“He visits us two or three times a year.”
“Too many,” he grumbles.
Fifteen days. He’s gone fifteen days without sex.
When we pull onto our private property, I smile at Thor, our retired thoroughbred, and Queen, our goat, both grazing by the barn. Our two-story house on the outskirts of Nashville isn’t a Theodore Reed original. It’s a thirty-year-old house that he’s making his mark on one room at a time. It’s in need of love and rebuilding—I was in need of love and rebuilding. I am his greatest masterpiece. I see it in his eyes. I hear it in the words he sings.
“Down, Derby,” Theo scolds our rescued pit bull terrier when he goes to jump on me.
“You’re fine, baby.” I squat down and scratch behind his ears. “He’s just overprotective.”
Theo hooks the truck keys on the hook by the door then walks into the living room. “Derby knocked over another one of your plants.”
I stand, resting my fists on my hips. “Derby.”
He cocks his head to the side.
I narrow my eyes. He drops to the floor and rolls on his back.
I shake my head. “No. You don’t get your belly rubbed if you didn’t play nice with my plants.”
“Do I get my belly rubbed?” Theo shrugs off his shirt and tucks it in the back of his jeans.
I admire his arms and all his new tattoos. Lots of song lyrics—about me. When we decided to adopt Maya, he added her name to his back, each letter connected with notes.
As much as my pregnancy hormones scream for me to rip off my clothes and sprawl out on the worktop for Theo to love every inch of me, I let myself enjoy the moment, counting breaths and staring at the man that was made just for me.
“What’s with the sappy look, Mum?” He refers to me as Mum and it makes me smile every time.
I think it’s because my life has found a perfection beyond anything I ever thought to dream of that I find myself reflecting back so often.
“We nearly destroyed each other.”
Theo nods, a bit of tension wrinkles his forehead.
“We nearly destroyed ourselves.”
Another nod. He slides his hands into his pockets and it does all kinds of wonderful things to the muscles in his chest and arms.
“Sometimes I feel like we broke together, and some of your pieces mixed with mine, and some of mine mixed with yours.”
He crooks a finger at me. I grin and walk to him, my whole body feeling quiteitchy.
“I think I like it when our pieces mix together.” He rests his hands on my belly.
I wait for them to move, make haste with removing my clothes, the sound of my gasp when one of his fingers slides into me—his tongue and teeth torturing my nipples.I’m so horny.
But… he doesn’t move. It’s just my beautifully inked husband—my rock star—holding our baby in his hands and me in his eyes.
“She’s moving,” he whispers, wide eyes focused on my baby bump.
I cover his hands with mine. “We did it, Theo.” Emotion builds inside of me. “After many dinners and small talk, me saying things that made you grin, and you saying things that made me laugh. After countless walks on the beach in the shadows of the night, too much wine and conversation—some of it lies, some of it truth—we finally managed to find a real life and feel…human.”
Theo’s eyes shift to mine. I feel like his whole world—like his song. Then he takes this perfect life, perfect day, perfect moment, and makes it even better by saying that one word that still reaches my soul. “Scarlet…”
The End
