[outtake; NYE 2015]

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.

Davis kisses along Charley's jaw, down her neck, and twice to her collarbones. Her eyelids flutter, but she keeps her body taut against him. Keeps her hold on her argument and refuses to succumb to the games this man is playing.

"Davis." She means stop. "Davis, no." She means to say stop, but what she has a bit of trouble doing is actually getting any bass behind it that doesn't sound like a moan. It takes far too much strength for her to regain control of her limbs and push her husband away from her. He doesn't look apologetic in the least, and she scrounges for something that sounds stern. "We're not doing this right now. We are picking up Micah, just like we do every year."

He groans and flops back down against the couch. "I just don't see why, Charley. He's fifteen. Let the boy spend New Years with his friends."

"The same friends who stay out half the night messaging him and trying to get over our gates?"

"That was one time, Charley."

One time's more than enough for her. People - full grown ones and all their little babies out here - die every year because someone makes a wrong decision and someone else has to help them. Charley's not about to believe that Micah's going to start drinking profusely, or getting high just to calm his friends down, but he would definitely be the one who gets hurt trying to help someone else.

"I'd feel better if he were here with us. And wouldn't you?" She nudges at him, hand back to his chest so she can feel the way his pulse picks up at her touch. She shifts so she can be on her knees and focused completely on him. "Don't you want to rush up there a few minutes before midnight banging on the pots and pans?" And her fingers trail along his skin. "Wake him up, and we'll all crowd onto his bed and turn on our song." Spotify's got them this year, all queued up and ready. "And we can dance it in? Don't you want that?"

"I do. Baby, believe me." He smiles at her, but his eyes don't have the same sort of warmth that his lips do. His lips say that she's right, that the only right way to celebrate another year alive is with their son between them. But his eyes say the same thing as his words do. "But he wants to call it in with Jeremy and Malcolm." Davis talks over the groan she makes, louder so she has to hear him. "Micah wants to grow up, Charley, and we have to accept that."

"Why?" She sinks down onto her heels. "We had a great time last year. With Daddy here. We couldn't even get him to sleep. He kept asking Daddy about the farm and pestering him over that Monopoly game."

"I think it was Clue," Davis says.

"Either way, I just don't get it. When did we stop being enough for him?"

Davis sighs. "I don't know." Then he leans his head to the side, and that's low enough that he looks up at her for once. "But baby, you're more than enough for me."

She can't hide the way her lips curl. Can't deny the way her heart still picks up even if it's a ploy on his part. "You're only saying that so I'll sleep with you."

He grins a little harder. "Would that be such a bad way to bring in the new year? Who knows what it'll bring? We can present a united front. One big, strong body." His hands come up to her hips, and she resists again. She really does. Doesn't sink into the touch at all, doesn't do more than forcibly narrow her eyes at him. "Tell me what's wrong with that."

But if they can't have Micah, then there really isn't anything wrong with it just being them. Ring in the year in their bed instead of Micah's. Remind herself of how good her husband is. How often does she even have him with her like this? No Micah, no games, nothing else they need to work on?

She lets her shoulders drop, just a bit, and he smiles immediately. Beams at her and takes one hand from her hips to cup her face. She rolls her eyes, but she pecks the side of his hand anyway. "Fine. Go tell Micah you won me over. He can stay."

Davis runs his thumb down the bridge of her nose to her lips. "I told him two hours ago."

She slaps him, and he uses her momentum to bring her fully on top of him. Leans up and claims her lips as his own. Finally, she gives in. It can be a new tradition, throwing it back to before Micah came into the world.

"You and me," she says.

He nods. "You and me. This is gonna be our year, baby. Believe that."

"Our year."

/