Authors: Kelly Jamieson
“Jesus, Nate. What kind of question is that?” Derek rubbed his face.
“It’s a good question. Answer it.”
Derek shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t.”
An unfamiliar tension stretched between them. Derek looked down at his coffee. “Not my business,” Nate finally said. “Krissa’s the one you have to answer to. And thanks again for not picking me up at the airport last night.”
“I’m sorry.” Derek looked like someone was stabbing pins in his eyes. “I completely forgot.”
“I know. What the hell’s going on with you?”
“Fuck.” Derek gulped some coffee. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Nate shrugged. “Okay. Let me know if you do. I’m going to…uh…go for a walk.”
Too bad it was such a sunny day. Even with his sunglasses, his eyes would be watering and burning after ten minutes. But what else did he have to do?
He rose to his feet and refilled his coffee mug, took it with him as he left the kitchen through the sliding doors. A multi-level deck backed the house, overlooking the beach and the ocean, a hot tub on one side and comfortable wicker furniture arranged in a cozy grouping on the other. Yeah, this was quite the house.
He jogged down the wooden stairs to the beach. Rocks of all sizes, washed smooth by ocean waves, dotted the pale sand, and he meandered along until he found a wide flat boulder to sit on. He cupped his coffee mug in both hands, warm beneath his fingers, cool ocean breeze floating around him, and stared out at the Pacific Ocean. The water swelled, rose, curled and crashed into a froth of white, over and over again, the rhythmic sound and ceaseless motion mesmerizing. Seagulls cried overhead, soaring in the clear blue sky.
This was pretty awkward. He’d appreciated the offer of a place to stay while he finished recovering from his food poisoning, had actually been happy to be seeing his friends again after being away for so long. He hadn’t expected to walk into some kind of marital turmoil.
He supposed he could have gone to stay with one of his two brothers, or even his parents, in Los Angeles. But he’d pretty much cut himself off from them after his life had disintegrated. He’d cut himself off from everyone, and calling Derek had seemed the easiest choice.
He’d just have to stay out of their way and hope that his goddamn eyes got better pretty fucking quick.
Krissa rinsed the conditioner out of her hair, then reached for the tap of the shower. She cranked it off, opened the shower door and put out a hand for her towel. Derek stood there, leaning against the vanity, towel in his outstretched hand.
He still hadn’t dressed, and despite her anger and sorrow, and despite his obvious hangover, his muscular chest, smooth and tanned, made her want to touch, and the low-riding boxers drew her eyes to the V-shaped muscles tapering down beneath them. His eyes were shadowed, his face lined with fatigue.
Krissa took the towel and dried off, aware of Derek watching her. Her pussy clenched and her nipples tingled. She wrapped the towel around her, tucked the end in to hold it in place.
Water dripped from her long hair onto her bare shoulders, soaked into the thick towel as they looked at each other.
“I know you were hurting yesterday,” Krissa finally said. “But that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit.”
“I know. I said I’m sorry.”
“You could have at least told me you were going out.”
“I know. I screwed up, okay?”
She continued to watch him. His eyes, dark with pain, met her.
“Did you tell Nate?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded.
“Were you with someone?”
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“I smelled perfume on your suit. Not my perfume.”
“There were women in the bar. I smelled like cigarettes, too, but I wasn’t smoking.”
She nodded. A couple of years ago, they’d had this same conversation. But he’d emphatically denied it, and she’d had no reason to disbelieve him—okay, the truth was, she didn’t want to disbelieve him—so she’d let it go. She didn’t like fighting with him, and nothing else had ever happened, so she must have been wrong.
She didn’t like the suspicion eating at her insides, the fear and worry.
“I love you, Krissa.” He held her gaze.
“I love you too.”
He reached for her, drew her to him with his hands on her waist. She let him pull her closer, rested her pelvis against his as they leaned against the vanity. She stroked her fingers through his hair, trying to tame the wild spikes.
Derek’s fingers moved to where the towel was tucked into itself above her left breast and tugged it out. He let the towel fall open and then to the floor. His hands returned to her waist.
Krissa pushed the towel aside with her bare foot and leaned in to kiss her husband. Their mouths met and clung. Derek tasted of minty toothpaste and coffee, still smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. She laid her hands on his shoulders, satiny skin over firm muscle and hard bones, let her fingers curl into him.
