SOOKIE
"What did you say to me? When you were speaking Swedish?" I ask, as we get dressed after the bath.
He smiles and his eyes look dreamy as he sits on the bed in his boxers. "I told you how much I love you and that I want to marry you someday. We'll have tons of babies because I won't be able to leave you alone and we'll live in a great big house with a huge yard. We'll get a dog and I'll bring you flowers at the end of the day because I'll be so happy to see you. And I'll dress up for you and take you dancing just so I can hold you close all night. And then we'll go home and kiss our babies in their beds and make love to each other in the moonlight. And when we wake up, we'll have babies in between us because they couldn't stay away from you either. Because you are the best mama in the world… And most of all, I hope I can make you, for the entire rest of your life, even a fraction of how happy you always make me." He looks up and is startled at the tears falling down my face. He jumps up and comes over to me to wipe them.
"That was so beautiful, Eric. I want all of that too," I say around the lump in my throat. How is he for real?
"Oh, don't cry anymore, Sookie," he whispers, kissing my cheeks. He pulls me to his chest and sways from side to side for a minute. "I love you so much," he says against my hair.
"I love you, too," I whisper.
"I cried with Sander in my car today." He says this like we're discussing the weather.
I try to pull back so I can see his face but he won't let go of me. "You did?"
He laughs a little, a self-deprecating sound. I hate that from him. "It was so awkward but I couldn't help it."
"What happened?" I ask, rubbing my hands up and down the length of his back. My face is against his warm naked chest, his racing heart under my cheek.
"He was telling me how he lived when he was on drugs and how he fought so hard to kick them so he could be happy. And he says he's happy now, he's filled with joy because he knows he fought and won."
"That's wonderful, Eric," I say, thinking he's done talking, but he's not.
"And I asked him…I asked him how he was so strong. How he got so strong and he said I taught him. Me. But how is that…how was it me?" he whispers and my heart wants to just shatter because he doesn't see, he never sees his strength or his worth. He doesn't recognize all the things he does for other people and all the reasons people love him. This is what I want for him, what I hope he gains in therapy.
"Of course it was you, Eric," I say into his chest, wishing he would let me look into his eyes. "You were there for him whenever he needed you growing up. You fought so hard to make him happy," I say, remembering what Pam told me about how desperately Eric tried. "He sees your strength everyday when he watches you take care of your baby now. You're smart and successful and loving and strong, Eric."
"Well," he says, backing up and turning to his dresser for a t-shirt. "So I'm going. To therapy. So you don't have to worry about me anymore, right? Or me and Sander. That will help ease your stress, won't it? And Anni only has one more tooth to break through and then she will feel better, I think. So you can just concentrate on your studies, okay? Please don't worry about me."
I walk up to Eric and rub his back. He's good at being brave. He's good at being guilty, which is why he won't let me see his face. Like I'm going to stop worrying because he plans on making a counseling appointment. It's good, I'm happy about it, but I'm still going to worry. "I love you, Eric, so I'm always going to worry about you, but I do feel better that you and Sander talked. This place was getting to be a little tense so I'm glad it will be better now." When he doesn't say anything, I kiss his back and then resume getting dressed, putting on my same clothes as before.
"I'm going to try really hard to make your life as stress-free as possible," Eric says, wrapping his arms around my middle and putting his head on my shoulder from behind. "Anything you need, just let me know. You need space? Just tell me and I won't pout. You need to study at home? That's fine, I can entertain myself sometimes. Just please tell me what you need and I'll do it for you."
"Eric, baby, you're going to stress yourself out trying to de-stress me."
He laughs and his body shakes mine. "I guess. I just want you to be happy."
"I am. How could I not be with you taking care of me?"
"Well…okay," he murmurs. He clearly doesn't believe me. He kisses my cheek and then moves to his bedroom door. "You ready?"
"Yup." Since he doesn't want to talk anymore.
As we walk through the hallway he says, "Oh, I decided to talk to my mother on the phone. Maybe tomorrow."
This is big! But when I want to say something about it to him, he is already halfway down the stairs. The stinker doesn't want to talk about it so he tells me and then runs. Well, at least he told me, I guess.
He gives me a goofy little smile when I catch him downstairs and I'm glad for his little bit of playfulness over a tough topic. I pinch his side when I walk up to him and it makes him jump and grin. "Brat," I mutter. I walk up to Annika and sit down with her on the floor. I think Sander has been back for a while. "Are you boys hungry or did you eat enough for several small villages at that buffet you went to for lunch?"
Sander starts to laugh and pat his stomach. "There is always room for more, right Eric?"
