“What was my first question?”
Kayla thought for just a moment. Then said, “Who are you?”
“Well, I already know who you are, what was my next question?”
“My turn.”
“Huh?”
“You asked a question, I answered what you asked.” Steve’s expression was both amused and not so amused.
“Hold on, now, that wasn’t my question.”
“Yes, but that’s what you asked. I answered what you asked.”
Steve grinned at her sideways. “Nah, nah, nah, I see what you’re doin’ here, Sweetness, but that’s not playin’ fair.”
“Oh, I think it’s very fair.” Steve looked for the acquiesce, but while there was certainly playfulness, she was holding her position. “Now you take a drink so I can take my turn.”
Steve took a beat then asked, “This how you played it with him?”
“With you, you mean? Yes.”
Steve stared at her. Then he laughed. “You must have made me good and nuts the first time, baby,” he said in his lower register.
“Oh, I did. But it was very effective in keeping you talking.”
“Ok,” he accepted, “clever girl.”
“Well, that’s an improvement from what you called me then.” He gave her a questioning look, and she clarified with a distasteful expression. “’Little girl.’”
Steve snickered. “Bet you hated that.” She nodded and said she sure as hell did. “But, you don’t need to look for ways to keep me in the game, now.” Steve poured himself a shot and gestured for Kayla to go.
“If it makes you feel any better, you turned the tables on me when I asked if you were going to be cranky all night. You said yes and made that be my turn.”
Steve was completely amused by this so far and wanted nothing more than to binge on more of this play-by-play. Kayla drank and looked at her husband expectantly. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Ok, Sweetness. Tell me all the questions you remember me asking.”
Kayla paused, then shook her head. “We argued a lot about either who’s turn it was to ask a question, or who I was and why I was there.“
“Who won that argument?”
Kayla got quiet. She didn’t remember each question, but she did remember how he’d reacted to her bold insistence that she knew him. She’d already told him about his manhandling of her, and that was enough for one conversation. So she skipped ahead. “You asked how I knew you, I told you it was Bo, and that was about it until you stormed out.”
Steve caught her audible. “Wait, wait, wait. What’re you leaving out?”
“Nothing,” she glanced away.
“Now who’s the bad liar, baby? Come on, now, out with it.”
Kayla sighed. You think I’m clever, but the other you didn’t.”
Steve got it. He didn’t want to get it, but he got it. “I hurt you? That was when I hurt you? Put those bruises on you?” Kayla nodded somberly. “Goddammit.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Kayla,” he said softly but with unmistakeable self-loathing.
“I’m not.” She put her hand on his knee. The warmth of just that gesture went directly to his heart. “Yes, you were a hothead and overreacted. But I was goading you, I knew I was goading you, and I wanted the hurt.”
“That’s wrong, Kayla!”
“Shh. I know it was wrong. It was unhealthy and destructive. Not just to me, but to you, too, because when you realized what was happening, you were more disgusted with yourself than you were with me, and I was the one antagonizing you. Worse, actually. I was using you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I was … so desperate … to feel your love for me that I was willing to feel any emotion at all, even the negative ones. Even if I got hurt.”
Steve slid down off the stool and took Kayla into his arms. “I’m sorry, Sweetness. I’m so sorry I did that to you. I couldn’t face that we’d jumped away from Emily.”
“I know,” she said.
“I wasn’t there for you. And it caused all of this.”
Kayla had been holding him as tightly as he’d been holding her, but now she pulled back. “Don’t make excuses for me, either. I made my own choices. Yes, you led me in a direction, but I’m the one who owns my own decisions.” Steve exhaled, not quite convinced. “I mean it. I knew what I was doing and that it was wrong, even as I chose to do it. I let you grab me, and I chose to let you continue doing it. You’re the one who let go when you saw it hurt.”
Kayla leaned up for a kiss, and Steve gave it to her. “We’ve been through this before. Are we past it now? No more hurting ourselves?”
“No more hurting ourselves,” she agreed. Or each other.”
Steve nodded. “Or each other.”
They went back to their stools, and Kayla tried to answer the question that started all this. “So you want to know all the questions you asked so that you can ask them again?”