They kissed again, and again, Derek’s hands sliding lower to her ass, pulling her against him, his growing erection nudging her tummy. She went onto her toes to rub him there, needed to feel him between her legs where she began to ache.
“I love you,” he whispered, his mouth still touching hers. “I’m sorry, Krissa.”
“I’m sorry too.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, leaned her forehead against his.
“I feel like such a failure.”
“Don’t. Please, don’t. You’re not a failure. We’ll get through this.”
He swallowed hard, then lifted her by her ass. She wrapped her legs around him, feet resting on the cool marble vanity, and he slid a hand between their bodies, found her center and stroked through her wetness. Hot and achy, she let out a moan.
“I’m still a man,” he said, shoving at his underwear until his penis sprang out, hard and thick.
“I know.” Her head fell back. She wrapped her arms around his head and he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked, hard. Hot delight flashed through her. “I…know.” He pushed into her, filling her. He grunted and she gasped. “Yes.” She lifted her hips, tried to open more for him, let his cock surge into her, so deep it almost hurt. Involuntarily she lifted, and he thrust again, harder. “Oh, God!”
He drove into her, and she rubbed her swollen clit against his pubic bone on each push, driving her higher, the pleasure spiraling inside her, higher. She held on tighter, focused on their image in the mirror behind Derek, blurred by steam. She could make out the bulge of Derek’s biceps as he held her up, the ridges of muscles down either side of his smooth, tanned back, her hands gripping him. She squeezed her eyes shut. Water dripped down her naked back, making his hands slide on her body as he pumped into her.
He turned, sat her on the vanity, the marble cold beneath the warm flesh of her ass, his hands on her hips.
“Krissa, Christ, Krissa.” He kissed her nipples, hard and pointy and aching, and she peaked in a delicious spasm, arms and legs tightening on him. Then he went over, too, holding her against him as he pulsed inside her in hot jets.
Her legs shook as he lowered her to the floor, the terry bath mat soft beneath her soles. She draped her arms over his shoulder and rested her face against him, both of them breathing hard. When she opened her eyes, she met her own eyes in the foggy side mirror, saw the flush on her cheeks, the heaviness of her eyelids.
“We need to talk,” she said.
He let of a long breath. “Yeah.”
“But now Nate’s staying with us.”
“Yeah.”
“I felt humiliated last night, in front of him.”
His body tightened. “Jesus, how many times do I have to say it? I’m sorry!”
He set her away from him with his hands on her waist. She sucked in air, bent over to pick up the towel. He yanked his boxers up over his penis, still half hard and wet with her cream and his semen.
“I have to get to the office,” he muttered and she watched as he threw open the bathroom door and strode out.
Krissa leaned her hands on the edge of the counter, looked at herself in the mirror. Her body still pulsed from her orgasm but her heart hurt. He felt like a failure. Like less of a man. She had to remember how this was impacting him, needed to understand. But her own aching heart made it difficult.
She felt bad leaving Nate all alone in the family room watching television through dark glasses after they’d eaten dinner. But she and Derek had to talk. This was their life and they’d barely said ten words to each other since the doctor had delivered the devastating news.
Krissa closed the door of her office, actually the fifth bedroom of their home. She sat at the chair in front of her desk, and Derek slumped on the futon against one wall.
He’d changed into cargo shorts and a T-shirt after arriving home from work. They’d eaten dinner and he and Nate were going to go out for a beer after this little “talk”.
“Tell me what’s going on with you,” Krissa said. She leaned on one arm of the chair, studied his face.
Derek groaned. “God, Krissa. What the hell do you think? I was just told I’ll never father a child.” He covered his eyes with one hand.
“There are other ways to father a child,” she said quietly.
He didn’t move, didn’t say a word for a long moment heavy with tension.
“Not for me.”
She blinked, sat up straight. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to adopt. I know we talked about the possibility, but the truth is…I don’t want to raise someone else’s child.”
“But…if we adopted a baby…it would be ours. You’d love it as much as if it were our own.”
“No.” He lowered his hand and met her eyes. “I don’t think I would.” He paused as if searching for words. “I don’t think I could.”
Krissa’s heart contracted painfully. How could he say that? They’d talked about adopting and he’d sounded as if he was open to it. She rolled her lips in to keep them from quivering.
“Then we can try artificial insemination.”
Derek’s head moved slowly from side to side. “No. I don’t want to do that either.”
