GENERATING HEAT
AND THEY WERE back in the truck again.
Putting the chains on the tires had been a near disaster. Juliet was an anxiety-ridden mess as she tried her hardest to follow Eric’s every instruction and Eric, his poor soul, fought tooth and nail to stay patient—difficult as it proved to be.
Juliet knew nothing about generators or tires or chains…hell, she didn’t really know anything about vehicles in general. But when you were playing Beat the Clock with Mother Nature, you didn’t have time to give lessons. He may have snapped at her a time or two.
The last time he grew frustrated, he thought she might cry and Eric’s heart broke. “I’m sorry,” her voice shook. “I’m trying to do what you’re telling me to. It’s hard. And I’m freezing. And I don’t understand what half of these words mean.”
“I know, baby,” he said softly. “But I can’t do this alone. I know you’re trying. I just need you to focus. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Finally, they were on the road. Creeping down the road, at that. Beside him, Juliet was painfully tense as she stared down the road ahead of them. She white-knuckled her door handle and Eric wished he could calm her nerves. So he reached over and slid his hand into hers.
Instantly, she snatched hers away as if his hand had bitten her. “You need both hands to drive,” she breathed nervously.
Eric blinked in surprise for a second and returned his hand to the wheel. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “Everything’s fine.”
“Please concentrate on the road,” she replied.
All right, then.
Turned out, the silence was deafening, but welcome. It gave Eric the opportunity to process the day so far. Had he known that Juliet would be at the children’s home? Yeah, he knew it was a pretty safe bet. Had he known that he would end up in an actual, committed relationship with her by the end of the day? Absolutely not.
He smiled at the blizzard in front of him. A committed relationship. With Juliet. She wanted him. She chose him. At her own free will. This was probably the best Christmas he had ever had in his entire life.
Of course, sex would have been the icing on the cake. Making sweet love to her in his bed while the snow fell on the city outside his bedroom window…it would have made everything complete. Then he shook the thought out of his mind. He needed to quit while he was ahead. He was lucky enough to be in the positon he was in as it was.
But at the same time, though, what happened now? Did Eric even know how to date without sex? Of course he did, what kind of a question was that? He remembered the first time he ever took Juliet to dinner, unorthodox as it was, he had won her over with a simple bowl of ice cream. And she loved to kiss and watch movies with him. Hell, he could do this. After all, he was a catch. He was the best boyfriend a woman could have, even he knew this.
However, he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit nervous by it all. Maybe, in a way, he was like Juliet and her trust issues. He wanted to trust her—with all his heart. And he did. But there was that tiny voice, way in the very back of his mind, that kept asking him when the next time she would flake out and leave would be.
Hell, maybe Juliet was right. Maybe taking it slow would be good for the both of them.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He knew exactly who it was without even having to look at it.
“Do not answer that,” Juliet warned through her teeth.
“Babe,” he replied with as much patience as he could muster. “It’s Travis. I gotta answer it. We’re going twenty miles an hour on a street with no cars. Trust me. It’s okay.”
The maneuvering it took to get to his phone invoked a new fear in Juliet, he’d noticed, but he gracefully fished his phone out of his pocket, without incident, and swiped his thumb across the screen. “You got power?” Travis greeted him.
“No,” Eric answered. “You?”
“Yeah. For now, I guess. What’s that sound?”
Eric hadn’t realized how loud the truck actually was until then. The crunching of the quickly-accumulating snow underneath his chained tires was louder than ever now.
“Eric, what the hell are you doing?” Travis continued without waiting for an answer. “Are you out in this shit?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m taking my generator to the children’s home. They’re out of power.”
“But—but weren’t you just--? Shit, Eric,” Travis sputtered. “Look. I hate to even ask you this, but you live closer to Juliet. I was gonna ask you to check in with her because Beth hasn’t heard from her, but you’re not even home anyway—“
“She’s with me,” Eric interrupted.
“She’s what?” And then Eric heard Beth echoing Travis in the background.
“She’s with me, right here. Sitting right beside me. She’s safe, we’re both okay. Right now our first priority is getting this generator to the kids because the one they have won’t last and this storm isn’t letting up anytime soon.”
Travis was silent for a moment. “You know the ones we have at work are better than anything out there on the market.”
Eric let out a breath. “I know. But that’s in the opposite direction of the home and we need to take them what I have. With theirs and mine and the fireplace, everything should be fine.”
“Eric, I gotta go.”
“Travis…”
“Text me when you get there. Be safe. I love you, brother.”
“God damn it, Travis.”
And then the call ended.
Eric dropped the phone in his lap and cursed under his breath.
And then, to his surprise, Juliet’s hand crept across the front seat and slid into Eric’s. “I trust you,” she whispered. “What did he say?”
“He’s gonna do something stupid,” Eric muttered. Then he squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
And then they crunched the rest of the way through the snow, hand in hand, in silence.
* * *
Juliet had refused to let go of Eric’s hand until they walked inside the house.
She was back in her jeans and her Rudolph sweatshirt from earlier and she looked so damn adorable that all he wanted to do was scoop her up and hold her in his arms for the rest of the night. Which he fully intended, by the way, once the house full of children were all warm and snug in their beds.
Warm. That’s what they were there for. To provide warmth and the necessary electricity for cooking and bathing. The power may have stopped working and the snow may have kept falling, but children didn’t stop needing. And now Eric’s head was one hundred percent back in the game.
There were four house parents present that Eric was aware of and the two house fathers were more than happy to accompany Eric to the truck and assist him with the unloading of the generator. “The two of these should be more than enough, I hope,” Eric said. “Between yours and mine—I mean, I’m sure they’ll have this power situation worked out by tomorrow night at the latest, right? We have the fireplace to help out, too. And plenty of blankets. We have ways of conserving the generators.”
The two men glanced at each other and the shorter one, Bill, who was balding, looked nervous behind his glasses. “Remember several years ago, the last time it got bad like this? We were out of power for a week.”
Eric looked anxiously between Bill and Robert, his taller, darker counterpart. He refused to accept that this blizzard would be like the last one. There was no way they had enough juice for a week. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It’ll be fine…right?”
There was no answer. Instead the men focused on the generators and discussed a game plan for conservation and heat.
Half an hour later, the entire house was gathered in socks and blankets by the fire, eating a snack, and listening to Robert tell Christmas stories. Eric and Juliet sat side by side on a sofa as Juliet held a sleeping infant in her arms. She had never been more beautiful than she was in that moment.
Could he have this? Could he have this future? The one where they lived happily ever after with a house full of rowdy children and wedding photos tucked away in an album somewhere? The one where he had to take the sink apart to fish his wedding ring out of the drain or the one where their kid broke out in inappropriate, booty-shaking madness in the middle of her ballet recital? That was what he wanted—with Juliet. He didn’t want perfection. He wanted memories that made him smile.
Juliet couldn’t have children. This much he knew. But he looked around the room and decided that that was okay with him. Here, they had many children. And he hoped that someday the two of them would be in a position to foster some of them…and maybe eventually adopt—together.
A sound interrupted his thoughts and he smiled at the little boy in Juliet’s arms as he staggered a content sigh and smacked his lips as he settled back to sleep. Glancing at her face, her smiled glowed and her eyes glittered as she watched over the child. Then she snuggled him a little closer and grinned at Eric.
Eric was in love.
