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A glance in the bunk room showed Eva and her cousins still slumbering, sacked out with varying degrees of abandon. In the massive open-design kitchen and living room, he paused at the sliding doors. Sure enough, the sun silhouetted three figures on the water, waiting for a wave. He hated waking up alone, but she loved this and he wouldn’t begrudge her the time for the world.
He lifted Lee overhead and lowered him to brush their noses, smiling at Lee’s laugh. He was a happy little kid, Eleanor’s easygoing nature blended with glimpses of Eva’s intensity. “If I put you down to mash a banana, are you gonna kick up a fuss?”
Settling Lee on the playmat where he could see him and be seen, he started a pot of coffee, mashed a banana and warmed a bottle.
“Come on, Leebo, let’s get you fed.” With Lee tucked in the curve of his arm, he took a stool at the massive island, grinning at Lee’s eager mouthing of the spoonful of banana, like a ravenous little bird. The kid took his food serious, as always, and banana appeared his favorite among his limited range of solid foods.
A muffled thud from the suite off the living area interrupted spoonful number four. A female giggle followed, morphing into a low moan of pleasure. Brow raised, Tick popped the spoon between Lee’s parted lips. “We’re going to pretend we didn’t hear that.”
Another thud, another giggle, followed by a male murmur, and Tick shook his head, smothering a laugh. “Glad somebody’s having a good time.”
He cringed as soon as the words fell from his lips, and he sighed, watching Lee chase another bite of banana.
“I didn’t say that in front of you.” With the edge of the spoon, he cleaned up banana debris around Lee’s tiny mouth and offered him the bite. “I am not complaining.”
But six months constituted a pretty long dry spell.
Although, not like they inhabited a continual drought. If he thought about it, they’d had sex . . . three times.
Maybe four.
He counted, scraping up the last bite of fruit. A few days after her six week checkup, then when he’d finally gotten over the wicked flu that had waxed his ass for three solid weeks. There’d been a quick tumble when he’d come in from a training trip to Virginia, and that morning before work about a month ago.
Shit. They’d turned into affectionate roommates who parented and ran a life together and occasionally hooked up.
Perfunctory hookups that bore little resemblance to the way they’d come together before.
He quirked a brow at kid number three, the one with the weird sleep schedule and an intense attachment to his mama, and swapped the spoon for a bottle. With a contented noise, Lee relaxed into the curve of his arm, patting the side of the bottle almost like he kneaded Caitlin when he nursed.
Del and Chuck had laughed at him when he’d broached the subject during his last trip home a couple weeks back, needing to know how normal the situation was. That had pissed him off even as it reassured him because their laughter rose from a been-there, done-that place.
When he’d finally stopped laughing, Del had slapped his shoulder as they walked off the golf course, where of course he’d lost again. “You have three kids and you’ve been married about a decade. It’s normal. You’re just not used to having to work at it.”
And that was the kicker — they’d always fired hot and he’d never had to do much more than touch her or look at her a certain way to burn both of them down. Life and routine had altered that paradigm in the last six months or so, and he missed the way they’d been.
This felt different than things had after Eva’s birth, and that scared him a little.
They needed to talk about it.
The idea of that scared him a little, too.
“The problem is I don’t want her to feel pressured.” Because she came first, and he’d take any life he could with her, even if that meant he kept up his months-old habit of taking care of random needs in the shower. Thinking about her wasn’t the same, but it got him by. “And I don’t want to come off like a selfish assho—, um, individual.”
Bouncing a foot, Lee grinned at him around the nipple.
“I need your second word to be Daddy and not something that will get me into trouble.” He jiggled him, eliciting a chuckle from Lee that made him smile in return. “And my plan is to have a serious sit-down with your mama once we get your sisters off to camp.”
The summer always offered them more relaxed time together, so it seemed as good a time as any to tackle the what-do-you-want-us-to-look-like talk. They’d always worked things out together. Surely they could work this out, too.
And maybe once they did, they’d be better than they’d been before, the way they’d deepened once he’d gotten his head out of his ass after Louise’s death.
He registered her light tread on the deck before the glass doors slid open. Her hair damp and with sand glinting on her bare skin, she took his breath, a black sports bikini hugging curves that were a little rounder because she was still nursing. With salt and sunscreen mixing with that subtle spice, she was the most gorgeous thing.
She always had been, always would be.
“Hi.” She smiled, smoothing her hair over one shoulder, runner’s muscles flexing as she walked toward him. “I was hoping to get back before he woke you.”
“It’s all good.” He breathed in deep as she leaned over Lee, tickling his tummy and earning herself a wild laugh. “We had a banana and a bottle with our man-to-man breakfast chat.”
