Mrs. Independent

Chapter Eight: Lap

Chapter Eight: Lap

My head rests on the window, watching the billboards and streetlights on the highway as they slide past.
It's well past nine at night. Josh and I spent the day in an elevator, and then I told my entire family the darkest thing in my life. I haven't eaten since breakfast and my sister is a drug addict.
What a wonderful day.
On top of that, my son didn't get to have dinner because we were convincing my sister to go to rehab.
And I'm just tired.
I decide to text Isabelle.
Me: not coming in tomorrow. Personal stuff, if you need something, call me
Josh and I have comfortable silences so we haven't spoken since we got in the car, and the radio isn't on.
Selfishly, I turn to him.
"Are you going to work tomorrow?"
He glances at me.
"No. I already got somebody to cover my showings."
I nod in response and turn back to the window.
We don't speak again for a while, and soon enough we're pulling onto our street.
We drive down halfway and he parks in the driveway.
I get out and he grabs the car seat.
When we reach the front door, I unlock it and hold it for him to come in.
He goes right for the kitchen.
Caiden is wide awake, looking around the room. Josh sets the car seat on the table and Caiden is sucking on his pacifier.
Josh starts getting food to feed him.
"Oh, are you doing it?" I ask.
"Yeah."
He puts him in the high chair with a bib and Caiden starts to coo, hitting the high chair tray with his hands.
He's happy, waiting for Josh to come feed him.
I can see his eyes following him around the kitchen from the breakfast area, and as Josh gets food for him, I open the drawer where all the takeout menus are, my stomach growling.
I flip through them, seeing that it's already ten fifteen.
"What do you want to eat?" I ask Josh as he puts Caiden's first spoonful of his late dinner into his mouth.
"Whatever you want, I don't really care."
Two or so years ago shortly after our wedding, Josh and I came up with a system where we keep menus to our favorite food places in the house and we highlight the things we like, so my stuff is highlighted in pink and his are highlighted in blue.
I roll my shoulders, wincing.
I could really go for a bubble bath right now. I'm still in a button down and a pencil skirt and heels. I feel gross because of the elevator incident, and I'm stress and tired because of my sister.
I force myself to focus on food so I can eat to ease my headache, and my eyes land on the Chinese menu.
"How about Chinese?" I ask.
"That's fine."
"You want the usual?" I ask.
"Yeah."
I grab the house phone and dial the number on the menu.
After a few rings, somebody picks up.
Exhausted, I order dinner and give them our address, and then I hang up the phone.
"Do you have cash?" I ask through a yawn.
"Yeah I have like thirty bucks in my wallet."
"I'm taking it to pay for dinner."
"Alright."