“What!” She jumped out of the chair and stood there, hands clasped tightly, staring at him. “But Derek…that’s our last hope.”
“It’d be the same thing…I’d be raising someone else’s child.”
“It would be my child! You’re my husband, so it would be your child. I don’t understand.” Thoughts skipped frantically around in her head. “Derek, we can pick the donor based on physical characteristics. We can choose someone who’s tall and blond and brown eyed, like you.”
His face tightened and his gaze slid away from her. “It would be someone else’s sperm. A stranger. His genes, not mine. I’m sorry, Krissa.” His voice cracked. “I just can’t do it.”
“But…that means…” She couldn’t get the words past the aching constriction in her throat. She squeezed her hands into fists at her side. “Derek.” Hot liquid slid down her cheeks.
“I know.” Agony tore at his voice. “I know, Krissa. But I’m being honest here. I’d rather have no children than adopt or use a stranger’s sperm.”
She gazed at him, his face wavering in her tear-filled vision. He couldn’t be serious. This couldn’t be the end. They still had options.
She could convince him. She moved across to him on stiff legs, sat beside him and put her hand on his bare knee. “Derek,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“Christ, Krissa, you always have to make things so complicated. Don’t make this worse than it is.”
She flinched, looked down at her hand on his knee and drew it away.
“This has been hard enough,” Derek snapped. “All these years of trying…of failing…and now knowing I’m the cause.”
Krissa pulled in a long breath, sat with her head bowed. It was him. She had to think of him. She lifted her head, pushed her hair back and put a hand on his cheek. He covered it with his own, held it there, closed his eyes. “I just want this to be over,” he whispered raggedly.
She swallowed. “But I don’t.”
He opened his eyes and they shared a long look. She saw her pain mirrored in his dark eyes, etched on his face in the grooves beside his mouth.
“I need to have a baby,” she choked out. “It’s all I want, Derek.”
“More than you want me?”
Her eyes widened. “Are you…saying I have to choose?”
Krissa pushed a shaky hand through her hair. This could not be happening. What had happened to their perfect life? Their marriage, their friendship…their love.
“I don’t want you to,” he said, voice low and husky. “I love you, Krissa. I want you. But I want this done with. Let’s just get on with our lives.”
But…it was a choice. If he hadn’t said it, she would have thought it. She was thinking it now.
She stood. She stared out the window at the mountains, crisply outlined against the blue evening sky by the setting sun. “I…” She shook her head, turned and walked across the room in jerky steps. “I need to think.”
“Krissa.”
She couldn’t look at him, waved a hand, her throat clogged with tears and sorrow. She opened the door. “Go. With Nate.” It hurt when she swallowed.
She walked down the hall blindly, past the family room where Nate sat, saw him look at her and start to rise from the couch. She shook her head and kept going, through the sliding doors and out onto the deck.
She stood at the railing, the wood rough beneath her palms, the breeze off the ocean stroking her hair back from her face and cooling her wet cheeks. She closed her eyes, and turned her face up. Scalding tears dripped and she let them, made no effort to stop them, sobbed out her pain toward the ocean waves booming onto the sand.
Damn him. Damn him to hell. He didn’t get to make choices like that for her. This was her life, too. Helplessness and rage rolled through her.
She heard the sliding door open. Without turning around, not caring who it was, she said, “Go away.” Her voice sounded thick.
“Are you okay?” It was Nate.
“Do I look okay?” She turned to face him, knowing she looked like hell and not caring one bit. Her nose was running, her face was wet and her eyes had to be red and swollen. Even her lips felt swollen. She swiped her palms down each cheek.
“Can I do anything?”
“No. Just go away. You and Derek go and have your beer and have fun.”
His mouth turned down, and although his eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses, she sensed his discomfort. “I’m all right,” she assured him, choking on the words. “Don’t worry. Just go.”
He hovered there a moment, then did as she asked, sliding the door closed behind him. She stood alone on the deck again. She rubbed her bare arms. She wanted to walk down to the water. She loved the ocean. It was vast and mysterious—even scary. Deep. Unfathomable. But beautiful and wild.
She descended the wooden stairs to the beach, picked her way across the rocks dotting the sand, shivering in the cooling evening air.
Did she have to decide? Did she have to choose between having Derek and having a child? How much did she want a child?
