Page 72 of Second Chance Baby
“We don’t have to do anything that doesn’t work for us, right? A couple extra shoots might be fun.”
He pushed the tree branches out of our way. “Is that right?”
“I happen to enjoy rolling around with you.” He tried to drag me in closer, but I had to get this out. To let him know that I was thinking of us and our future. “But I love the idea of you home with us. Us raising Carrington together—and maybe a few more kids. And I’ll hopefully make some cash with my memoir before I go back to teaching, which will be sooner rather than later.” I bit my lower lip. “If they’ll take me back.”
“If? There is no if. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to even dream of refusing you.” He spun me into his arms, hauling me clear off the ground before he sealed his words with a kiss that damn near had me sliding bonelessly to the ground.
Relief unfurled inside of me. Making plans with Travis felt so good. So different from when we’d stopped communicating. Slowly freezing each other out with doubts.
“Can it be this easy?” I asked, framing his face between my hands as he set me down again. “Can we just kind of join our lives and keep going? Isn’t it supposed to be harder?”
“Baby, loving you has been the easiest fucking thing I’ve ever done.” He held up his index finger then pointed at me. “Do not cry. Do not even get misty. No more tears. We’ve filled our lifetime quotient.” Then he made a face. “Wait, no. I want you to feel like you can express anything to me, because you can. That’s where we went wrong. I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t come to me with your fears or your triumphs. I want to be here for them all.”
“Trav.” I didn’t deserve this man, but I was keeping him.
“Even if you have to cry. Which will kill me, but nothing is off-limits.”
I kept my face serious for half a minute. “What about butt stuff? Is that not off-limits, either?”
He matched my seriousness for a moment before he barked out a laugh. “You are unreal, man. In the best way.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s definitely not off-limits. We can discuss that later after the French movie.” He lowered his voice. “What’s it called again?”
I repeated the title. “The adventure in French,” I said, tugging his hand to lead him around the back of the house to the front. I followed the sound of voices to the unreal display.
“I don’t care what he wants. This is clearly going to be a vehicular hazard. There are too many lit things in this yard. In my opinion, we should reduce the total by at least twenty percent?—”
“So, you’re sure you’re okay with anal sex? You don’t have some sort of objection to it? It’s okay if you do, of course.” Ipaused as Christian directed a horrified glance our way before glancing back at Murphy.
“We’ll just be going then. We will leave the rest of this to you two. Since you have ladders now and most of these eyesores—I mean, lovely Halloween decorations—have already been put where you want them.” Christian began hotfooting it backward toward the driveway. “You guys are good now? Please tell me you’re good.”
Travis was laughing so hard he tried to speak twice before giving up and just holding up a hand. “We’re good. Thanks for your help. You can go too, Moose,” he said to his stalwart youngest brother, who clearly didn’t know if he should stay or go. “We’re all set. We really appreciate you guys coming out, but we can take it from here.”
Playing up my role to the hilt, I wrapped my hands around Travis’s arm, leaning up to kiss his ear in a slightly vampy way that I knew his modest brother wouldn’t be able to endure. And that was even now that he’d been married for years with many children. “Oh, yeah, we can definitely take it from here. Thanks so much, Moose.”
“You’re both welcome. So welcome. And Bridget, it’s good to have you being back,” Moose added hurriedly, already heading to his minivan. “If Travis is happy, we’re happy. I mean, I assume he’s happy with…all of that talk. So, yeah, I’ll just leave you both alone. My love to Care. Bye.”
Travis coughed into his fist then waved to his brother before hugging me enthusiastically. “I’ve never seen any of them beat such a hasty retreat. Usually, I need to shove one or more out the door bodily. Not that they don’t like being home, but my place was always the quiet one locally. Since no babies here anymore. Yet.” He kissed my temple. “Never thought to try talking about anal with them. Takes a woman’s touch, obviously.”
“Not touching that one.”
He snickered. “Gotta give you props for going for gold right away with them. Not that those fuckers don’t probably do all the things that they claim to be so shocked by. Damn hypocrites.”
“Not hypocrites, just happily married men not wanting to imagine what their brother is doing. Can’t blame them, really. Not sure that would work on Penn, though.”
“No, he’s practically impossible to embarrass. Hell, he’d probably pull up a front row chair and chime in with a story of his own.”
“Never know what he’ll get up to with Rita.”
Suddenly quiet, he shuddered comically. “Don’t want to know, thanks. So, is it movie time yet?”
I had to laugh, but then my breath caught for a whole different reason. The front yard was incredible. From the ginormous animated grim reaper near the driveway to the stacked pumpkins and ghost tethered dead center of the yard, it was all over the top in the best way. I was pretty sure the entire lake could see our lawn from every vantage point, thanks to the trillion lights scattered all around the trees.
Guess they got Penn to climb the trees, after all.
There were even perfect small details too. The lit witchy flamingoes popped out of the bushes like little pink demons. One even dangled from her hat from one of the trees on what had to be fishing line.
Travis and his brothers were so creative.
That wasn’t even all. There was a Coraline with her freaky button eyes, plus the huge Jack Skellington Travis had insisted on getting. A dozen skeletons marched across the lawn in varying rude poses that only men would do.