______

We wound up eating at the table in silence. Caiden sat in the high chair while we ate, chewing on a teething ring and making baby noises.
Josh and I were quiet, just going through our phones without a word.
After dinner, I helped Josh clean up and while he took out the trash, I took Caiden upstairs and changed his diaper and put him in pajamas. I nursed him until he fell asleep, and then I put him in his crib, and now I'm standing in the bathroom brushing my hair, trying to decide if I want to take a bath or skip it and go to bed.
I hear the bathroom door open and the sound of Josh peeing, which doesn't bother me in the slightest.
There's literally no boundaries between us anymore, and I like it that way.
I stare at the tub, thinking about the bath bombs I have in the drawer of my vanity.
How nice that sounds.
But the truth is, I don't want to be alone.
The toilet flushes and Josh start brushing his teeth.
"Are you going to bed?" I ask.
"Are you?" He replies, his voice muffled by the toothbrush.
"I don't know."
He doesn't respond, so I sit on the edge of the tub and watch him finish brushing his teeth.
He spits the foam and rinses his mouth. I just brushed my teeth before I brushed my hair.
He leans against the counter, and we haven't said a word about Claire since we left my parents house.
"We need to talk about your sister." He says. "And I'm going to just come right out and say this, and if this starts a really bad fight, I'm sorry, but this isn't something I'm willing to compromise on. Ever."
I hesitate.
"Okay." I whisper, folding my arms across my chest.
He takes a deep breath.
"Until Claire is sober...I do not want her around Caiden."
I look down, nodding slowly.
"I know he's still a baby, but I'm not comfortable having a drug addict in the same room as my son. And please don't try to tell me that you're a drug addict, because you're not, and-"
"I don't want her around Caiden either, Josh."
He falls silent.
I roll my shoulders, uncomfortable, and then I sigh.
"Do you think this is my fault?"
"No. Absolutely not."
He walks over to me and reaches out, gently unbuttoning my shirt.
"What happened with Claire has nothing to do with you. It has to do with Claire."
He runs his hands down my arms as he slides my button down off, untucking it from my skirt.
He tosses it in the hamper and gently raises my arms over my head. I hold them there as he removes my tank top, so now I'm standing before him in a bra, a skin tight shirt, and heels.
He reaches behind me to undo the zipper of the skirt, and then slides it down.
I step out of it, now in heels, a thong, and a bra.
He gently urges me to sit down and reaches behind me to turn on the bathtub faucet. He crouches down and grabs my right foot, undoing the strap and sliding it off. He does the same with the other one and sets them aside.
I reach out to unbutton his shirt because I want him to get in with me.
My hands skate down his muscular arms as I slide his shirt off, and then I unbutton his dress slacks and urge them off of him so he's just in his boxers. He had taken off his shoes when we got home, but I just never did.
He feels the water and turns it hotter, and then he plugs the drain.
"Jets or no jets?"
"Jets."
"Okay."
He doesn't turn them on yet because the water is so low, so he moves back behind me and I feel his fingers gently unclasping my bra.
After years of my coming home and flinging it off the first time I got the chance, he kind of got the memo that having breasts is not all that amazing.
Now in just a thong, he sweeps my hair to the side and bends down, planting a soft kiss on the side of my neck.
"Candles or no candles?"
"Candles." I say.
He opens the drawer where we keep the candles for the tub and starts lighting them, setting them around the marble edge to the tub.
He shuts off the lights so the only thing illuminating the room is the flickering of the lights.
His arms wrap around my from behind, pulling me back against his chest.
I shut my eyes, standing there like that until the tub is ready.
He turns off the water.
"Bath bomb?"
"Yeah."
He grabs one from the drawer and hands it to me, because he knows I like to play with it while it dissolves.
He turns on the jets and I feel his fingers hook into the side of my panties.
He pulls them down and tosses them into the hamper with the rest of my clothes. I. Pull down his boxers and throw them in the hamper, and then gesture for him to go first.
"Ladies first." He says.
I shrug and point at the water.
He kisses my cheek and climbs into the tub. I get in once he's settled in the water, and I sit down between his legs and drop the bath bomb in the water.
It starts to fizz and I hold it, watching the water turn a deep shade of blue.
Once it's out, we sit there with his hands wrapped around me. I rest my head back against his chest and shut my eyes.
Back a few years ago I wanted to be alone all the time, but now I want to be with him all the time.
"Babe?" I murmur.
"Hmm?"
"Thank you."
"For?"
"For teaching me to love again. For teaching me how to be okay again. For making me happy. I'm so grateful for you. I love you."
His grip around me tightens slightly.
"I love you, too."
I desperately want to tell him what I'm thinking right now, but I'm not sure how he will handle it.
Hesitantly, I slip out of his arms and turn around to face him.
"Let's have another baby."
His eyebrows raise.
"What?"
I smile a little.
"Caiden's all alone. We don't have friends or relatives with children. We're going to have more anyways, so why not now? What are we waiting for?"
He hesitates, studying me.
"You want to make another baby?"
"Yeah. Is that crazy?"
He chuckles softly and shakes his head.
"No, it's not crazy."
"So let's do it."
We sit there staring at each other for a moment and then he laughs again.
"Alright. Let's have another baby."
Smiling, I scoot closer to him until I'm in his lap, leaning forward to press my lips against his.
"Wait." He stops me. "We can't do it in the tub. One of us is going to end up drowning. I don't know how I would..."
"You don't. I will."
"What?"
I laugh.
"Baby, why do you think I'm in your lap?"

_____

THIS IS URGENT MUST READ
Okay so for those of you who are new to my writing, usually in the third or forth book of a series, I'll do a time skip to when the child(ren) are older.
For the usual readers, you guys know I usually only do one time skip, but I don't want to go from baby to teenager, so I've decided I'll do baby, then child, then teenager. So there will be two time skips
The first one starts next chapter

~Sam