“Well, we’re trying to give me the do-over, right?” Kayla wracked her brain and went through all the questions she remembered. Which were, surprisingly, quite a few of them. Some of the amusement she remembered got lost in translation, but she told him what she remembered, Steve gave her new answers, and he gained a newfound understanding for just how hard his wife had worked to keep them together.
“So, I think that was kind of it.”
“That can’t be it, baby. The alcohol blur all the details? You ended up knocked on your perfect little ass outside the bar.”
“Oh yeah,” she remembered.
“Oh yeah,” he mimicked.
“I hate it when you do that. Oh, wait, we did this at Murphy’s, too.”
“I’ll bet we did. That really it?” Steve scratched at his whiskers. “This is gonna be a real short game then.”
“Well … I threw Candy in your face and asked why you were sleeping with her.” Steve had no idea that Kayla had jumped into a time before he’d actually slept with her, and the other Steve hadn’t mentioned it to her, so neither of them had the opportunity to have any of that information set right. “You said because she’s a good f*ck.” Steve looked away. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” he sneererd. “I want all the memories. Even the shitty ones. So, what did you say next?”
Kayla shrugged. “I was too jealous and hurt to remember much else.”
“You were jealous of that woman?”
“Of course. Until I realized all I really felt was sorry for her.”
There was no pride in this for Steve, all he felt was the same shame at hearing it all that the other Steve felt at observing it.
Kayla genuinely didn’t remember anything more, other than when her unwise reveal as Bo’s sister drove him to fly out the door. Their moods were a bit dour at this, but then Kayla suddenly stopped short and realized that all of this was based on just one drink. “Wait a minute,” she said, “I thought we were playing 20 Questions. Those were a lot of freebies!”
“No, no, no, I played by your exact rules, Sweetness. I asked you one question. It’s not my fault if I’m a smart dude and asked it to get the biggest bang for my buck.”
Kayla stared at him slack-jawed. “That is not fair!” she protested.
“Oh, yes it is, Sweetness. That is very fair.” Kayla sputtered her indignance. “Plus, now it’s like I was there.”
“Wellp,” she said with a change in attitude, “I guess we’ll never know how quickly I can outlast you, then, ‘casue I’m perfectly sober, here.”
“Don’t be hasty, now,” Steve said, “I’m sure there’s more questions in there.”
“Nope, that was it. We left Murphy’s, and that was it for 20 Questions. I win.”
“You win? How do you figure?”
“You didn’t outlast me,” she said.
“I thought we were supposed to be drunk together. Neither of us are drunk!”
“Exactly.”
“Ok, ok. How ‘bout we just start over with a whole new game,” Steve suggested in his most arrogantly challenging tone.
“Oh, so you want to play some more?”
“Oh yeah. I wanna play a whole lot of some more. Here, you can even go first.” Steve threw back a shot and said, “ahhhh” with an expectant smile. Kayla smiled, too, and laughed. Both of them were ready for the challenge, so they went ahead and dove into Round 2.
Lots of questions ran through Kayla’s head, but she decided to start with something innocuous.
“Do you miss your hair?”
As a matter of fact, he did. “Yeah, Sweetness, I really do. Do you?”
“Is that your next question?” she warned.
Steve narrowed his eye at her. “Forget I asked,” he said with a little warning of his own.
“Yes, I do too,” she laughed. “But only a little.”
“That was not my question.”
“It’s ok, it’s a freebie.” Steve chuckled. “I like your long hair,” she clarified, “but you are my sexy man whether you’ve got hair or not.”
“Shh, that’s not even funny, baby, don’t tempt the gods!”
“Ok, sorry!” she held up a hand. Then Steve poured her another shot into her glass. “Your turn. Go on now,” he hurried her. She drank it, and Steve smiled.
“What’s your favorite Movie?”
“That’s lame.”
“No, it’s not,” he chuckled.
“Come on, favorite movie? I’ll bet you already know my favorite movie.”
“Oh right, Rambo.”
“Very funny. It’s Titanic!”
“See, good thing I asked, ‘cause I coulda sworn it was Rambo.”
“Ok, because I love you, I’m giving you another chance to ask a real question, here.”
“Careful what you wish for, baby.”
“I’m up to the challenge, Mr. Johnson,” she insisted.
“Ok, Mrs. Johnson. Pick a wedding.”
Now, Kayla backpedaled. “Oh, hell no. I can’t pick one.”
