After a quick trip to the Casey’s to say ‘hello’ to the rest of the family, Nick was finally pulling into Lani’s driveway, laughing Rosalie as she came crashing through the screen door. She had obviously been waiting at the front window for the first sign of his truck to come around the bend.

“Nicky! Nicky!” She ran down the steps of their porch and landed on the sidewalk with a thud, the skirt of her dress poofing up over her lavender panties. “You took long enough!”

“Rosalie…manners!” Lani followed not too far behind, struggling with being the responsible adult and feeling as excited as her young daughter. If she could, she too would have been bouncing on the couch, pressing her nose up against the window and jumping off of stairs, only to run into the arms of the man she knew would bring her peace and security.

“Well, I wanted to make sure you really missed me.” He winked his forgiveness of her blunt words and kissed the child’s face as she settled into his arms, and then turned his attention to the soft caramel of her mother’s face, closing his eyes as his lips met her silky skin. “Sorry…you know how Ben gets once he starts talking.”

“No problem…I’ll just warm up dinner and we’ll be good.”

And good they were. Just like a normal little family. Although, they weren’t…quite. But, to Nick anyway, it felt like home should feel. He knew where the silverware was, there were pictures on the refrigerator labeled ‘a Nicky’, the words printed in Lani’s script and the pictures carefully decorated in Rosalie’s wild splashes of color and shapes and moods. While Lani put the finishing touches on dinner, Rosalie took him to her room to share a few new toys she’s manipulated out of Mom and Ben and anyone else she could sweet talk. His shoes had been kicked off as he entered the house and he knew right where to put the serving platter after he had finished helping Lani with the dishes.

His heart was here, his love was here…but yet…

“Okay, Rosalie…time for bed. Go get your jammies on.”

“Mamí…I don’t wanna go yet. Nicky’s still here.”

“Yes, and he’s going to be here for awhile. Mamí and Nick haven’t seen each other in awhile…we need to talk.”

Rosalie sat back down on her chair and crossed her arms. “You can talk with me.”

“Rosalinda Maria!” Lani said not another word with her mouth, but the look in her eyes spoke volumes. Volumes that Rosalie understood albeit it under protest.

Her protest came in the form of stomping feet and pursed lips as she stormed into her bedroom and slammed her door.

“I can’t imagine where she gets her stubbornness.” Nick stood, stretching from his long flight, his huge meal and his overwhelming urge to pick Solana up from the couch, throw her over his shoulder and have his way with her.

“You hush…she’s driving me nuts lately.”

“You need a break, Lani.”

“Mmm…so you say. I can’t imagine siccing her on anyone right now. She’s going to drive me to an early grave.”

“She’s fine…she’s showin’ off for me.”

“Well, then go read to her…I’ll um…” Solana’s demeanor instantly changed from that of a concerned mother to that of a desirable and desiring young woman. “…I’ll be waiting in my room.”

Nick licked his lips in anticipation as she seductively turned and walked away. Vile temptress is all she was…he was convinced. Thank god. With a quick adjustment to his pants, he shook himself out of the dreams that would come true and headed in for bedtime patrol.

Rosalie style.

“Here, Nicky…I have a new book. Dora.” Rosalie pushed through a pile of books on her floor until she unearthed the one she wanted.

“Ah, Dora the Explorer, right? Lemme see.” Nick popped Ro on the behind with the book as she climbed into bed. “Wait. Stop. You’re all twisted. You’ll be a pretzel by morning…”

“I like pretzels.”

“Not on your butt…stand up.” She did as asked, kissing him on the forehead as he straightened out the elastic waist of her bottoms, lining up the seams with her middle. Liz was seven and still struggled with that…how come kids didn’t feel all messed up when their clothes were all wrangled like that? “Isn’t that better?”

The little imp shrugged and plopped into bed, pulling the covers back so Nick could cuddle in with her. “You read in Spanish tonight.”

“Uh, I don’t think I can read it, Ro…” He cracked open the book and gratefully saw only English.