He didn’t have time to process the sudden pounding of his heart, however, as Juliet’s voice whispered softly, “His name is Mason. His mother, Tinisha, is seventeen. He’s only here temporarily. She’s a ra—um, a victim, and he’s the product. She didn’t believe in, um,” she paused and her eyes glanced around, “termination, so she chose to have him. But she wants to get her high school diploma and she works when she isn’t going to school. Her family didn’t really like the idea of her keeping him, partially because they’re extremely low income and can’t afford another mouth to feed, even with government assistance. So Loving Care cares for him and she sees him in her spare time. She had him for Christmas this morning and had to bring him back a few hours ago as the snow picked up. They offered to let her stay here, but her mother…” Juliet’s voice trailed off. “It’s an unfortunate situation. But she’s doing right by him, as best as she can. You can’t fault a mother for that. Especially one as young as she is and is having to grow up so fast.”
Eric’s heart soared as he listened to her and he couldn’t help himself as he reached out to tenderly brush the hair off of her shoulder. “You know an awful lot about this one.”
“I mentor Tinisha. If you want to call it that. A couple of weeks ago she approached me while I was helping with dinner. She started asking me questions and we got to talking. I gave her my personal phone number and she texts me from time to time. Oh, that reminds me.” Gently, and ever so carefully, she leaned over to the side and lifted her foot off the floor. “Will you get my phone and take a picture of Mason so I can send it to her? I want her to know that he’s napping and that he’s okay. She’s probably sick with worry right now.”
Eric abandoned, this one time, the joy that it normally brought him to have his hand anywhere close to her ass in favor of…well, doing her the favor. As he fished her phone from her pocket, he lit up the screen and his eyes widened. “Well, you weren’t kidding about that. There’s, like, fifty texts here asking if you’ve heard anything from the home.”
“I should have texted her when I got here or when we were on the way. I feel horrible.”
Swiping his thumb across the screen, he realized that he’d never actually seen Juliet’s phone before. Reaching up to click the camera icon, he paused when he saw a bit of flesh in the background. Hurriedly, he turned the screen off and then back on and then gaped in surprise at her lock screen. “Jules,” he breathed. “When’s the last time you changed your lock screen?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “Hurry up and take the picture.”
But he couldn’t stop staring. Because he was staring at himself. Pre-haircut, pre-diabetes confession, pre…pre-everything. It was one the first nights he had spent, lounging on her couch with her, watching movies and eating junk. He remembered this night in particular. She had roped him into an I Love Lucy marathon and he lay across the couch with his feet in her lap. He remembered it specifically because they’d spent the better part of half an hour discussing the benefits of foot massages and how he had yet to receive one during all their talking. He was comfortable, though, his arm resting behind his head, the other one laying listlessly across his chest, and his head was turned as he laughed at something hilarious on the screen—and he never knew she had snapped that picture.
His heart swelled at the memory and he cleared his throat as he went back to the task at hand. Jesus, that had been so long ago, though. Had he been her lock screen the entire time—the same way she had been his?
After snapping a picture of the baby and typing out the text he’d been instructed to send, he returned the phone to the home screen and then he clicked the screen off. Then he clicked it back on, the lock screen in full view, and he returned Juliet’s phone to her.
Her eyes landed on the phone, knowing she didn’t have a free hand, and then she locked eyes with Eric. “It’s my favorite picture of you,” she whispered. “You didn’t, um, you didn’t know I took it—“
“How long has it been there?”
Her eyes darted around. “That’s not—it’s—look, can we not--?”
“How long?”
Finally, she let out a breath as she adjusted the baby in her arms. “Since the night I took it.”
Eric gaped at her. “Do you realize how long ago that was?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Can we not have this conversation right now?”
“Who said we’re having a conversation?”
She glared at him deliberately. “I know you. There’s a ‘conversation’ coming, I can feel it.”
At that, he arched a defiant eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hm. I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe that was all I needed to hear.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered.
“Maybe it was. Maybe it’s all the validation I needed.”
“Validation?”
“That’s right. Validation. That I’m a complete hunk and you never stopped wanting me from the get-go.”
“Like that’s a secret,” she deadpanned.
Eric shrugged. “I mean, I always knew it. You were the one who was in denial, not me. I always knew you couldn’t get enough of me and now I have proof. Sneaking around and taking pictures of me and stuff. Look at you. Nothing more than a common fangirl. I bet you have a naked poster of me hanging on the ceiling above your bed—“
“Eric, stop it!” She hissed. But he could see the smile she was fighting in her eyes. “You’re gonna wake up the baby.”
“Fine,” he relented. “Baby wins this round. Next time won’t be so easy.”
With Mason snuggled up tight in her arm, Juliet dropped her free hand by her side, an obvious invitation for him to take it, which he accepted, when a light commotion was heard at the front door.
“My word,” Sandra remarked, astonished. “I’m surprised to see you—or anyone, for that matter. Um, please, do come in. Do you, uh, need help with any of that?”
“Nope,” Travis’s voice came faintly from the foyer.
An hour and a half. That was how long it had been since Eric had last spoken to Travis. He should have known.
Begrudgingly, after placing a tender kiss on Juliet’s forehead, he left his place on the couch to check on the activity in the foyer. He stopped short when he saw grocery bags all over the floor. Filled with candy. And marshmallows. And Beth stood behind them, fighting with her scarf.
“Travis!” Eric scolded quietly. “What the hell are you doing here? You should have stayed home.”
Travis beamed proudly. “We brought s’mores.”
Eric felt his face ignite. “What? We are in the middle of a power outage with nearly thirty children and babies and you come out in this weather to bring s’mores?”
The pride left Travis’s face in an instant. “Yeah,” he deadpanned. “I did. Because while we’re all running around here, freaking out and trying to make this power outage work, somebody’s gotta make it fun for them. If they’re busy roasting marshmallows and eating chocolate, they’re not worrying about the life span of a generator or wondering where their next meal is coming from. Isn’t that what they’re here for? Comfort and security?”
Eric was stunned. In his own, screwed up way, Travis was exactly right. And an absolute genius.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Sandra smiled. “Let’s get these things into the kitchen. We’ll surprise the children after dinner.”
As Beth and Sandra gathered bags, Travis pulled Eric to the side. “I didn’t come here just to bring s’mores,” he said in a hushed tone. “I came because we gotta go and get the generator from work. ETA on the electricity isn’t looking good. I’ve been keeping up with it.”
“What are they saying?”
“Days. Three, minimum.”
Shit.
“All right,” Eric replied diligently. “No sweat. We got this. I mean, extreme weather conditions is what we do, right?”
Travis stared at him blankly. Because it wasn’t. You didn’t erect buildings in extreme weather conditions. As long as there was no precipitation, it was a good day.
But Travis nodded anyway. “Yeah…sure, buddy. Exactly.”
“Right,” Eric nodded. “Right.”
Back in the common room, the twins walked around the corner as Juliet was handing over a fussy Mason bundle to Beth. “Who’s a grumpy boy?” Beth baby-talked. Then she crinkled her nose. “Who’s a stinky boy?”
As Beth carried the infant away, Juliet turned and grinned at Eric. Her smile lit up his life. He didn’t want to leave her—until his eyes darted away and he watched Bill stoke the fire. And then he knew he had to.