“You called this party, I’m just makin’ it more interesting.” Kayla gasped. They were the exact words Steve had used during their game at Murphy’s. “What? Too interesting?”
“No,” she grinned slightly. “It’s just you said that at Murphy’s, too.”
“I did?” Kayla nodded. “Think it’s fate?”
She shrugged. “Ya know, it’s a very you thing to say, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.” They thought about it for a minute before Steve told her to stop stalling. “I can’t do it.”
“Try.”
She let out an annoyed grunt, but then mulled it over. “Our first little wedding in the snow was so bittersweet and special. I was so lost and damaged, but you were there for me without even knowing it yet. I felt how badly you wanted us to be married, and it just overwhelmed me.” Steve smiled. “Our actual wedding was my dream come true. It will always be like a fairytale. But our September 5th wedding was … I don’t even have a word for it. It was truly something out of time. It wasn’t just our love, Steve. I felt your soul.”
Steve felt his eye mist. “God, Kayla.”
“I did. It was like … nevermind,” she shook her head of the thought, “I sound like a romance novel.” but Steve wanted her to go on.
“No you don’t. Tell me, baby. Like what?”
Kayla gripped her knees and shrugged her shoulders in reminisince. “Like … like the whole time, even before the wedding, I mean from the beginning of the jump … like that was the universe finally set right.”
“Like the life we left back in 2009—”
“—Was maybe the jump out of time. And that the one we started in 1987, when you proposed instead of going to the senator’s house, was how it was always supposed to be.” Kayla sounded wistful but looked cautious as she waited for Steve’s reaction. When he remained silent, she closed her eyes and went on meaningfully. “That whole time on the pier, when we were marrying each other again, I felt our souls click into place. I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live.” Kayla opened her eyes. “I’m not saying our whole life before we started jumping has been wrong. I’m just saying …” but she trailed off, because she wasn’t really sure she wasn’t saying that.
It was not the first time Kayla’s preference for that timeline versus her own had come up. Steve wanted to talk about it more, but it was a sensitive subject, so he decided to let it keep for now. “I know what you were saying.” Steve said. He took her hand and kissed it. “That was beautiful, baby.” He looked at her tenderly for a moment longer, then he put his game face back on. “You’re sayin’, you can’t answer my question. So, you owe me a penalty shot.”
“What?” she protested gamely. “That’s not part of the game.”
“It is now.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. New rule. If the question can’t be answered, they owe the asker a penalty shot.”
“I don’t like that rule.”
“Well I don’t like welchers, baby.”
“A Brady never welches!”
“Ok, then drink up, and we’re square,” Steve insisted as he poured his wife another shot. Kayla glared at Steve in continued remonstration, but she was loving every minute of this, and Steve knew it. He waited with a winningly raised eyebrow, and Kayla kicked back the amber liquid.
“You’re a meanie,” she smiled as she wiped at the corner of her mouth with the side of her hand.
“You love me.”
“Damn straight.”
“Ok, your turn to ask.” Steve poured them both a new one, then finally swallowed down his own shot and waited gamely.
“Ok. What would you have done differently with Stephanie?”
“Not a thing, baby,” he answered with a bit of surprise.
“Come on, parenting is a partnership, and now that you’re here, there must be something I did or didn’t do that you might have done differently.” Steve glanced around. He was about to insist that there was nothing, but then something did come to mind. Kayla caught it and pointed. “There is something. It’s ok, just be honest.” Steve rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Well … Mama called last week. Left a message on the machine on Christmas.” Kayla waited for him to finish his thought. “She sounded lonely,” he exhaled heavily. “I’m not so sure Stephanie gets to see her and Adrienne enough.” Kayla was silent as she digested this. “I know my side of the family’s scattered all over the country now, but she’s got four cousins over there in Texas that she never sees, and she hasn’t even mentioned ‘em.” Steve stared down at his shot glass as he absently rotated it in circles on the bar with his thumb and middle finger.
“That’s fair,” Kayla replied softly, “you’re right.”
“Yeah?”
Kayla nodded. “I think if we make it through all of this and are still here, we should fix that.” Steve was about to thank her, but then she went on. “I don’t want you to think this was just your folks, though, it was mine, too. I never went back to Salem after we thought you died. Not even for a visit.” Steve knew this, she’d told him when he still had no memory of her. Now with the revelations and past three and a half years behind them, Steve understood this a lot better.