Eric laughs and nods enthusiastically. "Always. Are you making us dinner? We can do take-out."
"No, you already ate out today. I need to keep you healthy. You ate enough take out in the last year to last the rest of your life, I'm sure!"
Eric smiles at me and walks over to pet my head while I'm on the floor with Anni. "Thank you, beautiful," he purrs.
"No problem. Anni and I planned dinner while you were gone, didn't we, Anni?" She grins at me and nods her head and I have no idea if she actually knows what I'm talking about. She's just so freaking cute that I have to snatch her up and squeeze her.
ERIC
"So I ran into Sophie this weekend," I tell Pam as she sits in front of my desk, going over my day with me.
She jumps from her seat and leans over my desk. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Nope." Her reaction is just what I thought it would be.
"Eric! Spill your fucking guts!"
"I was with Sander downtown and we saw her at Copley. She walked up to me, flirted with Sander, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, and we walked away."
"And?" Her eyes are piercing mine, waiting for more of the story.
"That's all there is."
"Bullshit! Why the fuck is she here? Does she think she can weasel her way back into your life? Did you tell Sookie? I need to call that girl."
"Sookie?"
"Yes. I'm sure she's freaking out."
"Well, she was, but we're fine now. As for the rest? I don't know."
"I'm going to find out. Don't try to stop me. You can't bury your head in the sand on this one, Eric. You need to be proactive and figure out what she—"
"I know, Pam. Go ahead and work your magic. Let me know what you find out."
She smiles at me, relieved that I won't be fighting her on this. "Good."
"Good…So, can we get to work? Sander is coming for lunch and I'm going to play hooky for a few hours."
She smiles, happy that I'm being irresponsible I'm sure. She thinks I'm too serious and maybe she's right.
PAM
When Eric told me about running into the mega-bitch, Sophie, my first thought was of the duct tape and black garbage bags I would need to make sure this cunt never fucks up Eric's life again. But once thoughts of murdering her violently ran from my head, I got down to business tracking her down. I called an old acquaintance of mine, and a friend of the LeClerq family, to get the scoop on what the hell she is doing here when she is supposed to live across the fucking country.
Apparently, she is here visiting. She's been here for two weeks already and if she cared anything about her daughter, she would have tried to see her already. If she tries now, because she happened to run into Eric, there is no way she can get away with a sob story about missing her baby or some shit. No. She's a fucking bitch and that's all there is to it.
So imagine my surprise, and the roll of my eyes, when I see her and her straw hair and huge fake tits coming down the hallway towards my desk. Thank fucking heaven that Eric and Sander have been gone for a while already.
"Alcide," I say to him across my desk where he sits, "You'll have to come back later. Although, I'm not fucking you in Eric's bathroom again. He's back from vacation. He will notice."
"Come on. It will only take five minutes," he pleads.
"Oh, that makes it so much better," I say, rolling my eyes. "So you can get off and leave me smelling like your spunk all day? No thank you."
"Please Pam! I'll cum on the shower floor and we can rinse it down. He'll never know."
"Alcide! No! Besides, you're no good at pulling out. You always get too excited and then I'm left with your jizz running down my thigh. I can't do this right now. You need to leave. Go have a wank in the men's room." Sophie is getting closer.
"But—"
"Now!" I hiss. He stands up and slinks away, shoulders slumped and looking all forlorn. Ugh. Stupid fucking gorgeous baby!
He leaves just in time. As Sophie nears my desk, I have a flashback of the times when she used to try to barge into Eric's office, saying he would never keep her out if she wanted to see him. Unfortunately, she wasn't wrong. He used to drop everything when she came around and she would always stay just long enough to get him excited and get some money off of him. She would always be pocketing it and wiping her mouth demurely when she would come out of his office. And Eric would always be sitting behind his desk, looking flushed and frustrated, with lipstick on his mouth, when I would see him after she left.
He would have done anything for her, and he frequently did at the expense of his dignity. But he thought he was loved and he thought she was his family, which he was so desperately missing at that time. And she knew it.
So now, as this fucking skank comes walking up to my desk, I am determined that she will not get her hooks into him again in any way. He is just starting to live again and she brings nothing but death.
I stand up as she comes up to my desk. "What the fuck do you want?" I ask, looking into her cold eyes.
"It's none of your business, Pamela. It was never any of your business yet you somehow always wormed your way in, didn't you?"
Oh no she fucking didn't! I take a deep breath so I don't beat the everloving shit out of this whore right here at work. "Eric is my friend and his happiness is my business. You are no longer in his life, Sophie. Why don't you just leave him the fuck alone? Here's not here anyway."
