Amelia
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I breathe in deep the scent of Chris all around me. For the first time since we started, I’m awake before him. A whole month together...it’s weird how totally not weird it’s been living with him and spending nearly every waking hour together. We go check on the progress of the building together; I helped him pick almost everything from the color on the walls to the stain on the doors. Two more owners have sold, leaving only two tenants. It’s been so fun we’re already looking for other properties.
The plans for the new kitchen are going so smoothly I’m waiting for something horrible to happen. With the help of a female architect, the guy only lasted twenty minutes when Chris came home to find him beside me. We have a plan ready for the walls and a ridiculously expensive support beam that will be necessary. We’ve picked out everything from paint colors to backsplash but Chris really wants to wait until the season is over or at least during the season when he’ll be away for a while and I can be the one to deal with it. I startle at the way he says it. His surprise at my surprise has his eyes swirling dark blue as he kisses me then bends me over the island.
Our only breaks from each other are when I go hang out with Holly to keep an eye on her for a few hours in the afternoon, per Ethan’s orders and when he works out. I used to go watch him work out, but I kept interrupting because I would get hot and bothered watching him work up a sweat. After the third time he cut his workout short he exiled me from the basement. Killjoy.
Spending time with Holly has been fun. I help her with her editing, doing some proofreading. We talk about the books we worked on and trade suggestions. I’ve realized I really missed us being friends like we used to be before I buried myself in work. Although I still came over for dinner often and we’d all watch movies together, it wasn’t the same as when we first met at the book club she used to organize. Over the past few weeks we’ve slowly found our way back to it.
I’m also learning to cook from both Holly and Chris. Holly is teaching me to cook with all the yummy good fat. Then I come home and Chris teaches me how to cook with things like safflower oil and turkey. It’s more fun than I thought it would be. Holly isn’t as fun a teacher as Chris is, though.
I love the hours we spend in the kitchen. Chris will plug in my phone, then hit shuffle and tease me at the eclectic mix of music coming out of it. We argue East Coast rap versus West Coast, Nas versus Common, and I breathe a sigh of relief he has no love for Kanye. We sing along to Journey as well as Pink, then make out to Usher, and make love to Rihanna. I will now forever associate the smell of turkey meatloaf with the time Chris brought me to orgasm from sucking and playing with my breasts alone.
Our time out of the kitchen is even better because I’m usually right up against him as we read together, or lie on the couch together watching old games, movies, or television.
I’m feeling guilty, though, as I still haven’t gotten any closer to knowing what I want to be now that I’m a grown-up. Holly has been trying to get me interested in helping her edit, she went from a few clients to more than she can handle. While I like doing the proofreading, I’m just a second set of eyes. I’m too worried I’ll miss something major if it’s all on me.
Hmm...Chris moves. Time to wake him up in the best way possible.
A few hours later, I’m reviewing paperwork for one of the women who came to the legal clinic for help when the doorbell rings. I look up to see Chris carrying two large suitcases toward the door.
“Come on, sugar, time to go.”
What? “Go where?”
He comes toward me with a smile, his dimples showing, blue eyes glowing. “Happy birthday, Ms. Bishop. Your gift is a week in Athens, Greece. For seven whole days we celebrate your birthday, all day, every day, whatever you want to do, we do. You want to go?”
I squeal as I hug him tight. I always wanted to go to Athens. After I graduated Penn State I got a trip to England for a week even though I pleaded for Athens. My parents declared Athens vulgar, refusing my repeated requests. My only other trip overseas was a weekend in Paris for work three years ago.
When the car takes us out of the city I’m surprised. “Where are we going?”
“Private plane, it has a bed in the back.” Chris winks at me and I laugh as I pull him down for a kiss.
The flight is long but very enjoyable as I thank him again and again for my gift. Once we land we’re taken to a hotel in the middle of Athens I swear is a palace. I can’t stop gasping as I walk through it to our enormous suite, clinging to Chris’s hand. That’s pretty much how I spend the week, gasping over the beauty that’s even more stunning in person as I cling to Chris, trailing behind him.
On my birthday I wake up to breakfast in bed. As I finish Chris hands This is already the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
“This is kind of for you and me.” It’s a plane ticket, for two weeks from now, to Phoenix. I’m confused. He reaches out to run his hand through my hair, pulling me towards him. His eyes are glowing sky blue. “I want you to come with me for spring training. Being with a player isn’t easy, I’m not at home a lot—”
I throw myself at him, cutting him off as I kiss him with all the love inside me. “I don’t care if it’s once a week for two hours, I’ll take you any way you’re willing to give me. Yes, yes, yes.”
***
Chris
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When I asked Ethan about what to give Amelia, he didn’t even think before responding a trip to Athens. Apparently, it was a place she’d been wanting to go for years but for some reason never had. Of course, she wouldn’t want anything as mundane as a sparkly pair of earrings or a new handbag. Everything she wanted she usually bought for herself. Planning the trip was fun, until I got to the actual travel plans.
The layovers and hours in the air and at airports seemed like torture. Ethan even came in handy for the solution to that problem as well. He gave me the card for the private jet rental he’d used to get him and Holly back to Chicago as quick as he wanted. The cost was a bit of a surprise, but I shrugged it off. It was her birthday. I wanted it to be spent enjoying every minute, not in pain as we trudged from one gate to another. In the end it was worth every penny.
Amelia smiled so often she complained a few times that her face hurt. I just laughed as I held her close. From the Acropolis to the Parthenon, and a visit to Santorini to see the sunset, resulting in an unplanned stay in a tiny hotel that she swore was the best part, every moment felt full of her happiness.
Then came her birthday as I held her gift in my hand. I’m such a selfish bastard her birthday should be all about her. What if somewhere along the way she changed her mind? As happy as she’s seemed for the last month, what if she was putting on a show?
I’d been glad to see that although she still read, it wasn’t a daily thing. She was focused on learning to cook, chattering about her impending status as an aunt, musing about what she wanted to do with her life, pulling me behind her in the Shedd Aquarium or cuddling up to me in a movie theater or on the couch. Her excitement of redoing the kitchen is what really sold me, she was willing to dig in, warning me it wouldn’t be easy that couples fought all the time when they remodeled but she knew we wouldn’t because what I wanted in a room I spent most of the time in was more important to her than being right.
Which she was going to be by the way, she tossed at me as she pulled me down to her. I loved her sassy mouth as she whispered, at least if we fought we would find out what makeup sex was like. I laugh just thinking of the her glowing green eyes. She was present and accounted for every day, not lost in the pages of a book.
When she opened her gift, she was confused. I felt like an idiot as I realized she didn’t know what it meant, about spring training in Phoenix. The change that came over her as I told her caused happiness to balloon inside me until I thought it would burst as she told me she’d take me any way I would give myself to her.
Maybe this won’t all go sideways and fucked up. Maybe the sweetest sin I’ve ever committed would be the best thing I’ve ever done.