Juliet met him halfway and gently placed her hands on his arms as she addressed him. The electricity from the contact, alone, could have powered the entire house. “Hey,” she continued to smile. “They’re about to put me on toddler duty. Wanna help me wrangle up some munchkins?”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Eric glanced around nervously. “Travis says they’re looking at a three-day minimum for restoring the power.”
Juliet’s smile faded.
“Travis and Beth came because—“ He let out a breath. “Jules, we gotta go get the generator from work.”
Juliet’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I just got you back.”
Eric smiled, her words filling his heart. “We’ll be fine, don’t worry. I bet they’re already scraping a lot of the main roads now. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“We can work with what we have,” she offered. “We can—we can tell the kids we’re camping; they’ll think it’s fun!”
“Babe,” he whispered seriously. “There isn’t enough firewood for this. And we’ll be lucky to squeeze a day and a half, two days tops, out of what we have. They said three days minimum. But what if it’s four or five? We can’t take risks like that, not with this many children involved. Not when we have options.”
“But, Eric. It’s getting dark out there. It’s only gonna get worse.”
He squeezed her shoulders gently and he smiled. “And you did a fantastic job with the chains. Okay? You and I, we make a great team, don’t we?”
“I’m scared. Please don’t go.”
“Everything will be fine. You go and chase two-year-olds and I’ll be back before you can miss me. Okay?”
“Bro, we gotta get a move on,” Travis interrupted.
“I already miss you,” she whispered.
Lifting her chin, he placed a tender kiss on her lips as he swept his thumb across her jaw, feeling her smooth, beautiful skin underneath. Damn it, she had a way of yanking on his heartstrings, didn’t she?
But he had to tear himself away. He had to bundle up and go with Travis to find warmth for the house. He had to go play superhero and save the day.
And speaking of saving the day, what did superheroes get at the end of the day? The girl and the kiss. Oh, yes, they did.
With this thought keeping him going, he stood in the foyer and bundled his coat around him. “Here,” Juliet said, suddenly materializing in front of him. “Wear my scarf. I don’t want you to freeze.”
He smiled at her as she wrapped the purple, polka-dotted abomination around his neck and tucked it into his coat. This. This right here was what life was made of.
“Hurry back. But be safe.”
“Always,” he replied. One last kiss and he was out the door.
Several minutes later, Travis was sitting next to him as Eric turned the ignition. He swallowed hard at the dash, originally having no intention of leaving again until the roads were safe. “So, um, I have about a quarter of a tank of gas.”
Travis’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a silent breath. “Well, then. We’d better turn off the heater. And we’d better hurry.”
BETH ENDED UP taking Eric’s place with Juliet and the toddlers. There was a small group of five of them and Juliet quickly cut some makeshift Christmas trees out of green construction paper, pasted them onto red sheets of construction paper, and let them go to town, gluing and coloring all sorts of decorations till their hearts were content.
Beth, however, was less interested in how much paste was ingested and more so into every detail of Juliet’s personal life. “I just witnessed you allowing Eric to kiss you. Twice! Oh, and furthermore, you apparently spent Christmas morning with him? I’ve been waiting all evening to hear about this! Since when are you on speaking terms? Or even kissing terms?”
Juliet smiled at Beth over the toddlers’ heads. “Christmas was an accident…that needed to happen, I think. Did you know that Eric is a benefactor here now?”
“I had my suspicions…”
Juliet smiled dreamily into the air. “He showed up in a…uh, red suit while we were cleaning up breakfast this morning. The children absolutely adore him and he…stole my heart.”
“So, then…what?”
“So then Eric and I are…Eric and I.” Then her smile widened. “I’m scared to death, but at the same time, I’ve never felt excitement quite like this before.”
But Beth wasn’t smiling. Instead, she was re-directing a pig-tailed two-year-old’s crayon back onto the paper from the floor and her eyes were full of thought. After a moment, she bit her lip and she finally spoke. “Is it real this time?”
Juliet was taken aback by the question. “What does that mean?”
Beth let out a breath. “It means that—that I know you’re happy with him. But I also know that when things get heavy, you tend to…run. And I know you’re miserable without him. But don’t forget, I’m dating his brother. I see the things you don’t see. I see how all the back and forth affects him. It shatters his heart, his entire world, every single time. Did you know that this past time, Travis was so concerned for him that he and their friends took turns sleeping at Eric’s apartment so they could watch him? I know that you hurt just as much, I know you do. But I don’t think you realize how much hell that man has put himself through—for you.”
A lump formed in Juliet’s throat and she stared back at Beth, speechless. Sure, she knew that their problems had affected Eric just as much as they affected her. But…Travis was afraid to leave him alone? It was that bad?
The thought of Eric in that much pain threatened tears and Juliet felt absolutely horrible about herself. She glanced down at a tiny boy who grinned proudly at her as he held up his masterpiece. What did the child see in her that made him smile? Why did he trust her? Why did the child depend on her and rely on her…a person who was apparently one of the least reliable on the planet? This child—this innocent child—only expressed joy when he grinned at her. He sure didn’t know any better, did he?
“I’m sorry, Jules,” Beth said quietly. “That was brutal, I know. I’m not—I didn’t mean for that to sound as harsh as it did, and I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything, I just felt like you should know—“
“It’s okay,” Juliet replied solemnly. “We’re, um, we’re working it out. We’re taking it one step at a time, you know, working on trust and everything. It’s, um, it’s going to be a process, I think. But…but we’ll make it.”
“I feel terrible—“
“Don’t. I needed to hear that.”
“Noooo! That’s my color!”
And just like that, Beth and Juliet instantly became referees.
* * *
Four hours.
Reynolds Construction was located just over six miles away from Loving Care and Eric and Travis were off the radar for four hours.
Juliet was nearly sick.
By the time they had walked in the door, it was around nine o’clock and the household was busy tucking sugar-filled children into bed with their new Christmas toys tucked under their arms. In four hours, they had served a dinner of soup and grilled cheese, threatened stubborn kids with no dessert, and had several bath times due to sticky, chocolatey messes. The s’mores had been a hit and Beth walked around, all smiles, obviously proud of her guy for the brilliant idea.
Juliet wished she was focused on the night’s activities. And there was definitely no shortage of activity. As the night wore on, she operated on auto-pilot and snuck away every chance she got to text Eric. She tried not to get too worked up when he didn’t respond—after all, you couldn’t text and concentrate on treacherous roads at the same time. But calling did no good, either, and so Juliet would repeat her theory to herself over and over again.
At one point, she sat between a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old, enjoying a s’more with the pair, and the seven-year-old looked up at her innocently. “Miss Juliet,” she asked. “Are you scared?”
Juliet blinked at the girl, Becca, staring into her chocolate eyes. “Of course not. Why would I be scared?”
“Because Mr. Eric has been gone an awful long time and you keep looking out the window.”
Juliet’s eyes widened. Had she? She glanced over at the window across the room and she narrowed her brows in concern. Maybe she had been. And she hated that the children were apparently noticing.
“I’m just…checking on the snow is all,” Juliet replied. “It’s awful pretty when it snows, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Becca nodded. “And it’s freezing, too. Where did he go?”
Juliet swallowed. “He and his brother went to get something for the house. It takes a long time to haul big equipment like that. They should be back any minute now.”
She felt horrible, pulling lies out of her ass for the kid, but sometimes that was what raising kids was about, right? About kids being on a need-to-know basis to keep them from worrying? About keeping them calm? About not letting them know that you’re scared shitless and that you’re already picturing your boyfriend frozen to death in a New York City gutter?