She ached for a child. More than one child, but she wouldn’t get greedy. She wanted a family. She wanted to be a mother, more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. Every nurturing, loving instinct in her ached to hold an infant in her arms, to know what it was like to have a baby feed from her breast, to guide and shape a little life into the best person he or she could be. It was the most important thing you could do.
She was never going to have a high-powered career. She’d changed jobs nine times in her life until she started this consulting business. She’d never quite found the right thing for her. And yeah, now she was doing well, but she just didn’t care that much. Well, she did care—she worked hard, did her best for her clients. Okay, she was even passionate about the issues she helped companies with. But that couldn’t compare to being a mother.
Oh, God. She sat down on a large flat rock, her favorite place to sit and stare out to sea. Wispy clouds hugged the horizon where ocean met sky, blurring the line. She bent her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. The wind carried the briny scent of the ocean and the rhythmic whoosh of waves onto sand.
The tears had slowed, and she wiped one last one away, sniffled.
How much did she love Derek?
How bad was it that she even asked herself that question?
She closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the sky as if looking for divine guidance from above.
Perhaps the question should be, how much did Derek love her? If he wouldn’t even consider other ways for them to be parents, perhaps it was his love that was lacking.
Pain stabbed through her, physical, visceral.
She was never going to be a mother.
It was hard to talk in a place this loud. Nate wished they’d gone somewhere quieter because he was damn well going to find out what was going on with Derek and Krissa.
He stared hard at his friend across the small table where they sat perched on stools. He could barely see him through the dark glasses, but he’d tried removing them when they walked in. The dim lighting in the bar was still too hard on his eyes to forego them. Clinking glasses and the rumble of conversation and music swirled around them.
His fingers wrapped around the icy beer glass, slick with condensation.
“Krissa was pretty upset,” he said, marveling at his understatement. Seeing her like that had pulled at something inside him that had been dormant for a long time. The impulse to stride across the deck and tug her into her arms, tuck her against him and try to comfort her shocked him, unsettled him.
Derek met his stare and returned it. “You blame me.”
Nate tipped his head. “Is there someone else to blame?”
“How about her?”
What the fuck? Was Krissa cheating? “What are you saying?” He stared at Derek.
Derek sighed. “She won’t let things go when she gets an idea in her head. And she’s so emotional.”
Nate nodded. That was true. “What is it, Derek? I asked you before, but I’m asking again—are you fucking around on her?”
“No! Jesus. That’s not it.”
“Then what is it? I feel like I walked into the middle of a soap opera. It’s goddamn uncomfortable with all that tension snapping.”
Derek opened his mouth, then closed it. He rubbed his face. “Look I’m sorry, man. This is just really bad timing. Here’s the deal.” He lowered his eyes and stared into his beer glass. “Krissa and I have been trying to have a baby.”
Whoa. Nate’s mind raced ahead. If Krissa was that upset there must be serious problems. “Fuck. Don’t tell me. She can’t get pregnant.”
“Well. That’s what we thought. We’ve both been through a shitload of tests. Turns out it’s me.” He huffed out a short laugh. “Got no swimmers.”
Ah, hell. Nate said nothing. What could he say?
“We just found out yesterday. Got the good news from the doc.” Derek lifted his head and gave Nate a morbid grin. “At least now we know.”
That was shitty news. No man wanted to hear that. “Well. That really sucks, buddy.”
“Yeah. So that’s why I was out getting wasted last night. I know Krissa was pissed, but hell. I just felt like getting wasted.”
“I guess.”
Derek groaned, put his head in his hands, elbows on the table. “You have no idea, man. We’ve been trying for almost two years. The first year wasn’t bad—lots of fucking, anyway. Then it started to get tense. I felt all this…pressure. Felt like a goddamn loser.” He paused. “Like I wasn’t man enough to knock up my own wife. And Krissa…”
“What?”
He turned his head side to side in his hands. “Well, if it wasn’t for her wanting this baby so much, I wouldn’t have…wouldn’t have…fuck.” He lifted his head and reached for his drink.
Silence fell between them, in the middle of the crowded, boisterous bar. A group of women winding their way through the tables paused beside them. “Hi, guys,” said one of them with an “I’m available” smile. She was cute, a California blonde with a tan and big hooters. Nate gave her an “I’m not interested” half-smile. Derek looked her up and down and smiled, too.
“Hi,” he said. Nate scowled at him. The blonde caught the look and they all moved on.