“Yes you can. See?” She pulled a tab at the bottom of the page the words changed to Spanish. “Español. You read it.”

“But some of your letters are different. How ‘bout I read the story in English and we’ll see if I know the words for the things in the pictures in Spanish?”

Rosalie considered his compromise and agreed. “Okay, you’ll get them right. I’m a good teacher.”

“Yes, you are…but I haven’t used it much…let’s see.”

He leaned back against her pillows and opened an arm for her to curl into and they began. By page two, he had called Solana in for reinforcements. He felt like a moron as this little child corrected his pronunciation, reading and well-intentioned attempts at butchering her native language.

“What’s the matter, Nicky? You can’t read?” Solana sat at the foot of the bed, capturing his toes that were wiggling under the blanket.

“Not Spanish. Y’all have some funky ways of saying things.”

“No, y’all do…ours makes sense to me. What’s hanging you up?”

“Okay, here. They’re at the beach and she’s showing us a towel. I know the word is ‘toalla’, but that isn’t what it looks like.”

“Yes, it is…two l’s make a ‘y’ sound. Toalla. Always. No rules change.” She turned the page so Dora was at the farm and pointed to the chicken. “You know this one…”

“Pollo.”

“Right. So how is it spelled?”

“With two l’s? P-o-l-l-o?”

“Yep…look.” She pulled the tab down to show the Spanish word and winked up at her daughter. “You have to go slow with him sometimes, Ro…you know. He’s a boy.”

“Hey now…I’m trying here! Okay, so…go back. Ocean. I know the word again…océano, but it looks like oceano to me. I’m accenting it all funny.”

“That’s why the accent is there. Most words have the accent on the penultimate syllable.”

“You use too big words, Mamí…pentulti- what’s that?”

“The syllable before the last one. We use it in music, too. Okay, but if there’s an accent mark, then you accent there?”

“Yep…there are some words that the accent is at the end, but mostly it’s like that. Océano. Um…” She flipped through the book to find another example. “Here. El león. Lions bite when you call them ‘leon’.”

“Does it mean something else?”

“Nah, not usually…just that you’re a Gringo who can’t talk right.” She squeezed his toes again and stood to leave the student and teacher alone again. “One more page, Rosalie. You’re going to give him a brain cramp.”

“Buenos noches, Mamí.”

“Buenos noches, Rosalie…”

Nick looked down to Rosalie, trepidation creeping into his blood knowing he’d have to stumble over another set of words.

“You get it, Nicky…” Rosalie patted his cheek again, warming Nick’s heart and making him forget about penultimate syllables, double l’s, double headaches, and double trouble named Lani and Ro.

“Yep, Ro. I’ll get it. Okay, goat…” He pulled down the tab not knowing the Spanish equivalent and smiled. He could do this one. “El chivo.”

“Sí! El chivo. Maaaa-aaaa-aaaa!”

“Did I hear braying in there?” Lani stood at her window, soft candlelight bringing out the gentle waves in her chocolaty brown hair. She never turned when she heard Nick approach, just leaned back into his touch.

“Yes, we were at the farm with goats and sheep. Um, los chivos y…um…shit, I can’t remember.”

“Las ovejas.”

His arms slipped around her waist and the weight of his head settled onto hers. In moments the lovers’ breathing was in rhythm and no one else existed outside of the room, the house…Solana might as well have been looking out into a vacuum. When Nick was near, the whole world disappeared. “She wanted to know if I’d have breakfast with her in the morning.”

“She did, huh? You set her up for that?”

“Nope. I told her she had school and I sleep in too late.”

“Nice cover.”

“I suppose…I’m not sure I quite get why I can’t stay, but…”

She turned in his arms to face him, resting her head on his chest, not wanting to see the frustration in his eyes. “Nick, we’ve gone over this.”

“No, you’ve said ‘no’ and the conversation has stopped. She knows about us, Lani. She’s a kid, but she’s not blind or stupid.”

