Chapter Six
I awake to a sense of absolute contentment. For the first time in ages, I feel utterly warm and safe. Happy, even.
Opening my eyes, I soon discover why: my entire body is intertwined with Natalia's. Our limbs are so entangled that I can't be immediately certain which are mine and which are hers.
As my mind slowly begins to work out the puzzle before me, my eyes are drawn upward by Natalia's low laugh. I could listen to that sound all day: I've always loved it, but now I feel intimately connected to it. Overnight, every bit of her – her laugh, her body, her voice – all of it has become part of me.
I give her a lazy smile and stretch languidly. The movement makes me realise that part of my body is still asleep, and I can feel pinpricks making their way through my left leg as I adjust myself. But I have no complaints: being this near to Natalia is certainly worth any physical discomfort. I would happily put up with far worse if I could just wake up like this every morning for the rest of my life.
"Hi," she says softly.
"Good morning," I reply, brushing my lips over hers.
"I still can't quite believe this happened," she says, her body shaking with more quiet laughter.
"Me neither," I admit. "But here we are."
I shift closer to her and nuzzle her neck before I begin to trace light kisses along her collarbone. Her sigh of approval is all the encouragement I need. Luckily the top half of my body hasn't lost any circulation in the night, so I shift onto my hands in order to position myself above her, with our legs enmeshed under the sheets. We've spent most of the night making love, but I still don't feel like I've had enough of her. I wonder whether I ever will.
"Here we are," she repeats, giving me a sultry look.
Before last night, I never realised Natalia knew how to give anyone that kind of look. To be honest, I hadn't been all that certain that she liked sex. But now I know she is quite capable of being sultry. She's quite capable of anything.
I bend down and kiss her with a feathery light touch, each of us content to tease out the moment. After a while, she wraps her arms around my shoulders and draws me down on top of her. As we begin to fall into a natural rhythm together, I find myself wishing that I could bottle this moment and all its heady sensations: the feeling of Natalia's naked skin against my own, the warmth of our bodies pressed together, the touch of her lips, the way she tastes.
As I let myself become absorbed by all of those feelings, I'm startled by a sudden revelation:
I'm falling in love with her.
I pull away slightly to look down at her smiling face, and I can feel the words on the tip of my tongue. I take a deep breath, and I'm about to speak them out loud, but at the last second I swallow them. There will be plenty of time for those sorts of confessions. For now I just want to enjoy this moment with her.
"Happy Valentine's Day," she whispers.
My eyes instantly snap open at her words.
"Oh, shit!" I yell, jumping up.
"What is it?" she asks, sitting up beside me. She looks utterly confused.
I say nothing as she searches my eyes, but my expression tells her everything she needs to know.
"Oh, shit!" she echoes as she scrambles out of bed. "Valentine's Day! Emma wanted us to help her to make cards for her class this morning!"
"Yeah, and she's supposed to be back from Jodie's in…," I check Natalia's alarm clock. "Fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh god!" Natalia cries, taking in our nakedness in one quick glance. "Clothes!" she declares. "We need clothes!"
She spins away from me and starts frantically picking up our discarded garments from the floor. A grin creeps across my face as I watch her. She tosses my jeans and shirt at me before stopping to take in my amused expression.
"Are you laughing at me right now?" she asks incredulously, her hand poised on her hip.
"No… well, yeah, kind of," I smirk. "Sorry, but you're cute when you're crazy."
She shoots me an admonishing look, and I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to stop myself from bursting into more laughter as I sort through my clothes. After all, Natalia's right: the last thing either of us needs is my daughter storming into the bedroom right now.
I throw on my jeans and shirt from the night before and turn back to face Natalia again. I don't even bother to hide my mirth at the sight that greets me: in her haste, Natalia's arms and head have become hopelessly tangled inside her sweater. She's struggling to free herself, but she's only succeeding in getting more wrapped up in the fabric.
"Mmmph!" she mumbles angrily.
"What was that?" I ask playfully, leaning slightly closer to her. "I couldn't quite make that out."
"MMMPH!" she says, louder this time, but no more intelligibly. Her arms flail helplessly, and I finally take mercy on her by untwisting the sweater until she's able to put it on properly.
She blows a haughty puff of air to move the hair out of her face. Then she greets my widening grin with a deep frown.
