A bit shorter, sorry...but I've got a fair amount of ideas planned. I think I might actually know where I'm going with this--thrilling thought--but not sure if the characters will behave; they're quite pesky like that. Ryan is coming soon, so don't worry about him. Thanks for all the reviews; they're so exciting! All right. Enjoy.
As Kirsten stepped out of her car and casually pressed the button on the key to lock the doors—more from force of habit than need—she felt her husband's lips on her neck and hands slide around her waist, and she shivered.
"Jimmy, you startled me," she scolded, though she didn't sound angry at all as she turned in his arms to face him. He smirked at her and leaned over to kiss her shoulder. "What time did you get home?"
"About ten minutes before you," said Jimmy absently.
"And you've just been waiting in the garage?"
"Yeah...I wanted to talk to you, and there are four teenagers inside." He pulled away from Kirsten's neck and stood, facing her and still holding her by the waist but with space between them. "We have four teenagers in our house," he said again, apparently shocked by the realization.
"Yes, we do," agreed Kirsten, kissing him. Jimmy frowned.
"Have you been drinking?" he asked. "You smell like scotch."
"Still?" she queried in surprise. "I'm surprised I don't smell like onion rings."
"Well, you do," he acknowledged. "But I'm your husband; I can smell even the faint scent of alcohol on your breath. Is everything okay at work?"
"Yeah, of course," Kirsten assured him. "I met with Sandy Cohen after work for drinks so that we could talk about Grace. Work is fine."
"Oh," said Jimmy, looking relieved but a little embarrassed.
"Is something wrong, honey?"
"I'm just...still feeling bad about the whole portfolio fiasco. You've been working really hard, and I...now we have a fourth child, entirely my fault, and you're going to be paying for her, too. Kirsten...I'm just not used to not making my own money, living on my wife's hard work."
"It's okay, Jimmy. The stock market has sucked for the past two, three years. And besides, it's not my money; it's our money. That's the idea of a marriage, remember?"
"I know, but still."
"And hey," Kirsten continued, putting her hands on Jimmy's shoulder blades and pulling herself closer to him. "Don't bring Grace into this. It wasn't your decision to let her be a part of our family. It was our decision." She kissed him. "I'm happy with our lives exactly the way they are, okay? So don't worry about me." They kissed again slowly.
"You think dinner's ready yet?" she murmured into his collarbone.
"Probably," he told the locks of blonde hair pressed against his lips.
"Time to go inside?"
"Sure," he sighed, "but after dinner we're going to finish this."
"Okay," Kirsten agreed, "but we can't stay up as late as last night; it's too tiring. I have a lot of things I need to get done tomorrow."
"I can try," Jimmy told her mischievously, "although there's no telling what you'll be saying when caught up in the madness that is Jimmy and Kirsten Cooper."
She laughed at the silly expression on his face, and they left the garage and headed for the house.
"Mom!...and Dad, arriving at the exact same time. Definitely don't want to think about that," said Caleb drolly. Jim, who was sitting next to him, elbowed his little brother firmly.
"Cal," he said warningly. "Grace, you too, since you're new: The motto among the Cooper children when it comes to that is ignore, deny, avoid."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said embarrassedly, remembering the impossibility of all three given her bedroom's proximity to the adult Coopers'. Kirsten rolled her eyes.
"You, too, will be old one day," she warned, tossing her long hair back and tucking it behind her ears. She took her seat at the foot of the table as Jimmy walked over to the head. The Coopers, Grace had learned, kept very proper table etiquette no matter what the topic of discussion was.
"So, Grace, I heard Jim talked you into driving to Summer's," said Kirsten pleasantly. "How did that go?"
"Fine," said Grace shyly. "I didn't mess up your car; don't worry about that..." Kirsten waved the subject off with a careless flourish of her hand.
"It's just a car. Meanwhile, I'm surprised, you've only been living here two days, and already Jim has you doing his bidding. Be careful, or he'll walk all over you," she teased.
"Hey, the fact that Grace is a nice big sister does not mean that I'm walking all over her," volunteered Jim.
"I'm sure it doesn't, sweetheart," said Kirsten kindly before turning back to her stepdaughter. "Although he does think he's king of the castle, and he has tried to enslave each member of the family already."
"Mom!"
"What?" she asked innocently. Jim rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, Grace, we should go out together sometime and figure out what's going to happen with you," continued Kirsten, changing the topic. "You'll need to transfer schools, which means you'll want to catch up on summer reading while it's still summer, and you'll probably need new clothes, and—I want to know all about your life, too. Can we do that, say, lunch tomorrow?"
"Uh...sure, I guess," said Grace, a little overwhelmed.
"Great. I'll write out directions to the Newport Group, and you can meet me there around noon tomorrow. Sorry, sweetie, I'd come home, but I have a ton of work to do and it would just be easier if you came to work," she explained.
"No, don't worry about it," was the slightly embarrassed response. "That's fine." Dinner continued in the elegant but familiar way that Grace was learning was the Coopers' trademark. Jim and Cal excused themselves at eight to watch some TV show they liked, and Grace noticed that while they asked Dad to be excused, they were looking at Kirsten. Kirsten and Dad excused themselves, too, claiming that they both had work to do, though Grace suspected that not much of that work was going to get done.
