Chapter 19 - Fire Trucks

Waking up, next to Christian felt like complete heaven, this morning.  When he had told me I shouldn’t start what I couldn’t finish, I used it to my own advantage.  This beautiful man that lay before me had loved me so many times and I had yet to repay the favor.  Not that he had been doing me any all this time.  I felt like showing him how much love I felt for him.  I had watched him as the fireworks sparked in his eyes when he exploded within my fiery core which only made my wave of carnal bliss roll into another one with an even more amazing peak of intensity.  So intense that I collapsed on top of the beautiful body that provided me with so much escape, release and love.  God, did I love this man.  And to think, I had spent the last nine or so years practically hating him.  The line was quite fine between love and hate, wasn’t it?

Leaving Christian in bed, satiated, I left the room to go make us some breakfast.  After calling out for him multiple times, with no answer, I had decided to bring his coffee and food up to him.  When I got there, he wasn’t in the room.  That’s when I realized he was in the shower.  I went in, not thinking anything of it simply letting him know that his breakfast was sitting on the bedside table, waiting for him.

“What did you say?”  He asks and I repeated.  After playing this repeating game for the third time, I walked up to the shower and pulled the glass door away and before I could say anything, his arms were around me and there I stood, in the shower, water raining down on me as the satin of my white nighty clung to my body.  The hungry look in Christian’s face told me everything I had to know.  I let him take me however he wanted.  Once back on dry land, I watched him as he ate his breakfast which we brought down to the kitchen because he had explained that there was just too much temptation for him up there.  I had to laugh at his statement and I knew how he felt.  It was like we were two hormonal teenagers unable to keep our hands off of one another.

I was ecstatically pleased when the doorbell rang because I knew that the exciting part of my day was really just beginning.  Christian had taken refuge in the den, reading the morning paper as I headed upstairs to Aiden’s bedroom and watched the delivery men assemble the bed.  After throwing the sheets and the rest of the bedding together, I went downstairs to find Christian.

“All done?”  He asked me as he looks up over the paper.  I shook my head.

“Two things left to do.”  I tell him.

“What’s that?”  He asks me, putting the paper on the side table.

“We need to get Aiden’s stuff and bring it here.”  I tell him.  “And then, we need to go get my boy.”  I saw the look in my man’s eyes as he got up and slowly walked up to me.

“So he’s your boy now?”  He said softly as he wrapped his arms loosely around my waist and I rubbed my hands on his arms.

“He might not be mine, biologically but yeah, he’s always been mine.”  I tell him and notice a stray tear at the corner of his eye.  I cradle his cheek with my hand and brush it away with my thumb before guiding his face towards mine so I could lay a soft kiss on his lips.  “Are you ready?”

“Let’s do this.”  He tells me, grabbing my hand and pulling me out the door to my car, taking my keys from me; he opened the garage door and backed out of the drive.

We got back, just in time for lunch.  My stomach had started acting up again and I thought that it might be a sign that I was hungry so we sat down to eat.  I told Christian to just relax and trust me with Aiden’s stuff after he had brought the boxes up the stairs to the outside of his room.  As I rummaged through the three boxes of clothing, I hung everything up in the closet and stowed what needed stowing into his new dresser.  I transferred his toys into his new toy chest and left some as decoration on top of his desk, bedside table and dresser.  When I thought, I had everything squared away I made my way out of the room and down the stairs.  A searing pain hit me square in the gut and I clenched my abdomen.  What the hell?  And as quickly as the pain had come, it had dissipated.  I grabbed onto the railing and quickly made my way to the living room where I found Christian watching TV.  I sat down beside him and smiled as he looked at me.

“Are you done?”  I nodded.  “That was quick.”

“It helps when you know what you’re doing and where you wanted to put everything to begin with.”  I explained to him.  “It’s what I do.”  He nodded.  “Go take a look.”  He got up and grabbed my hand and as he got to the bottom of the step, another piercing pain hit me, this time causing me to wince out loud and grab onto the wall for support all the while squeezing the blood completely out of Christian’s hand.  He turned quickly, worry strewn over his face.  Yet again, as quickly as the pain had come, it had left.

“Are you okay?”  He asked me after my breathing had regained its regular rhythm.  I nodded.

“Yeah.  It’s just a pain that I’d had on and off for the past week.”  I tell him.  “My stomach’s been acting up.  I’ll be fine.”

“When was your last period?”  He asked me.

“I’m not pregnant Christian.  I’m on the pill and I had my period while I was away.”  I explained to him.  I could tell that he wasn’t completely convinced but he let it go.  Resuming his stair climbing, he pulled me along with him until we had reached the door to Aiden’s new room.  I watched his face as he took in every last bit of red, black and silver that he could see.  He looked like a kid in a toy store and that was putting it mildly.

“So?”  I say after giving him a few minutes to take it all in.  “What do you think?”

“Wow!”  He says.  “I don’t think he’ll ever complain about bedtime ever again, that’s for sure; and I think his timeout zone will have to be elsewhere too because he might not want to leave his room.”  I had to laugh at his last statement.  It meant a lot to hear him validate my efforts.  I didn’t need it but he knew Aiden best and knowing what to expect beforehand put me at ease.

“So what do you say we go get my little frog prince?”  I pull Christian toward me for a sweet kiss and then bounce around in excitement.  He laughed at my neurotic behavior and let me pull him with me as we quickly ran across the lawn to his parents’ house.  I made sure to stay off to the side, so that when the time was right, I’d pop up and put the largest of smiles on that sweet little boy’s face.