“The memories hurt too much.” Kayla nodded. “Oh, Sweetness.”
“They came to visit, and I sent Stephanie to my folks now and then. But you’re right, we didn’t see Jo and Adrienne nearly as much. I’m so sorry.”
“No sorries. You did what you had to do. Sorry you asked?”
“No sorries,” she repeated. “I wanted to know, and now I do.” She meant it, too. “Anything else?”
“I think that counts as another question.”
“You catch on fast, Mr. Johnson. Just throw me a bone.”
“Oh, I’ve got a bone for ya.” She walked right into that one. Steve ate it up, but he also put this subject to bed. “I wouldn’t change a thing about how you raised our girl, Kayla.” He reached out for her cheek and caressed it against his palm like he so loved to do. “She’s perfect now, she’s perfect back home, and I couldn’t be more proud.” His heart beat a little faster as his wife beamed. “Ok, drink up, it’s my turn.” She did, then he asked, “How ya feelin’?”
“I think I’ve finally got a little buzz going, how about you?”
“Lightweight.”
“I think you used that one at Murphy’s, too.”
Steve smirked. “And look at that, my turn again,” then poured her next shot.
Kayla blinked as she realized that, indeed, two questions had been asked and answered. “Fine,” she said eagerly. She drank it down and then sat very straight as she gestured for him to go. Steve laughed, then rubbed at his chin to ponder his next question.
“Ok, tell me what it’s like to be pregnant.”
Kayla smiled immediately. “It’s wonderful.”
“Except when you’re puking your guts out.”
“Actually … even that’s kind of wonderful. I mean, I hate throwing up, no one likes that. But it wasn’t like it was the flu, it was the rush of hormones the baby produces. So, even when I’m queasy or worse, it means there’s this little baby inside me that we made. Steve was happy and a little surprised to see Kayla’s eyes light up as she described this. When my feet swell up and I feel hormonal and I cry at the drop of a hat…”
“When you’re peeing every ten minutes.”
“When I’m peeing every ten minutes,” she agreed with an even bigger smile, “it’s all because I’m carrying our baby. It’s … it’s joyous and … and golden.” Steve was positively rapt. “They always describe kicks like little butterflies or flutters, but I always think it’s more like soda bubbles popping inside of you. Or like a bunch of helium balloons rising, and then suddenly they pop, and you feel all of them burst against you from the inside. And I always felt the babies there. All three of them, right from the beginning. We were always connected. I could feel when they were sleeping and when they were awake. And, boy did I feel big. I mean, right from the beginning, you start to feel big, and you only get bigger. Like, literally, your body just feels like – ya know, in The Grinch, at the end his heart “’grows three sizes that day?’” she said rhetorically. “It’s like that, your body just seems to grow all around you overnight every single day. So, believe me, pregnancy is hard. And there absolutely does come a time when you are ready to be done.” It wasn’t like that with Joe, but Steve knew first hand twice that that was true. The image of her crying on Dr. Curtis’s examination table when he refused to induce her in her 37th week with Emily was still quite fresh in his mind. “But it’s this beautiful, joyous kind of hard that once you have it you covet with a preciousness you’d die for.” Steve felt something so joyous pass over him when he saw his wife’s eyes water. “Steve, there was never a time when I was pregnant with our kids that I didn’t feel … powerful. Magical.” I have never felt happier, more alive, than when I’ve been pregnant with our beautiful babies.”
“That was … a hell of an answer, Sweetness.”
Kayla chuckled and dabbed slightly at her eyes. Steve drank his next shot, and Kayla went a whole new direction. “I know you wish I’d never seen you in Chicago.” She was right about that. “But you had so many fun, exciting times before I’d met you. I know you loved the Merchant Marines, even before Bo got there.”
“Yeah, I did love the Alva.”
“Ok, so what one experience from your past that I wasn’t part of would you want to take me to and share with me?”
“Sweetness, I think if we jumped any further back than we’ve already gone they’d throw me in jail for that.” And actually, the thought of that had occurred to both of them, and it scared the sh*t out of them.
“I don’t mean a time to jump to, I mean in real time, a place you went, something you experienced. What would you want to go back to and show me? Show our kids? Share with us?”