“Can we have another?” Becca asked, changing the subject.
Absolutely. Juliet couldn’t retrieve them fast enough.
Now, though, hours after she had bum rushed Eric at the door, kissing all over his frozen face and helping him peel his coat from his back so that she could anxiously escort him in front of the fire, the pair of them sat side-by-side, wrapped up in blankets by the glow of the fire in a dark, quiet common room, with mugs of hot tea between their palms.
“I can’t believe they’re all asleep,” Eric remarked quietly.
“I admit, I was skeptical after all the sugar they’d consumed. But they’ve all just had a long, exhausting day. I’m not even sure if nap time happened—unless they had it while we were gone. Speaking of being gone…I was worried sick about you. Even the kids noticed. What happened out there?”
Beside her, Eric sat Indian-style in a black, long-sleeved tee shirt as the glow of the fire reflected on his face. He side-glanced at her, smirking sheepishly, and then looked down into his tea mug. “Sorry about that,” he replied. “I saw your messages after I got back and plugged up my phone. I had no idea that Travis was going to show up and I was very ill-prepared to make the extra trip. I didn’t have enough gas, so we had to choose between heat or fuel. There was, like, a thirty percent charge on my phone that apparently took no time at all to drain—and all the chargers were back here in my bag. By the time we got to work, we realized that the generator was at one of the worksites—across town. On the way, we ran out of gas, so we had to walk back to work, grab a gas can, and then walk to the gas station, and then make the trek to the worksite so we could get our hands on the generator. The kicker is, the drive itself wasn’t even that bad—it was all the other obstacles that held us up.” He reached over and squeezed her thigh gently. “I’m sorry you worried.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
They were silent for a moment as they sipped tea and stared into the fire. Finally, Juliet reached over and laced her fingers into his. “Are you warm?”
“Yeah,” he nodded with a smile. “I am. I’m more concerned about the kids, though. There’s enough juice in the generator that’s running to warm the house overnight. We’ll have to switch them out in the morning.”
“Before or after breakfast?”
Eric shook his head. “Not sure.”
“So,” she replied, changing the subject. “You’re a benefactor here. You, uh, you’ve outdone me, actually. Nice job.”
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “It wasn’t about competition. I mean, at first I was selfish—until I actually showed up on the doorstep and walked in. And then it became about something completely different. It was like…what have I been doing with my life? Sitting around and eating pizza and beer? Investing in that stock or the other one and for what? What am I really doing? There are people out there, like me, who are filthy rich and don’t even deserve it. And so many people and organizations out there who need the surplus that we take for granted. So why not do something? You know? Why not unclog a couple of drains? Why not build a playground or two? Why not tutor a kid in math or help them with their dribbling? Why not? This place has changed…everything I thought I knew about life.” Then his eyes met hers. “And so have you.”
Juliet smiled as she scooted herself closer to him, until her thigh touched his, and she lay her head on his shoulder. His arm crept around her and she let out a content sigh. “If you’re here so often, how come I never saw you?”
“Because I avoided you.”
She scowled into the fire. “So we’re gonna be that blunt about it, huh? Just like that. You avoided me.”
“Pretty much, yeah. I was here on weeknights and the weekends you weren’t. Avoiding you here wasn’t really that difficult.”
“Are you criticizing the amount of time I spend here?”
“No,” he replied simply. “You’re just predictable with your strict schedule. You’ve carved out very specific times to be here—and I just made sure I wasn’t here at those times. Simple as that.”
“Why?” She whispered.
“Because I needed to focus. And I knew that if I saw you, I would lose it.”
Sitting her mug a safe distance away, she wrapped her arms around his torso and snuggled closer to him. “We probably shouldn’t be this close,” she said. “It’s probably setting a bad example for the kids.”
Eric snorted. “What, are they peeking down here through cracks in the floorboards or something? Is that another repair I need to add to my list?”
Juliet giggled lightly. “No. I’m just saying, kids wake up in the middle of the night—“
“And there are plenty of house parents up there to run interference.” Sitting his own mug down, his voice dropped to a whisper. “Besides. Would it be so bad for them to witness the way two adults care about each other? That maybe if they saw the way you held my hand, there might be hope out there, after all, that adults really do have real, healthy relationships? I’m sure that, in the situations they’ve come from, that’s nearly foreign to a lot of them. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. “But I want to kiss you right now and I’m not sure that would be a very appropriate example.”
His head turned and his lips moved softly against her hair. “I think that all depends on the way you want to kiss me.”
Pulling herself away from him, she reached up and slid her hand across his cheek, turning his head gently toward hers. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through, you never deserved it.”
“Why don’t we just start anew? Right now. Hi. My name is Eric Reynolds. And you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Juliet smiled at him from underneath heavy-lidded eyes. “I’m Juliet Carson. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“Who knew that a non-alcoholic drink was all it took to get in a woman’s pants?”
“You’re ruining it,” she deadpanned.
But her annoyance was short-lived. Turning his body around, he cupped her cheek and he pulled her face toward his, softly devouring her lips with a deliberate gentleness that nearly brought a tear to her eye. Every time his lips touched hers, it was as if her soul melded to his and they became one. There was nothing existent in all of the universe but him and she could have happily stayed just like this with him forever. The kisses always ended much too soon.
This time, though, he reached down and tucked his hands underneath her knees, pulling her forward until she straddled him, her feet flat on the floor behind him. Instantly, heat ignited between them and Juliet knew that they shouldn’t be so close the way they were but, unfortunately, caution had already gone out the window seconds ago. Pressing herself against his torso, she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, feeling unable to be close enough to him. A soft whimper escaped her throat as his fingers massaged her back and, suddenly, they trailed up and he grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her head to the side. She nearly let out a cry as he wrapped an arm around her waist and forcefully pressed her against him as his mouth covered her neck, but she remembered where she was and she almost choked as she held it in.
When she realized that her hips were rocking in time against him, her breathing thickened. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Everything was a blur. She was intoxicated by his affection and so she breathed, “Eric. Let’s go out to the truck.” She couldn’t handle it anymore. Her blood was on fire and she felt the burn throughout her entire body. She needed him. She needed him so badly, she couldn’t stand it.
Suddenly, though, as if she’d been doused with a bucket full of ice water, Eric ripped his lips from her neck and studied her face. “Are you sure?”
And just like that, she came to her senses. Her eyes glanced around and she was mortified—and ashamed of herself. She was in the children’s home, for crying out loud! And here she was, throwing herself at a man like a harlot in heat with no regards for her location or for the promise she’d made to herself earlier: no sex.
No sex. And Eric had agreed. No wonder he was so damn stubborn about it, though. He was right. The things that happened when their bodies touched were spiritual. And maybe just a little bit dangerous.
Blinking her way back to the present, she removed her legs from Eric’s sides and she crossed them in front of her, adjusting her shirt, and glancing around the room. Had anyone seen? Had anyone heard? She just knew what was going to happen—they were going to kick her out in the morning. For good.
“Jules,” Eric said. “It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed.”
“Look where we are,” she hissed. “How could I not be?”
He smiled. “Because everyone’s all nestled, all snug in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.”
Juliet’s heart melted as she visibly swooned with her smile. Could she keep him? Please? Pretty please?
Oh, wait. She could. Because she already had him. And she was more ready than ever to start this journey with him.