She starts to step around me, trying to ignore me and get to Eric, since I'm sure she thinks I'm lying. When I move back in front of her she stops to look at me. "Eric was mine for three years, Pamela. You don't think that if I wanted him again, he wouldn't come running? That if I wanted I couldn't have him heeling nicely with one flick of my wrist and one stroke of my hand along his huge cock. We both know I can have him begging on the floor whenever I want."
Images of a bloody pile of goo with fake tits and bleached blonde hair pass through my mind and I clench my manicured hands to keep from striking her. If I break a nail, I will break her face.
"And here I was thinking that you actually had some remorse about the way you left him and your own child. You make me sick."
Sophie narrows her eyes at me as if that's supposed to scare me. I have half a foot on her easily and I could flatten her if I were so inclined.
"Yes, she's my child and if I want her, if I tell him that I want to be in their lives, he will come running and you know it!"
Well, she's wrong about that and that's what I know, but I won't tell her that. The less she knows about his life now, the better. If she knows that he is happily involved with another woman, her bluff might actually turn into a real nightmare for everyone involved.
"Look Sophie, the bottom line is I can't let you fuck with his life. Not anymore. He's finally happy. He has finally started living again and I won't let your presence in his life pull him back down. You have absolutely no idea what you did to him. You fucked with his heart and with his head on a daily basis for three years…and then you left him with a newborn baby and took off! How do you think you deserve anything more from him? How do you think you deserve to be in his daughter's life?"
"She's my daughter too! If I want to see her, I should be able to see her!"
Ugh. Can a slap this bitch just for being whiny? If anybody deserved to be whiny, it was Eric, when he was on round the clock baby duty all alone. But he wasn't. Anything he ever did for his girl was done out of love and he never complained once about any of it. "You think you deserve to be in her life? Where were you when she was up every two hours at night? Where were you when Eric was frantically reading parenting books because he wanted to be a better father than his own? Where were you when Eric was bereft because he had to come back to work to support his family when all he wanted to do was cuddle the only thing that made him the slightest bit happy?"
She's just staring at me. And blinking. The fucking bitch, I'm going to rip her fake lashes right off her overly made-up eyes!
"Well, I'm sure Eric has enough money that he hired the best nannies. If he would have taken his father's money, he probably could have stayed home for longer."
"It's all about money to you, isn't it? Do you have any idea why he didn't want his father's money? Did you ever even care anything about him? Did you ask him why he was sad sometimes? Or why he didn't sleep well? Did you give a shit about him at all? Or was it all about his money and his family?"
Sophie actually looks chagrinned by my last statement. "I did love him," she whispers. Right, well apparently not enough.
"Did you? Because from what I saw, you never made him happy. You never cared about the real him. You just wanted a rich reformed playboy to flaunt. But when he didn't play by your rules and he wasn't an attention whore like you, you decided to keep him around anyway, why? Because he's a good fuck?"
Sophie's face flushes in that embarrassed sort of way that happens when someone has your number. "He was good to me. He treated me better than the other rich assholes I dated. And yes, he's excellent in bed, but that's not the only reason why I stayed with him. I really did love him."
"Then how could you fuck him over so thoroughly? With so much malice?"
"Look, Pam! I had the fucking kid! I carried her for nine fucking months for him. She stretched my body and ruined by boobs. I had to work out and starve myself like mad for two months before I could even audition! I did that for him! Because he was so fucking happy when I told him I was pregnant."
"Do you want a fucking medal?"
"Fuck you! I could have gotten rid of it. I could have just told him something was wrong."
"Yes, and you didn't. You had her and then you just left. You didn't talk things through with him. You didn't tell him you had doubts or that you weren't ready to be a mother. You let him fall in love with the idea of his family and then you ripped it away from him. Did he beg you to stay and you just ignored him?"
"On his knees," she whispers. Luckily for her she looks upset to be remembering his grief. Because the wave of utter sadness that pulses through my body is followed closely by a wave of fury and she would be under the stiletto heel of my Manolo Blahniks if not.
I'm torn about Sophie. Because if not for her, Eric would not have his Anni, who he delights in, but he also would not have the heartache that caused him to go inside himself for an entire year. If she had not left him though, who knows what his life would be like. Unless motherhood would have changed her completely, raising a family with Sophie would have been a nightmare for Eric. But this, right here that she is doing—this trying to worm her way back into his life for some reason—this has to stop. None of them deserve this stress—not Eric or Annika or Sookie—and I'm going to make sure she understands that.