Steve had to hand it to her, it was a great question, and it got him thinking of any number of places in Europe and Asia that he’d love to experience with them. But it didn’t take long for something that didn’t require a passport to make a smile spread across his face.
“We didn’t go anywhere in the orphanage. Ya know, vacations or that kind of thing. We had food in our bellies and a roof over our heads. We had school, but we didn’t go on any trips like families do. So, right before I joined up I took myself on my own little trip across the USA. Just wanted to see stuff, ya know?” She did know, they’d talked at length about exactly where to find each other practically from birth, and that time between high school and the Merchant Marines he was just about unfindable, because he was all over doing whatever came along. “Stayed in hostels, hustled a lot of pool, did some odd jobs. One of the last places I went was Niagara Falls. It was right around spring break, and the touristy places were hirin’ anyone they were so short-staffed. So I worked on one of the boats that take people right up to the falls. Ya know, ya gotta wear those ponchos but you still get soaked.”
Kayla giggled. “Sounds fun.”
“Ya know what, it is. It sounds corny and touristy, and not me, but it really is fun. The falls aren’t a natural wonder of the world for nothin’. I spent a month on that boat, I did every grunt work job for almost no pay that you can think of, and I loved it. Learned everything I needed to know there. Finally decided to just join the Merchant Marines and get paid to see the rest of the world.”
“So you graduated from trawlers right to haulers.”
Steve guffawed. “You got a way with words, baby. Yeah, but one day when I was still on the trawler, there was this one family at the very tip of the bow. Their kids were older, maybe 12 or 13. And they all just stood there soaking wet, holding onto each other, watching the water crash down . And you could just tell they were happy to be with each other. I thought to myself, one day I’m gonna have a family. And I’m not gonna be like my old man, I’m gonna show them places like this, and I’m gonna hold onto my kids like that dad was holdin’ on to his son.”
“I didn’t know any of that.”
“Yeah, well … glad I can still surprise you.”
“I want you to take us there. When we get home, I want you to show it to us. Is the company still running?”
“Oh I don’t think they’re going anywhere. It was The Maid in the Mist.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
“You worked for the Maid in the Mist.”
“They had lower standards in ’75.”
Kayla swatted at him. “Promise me you’re going to take us there when we get home.”
The concept of which home Kayla was referring to reared itself within Steve again, and a question formed right at the tip of his tongue. But something made him push it back down. Instead he promised her that he would, and he really meant it.
The alcohol was potent, but it hadn’t quite gone to Steve’s head yet. The same could not be said for Kayla, and soon enough she began slurring her words a bit.
“Oh-oh, someone’s getting plowed.”
“Really?” she replied, “I thought you had a higher tolerance than that.”
“Nice comeback,” Steve snorted, “that was quick, I’m impressed, baby. It’s my turn, now, so drink.” Kayla did, and she shook out her hair a little as it went down. She blinked slowly and let the tequila lower her lids to a sultry half-mast. It was very sexy. And suddenly all Steve could think of was what those sexy eyes looked like when he was making love to her.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“Not yet,” he leered as he refilled her glass.
“Hmmp,” she smiled.
“K, here’s a question for ya. I know you weren’t – involved with anyone – while I was away. But you and me both know you’re a sexual person, baby. You had to be thinking of me.”
“Mm-hmm. So, whass your question?”
“You touched yourself. While you thought of me.” Steve’s voice was low and velvety, and Kayla felt herself heat up. What did you think about … when you did that?”
Kayla licked her lips. “You want to know what I fantasized about while I masturbated?” He nodded. “What if I fantasized about someone else?” For just a moment, Steve felt insane jealousy. He knew better than to think this tease was true, but the thought of it elicited the covetousness in him like an involuntary reflex. Kayla caught all of this and tucked it away as Steve called her bluff.
“Oh, so you were thinking of Dr. Oncology’s wet, glistening pecs?”
“No, I was thinking of your wet, hard cock inside of me.”
Steve’s penis hardened faster than the alcohol content in his body should have allowed. “Tell me more.”
Kayla dipped her finger into her glass and sucked the tequila off of it, letting the wet tip of her finger linger on her bottom lip before speaking. “Is that a new question? ‘Cause if it is, I think thiss one’s gonna be a short game, too.
