The Long Term Plan (With Short Term Fixes)

VIII

"I'll be up late, hon. You know, packing." He ran a hand over his chin, then through his hair. The lot of it hadn't been cut in a few months and its unruliness discontented him a little. He would have to fix that. Certainly, he thought as he left the bedroom to enter their closet, only not to pack. Miriam had done so a week ago.

Right now, his big picture was pretty much Evan and Evan only, Evan and the Italian deal anyway. He tried to remember a man who cared less about the big picture, as if shutting it all off would make it easier on himself.

When he'd found an example of such a man, him before her, he shuddered, and the shoe box in his hands he'd pulled from the top shelf triple flipped only to land open and upside on the closet floor. The illness was revealed almost six months into their marriage; their marriage marked her first real commitment to anyone. She had begun hoarding shortly after she'd started having nightmares about her childhood neglect and rejection. He'd kept all of it, all of her hoardings, to remind himself that she was getting better, that her emotional deprivation was turning around.

Noah picked up each object individually. There were twenty seven objects in all, including three empty prescription cylinders for zolpidem, a loose lace from the dress shoes he wore to their seventh date, and a thumbtack from his bulletin board back at his office.

In house therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists were hired for her, to little and no avail. True, her hoarding had been treated through exposure therapy, but her nightmares worsened. Noah stood by through it all, watching people try to fix what he had thought had been a perfect person.

Her family had raised her to be proud of anything and everything she did so they wouldn't have to be. Taunted endlessly and daily by her petty younger sisters, she raised herself to be hard and cold. She only received deserved praise if she asked for it, and she never asked for anything from anyone.

After the nightmares lessened, after the panic attacks halted, after she'd gotten her other urges under control, the final solution was affirmation therapy.

"No, Noah. I can't ask you to do this. You're settling! Look at you! You shouldn't settle for anything!"

"Hey, hey! Evangeline, I am not settling. I would never, not if it's about you. If this is what you need, this is what we're going to do, okay?"

"I don't believe you! You can't just tell me over and over until I believe that it's true! It won't work!"

"It's true. Baby, it will work. It has to. It will."

"What if I never love you? What if I can't... what if I can't ever?"

"Evan, please don't—"

"I want to start using contraceptives again: at least two kinds."

"You... you want to stop trying? F-For good?"

"Noah, just until I get better, please? I... I can't even imagine bringing a child into this world and being unable to love it the way it deserves. Makes me so sick. I won't be able to bear that."

"No, of course you won't. Whenever your ready, I'll be here, even if you're ready never."

In the morning, Noah stiffly sat up, looking around his bedroom with eyes that were more than three quarters of a way shut. Evan stirred, and in an instant his hand was on her shoulder, gently flipping her onto her back. She adjusted, moving towards him and resting her head in his lap.

"Don't go, not yet," she whined.

He chuckled, tucking hair behind her ear and out of her face. "You'll be out there with me in half a day, my dear."

"I'm awfully anxious." He saw her hands resting on her lower stomach. "You know why."

He gently tapped her shoulder and she sat up, nuzzling her head into his neck once it had rested on his shoulder. "You needn't worry your pretty head so often, my love."

"'My love?'" she laughed.

"'S not funny, it's true," he yawned. "Besides that little joy of mine and yours will never feel a shadow of doubt that we love it."

"I hope you're right."

"You know I am. Have to get up now, or I'll never leave you."

"And what's so terrible about that?"

He laughed again. "I suppose you're right. But honestly, dear. Let me go now."

Evan smirked. She clambered onto his lap. Noah's hands held her hips instantly, magnetically. She nudged his forehead with hers and he shifted them down on the bed, allowing him to lay back while she kissed his jaw and down his neck.

"Evan..." Her tongue slid out from her dry lips to soothe the scattered marked she'd been leaving along his upper chest.

"I'm sorry for last night, for everything. Let me make it up to you, yeah, Daddy?"

Her hands made quick work of his boxers. She kicked them down and out from under the sheets. They surely landed somewhere stuck between the bed set and the footboard. Her hands rested on his legs, her thumbs rubbing the supple skin of his inner thighs. She could feel his heart skip a beat when her mouth finally placed a kiss to the sensitive area just above his length.

"This what you want?" she murmured, leaving a final mark where she'd kissed. Evan leaned back, still smirking, to admire the mess she'd made of her husband. He was fully hard now, leaking pathetic puddles onto his lower chest, his tip redder than his cheeks, which were flushed with anger and arousal.

"You know what I want, Evan." He growled.

"Mmm..." she hummed, digging her nails into his skin and biting him quickly. Noah hissed, his hips bucking. "Do I? Baby, you know I'm no mind reader. You'll have to use your words."

Noah's eyes were dark. He squinted. "Oh, really, hon? What are you playing at?"

"Use your words, baby. I'm sure you can do that for me, hmm?" She was only teasing and testing him now, wanting him to explode at her sexual audacity.

"I won't," he spat. "You're breaking all your rules now, huh, princess?"

"Am I?" She drug her tongue from his base to his tip, agonizing him; he pulled his own hair, then he yanked on hers, forcing her head off of him to his dismay, but she made eye contact now.

"You wanna play these games with me, huh? You wanna win?" Noah flipped her over, simultaneously pinning her hands above her head with his other hand. "Well, if you ever want to win, you have to learn to accept defeat. You're never going to top me, princess. Accept defeat. Apologize to Daddy, would you, hon?"

"Tempting," she quipped. "Looks like I have to refuse, Daddy."

Noah's grin light up his eyes. "An honest shame, considering I planned to make you feel so, so good after my teasing last morning. You'll be aching all day because of these antics, and when you get to Italy, the pain's only going to get worse."

Evan was grinning as well by then. "What's a little pain for a woman like me, hmm?"