AND THEY WERE back in the truck again.
Putting the chains on the tires had been a near disaster. Juliet was an anxiety-ridden mess as she tried her hardest to follow Eric’s every instruction and Eric, his poor soul, fought tooth and nail to stay patient—difficult as it proved to be.
Juliet knew nothing about generators or tires or chains…hell, she didn’t really know anything about vehicles in general. But when you were playing Beat the Clock with Mother Nature, you didn’t have time to give lessons. He may have snapped at her a time or two.
The last time he grew frustrated, he thought she might cry and Eric’s heart broke. “I’m sorry,” her voice shook. “I’m trying to do what you’re telling me to. It’s hard. And I’m freezing. And I don’t understand what half of these words mean.”
“I know, baby,” he said softly. “But I can’t do this alone. I know you’re trying. I just need you to focus. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Finally, they were on the road. Creeping down the road, at that. Beside him, Juliet was painfully tense as she stared down the road ahead of them. She white-knuckled her door handle and Eric wished he could calm her nerves. So he reached over and slid his hand into hers.
Instantly, she snatched hers away as if his hand had bitten her. “You need both hands to drive,” she breathed nervously.
Eric blinked in surprise for a second and returned his hand to the wheel. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “Everything’s fine.”
“Please concentrate on the road,” she replied.
All right, then.
Turned out, the silence was deafening, but welcome. It gave Eric the opportunity to process the day so far. Had he known that Juliet would be at the children’s home? Yeah, he knew it was a pretty safe bet. Had he known that he would end up in an actual, committed relationship with her by the end of the day? Absolutely not.
He smiled at the blizzard in front of him. A committed relationship. With Juliet. She wanted him. She chose him. At her own free will. This was probably the best Christmas he had ever had in his entire life.
Of course, sex would have been the icing on the cake. Making sweet love to her in his bed while the snow fell on the city outside his bedroom window…it would have made everything complete. Then he shook the thought out of his mind. He needed to quit while he was ahead. He was lucky enough to be in the positon he was in as it was.
But at the same time, though, what happened now? Did Eric even know how to date without sex? Of course he did, what kind of a question was that? He remembered the first time he ever took Juliet to dinner, unorthodox as it was, he had won her over with a simple bowl of ice cream. And she loved to kiss and watch movies with him. Hell, he could do this. After all, he was a catch. He was the best boyfriend a woman could have, even he knew this.
However, he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit nervous by it all. Maybe, in a way, he was like Juliet and her trust issues. He wanted to trust her—with all his heart. And he did. But there was that tiny voice, way in the very back of his mind, that kept asking him when the next time she would flake out and leave would be.
Hell, maybe Juliet was right. Maybe taking it slow would be good for the both of them.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He knew exactly who it was without even having to look at it.
“Do not answer that,” Juliet warned through her teeth.
“Babe,” he replied with as much patience as he could muster. “It’s Travis. I gotta answer it. We’re going twenty miles an hour on a street with no cars. Trust me. It’s okay.”
The maneuvering it took to get to his phone invoked a new fear in Juliet, he’d noticed, but he gracefully fished his phone out of his pocket, without incident, and swiped his thumb across the screen. “You got power?” Travis greeted him.
“No,” Eric answered. “You?”
“Yeah. For now, I guess. What’s that sound?”
Eric hadn’t realized how loud the truck actually was until then. The crunching of the quickly-accumulating snow underneath his chained tires was louder than ever now.
“Eric, what the hell are you doing?” Travis continued without waiting for an answer. “Are you out in this shit?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m taking my generator to the children’s home. They’re out of power.”
“But—but weren’t you just--? Shit, Eric,” Travis sputtered. “Look. I hate to even ask you this, but you live closer to Juliet. I was gonna ask you to check in with her because Beth hasn’t heard from her, but you’re not even home anyway—“
“She’s with me,” Eric interrupted.
“She’s what?” And then Eric heard Beth echoing Travis in the background.
“She’s with me, right here. Sitting right beside me. She’s safe, we’re both okay. Right now our first priority is getting this generator to the kids because the one they have won’t last and this storm isn’t letting up anytime soon.”
Travis was silent for a moment. “You know the ones we have at work are better than anything out there on the market.”
Eric let out a breath. “I know. But that’s in the opposite direction of the home and we need to take them what I have. With theirs and mine and the fireplace, everything should be fine.”
“Eric, I gotta go.”
“Travis…”
“Text me when you get there. Be safe. I love you, brother.”
“God damn it, Travis.”
And then the call ended.
Eric dropped the phone in his lap and cursed under his breath.
And then, to his surprise, Juliet’s hand crept across the front seat and slid into Eric’s. “I trust you,” she whispered. “What did he say?”
“He’s gonna do something stupid,” Eric muttered. Then he squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
And then they crunched the rest of the way through the snow, hand in hand, in silence.
* * *
Juliet had refused to let go of Eric’s hand until they walked inside the house.
She was back in her jeans and her Rudolph sweatshirt from earlier and she looked so damn adorable that all he wanted to do was scoop her up and hold her in his arms for the rest of the night. Which he fully intended, by the way, once the house full of children were all warm and snug in their beds.
Warm. That’s what they were there for. To provide warmth and the necessary electricity for cooking and bathing. The power may have stopped working and the snow may have kept falling, but children didn’t stop needing. And now Eric’s head was one hundred percent back in the game.
There were four house parents present that Eric was aware of and the two house fathers were more than happy to accompany Eric to the truck and assist him with the unloading of the generator. “The two of these should be more than enough, I hope,” Eric said. “Between yours and mine—I mean, I’m sure they’ll have this power situation worked out by tomorrow night at the latest, right? We have the fireplace to help out, too. And plenty of blankets. We have ways of conserving the generators.”
The two men glanced at each other and the shorter one, Bill, who was balding, looked nervous behind his glasses. “Remember several years ago, the last time it got bad like this? We were out of power for a week.”
Eric looked anxiously between Bill and Robert, his taller, darker counterpart. He refused to accept that this blizzard would be like the last one. There was no way they had enough juice for a week. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It’ll be fine…right?”
There was no answer. Instead the men focused on the generators and discussed a game plan for conservation and heat.
Half an hour later, the entire house was gathered in socks and blankets by the fire, eating a snack, and listening to Robert tell Christmas stories. Eric and Juliet sat side by side on a sofa as Juliet held a sleeping infant in her arms. She had never been more beautiful than she was in that moment.
Could he have this? Could he have this future? The one where they lived happily ever after with a house full of rowdy children and wedding photos tucked away in an album somewhere? The one where he had to take the sink apart to fish his wedding ring out of the drain or the one where their kid broke out in inappropriate, booty-shaking madness in the middle of her ballet recital? That was what he wanted—with Juliet. He didn’t want perfection. He wanted memories that made him smile.
Juliet couldn’t have children. This much he knew. But he looked around the room and decided that that was okay with him. Here, they had many children. And he hoped that someday the two of them would be in a position to foster some of them…and maybe eventually adopt—together.
A sound interrupted his thoughts and he smiled at the little boy in Juliet’s arms as he staggered a content sigh and smacked his lips as he settled back to sleep. Glancing at her face, her smiled glowed and her eyes glittered as she watched over the child. Then she snuggled him a little closer and grinned at Eric.
Eric was in love.
