watching Brand and Kara play with Adam and Leslie. Creed was lying in the grass twenty feet away letting Theo use him as a jungle gym while Charlene was in my kitchen. She had put her foot down declaring I was not allowed to do the dishes on my birthday (not that I would, they could wait a day or three) so she was doing them.
I lounged thinking that I loved this. I only ever had a hint of this feeling, spending time with Creed and his kids in Phoenix, but I got it.