Steve was hard as a rock. He took a drink right from the bottle never dropping their eye contact. “New new rule. Follow-up questions are paid for with penalty shots. Tell me more about my cock inside you in your fantasies while I was away.” Kayla liked this rule.
“I missed you so much, Steve. I never stopped loving you, but I also never stopped missing making love to you. The sex has always been amazing with us. I always knew it would be. ‘Cause of the way we love each other. I never stopped wanting that and—and the way you love me. So—sometimes—I—I would—pretend you were there. In the bathtub—”
“Was it always the bathtub?”
“No, but it was more often than … other places. Take a drink.” Steve complied and she went on. “I’d lean back against you …” Kayla palmed her breast with her left hand and rubbed gently. “… and I’d feel your hands touching me. My breast …” She closed her eyes and tilted her head. “… rubbing up my thigh.” Steve watched as his wife’s hand slowly draped a path up the inside of her leg until it rested at her crotch over her pajama pants.” She let a soft whimper escape from her lips. Then she slowly dropped her hands and opened her eyes. Steve looked like he wanted to attack her right there, his erection pointing right at her against his boxers.
“I want you”
“I want you, too,” Kayla said, and Stevehopped off the stool. “After we’re done with the game.”
“What?”
“I’m perfectly sober.”
“No you’re not,” he said as he rubbed at his cock and got uncomfortably back on the stool with a grunt.
“Oh, yes I am, and it’s my turn to ask a question.”
“Keep your panties on, baby, I need to calm my dick down.” She waited impatiently as he eventually took another swig from the bottle. “Ok, go.”
“What on earth are you.so.darned.jealous.of?” She punctuated each of the words with a poke against Steve’s chest.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“Juss a minute ago, I said maybe I fantasized about someone else, and you got all weird.”
“Saw that, huh?”
“Duh.” Steve laughed. “You get jealous all the time. You were so jealous of Sam that you took him out with one punch.”
“That’s not what that was!”
“Bullshit, that was totally part of it.”
“Ok, fine, it made me hit him harder than maybe I needed to while he was feeling you up, but he’s been all over you, Kayla, how am I supposed to feel?”
“Ok, what about Chris?”
“He’s a dick.”
“He got you off of how many charges? I dunno.”
“He undresses you in his head.”
“He tole you that?!”
“No,” Steve couldn’t help but laugh. “I just know it.”
“You imagine it. You were jealous of David Gold until you found out he was gay.”
Steve was about to argue, but for once he sat back and took stock. She was right, the minute he found out about David Gold being Kayla’s lab partner that walked her to class three days a week in 1979 he almost made a total ass of himself at the dinner table. “I dunno, baby, I just can’t help it. I’m the jealous type.”
“Ok, but why?” she insisted. “I know you don’t really think that I would entertain anything anyone anything’d to me.” Steve couldn’t help but laugh, because he was so right about Kayla’s ability to stay sober. I knoooooow that you don’have a shred of doubt. So where does the jealousy really come from? I mean whass that’all about?”
“Baby, you are drunk.”
“I’m buzzed. Answer the question.”
Steve narrowed his eye at his wife. “Come here.” Kayla slid down off the stool and let him pull her into him before she swayed. When he kissed her it was warm and wet with tequila on his tongue. He lifted her up onto his lap so that her legs straddled his hips and hung down the back. “I’m a possessive man, Kayla.” He wrapped his right hand in her hair and pulled it gently to expose the soft flesh near her shoulder. Then he suckled it hotly, dragging his tongue to the hollow of her neck, then back up the other side. “I know how your neck feels on my lips.” Kayla’s breaths were short as she began rocking against him. “I feel you want me, like you want me right now.”
“I do,” she whispered as he held her firmly under her buttocks.
“And I know I did that. I made you horny. And I want to be the only man to ever do that to you again.” He took one hand and lowered her cami to expose her breast. Then he lowered his mouth onto it and licked his tongue across the soft milky flesh. Kayla gasped, and he circled his tongue around her areola. “I know what your breasts taste like. I know just how to make your nipple get hard for me.”
“Steve,” she moaned. He wanted to take her, but he was in command of a control that surprised even himself.
“I kiss you like this, and touch you like this. And I know you’re mine. To cherish and give pleasure to. To love and make love to. You’re mine, Kayla. You belong to me. So I can give you the world.” Steve took her face in his hands and kissed her with just enough hot passion to bring her that desperation he wanted her to feel. Then he slid off the stool with her still straddled against him, put her down onto her own, and pulled his lips from hers. “That’s where the jealousy comes from. That’s what that’s all about.”