"You know, I learned to dress myself when I was three," I tease. "But don't worry; you'll get the hang of it eventually."
"Hey, I was in a hurry, okay?" she huffs.
Unable to resist the embarrassed look on her face, I bend down and wrap my arms around her waist.
"You're completely adorable, do you know that?"
Her expression instantly softens, so I pull her closer and place a gentle kiss against her lips. I had planned for it to be a chaste peck, but as soon as I feel her lips part against mine, I'm lost in the sensation. She buries her fingers in my hair, and we instinctively begin to move toward the bed again. Without warning, my leg slams against the edge of the bed and we tumble backwards together.
But, a minute later, the sound of the front door slamming shut brings us both to full attention.
"Mommy?" Emma's voice echoes up the stairs.
"Dammit," I mutter as Natalia rolls off of me. She covers her eyes with her hand and laughs.
"I'm coming, honey!" I call out as I get up from the bed.
"Well, you definitely will be later."
Natalia's soft comment draws a surprised chuckle from me. I had no idea she could be such a flirt, but I'm beginning to enjoy it.
"I'll hold you to that," I tell her as I head toward the door. "But first, I'll go see what Emma has planned for her valentines."
"Okay, I'll just take a minute to run a brush through my hair, and then I'll be right down."
She glances at her reflection in the nearby mirror and laughs at the tangled mess of her hair.
"Um, I might need more than a minute," she amends.
"You're beautiful." Our eyes meet in the reflection of the mirror and I smile shyly. "Just as you are."
She flashes me a bright, happy grin, and I know I have to escape right now before I completely forget about my daughter downstairs.
"I'll see you in a bit."
After making a quick stop at the bathroom to brush my teeth, I run down the stairs to look for Emma. I can hear her rustling around in the kitchen, so I head in that direction. When I enter, I see that she's already retrieved the bag of markers and construction paper that we bought the other day to make the valentines for her class.
"Hey, my little munchkin." I give her a quick hug. "How was your sleepover?"
"Good," she replies. "We watched Ice Age on Jodie's big screen TV."
"Wow, that's pretty cool. How many times have you seen that movie?"
Emma tilts her head, calculating quietly. "Twenty-four," she says. "But I haven't seen it on a big screen before." She stretches her arms out as far as they'll reach. "It was thiiiiis big. Even bigger than that!"
"Well, I'm glad you had such a fun night." I begin to help her organise the art supplies on the table.
"Did you and Natalia have a fun night, too?"
Emma's voice is innocent, but my face instantly flushes at her words. Needing a quick distraction, I empty the contents of the bag onto the table and sit down next to her.
"Yeah, we did. So, uh, what's the plan here, Em?"
"We're making pink hearts for the girls and red hearts for the boys."
"Oooh, very nice." I pile some markers and highlighters in front of her.
"Make some room for Natalia!" Emma demands, pushing the markers out of the way.
I grin at her as I help clear out a space beside me.
"Okay, sweetie, how's that?"
"Perfect."
As if on cue, I hear Natalia's footsteps on the stairs. In a moment, she appears in the kitchen doorway, her hair now looking immaculate. She smiles at me, and I have to force myself to look away. We haven't talked about how or when we're going to explain things to Emma, but I can't help wondering whether my daughter will be able to sense any changes between us.
"Natalia!" Emma cries happily as soon as she sees her. "Look what I made!"
Natalia shifts her attention to the heart Emma is holding up.
"Wow, that looks great!"
"Can you do those little cut thingies like you did one time?"
"The little cut thingies?" she repeats, clearly searching for the answer to Emma's riddle. Suddenly, her eyes light up. "Oh, you mean like, fringe? Sure, I can do that."
Natalia settles onto the chair beside me, and we each grab a pair of scissors to work on making fringed hearts. After a few minutes, Emma cuts out a red heart and holds it up, contemplating it for a moment. She turns to me, her face suddenly full of fear and uncertainty.
"Do you need a new heart every year?" she asks softly.
I hear Natalia take a deep, shuddering breath beside me, and instinctively I reach for her under the table, gripping her knee reassuringly. Then, I take the paper heart out of Emma's hand and hold it up in front of my face.