I let Christian sneak into the house and waited until Aiden had rushed up to him, calling out his name.

“Hey buddy.  I have a surprise for you.”  He tells Aiden.

“What is it Daddy?”  He asks.  “Can I have it now?  Can I Daddy?”

“Sure.  It’s in the front yard.  Go ahead.”  He tells him and I see Aiden run out, past all of us and down the front steps.  He stopped and looked both ways and saw nothing.

“Hey, little man!”  I call out and I saw a beaming smile spread across his face as he ran back toward me creating a vice around my neck as I twirled him around.

“Amelia!  You came back!”  He squealed in my ear and pulled away to look at my face.  I was laughing and crying all at once.

“Of course I did.  Did you think I wouldn’t?”  I asked him.  I feared the answer.

“Not really.”  He paused.  “You always come back.  Just like when you left when you and Daddy were little like me, you came back.”  I loved this child’s way of thinking.  Knowledgeable beyond his years he was, yet he was completely right with his statement.  His thought process baffled me.

“I’m glad.”  I tell him giving him an Eskimo kiss.  He giggled.  “Because now, you’re both stuck with me.”  We had gone into Christian’s parents’ house and stayed for dinner.  It felt nice; like I was part of a family again.  Gloria had pulled me off to the side and told me about how things were while I was away for the past six weeks.  She said it was like when I had left that summer and never came back when Chris and I were kids.

“He moped around the whole time you were gone Sweetie.”  She had told me.

A few hours later, we had returned home.  Aiden made his father carry him up the stairs claiming it would be quicker for him to check out his other surprise.  When we got to the bedroom door, Christian put him down.  We let him open the door himself.  He ran in looking like he expected to see the same room he had been in the night before I had left for the city.  He gazed at the walls, the furniture, ran to the toy bin and opened it up to see his toys stowed away.

“Well?”  Christian breaks the awestricken child’s silence.

“Do you like it?”  I ask him, knowing all too well what the answer was just by the lack of words in his mouth and the look displayed on his face.

“Thank you Daddy!  I love it!”  Aiden says and runs to Christian, hugging him as his father lifted him up.  I laughed.

“Not me buddy.  Amelia did all of this for you.”  He tells his son.  He looked at me in disbelief.

“You did?”  He asks and throws himself at my neck.

“What do we say?”  Christian reminded him of his manners.

“Thank you Amelia.”  His hug grew tighter somehow.

“You’re welcome, Sweetie.”  I tell him.  I put him back down and stood back up as Christian hugged me from behind and we watched on as he checked things out further, getting reacquainted with all his stuff.

“Daddy?  Can I sleep here tonight?”  He asked.  Christian and I looked at each other and started to laugh.  We hadn’t told him the best surprise as of yet.  The one about how they were moving in as Aiden had so desirably pointed out prior to my extra long trip.

“I sure hope you want to sleep here, son.”  Christian started.  “This is where we’re going to be staying from now on, if it’s alright with you.”

“Good.  I can’t wait to sleep in my very own fire truck!”  He says and he jumps onto his bed and sat there.  I couldn’t help but laugh when he next asked us if it was bedtime yet.  His father had been right after all.  Aiden definitely wanted to stay where he was.  I thanked my lucky stars that we had decided to show him the room at bedtime because we were quickly realizing there was no way this kid was leaving this room tonight.  After a quick bath, which he protested, we dressed him in one of his many pairs of fireman pajamas and let him get into bed.  Christian and I both lay down on either side of him and kissed him on the head.

“What story shall we do today?”  I ask him.

“Is it okay if we just lay here?”  Aiden asked us.  I nodded.

“Are you okay, son?”  Christian asked him but Aiden just smirked.

“Yeah, Daddy.”  He yawns.  “I just want to go to bed so I can wake up and play in my new room again tomorrow.”  I had to laugh and I ruffled his black hair.

“Goodnight Aiden.”  I say.

“Daddy?”  Aiden asks and I make my way around the bed, toward the door, when I stop to stand behind Christian.

“What is it buddy?”  His father asks.

“Now that we live together, does that make Amelia my Mommy?”  Aiden asks.  Christian looked up at me as if asking for help on this one.

“Would you like for her to be your Mommy, Aiden?”  Chris asked him and Aiden nodded right away, no hesitation and great exaggeration to every movement.  “Oh really?  That much, huh?”  And an equally exaggerated nod as the first was used to answer that one. “Well, you and I will have to talk about that tomorrow, man to man.”  He whispers closely to Aiden’s face with no intention of hiding any of the words from me.  “I love you.  Goodnight.”

“I love you both.”  Aiden says.

“And I love you both!”  I chimed mimicking Aiden as I wrapped my arms around Christian’s shoulders, kissing his cheek and nuzzling the side of my face to his briefly.  I back up and take Christian’s hand and pull him out.  We both pause by the door as Aiden rolls onto his side and settles in.  I stand back as I let Christian shut the bedroom door.  When the door was shut, I started for the stairs.  I felt Christian’s arm slowly wrap around my waist, pulling me backward into him.

“And where do you think you’re going?”  He asks me.

“I thought that was quite obvious.”  I joked teasingly.  I heard him snicker into my neck.

“Fine.  I’ll let you win.”  He says and kisses the crook of my neck.  “This time.”  He nipped the soft spot below my ear.  We headed downstairs where, we sat down on the couch, watching TV as we cuddled.  Words couldn’t convey what emotions swelled within me when I heard Christian speak next to my ear.