“What the hell?” Nate growled. “You’re married, asshole.”
“I just said hi.” His eyes followed blondie. “She’s cute.”
“You have a fucking gorgeous wife who loves you at home, crying her eyes out.”
“Yeah.” Derek swiveled his gaze back to Nate. “I know.”
“So why’s she crying tonight? You guys were supposed to be talking things over.”
“She wants to adopt a baby.”
“Ah.” Nate sipped his beer, cold, bitter, biting. “There you go. Adoption.”
“No way.” Derek shook his head vigorously. “I don’t want to adopt. Doesn’t work for me.” He gave Nate a condensed version of the discussion, including the artificial insemination option and his reasons for not wanting either of those.
No wonder Krissa was sad.
“You get it, don’t you?” Derek leaned forward, a crease between his dark blond eyebrows.
“You’d rather break your wife’s heart and never have a family than adopt or have artificial insemination.”
“Well…yeah. Hey, her heart’s not broken. She’ll get over it. She always does. Krissa just likes to keep things peaceful.”
Nate studied his buddy. How much did she let Derek get away with? He frowned at his beer.
“How would you feel, man? If it was you.”
Nate’s mind wandered back in time and his stomach rolled over. The past was all tangled up in betrayal and lies and heartache. Trying to put himself in Derek’s shoes was a bad idea.
“I don’t know,” he said with a hitch of a shoulder. He stared at a drop of water on the table. “Doesn’t matter how I’d feel.”
“But if you couldn’t have a baby—would you adopt?” Derek’s eyebrows rose, then lowered again into a frown.
“Sure. Maybe.”
“Bullshit.”
“Lots of people do it. Even people who can have kids adopt. How about a baby from China? I know people who’ve done that.”
“Uh…don’t think so.”
“Why not? It’s a good thing to do.”
“Well, yeah, but…I don’t know. I guess I’m not very good at explaining this.”
“Never mind.” Nate didn’t care. “It’s your decision. Well, yours and Krissa’s.”
“It’s my decision. I’m the one shooting blanks.”
“It’s not just your decision! You two are a couple! What if it was Krissa? What if she couldn’t get pregnant and she wanted to adopt? Then what would you do?” Nate shook his head.
Derek turned his head and gazed across the bar. He tipped his beer glass up and drained it into his mouth, rapped it down on the table. “I’d consider it.”
Nate’s jaw dropped. “What the…? How could that possibly make a difference?”
Derek turned a cool gaze back to Nate. “You don’t get it. I can’t get my wife pregnant. I don’t want the whole world to know that. If we adopt, everyone will know. I’ll be…” he stopped, as if he couldn’t even say the words.
“That’s not right. People don’t think like that.”
“I do.”
And by the firm set of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes, Nate knew that Derek had made his decision and his logic made perfect sense to him, if to no one else.
This tension between them had never been there before. They’d been friends since high school, when they’d met on the school triathlon team. They’d shared a similar athletic talent, similar goals, had competed for the attention the school’s star athlete would get…until the race where Derek had stepped into a hole while running, tripped and sprained his ankle only minutes from the finish. The two of them were far in the lead and Nate could have left him and easily won. But he’d stayed to help his team mate and they’d crossed the finish line together, Nate holding Derek up as he limped along.
Now, things felt different, and Nate couldn’t quite put his finger on it. People change in two years, and he supposed it served him right if his relationship with his friend suffered because he’d disappeared. Derek’s problems made him a different man, no doubt, and—Nate had to be honest—he himself was a different man than the one who had left two years ago.
“You want to talk about being a failure. How about a photographer who can’t see? You wanna see humiliation? What the hell am I going to do, Derek? If I can never take these goddamn glasses off. How about my career?”
Derek’s shoulders dropped. “Fuck. I’m sorry, man. With all this shit going on, I totally forgot.”
Nate gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. That’s why I’m sitting here in a dark bar wearing sunglasses. People probably think I’m a cocaine addict.”
He saw the look on Derek’s face.
“I’m not.” He, too, finished his beer.
“I know that. Geez. So, tell me what happened.”
Nate told his pathetic story, about his Costa Rican adventure gone all to hell, ending with a hospital stay and damaged eyes. He hated to sound pathetic, but what the hell. Derek had told him his sad story. Might as well have a big pity party right there at the Shark Club on State Street.