“She knows we kiss…and that when you’re home, you like to be with us. That’s all she knows. I’m not ready to explain to her why you’re sitting at her breakfast table in your boxers.”

“I’ll put on clothes.”

Lani sighed and pulled away, fumbling with refolding a blanket that didn’t need refolding. “You’re missing the point.”

“So are you. Why are you afraid of letting us be a couple outside of this room?”

She laid the blanket over the back of the chair and looked around hoping to find something else to do with her hands. This was not the way their reunion was supposed to go. “Is this the time to discuss this? I missed you, Nick…I want to be with you.”

“I’m here. All of me. I’m just waiting on you to show up.”

“Do we have to agree on this one thing right now for me to be here?”

“No.” He took the t-shirt she’d found to fold out of her hand and tossed it onto the chair alongside the blanket. “But we can’t keep ignoring it either.”

“Tonight…please. I need you.” Without another moment’s thought, she was sliding her hands up Nick’s shirt, kissing and licking his soft skin as it peeked out from under the fabric. He’d let her ignore it for just one more night. She made slow, deliberate work of his stomach, giggling as he flinched and squirmed under her touch as it rose up his abdomen.

Until she hit something cold. Pulling back, her eyes focused again and she saw a bright gold ring hanging from the nipple that used to have nothing. Before she reacted, she tentatively allowed her eyes to travel to the other nipple, barely flinching when his hands ran through her hair as they came back down from tossing his shirt up over his head. It matched. A gold ring.

“What the hell…”

“You like?”

“Um…how drunk were you?”

“Kinda…”

Finally her eyes traveled up to his face, totally unsure of the expression her face would share, partially because she wasn’t sure what expression her heart felt. But, there he stood, cheesy grin, a stifled giggle and just enough blush from admitting that it was a lost drunken bet that got him his new jewelry and she could do nothing but roll her eyes and shake her head. “So, um…are they fun to play with?” Her finger tickled up his tummy to the left nipple where she flipped it back and forth, causing him to squirm a little.

“They’re still a bit tender…I dunno.”

“You didn’t give them a trial run? Tsk, tsk.” Her finger flicked the other nipple ring, more gently this time causing more of a hiss than a squirm. “Ooh…you like that, huh? Hmm…”

And with that he was forgiven, their previous discussion was forgotten and Nick was thanking the gods of one drunken night in Los Angeles. His hands traveled through the lush fullness of her hair as her tongue worked magic on his nipple, the skin around it and the ring that pierced it. As her teeth gently pulled on the ring on his right side, his hands slipped down from their entanglement in her hair to her shoulders and finally down to her breasts, cupping them gently, rubbing a thumb over each slightly budded nipple as her tongue played ring toss with his.

With one tug, he hissed, with a rub, she moaned, with a squirm, his hand disappeared up her shirt and around her back, unclasping her bra and ridding her of both without missing a beat. She pushed him back onto the bed quickly ridding him of his shorts, kissing her way up his legs as she shed her own. Play time was over. Nipple charming was done. It had been two months, a million phone calls, a few disagreements and assorted email exchanges since they could taste each other. Smell each other. Feel each other. Become one with each other…the anticipation was foreplay enough.

As she slid her way up his legs, she straddled one, cradling the strong muscles of his thigh between her own and inched up slowly, slightly covering his leg with her wetness, causing him to moan and hiss once more as he took firm hold of her arms and helped her hover over her target.

She teased and danced over his tip for a few moments, flirting with his eyes, flipping the nipple rings one more time before their passions would become center stage. “God, Lani…please.” He tried to force her down, but her legs were too strong and she tormented a little bit longer.

But she could take no more tormenting, the wait, the expectancy, the look in his eye almost doing her in. As she reached between her legs to take hold of his shaft, she stopped once more and sank her chocolate brown eyes into the oceanic blue of his. “I love you, Nick.”

“I love you, Lani…”

And they were one. One in time, one in space, one in heart, mind and body.