He didn’t have time to process the sudden pounding of his heart, however, as Juliet’s voice whispered softly, “His name is Mason. His mother, Tinisha, is seventeen. He’s only here temporarily. She’s a ra—um, a victim, and he’s the product. She didn’t believe in, um,” she paused and her eyes glanced around, “termination, so she chose to have him. But she wants to get her high school diploma and she works when she isn’t going to school. Her family didn’t really like the idea of her keeping him, partially because they’re extremely low income and can’t afford another mouth to feed, even with government assistance. So Loving Care cares for him and she sees him in her spare time. She had him for Christmas this morning and had to bring him back a few hours ago as the snow picked up. They offered to let her stay here, but her mother…” Juliet’s voice trailed off. “It’s an unfortunate situation. But she’s doing right by him, as best as she can. You can’t fault a mother for that. Especially one as young as she is and is having to grow up so fast.”
Eric’s heart soared as he listened to her and he couldn’t help himself as he reached out to tenderly brush the hair off of her shoulder. “You know an awful lot about this one.”
“I mentor Tinisha. If you want to call it that. A couple of weeks ago she approached me while I was helping with dinner. She started asking me questions and we got to talking. I gave her my personal phone number and she texts me from time to time. Oh, that reminds me.” Gently, and ever so carefully, she leaned over to the side and lifted her foot off the floor. “Will you get my phone and take a picture of Mason so I can send it to her? I want her to know that he’s napping and that he’s okay. She’s probably sick with worry right now.”
Eric abandoned, this one time, the joy that it normally brought him to have his hand anywhere close to her ass in favor of…well, doing her the favor. As he fished her phone from her pocket, he lit up the screen and his eyes widened. “Well, you weren’t kidding about that. There’s, like, fifty texts here asking if you’ve heard anything from the home.”
“I should have texted her when I got here or when we were on the way. I feel horrible.”
Swiping his thumb across the screen, he realized that he’d never actually seen Juliet’s phone before. Reaching up to click the camera icon, he paused when he saw a bit of flesh in the background. Hurriedly, he turned the screen off and then back on and then gaped in surprise at her lock screen. “Jules,” he breathed. “When’s the last time you changed your lock screen?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “Hurry up and take the picture.”
But he couldn’t stop staring. Because he was staring at himself. Pre-haircut, pre-diabetes confession, pre…pre-everything. It was one the first nights he had spent, lounging on her couch with her, watching movies and eating junk. He remembered this night in particular. She had roped him into an I Love Lucy marathon and he lay across the couch with his feet in her lap. He remembered it specifically because they’d spent the better part of half an hour discussing the benefits of foot massages and how he had yet to receive one during all their talking. He was comfortable, though, his arm resting behind his head, the other one laying listlessly across his chest, and his head was turned as he laughed at something hilarious on the screen—and he never knew she had snapped that picture.
His heart swelled at the memory and he cleared his throat as he went back to the task at hand. Jesus, that had been so long ago, though. Had he been her lock screen the entire time—the same way she had been his?
After snapping a picture of the baby and typing out the text he’d been instructed to send, he returned the phone to the home screen and then he clicked the screen off. Then he clicked it back on, the lock screen in full view, and he returned Juliet’s phone to her.
Her eyes landed on the phone, knowing she didn’t have a free hand, and then she locked eyes with Eric. “It’s my favorite picture of you,” she whispered. “You didn’t, um, you didn’t know I took it—“
“How long has it been there?”
Her eyes darted around. “That’s not—it’s—look, can we not--?”
“How long?”
Finally, she let out a breath as she adjusted the baby in her arms. “Since the night I took it.”
Eric gaped at her. “Do you realize how long ago that was?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Can we not have this conversation right now?”
“Who said we’re having a conversation?”
She glared at him deliberately. “I know you. There’s a ‘conversation’ coming, I can feel it.”
At that, he arched a defiant eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hm. I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe that was all I needed to hear.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered.
“Maybe it was. Maybe it’s all the validation I needed.”
“Validation?”
“That’s right. Validation. That I’m a complete hunk and you never stopped wanting me from the get-go.”
“Like that’s a secret,” she deadpanned.
Eric shrugged. “I mean, I always knew it. You were the one who was in denial, not me. I always knew you couldn’t get enough of me and now I have proof. Sneaking around and taking pictures of me and stuff. Look at you. Nothing more than a common fangirl. I bet you have a naked poster of me hanging on the ceiling above your bed—“
“Eric, stop it!” She hissed. But he could see the smile she was fighting in her eyes. “You’re gonna wake up the baby.”
“Fine,” he relented. “Baby wins this round. Next time won’t be so easy.”
With Mason snuggled up tight in her arm, Juliet dropped her free hand by her side, an obvious invitation for him to take it, which he accepted, when a light commotion was heard at the front door.
“My word,” Sandra remarked, astonished. “I’m surprised to see you—or anyone, for that matter. Um, please, do come in. Do you, uh, need help with any of that?”
“Nope,” Travis’s voice came faintly from the foyer.
An hour and a half. That was how long it had been since Eric had last spoken to Travis. He should have known.
Begrudgingly, after placing a tender kiss on Juliet’s forehead, he left his place on the couch to check on the activity in the foyer. He stopped short when he saw grocery bags all over the floor. Filled with candy. And marshmallows. And Beth stood behind them, fighting with her scarf.
“Travis!” Eric scolded quietly. “What the hell are you doing here? You should have stayed home.”
Travis beamed proudly. “We brought s’mores.”
Eric felt his face ignite. “What? We are in the middle of a power outage with nearly thirty children and babies and you come out in this weather to bring s’mores?”
The pride left Travis’s face in an instant. “Yeah,” he deadpanned. “I did. Because while we’re all running around here, freaking out and trying to make this power outage work, somebody’s gotta make it fun for them. If they’re busy roasting marshmallows and eating chocolate, they’re not worrying about the life span of a generator or wondering where their next meal is coming from. Isn’t that what they’re here for? Comfort and security?”
Eric was stunned. In his own, screwed up way, Travis was exactly right. And an absolute genius.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Sandra smiled. “Let’s get these things into the kitchen. We’ll surprise the children after dinner.”
As Beth and Sandra gathered bags, Travis pulled Eric to the side. “I didn’t come here just to bring s’mores,” he said in a hushed tone. “I came because we gotta go and get the generator from work. ETA on the electricity isn’t looking good. I’ve been keeping up with it.”
“What are they saying?”
“Days. Three, minimum.”
Shit.
“All right,” Eric replied diligently. “No sweat. We got this. I mean, extreme weather conditions is what we do, right?”
Travis stared at him blankly. Because it wasn’t. You didn’t erect buildings in extreme weather conditions. As long as there was no precipitation, it was a good day.
But Travis nodded anyway. “Yeah…sure, buddy. Exactly.”
“Right,” Eric nodded. “Right.”
Back in the common room, the twins walked around the corner as Juliet was handing over a fussy Mason bundle to Beth. “Who’s a grumpy boy?” Beth baby-talked. Then she crinkled her nose. “Who’s a stinky boy?”
As Beth carried the infant away, Juliet turned and grinned at Eric. Her smile lit up his life. He didn’t want to leave her—until his eyes darted away and he watched Bill stoke the fire. And then he knew he had to.