"No, I get to keep this one. Here," I grab Emma's hand and press it firmly against my chest, "feel it." I tap her hand rhythmically against my heart. "Bup-bum, bup-bum… you feel it beating?" She nods. "That's because it's really strong. And I'm going to be around for a very long time." I release her hand and display the paper heart again.
"So, can I keep this?" I ask.
"You said you didn't need it!" Emma protests.
Natalia releases a watery laugh beside me, and when I glance at her I see that her eyes are brimming with tears. I wipe her cheek with my thumb before turning back to my daughter.
"I know, but it's really nice, and I want it." I reach forward and squeeze Emma's cheeks gently. "All I really need is you." I turn to meet Natalia's smile. "You and Natalia. You're my family, and I love you so much."
"I love you too, Mom," Emma replies.
Tears spring to my eyes at the simple honesty of her answer. "I know," I whisper.
"Okay," Natalia says brightly in an effort to lighten the mood. "So, I think we've got enough hearts here. Should we start putting your classmates' names on them?"
"That's a great idea," I agree. "Emma said she wants to give red hearts to the boys and pink hearts to the girls."
Emma reaches for a large red heart and holds it up for our inspection.
"This one is special," she admits quietly. "It's for Stephen."
Natalia and I exchange a look. "Stephen? Who's Stephen?"
"He's a boy that I met at school," Emma explains. "My funny… my tummy goes funny…" she trails off shyly.
"Funny feeling?" I supply. "Yeah, you mean like butterflies?"
"You know that feeling?"
"I know it well," I reply, suddenly feeling shy myself as I look down at the paper in front of me. I'm certain my face is growing as red as the heart Emma's holding in her hands.
Oh god, I look like a schoolgirl with a crush, I realise with a vague sense of horror.
"Okay," Natalia says, and I'm grateful when she shifts the focus back to Emma. "How about we make a pretty little butterfly on that one then? I'll help you draw it."
She reaches across the table to grab a marker, but just then, her cell phone rings.
"Sorry." She glances at the caller ID and her face falls. "Oh, it's Frank."
My smile instantly freezes as I find myself trying to suppress a sudden wave of jealousy. Despite being a detective, Frank isn't exactly known for his skills of perception, so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that he's calling to ask Natalia out on another date. I begin to wonder how she would respond, but I try to shake away the thought. After the night we just shared together, I can't imagine she's going to be running off with Frank anytime soon.
Still, my insecurities aren't easily conquered, and my hand falls away from her knee as she gets up to answer the phone.
"Hello," she says, her back to me. "What's wrong?" I hear her suck in a quick breath of air. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Frank. Can I do anything?... Okay, right. Well, call me when you know anything, okay?"
She hangs up and turns back around to meet my gaze. I know instantly that something terrible has happened, and I can sense that she doesn't want to tell me about it with Emma listening.
"Emma, I'm just going to go grab some more markers from the other room, okay?" I say, getting up quickly from the table.
"Okay, Mommy," she says absently. She is completely focused on perfecting the butterfly she's attempting to draw on Stephen's valentine.
I walk into the living room with Natalia, and we both wait to speak until we're a safe distance from the kitchen.
"What happened?"
"Coop was in a car accident," she explains. "And Frank says it's really bad. He's just out of surgery, but I don't think they know…"
"Oh my god," I groan.
"I know."
"So, I should call him. I should see if I could do something…?"
"I don't know, I got the feeling that it was a little hectic. You know, maybe we should just wait for…"
At that moment, her cell phone rings again.
"It's Frank," she says.
"Oh, gosh," I whisper. "I hope it's good news, please…"
Natalia nods at me as she answers. "Hi Frank, how's Coop? Uh, yeah, she's right here, do you want me to…" she trails off and looks at me again, her eyes wider this time. When she next speaks, her tone is far more hesitant. "Okay, yeah. I will tell her. Bye."
She hangs up and stares at the phone in her hand, avoiding my gaze.
"Did he want to talk to me?"
"He had to leave the hospital to go make an arrest—"
"Okay," I interrupt. "But I don't understand…"
Natalia exhales heavily and stares at me for a long moment before speaking. She seems to be deciding how to break some awful piece of news to me, and I brace myself for whatever she's about to say.
But nothing prepares me for the next words that come out of her mouth.
"Olivia… Phillip Spaulding is back."
tbc