Judith Cohen was worried. Sandy normally arrived home promptly after work, but she'd come home to a house empty of everyone except Sam and his girlfriend, doing things she'd hoped he wouldn't learn about for, oh, another sixteen years. Or maybe more. And once she'd called him, she'd hoped that he'd be home right away—hoped that he had, for once, used bad judgment and picked up his cell phone while driving. He hadn't, and Judith had sent her son to his room and his girlfriend home—she was a neighbor—and now she waited for her husband.
"Hi, baby," he said, rushing quickly through the door. "Sorry I wasn't home to help you; I was meeting a client for drinks after work…" He gave her a quick kiss. "What'd I miss?" Judith rolled her eyes.
"Be glad you missed it," she said. "He's my baby, Sandy…I sent him to bed. We need to deliver the lecture. What are we going to say?" She was already turning to the stairs. Sandy chuckled and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Hold your horses, Judy," he told her. "Let's draw out the waiting period."
"But—"
"Jude. When you were a kid, if your mom caught you going at it? Which is more painful, the lecture or the interim?" She started to answer, then stopped short.
"You're right. As always," she teased him playfully. "So…which client was this?"
"Kirsten Cooper," he told her, walking over to the fridge and extracting a beer. He turned and faced a bagel in his wife's hand. "Ah, Judy. I haven't told you recently how much I love you." They kissed lightly.
"So who's Kirsten Cooper? Drug dealer, thief…prostitute?" asked Judith absently. Sandy held back an embarrassed laugh.
"Ah…no, babe. She's a very successful, clean-cut millionaire—CFO of a real estate company—and she's certainly not a criminal, maybe abused diet pills once in her life…" He shook his head with a rueful grin. "But she's Grace Cooper's stepmother, and she wanted to find out what I know about the girl's past."
"Oh," laughed Judith. "Good for her. Completely stuck-up and haughty, right?"
"Wrong again," whistled Sandy. "C'mon, Judy, I've never known you to be wrong twice in a row like that…she's actually a pretty nice woman. I knew her in college, actually, back when she was still Kirsten Nichol." His wife frowned and furrowed her brow.
"Wait…was she 'Tiny Dancer'?" He shook his head.
"You're thinking of Kathy—Kathleen Donahue, the ballerina," he told her, his eyes growing a bit misty. "Kirsten was 'Uptown Girl'—gorgeous, born to money, well-bred…" He broke off as he saw his wife's face become a bit downhearted.
"But, hey, Judy, you know that's in the past, right? It's all water under the bridge. I love you."
"Yeah," she said, a little too quickly. "I know. But…Sandy?"
"Hmm?"
"Did I have…a cute song nickname, too?" Sandy paused thoughtfully.
"You know, I don't think so. Only ex-girlfriends—or, in Kirsten's case, ex-crushes—got song names. I've still got you." His arms snaked around her waist, but she still looked a bit put-off.
"I can give you one, if you like," he murmured, leaning toward her neck. "How about 'You're the One That I Want'? Or maybe…ah…'I Get a Kick Out of You'? Or, I know, what do you think of 'The Lady is a Tramp'?" He chuckled the last sentence into her ear, making her shiver.
"'I'm the Only One,'" Judith claimed, snuggling against his chest. "Promise?"
"Promise." Sandy pulled his wife closer for a kiss; then he glanced at his watch over her shoulder. "So, do you figure we've punished that son of ours enough yet?"
"No," she said steadfastly. "Waiting is not punishment enough. He's my baby, Sandy," she repeated. "Nothing is punishment enough for allowing me to walk in on him…and her…" Judith shivered.
"We could always give him a taste of his own medicine," offered Sandy, arching his eyebrows suggestively.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you," she mumbled into his chest. "I still haven't told you what, exactly, they were doing…"
Back at the Coopers', Kirsten and Jimmy had managed to get through their, um, "work," and were ready to talk. Luckily, Grace wasn't in bed yet and had been spared the…intricate details of the intimate inner workings of the Newport Group and the…exciting, breathless travails of working with the stock market.
"So Sandy said she's a good kid," explained Kirsten, twirling a fine lock of Jimmy's fair chest hair around her finger. "Which we really knew already, but it's nice to have your suspicions confirmed."
"Mmm…yeah," agreed Jimmy sleepily, his arm resting rather heavily around his wife's waist.
"There's still time to get her enrolled at Harbor," she continued as he pulled her closer to his body.
"Yeah, the placement test and all that," mumbled Jimmy. "They don't usually have a lot of open spaces starting junior year, though, right?"
"They can make an exception for Jimmy Cooper's daughter," said Kirsten coolly. "And, I mean, Dad and I built this town. We do have clout." Jimmy seemed to wake up for the first time.
"I've never seen you like this, Kiks," he said, regarding her face carefully. "You…are starting to sound like…my mom. Your mom. All the Newport moms."
"I am a Newport mom, honey," she chastised. "And I always liked Danielle; you know that."
"Yeah, but…you were always a Newport chick," Jimmy explained. "You know…lots of booze, short skirts, promises never to be like your phony, power-hungry mothers," he teased gently. She smiled.
"I'm not like my mother," she protested lazily. "And you'd better not think I'm like your mother, not so soon after what I just did to you…that, lover, would be absolutely wrong in the Oedipal, incestuous, V.C. Andrews sense." Her voice was a soft, silky coo.
"You're right; you are absolutely nothing like my mother," he assured her, suddenly so adamant that it made her laugh. "God…I love you, Kirsten." She crinkled her nose cutely and kissed him on his own nose.
"You, too."