Juliet met him halfway and gently placed her hands on his arms as she addressed him. The electricity from the contact, alone, could have powered the entire house. “Hey,” she continued to smile. “They’re about to put me on toddler duty. Wanna help me wrangle up some munchkins?”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Eric glanced around nervously. “Travis says they’re looking at a three-day minimum for restoring the power.”
Juliet’s smile faded.
“Travis and Beth came because—“ He let out a breath. “Jules, we gotta go get the generator from work.”
Juliet’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I just got you back.”
Eric smiled, her words filling his heart. “We’ll be fine, don’t worry. I bet they’re already scraping a lot of the main roads now. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“We can work with what we have,” she offered. “We can—we can tell the kids we’re camping; they’ll think it’s fun!”
“Babe,” he whispered seriously. “There isn’t enough firewood for this. And we’ll be lucky to squeeze a day and a half, two days tops, out of what we have. They said three days minimum. But what if it’s four or five? We can’t take risks like that, not with this many children involved. Not when we have options.”
“But, Eric. It’s getting dark out there. It’s only gonna get worse.”
He squeezed her shoulders gently and he smiled. “And you did a fantastic job with the chains. Okay? You and I, we make a great team, don’t we?”
“I’m scared. Please don’t go.”
“Everything will be fine. You go and chase two-year-olds and I’ll be back before you can miss me. Okay?”
“Bro, we gotta get a move on,” Travis interrupted.
“I already miss you,” she whispered.
Lifting her chin, he placed a tender kiss on her lips as he swept his thumb across her jaw, feeling her smooth, beautiful skin underneath. Damn it, she had a way of yanking on his heartstrings, didn’t she?
But he had to tear himself away. He had to bundle up and go with Travis to find warmth for the house. He had to go play superhero and save the day.
And speaking of saving the day, what did superheroes get at the end of the day? The girl and the kiss. Oh, yes, they did.
With this thought keeping him going, he stood in the foyer and bundled his coat around him. “Here,” Juliet said, suddenly materializing in front of him. “Wear my scarf. I don’t want you to freeze.”
He smiled at her as she wrapped the purple, polka-dotted abomination around his neck and tucked it into his coat. This. This right here was what life was made of.
“Hurry back. But be safe.”
“Always,” he replied. One last kiss and he was out the door.
Several minutes later, Travis was sitting next to him as Eric turned the ignition. He swallowed hard at the dash, originally having no intention of leaving again until the roads were safe. “So, um, I have about a quarter of a tank of gas.”
Travis’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a silent breath. “Well, then. We’d better turn off the heater. And we’d better hurry.”
BETH ENDED UP taking Eric’s place with Juliet and the toddlers. There was a small group of five of them and Juliet quickly cut some makeshift Christmas trees out of green construction paper, pasted them onto red sheets of construction paper, and let them go to town, gluing and coloring all sorts of decorations till their hearts were content.
Beth, however, was less interested in how much paste was ingested and more so into every detail of Juliet’s personal life. “I just witnessed you allowing Eric to kiss you. Twice! Oh, and furthermore, you apparently spent Christmas morning with him? I’ve been waiting all evening to hear about this! Since when are you on speaking terms? Or even kissing terms?”
Juliet smiled at Beth over the toddlers’ heads. “Christmas was an accident…that needed to happen, I think. Did you know that Eric is a benefactor here now?”
“I had my suspicions…”
Juliet smiled dreamily into the air. “He showed up in a…uh, red suit while we were cleaning up breakfast this morning. The children absolutely adore him and he…stole my heart.”
“So, then…what?”
“So then Eric and I are…Eric and I.” Then her smile widened. “I’m scared to death, but at the same time, I’ve never felt excitement quite like this before.”
But Beth wasn’t smiling. Instead, she was re-directing a pig-tailed two-year-old’s crayon back onto the paper from the floor and her eyes were full of thought. After a moment, she bit her lip and she finally spoke. “Is it real this time?”
Juliet was taken aback by the question. “What does that mean?”
Beth let out a breath. “It means that—that I know you’re happy with him. But I also know that when things get heavy, you tend to…run. And I know you’re miserable without him. But don’t forget, I’m dating his brother. I see the things you don’t see. I see how all the back and forth affects him. It shatters his heart, his entire world, every single time. Did you know that this past time, Travis was so concerned for him that he and their friends took turns sleeping at Eric’s apartment so they could watch him? I know that you hurt just as much, I know you do. But I don’t think you realize how much hell that man has put himself through—for you.”
A lump formed in Juliet’s throat and she stared back at Beth, speechless. Sure, she knew that their problems had affected Eric just as much as they affected her. But…Travis was afraid to leave him alone? It was that bad?
The thought of Eric in that much pain threatened tears and Juliet felt absolutely horrible about herself. She glanced down at a tiny boy who grinned proudly at her as he held up his masterpiece. What did the child see in her that made him smile? Why did he trust her? Why did the child depend on her and rely on her…a person who was apparently one of the least reliable on the planet? This child—this innocent child—only expressed joy when he grinned at her. He sure didn’t know any better, did he?
“I’m sorry, Jules,” Beth said quietly. “That was brutal, I know. I’m not—I didn’t mean for that to sound as harsh as it did, and I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything, I just felt like you should know—“
“It’s okay,” Juliet replied solemnly. “We’re, um, we’re working it out. We’re taking it one step at a time, you know, working on trust and everything. It’s, um, it’s going to be a process, I think. But…but we’ll make it.”
“I feel terrible—“
“Don’t. I needed to hear that.”
“Noooo! That’s my color!”
And just like that, Beth and Juliet instantly became referees.
* * *
Four hours.
Reynolds Construction was located just over six miles away from Loving Care and Eric and Travis were off the radar for four hours.
Juliet was nearly sick.
By the time they had walked in the door, it was around nine o’clock and the household was busy tucking sugar-filled children into bed with their new Christmas toys tucked under their arms. In four hours, they had served a dinner of soup and grilled cheese, threatened stubborn kids with no dessert, and had several bath times due to sticky, chocolatey messes. The s’mores had been a hit and Beth walked around, all smiles, obviously proud of her guy for the brilliant idea.
Juliet wished she was focused on the night’s activities. And there was definitely no shortage of activity. As the night wore on, she operated on auto-pilot and snuck away every chance she got to text Eric. She tried not to get too worked up when he didn’t respond—after all, you couldn’t text and concentrate on treacherous roads at the same time. But calling did no good, either, and so Juliet would repeat her theory to herself over and over again.
At one point, she sat between a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old, enjoying a s’more with the pair, and the seven-year-old looked up at her innocently. “Miss Juliet,” she asked. “Are you scared?”
Juliet blinked at the girl, Becca, staring into her chocolate eyes. “Of course not. Why would I be scared?”
“Because Mr. Eric has been gone an awful long time and you keep looking out the window.”
Juliet’s eyes widened. Had she? She glanced over at the window across the room and she narrowed her brows in concern. Maybe she had been. And she hated that the children were apparently noticing.
“I’m just…checking on the snow is all,” Juliet replied. “It’s awful pretty when it snows, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Becca nodded. “And it’s freezing, too. Where did he go?”
Juliet swallowed. “He and his brother went to get something for the house. It takes a long time to haul big equipment like that. They should be back any minute now.”
She felt horrible, pulling lies out of her ass for the kid, but sometimes that was what raising kids was about, right? About kids being on a need-to-know basis to keep them from worrying? About keeping them calm? About not letting them know that you’re scared shitless and that you’re already picturing your boyfriend frozen to death in a New York City gutter?
