Chapter 19
Brandon
I woke up the next morning with Melissa’s hair sprawled across my chest. My fingertips danced along her skin, feeling how warm she was as she snuggled into me. The sunlight was streaming across her exotic skin, coating her in a shimmering light that pulled a smile from my cheeks. She looked like a sleeping angel as her chest rose and fell with her soft snores. I wondered if she was sleeping better in my arms like I was within hers.
I played with her hair and traced pictures on her back until she stirred. She groaned and stretched, her leg pulling taut between mine. Her lips reached out and pressed a kiss to my stomach, causing me to chuckle as she flickered her sleepy gaze up to mine.
Even in their hazy state, the yellow freckles of her brown eyes shone with the rays of the sun.
“I have to go get Sarah,” she said.
“I was going to wake you soon if you didn’t stir. I’ll have to get up and get Max soon, too.”
“With your mom?” she asked as she sat up.
“Yep. With your in-laws?” I asked.
“Yep.”
The sheet fell from her body, and I watched her tits rest against her chest. Her soft curves taunted my fingertips, pulling at them like marionette strings. I reached out and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her back into me as she giggled.
“If we don’t get up, we can’t get our kids,” she said.
“What if I told you I wasn’t ready to let you go yet?” I asked.
“I’d tell you tough. Because we’ve got kids,” she said, giggling again.
“What if I took us and the kids out for lunch?”
She tilted her head to look up at me as her mind slowly jumped to life. Her eyes bounced between mine as she considered my offer. Then she raised up and planted a small kiss on the tip of my nose.
“I think that sounds nice,” she said.
We got up and got dressed, and I reluctantly put her in a cab. I wanted to take her back to her house, make sure she got there all right. But she insisted on taking a cab, so she could get back to her car. I shut her door and waved her off, watching as the yellow taxi took her away, and I couldn’t help feeling this aching emptiness settle in my stomach.
I didn’t like seeing her off.
I picked up Max from my mother’s, but he was not in a happy mood. Everything I asked of him was met with a no, and by the time I pulled up to the restaurant, he was in a full-blown meltdown. I parked at the end of the parking lot as he kicked and screamed, trying to order us to go home so he could watch more cartoons.
“We’re going and meeting new friends, Max. Don’t you want to meet new friends?” I asked.
“No! Cartoons!” he exclaimed.
“Max, you watched enough cartoons at Grandma’s. Now, it’s time to go meet one of Daddy’s friends,” I said.
“No, no, no! No friends!”
“Max, what in the world is wrong?” I asked.
“Go home and see cartoons,” he said, crying.
“Boys who pitch fits like this don’t get to go home and get what they want,” I said.
Just then, I heard someone rap at the window of my car. I looked over and saw Melissa’s face, sympathy painted all over it as I got out of the car. I looked down at the little girl whose hand she was holding, and I couldn’t believe how much Sarah looked like her mother. Same long, black hair. Same loose curls. Same brown eyes with those yellow sparkles, but her mouth was different.
She must’ve gotten her jawline from her father.
“Daddy!” Max shrieked.
“Cartoons?” Melissa asked.
“That’s where he wants to be,” I said, sighing.
“May I?” she asked.
“Oh, no. He’ll calm down in a bit. When he gets this worked up, you have to let him ride it out.”
Sarah was clinging to her mother’s leg, but Melissa kept insisting. She moved Sarah away from her leg, and as she opened my car door, I crouched down to Sarah’s level. Her hand kept reaching for her mother, wanting to keep in contact at all times while around a stranger like me. She was hesitant. Quiet. Apprehensive about the entire situation. She tensed up when Max’s shrieking ricocheted from the car, and I saw her lunge for her mother.
But she tripped and stumbled, almost crashing to the pavement had I not reached out for her.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She scrambled to her feet as tears rose to her eyes. I’d startled her, that much was for sure. She was obviously overwhelmed by her surroundings as her eyes flickered up to Max, and I watched as Melissa slowly ran her hands through his hair. He pulled away from her, smacking her hand and shrieking at her to stop. But all she did was continue, so I brought my focus back to her scared daughter.
“I like your bow,” I said.
But all she did was back away further.
“That’s my son, Max. He’s not very happy right now because he wants to watch cartoons. Do you like cartoons?”
I watched her nod her head as Max’s tantrum slowly began to dwindle.
“What’s your favorite?”
I saw her look up at her mother who was still attending to Max, so I simply sat back and waited. She looked back at me, her eyes locking with mine before she looked down at her feet.
“Buzz Bunny,” she said.
“Bugs Bunny? I like him, too,” I said.
“You do?” she asked.
“Mhm. Do you have a favorite snack for when you watch cartoons?”
“Froot Loops,” she said. “Or caramel popcorn.”
“Those sound yummy. Maybe we could have some after we have lunch,” I said.
I watched her take a step toward me as my gaze flickered up to Melissa. Max was finally calming down. So much so, in fact, that Melissa was beginning to unbuckle him. I watched as he held out his arms for her, tumbling his body into hers, and he clung to her neck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but before I could stand up and take him from her, I felt it.
Sarah’s hand slowly slid into mine.
Melissa looked down and gasped at the gesture. The shock that rolled over her face was evident, and as I stood with her daughter’s hand in mine, I couldn’t believe how Max had curled into her body. His breathing was evening out, his tears were drying up, and he was actually allowing someone he didn’t know to hold him close.
He never did that. Ever. For anyone new.
“I’ve never seen her take to someone like that so easily,” she said.
“I could say the same about you and Max.”
For a moment, we simply stood there looking at one another. Max’s hair was piled onto her shoulder as her hand smoothed up and down his back while Sarah’s hand gripped mine tightly as she stood close to my leg. My son, the defiant, tantrum-pitching four-year-old abandoned by his mother, was allowing a woman he’d never met to hold him close.
And Sarah, the shy, quiet daughter of a man who’d died before she was one, was standing close to me, knowing I’d jump at a moment’s notice to protect her.
“Mister?” she asked.
“Yes, Sarah?”
I watched her hold out her hands for me, and I quickly picked her up in my arms. I saw tears glisten in Melissa’s eyes, and for the first time in my life, I felt content. We walked the kids into the restaurant as they laid on our respective shoulders, and as I opened the door for Melissa, I felt like I’d finally made a right decision.
This was how our lives should have been from the start.