"So leave him alone now. Leave his baby alone. She doesn't know you and you don't plan on staying around. If you do anything good for her as the woman who gave birth to her, then leave her alone with her father. That's the only thing you did right by her, letting Eric have her. Don't screw it up now."
Sophie looks at me for a few seconds and I stare right back at her, thinking she is going to say something to make me want to slap her. But instead, because everything about this bitch has to be as annoying as possible, she starts leaking. Great. Big silent tears slip down her face and if I cared anything about her, I would say she needed a hug. But fuck her.
"Can I see a picture of her…at least?" she whispers, blotting her eyes with her fingertips.
I grab my purse and pull a picture of Annika from my wallet. Oh, whatever, she's the only kid I have in there. "Here," I say, thrusting it into her hands. Eric and Sander are due back any minute and this bitch needs to be out of here when they come. "Keep it."
Sophie stares at the picture for an absolute eternity and I keep looking out my door into the hallway to make sure Eric isn't coming.
"She looks just like him…That's good," she whispers, tracing the baby's features on the small photograph. She looks up at me and smiles slightly. "Thank you. Tell Eric…Don't tell him anything. I shouldn't have come here."
She turns around and walks with small quick steps, down the hallway and out the door. I sigh, an immense weight lifted from my shoulders because Eric won't have to see her again. I hope Sophie doesn't change her mind about pursuing visitation with Annika.
Alcide comes around the corner and from his quick re-entry I know he was there all along, listening. He gives me a look that makes me roll my eyes.
"What?" Underneath his tough exterior, he's a bleeding heart and I know he thinks I was cruel to that cunt.
"What if she wants to be in the baby's life now? She's her mother..."
"Yes, and she was her mother when she had her cut from her body weeks too early so she wouldn't get stretch marks and she was her mother when she ordered the baby into the nursery for her entire hospital stay and she was her fucking mother when she abandoned her and moved across the fucking country!"
Alcide remains quiet because he values his balls and he knows I am in no mood for his soft-hearted bullshit. He approaches me cautiously and rubs his big hands up and down my arms. "Okay. I didn't know."
It's true what I told him. And Eric couldn't stay in the hospital and he couldn't take the baby for three days since she was early. It killed him to know that his daughter was lying in a plastic bassinet in the sterile hospital nursery instead of in the loving arms of a parent. He was there every day for as long as he was allowed, just holding that baby on his chest. And he's the only one who can't see what a good and loving person he is. All he sees is his mistakes.
"So now you know," I say quietly. Alcide's hands feel good, he's taking away my anger with his soothing passes up and down my arms and across my shoulders.
"I'm sorry," he says. He looks at me the way he always does—with too much feeling—and it makes my chest do that obnoxious tightening thing.
I smile and put my hands on his torso, at his ribs. As they slide down his body, he stiffens and starts to breathe heavily. It never takes more than a lingering touch to get him going. "Baby," I coo at him. He drops his head and I put my lips to his, almost touching. "Go back to work." I push forward to give him a tiny kiss and then back up, dropping my hands away from him.
He growls and I cock my eyebrow at him, shutting him up. Alcide is fun, but sometimes I wish he wouldn't let me get away with all the shit I do to him. He turned out to be a real pussy, and even though I love pussy, his softness is starting to annoy me.
I sit down at my desk and he just stands there. I make a shooing motion with one hand. "Off you fuck."
His eyes narrow and he stalks toward me and so help me god, my heart starts to race. He puts his hands on the arms of my office chair and leans down heavily, pressing me back into my chair with the weight of his eyes. "Woman!" he grits out, "You'd better respect me or I will have you over my knee. Right. Here." His face is millimeters from mine, his eyes hard and penetrating, and fucking A, my panties are wet. Alcide surges forward, forcing me back, and gives me a bruising kiss, driving his tongue into my mouth. Before I even have the chance to kiss him back, he is gone, leaving my chest heaving and my lips swollen. I put my fingertips to my lips and sigh like a stupid girl. Fuck a zombie. I'm fucking hot for him.
Does anyone else want to throw Sophie into the middle of next week? Ugh. Eric was with her for three years. Can you imagine how little he thinks of himself to stay with someone like her for so long? It makes me want to hug him so hard!
Did you like hearing from Pam? I know she has an outtake but I worried about putting her directly into the story. I had to though, to spare Eric a confrontation with Sophie.
As always, check out my wordpress site for more goodies. I posted a bunch of tiny one-shots this week called little bits.
Thanks for reading this story! I can't believe I'm at 50 chapters! That's crazy! I think I got to respond to all the reviewers this week but if I didn't get to you, thank you for your comments! I appreciate all you readers!