Kayla was a puddle, and he knew it. “You’re just gonna stop there?”
“Yeahp.”
She realized she’d just done the same thing to him, so rather than protest, she rubbed her legs together and drank down her next shot. “Your turn,” she croaked out.
“Do you really hate it when I’m jealous? ‘Cause I don’t think you really hate it as much as you say you do. I think it actually turns you on.”
“Haven’t we already been over this? I do kind of hate it. But … I also kind of don’t.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Take a drink.”
“No, no, it’s a clarifying question, not a follow-up.”
Kayla shrugged in acceptance. “What I can’t stand is when you let it make you act like a jerk. Like when you get into it with Shane for no reason, when you’re hostile to Chris when we see him. Or when you punched Sam.”
“So if I didn’t act like an asshole you like it otherwise?”
“I like that you feel territorial. I like how it makes you need me so bad.”
Steve nodded. “Ok.” He took another drink from the bottle, then asked, “So, have you enjoyed Dr. Oncology’s attention?”
“Steve!”
“What? It’s a question! I drank!”
“We juss went over the other people quesshions!”
“No, we went over the sex questions. Now iss other people doing you in the bathtub questions.”
“No one else is doing me in the bathtub, I was doing myself.”
“He wants to do you in the bathtub. And I think you like the attention just a little bit.” He squeezed his thumb and forefinger together for effect and held them up to his squinting eye.
“Maybe,” she pointed at him with an overexggerated gesture, “I do.”
Steve was not expecting her to admit it so quickly. “Say what?”
“You always could dish it out but not take it. I said, yes. I do.”
“I have to cut his balls off.”
“Oh puh-LEEZE, ya know, there’s always some bitch from your past coming back to haunt me an’challenge me an’win you back making me so jealous an’mad. And don’t tell me you don’t feel good knowing women want you. I know you love me, but you’re as sexual as I am, you love sex. You love women. I know you feel flattened. Plattered. Flattered. So, what, I’m not allowed? Yeah, I do. I like it. I like that a man wants me. That I’m desireable.”
“Why would you think you’re not?”
“I don’t think I’m not. I think I am! I juss like the corroboration.”
“You know I’m jealous as sh*t right now, don’t you?” Steve practically spat.
“Yes I do.” Her eyes twinkled slyly. “And I love it.”
“You’re a little bulldog. Who’s turn is it?”
“It doesn’t matter, I win. You’re drunk.”
“I’m feelin’ good, baby, but you’re the drunk one.”
“So, wait, we’re intoxicated?” Kayla’s eyes lit up. Together?”
Even as she spoke, Steve couldn’t help but feel himself go over the hump from happy buzz to jovial intoxication. “Yeah, I think we are.”
“Thass so cool!”
Steve guffawed again. “You’re too damn cute, ya know that, baby?” Just then there was a knock on the ISA suite door. “Uh oh. I think we woke up the suits!”
Kayla, however, sobered a little. “What if there’s a problem?” Now Steve felt slightly more in control, too. They both went to the door and Steve tried to sound very sober. “Hello?”
“Steve?” Mark Chase called, wondering why he sounded like he was answering a phone.
“Yes. Johnson here.”
“Um. Yeah, could you open the door, please?”
Steve turned his head to look at his wife. “Are ya decent?” he whispered.
“Yes, open the door!”
“Hello, Mark,” Steve said, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. “You on the Chase?” Kayla rolled her eyes but then she giggled like a schoolgirl.
“Are you two …”
“Drunk? NO!”
“Yeah, I was gonna say, ‘ok.’ I didn’t get your check in call for the evening, so I’m following protocol.”
Steve really did try to be sober now. He knew that the protocol was serious, and they’d missed their check in. “Sorry, man. We were …”
“It’s ok. I get it. Enjoy your little vacation. Just don’t forget to check in with us. Keep your phones charged, and keep in mind, if we don’t hear from you in he morning, we will come in.”
“Ok, gotcha.”
“Goodnight.”
They closed the door and immediately began laughing hysterically. Mark heard this and chuckled to himself. “They’re going to be hanging to the floor tomorrow.”