“Can we have another?” Becca asked, changing the subject.
Absolutely. Juliet couldn’t retrieve them fast enough.
Now, though, hours after she had bum rushed Eric at the door, kissing all over his frozen face and helping him peel his coat from his back so that she could anxiously escort him in front of the fire, the pair of them sat side-by-side, wrapped up in blankets by the glow of the fire in a dark, quiet common room, with mugs of hot tea between their palms.
“I can’t believe they’re all asleep,” Eric remarked quietly.
“I admit, I was skeptical after all the sugar they’d consumed. But they’ve all just had a long, exhausting day. I’m not even sure if nap time happened—unless they had it while we were gone. Speaking of being gone…I was worried sick about you. Even the kids noticed. What happened out there?”
Beside her, Eric sat Indian-style in a black, long-sleeved tee shirt as the glow of the fire reflected on his face. He side-glanced at her, smirking sheepishly, and then looked down into his tea mug. “Sorry about that,” he replied. “I saw your messages after I got back and plugged up my phone. I had no idea that Travis was going to show up and I was very ill-prepared to make the extra trip. I didn’t have enough gas, so we had to choose between heat or fuel. There was, like, a thirty percent charge on my phone that apparently took no time at all to drain—and all the chargers were back here in my bag. By the time we got to work, we realized that the generator was at one of the worksites—across town. On the way, we ran out of gas, so we had to walk back to work, grab a gas can, and then walk to the gas station, and then make the trek to the worksite so we could get our hands on the generator. The kicker is, the drive itself wasn’t even that bad—it was all the other obstacles that held us up.” He reached over and squeezed her thigh gently. “I’m sorry you worried.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
They were silent for a moment as they sipped tea and stared into the fire. Finally, Juliet reached over and laced her fingers into his. “Are you warm?”
“Yeah,” he nodded with a smile. “I am. I’m more concerned about the kids, though. There’s enough juice in the generator that’s running to warm the house overnight. We’ll have to switch them out in the morning.”
“Before or after breakfast?”
Eric shook his head. “Not sure.”
“So,” she replied, changing the subject. “You’re a benefactor here. You, uh, you’ve outdone me, actually. Nice job.”
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “It wasn’t about competition. I mean, at first I was selfish—until I actually showed up on the doorstep and walked in. And then it became about something completely different. It was like…what have I been doing with my life? Sitting around and eating pizza and beer? Investing in that stock or the other one and for what? What am I really doing? There are people out there, like me, who are filthy rich and don’t even deserve it. And so many people and organizations out there who need the surplus that we take for granted. So why not do something? You know? Why not unclog a couple of drains? Why not build a playground or two? Why not tutor a kid in math or help them with their dribbling? Why not? This place has changed…everything I thought I knew about life.” Then his eyes met hers. “And so have you.”
Juliet smiled as she scooted herself closer to him, until her thigh touched his, and she lay her head on his shoulder. His arm crept around her and she let out a content sigh. “If you’re here so often, how come I never saw you?”
“Because I avoided you.”
She scowled into the fire. “So we’re gonna be that blunt about it, huh? Just like that. You avoided me.”
“Pretty much, yeah. I was here on weeknights and the weekends you weren’t. Avoiding you here wasn’t really that difficult.”
“Are you criticizing the amount of time I spend here?”
“No,” he replied simply. “You’re just predictable with your strict schedule. You’ve carved out very specific times to be here—and I just made sure I wasn’t here at those times. Simple as that.”
“Why?” She whispered.
“Because I needed to focus. And I knew that if I saw you, I would lose it.”
Sitting her mug a safe distance away, she wrapped her arms around his torso and snuggled closer to him. “We probably shouldn’t be this close,” she said. “It’s probably setting a bad example for the kids.”
Eric snorted. “What, are they peeking down here through cracks in the floorboards or something? Is that another repair I need to add to my list?”
Juliet giggled lightly. “No. I’m just saying, kids wake up in the middle of the night—“
“And there are plenty of house parents up there to run interference.” Sitting his own mug down, his voice dropped to a whisper. “Besides. Would it be so bad for them to witness the way two adults care about each other? That maybe if they saw the way you held my hand, there might be hope out there, after all, that adults really do have real, healthy relationships? I’m sure that, in the situations they’ve come from, that’s nearly foreign to a lot of them. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. “But I want to kiss you right now and I’m not sure that would be a very appropriate example.”
His head turned and his lips moved softly against her hair. “I think that all depends on the way you want to kiss me.”
Pulling herself away from him, she reached up and slid her hand across his cheek, turning his head gently toward hers. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through, you never deserved it.”
“Why don’t we just start anew? Right now. Hi. My name is Eric Reynolds. And you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Juliet smiled at him from underneath heavy-lidded eyes. “I’m Juliet Carson. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“Who knew that a non-alcoholic drink was all it took to get in a woman’s pants?”
“You’re ruining it,” she deadpanned.
But her annoyance was short-lived. Turning his body around, he cupped her cheek and he pulled her face toward his, softly devouring her lips with a deliberate gentleness that nearly brought a tear to her eye. Every time his lips touched hers, it was as if her soul melded to his and they became one. There was nothing existent in all of the universe but him and she could have happily stayed just like this with him forever. The kisses always ended much too soon.
This time, though, he reached down and tucked his hands underneath her knees, pulling her forward until she straddled him, her feet flat on the floor behind him. Instantly, heat ignited between them and Juliet knew that they shouldn’t be so close the way they were but, unfortunately, caution had already gone out the window seconds ago. Pressing herself against his torso, she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, feeling unable to be close enough to him. A soft whimper escaped her throat as his fingers massaged her back and, suddenly, they trailed up and he grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her head to the side. She nearly let out a cry as he wrapped an arm around her waist and forcefully pressed her against him as his mouth covered her neck, but she remembered where she was and she almost choked as she held it in.
When she realized that her hips were rocking in time against him, her breathing thickened. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Everything was a blur. She was intoxicated by his affection and so she breathed, “Eric. Let’s go out to the truck.” She couldn’t handle it anymore. Her blood was on fire and she felt the burn throughout her entire body. She needed him. She needed him so badly, she couldn’t stand it.
Suddenly, though, as if she’d been doused with a bucket full of ice water, Eric ripped his lips from her neck and studied her face. “Are you sure?”
And just like that, she came to her senses. Her eyes glanced around and she was mortified—and ashamed of herself. She was in the children’s home, for crying out loud! And here she was, throwing herself at a man like a harlot in heat with no regards for her location or for the promise she’d made to herself earlier: no sex.
No sex. And Eric had agreed. No wonder he was so damn stubborn about it, though. He was right. The things that happened when their bodies touched were spiritual. And maybe just a little bit dangerous.
Blinking her way back to the present, she removed her legs from Eric’s sides and she crossed them in front of her, adjusting her shirt, and glancing around the room. Had anyone seen? Had anyone heard? She just knew what was going to happen—they were going to kick her out in the morning. For good.
“Jules,” Eric said. “It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed.”
“Look where we are,” she hissed. “How could I not be?”
He smiled. “Because everyone’s all nestled, all snug in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.”
Juliet’s heart melted as she visibly swooned with her smile. Could she keep him? Please? Pretty please?
Oh, wait. She could. Because she already had him. And she was more ready than ever to start this journey with him.