Find Me – Chapter 156

“That’s a terrible idea.  What time?” 

“I dunno, lunchtime?” 

“That’s lame.”  Deb Lester’s dark mocha skin was smooth but for the jowl line significantly creased by the curl in her judgy lip as she stood in Kayla’s apartment doorway.

“You want to give her a luncheon shower, so how is lunchtime lame, Baby Nursey.”

“Well, if you had a normal wedding like normal people I wouldn’t have to do a hurry up shower with a one-day buffer.”

“It’s not a wedding, it’s a courthouse, and if you don’t like the options, then just go ahead and drop the whole thing.”

“I got nominated, so I’m stuck.”

“Lucky me.”

“Yeah, you are lucky, Ahab.  I mean, don’t you want free stuff?  Showers are free stuff.”

“Someone didn’t understand the assignment.  I got both my legs.  You’re thinkin’ of one-eyed Willie.”  And if only the pediatric nurse Steve was bantering with knew how meaningless money was to them with the impermanence of their lives, he could have told her not to spend too much of it on them.  “And does it look like we need more stuff?” he turned and gestured to the rather full apartment.

Deb shrugged in agreement, “Ya got me there.  You guys could use some decluttering.”

Two weeks had gone by since Steve and Kayla’s 20 Questions game had led them to their decision to purposely break the slipstream.  And the first order of business on that was to get married.  No pomp, no circumstance, no ceremony, no one invited; just a legally binding establishment of what they already were four years to the exact day before it really happened to drive Time into fits of implosion. 

Deb sighed at him from the hallway and kept her voice low.  “Look, I get it. You want to elope, It’s just, we’re her friends, and we were hoping to do something nicer for her.”

“It’s gonna be a surprise.  That’s pretty nice.”  Steve’s heart wasn’t in this, because he knew Kayla’s wouldn’t be either.  They were trying not to invest in friends and family right now, and this party her friends were trying to give her was the opposite of not investing.  “Why don’t you just go over to the other room and ask her where she wants to go for her shower lunch.  It’s right over there, she’s cookin’ dinner.”

“First of all, that’s weird, why not just move into one bigger apartment instead of paying rent on two?  Ya know what, nevermind, I don’t care.  Second of all, did you lose brain matter when you lost your eye, ‘cause the definition of ‘surprise’ does not include asking the person you’re surprising.”

“Well, you sure are direct, I’ll give ya that.”

“Come ON, dude, fo realz, none of us knew you existed, and we’re her friends, and now you’re getting married in two days, and we just wanna be included!”

“You want for real?  She doesn’t want a shower.”

“You’re trippin’.  She’s a girl!”

“Deb?”  Kayla had heard voices out in the hallway, one of which was her husband’s, and poked her head out the front door.  “Ah … what’s going on?”

“Kay!  Hiah!  So, I was just stopping by to … see if you wanna carpool to work tomorrow.”

Kayla looked at Steve over Deb’s shoulder, and he rolled his eye.  “Did you try calling me?”

“Line was busy.”

“Yeah, I’m a big talker, sorry, baby.”

“I think I’m—just gonna drive on my own.  But, ah, thanks.”

“Ok!”  Deb turned back to Steve and whispered, “noon, cafeteria.”  Then she turned around and bolted.  “See ya, Ahab!”

“Did she just call you a pirate name?!” Kayla asked already incensed.

“It’s ok, Sweetness, just friendly banter with Baby Nursey,” Steve assured her.

“I don’t like that!”

“Ok,” he grinned, “down girl.”

Kayla glared at him.  “That’s not ok.”

“Baby,” he kissed her in the hallway between the two rooms.  “Thank you for defending my honor,” and kissed her again. 

Kayla wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned back.  “I’m protective.”  She kissed him again, then kissed his patch.  “So what was that all about?”

“You’re getting a surprise shower tomorrow at lunch.”

Kayla rolled her eyes in the exact way her husband had just done moments ago.  “I’d really rather not.”

“I told her, but apparently, you’re a girl?”

“I’ve had four showers.  I don’t want any more.”

“Yeahp, I know.  Just act surprised.”

Steve closed and locked Kayla’s door, walked into his own, and helped his wife get the rest of their dinner made. 

Their new jump project was stacked in a very organized set of folders that Kayla “borrowed” from the hospital’s office supplies and now sat on the two end tables that Steve moved from Kayla’s apartment to his so that she could have her coffee table.  That left room on the card table for them to eat at, which they did every day. 

Once they made up their minds to break the slipstream, they started pouring over the notes Steve had made on how to turn the timeline on its head.  Rather than start from birth, like the jump project of dates and locations did, they started with where they were right now and went backwards through their jumps instead.  They didn’t know if jumping to just before the anniversary of their first wedding was fortuitous or something Time wanted, but there was no question that they were going to take advantage of that.  They were chomping at the bit to make changes every day and give the slipstream no chance to resolve itself.  What they were admittedly a little wishy-washy on was just how big each change should be.  So, they agreed that Kayla would keep her job, but Steve would work at the garage.  They would go ahead and get married, but they weren’t letting the family know, so the world in Salem would stay in the status quo.

“You’re sure you don’t wanna just call your folks and tell them?” Steve asked as he took a bite of his taco.

Kayla shook her head.  “They’ve got enough to deal with with Bo and Kim right now.”

“I still don’t get what’s happening there, who’s this Megan chick?”

Kayla was really fuzzy on a lot of that part of Bo’s life when Megan Hathaway was in love with her brother and pulled all manner of crazy stunts to win his heart.  She also knew that he and Hope were about to go to New Orleans and just wanted no part of inserting herself into Brady life while having to navigate that.  So, Kayla gave Steve the best rundown she could on Megan Hathaway.

“Damn.  He really does attract the crazy ones.”

Kayla froze with her taco midway to her mouth and glared with supreme irritation at her husband.  That statement didn’t only describe her brother. 

Steve realized his foot was now in his mouth and did something very rare; he blushed.  “Sorry, baby.  That was stupid.  I’m sorry.”  Kayla put her taco down, wiped her hands on her napkin, and crossed her arms.  Because as far as Kayla was concerned, no one was crazier than Ava. 

Steve leaned forward a little.  “You still wanna marry me Sunday, right?”

Kayla narrowed her eyes.  “What do you think?”

“Ok.  Sorry,” he said again.  “Can we go back to talking about telling your folks?”

“We’re not telling them,” she said, picking her up her taco again.  “That’s a lot of pressure.”

“Yes, on the slipstream.  Let’s give it all kinds of pressure.”

Kayla mulled it over a bit more.  “Bo will have puppies over it, you know.”

“Might be fun to watch him squirm,” Steve snickered.

Kayla grinned but moved on.  “Trust me, life is giving him plenty to squirm about right now.  As for Mom and Pop, I know they’re going to reset, and our best bet really is to probably put as much pressure as we can on the slipstream, but they’re still my parents, and they really do have a seriously full plate right now.  I would rather just get married and let the slipstream deal with that.”

“Oookay.  And you do have a party to go to now.”

“Ugh.  If it was 2009 I could have just ignored her texts on this.”

“Come on, baby, it’ll be fun.  When was the last time you had a work shower?”

“Ok, ok.”

They cleaned up, and mindlessly watched Dallas. 

“I wonder if they figured out who shot JR yet,” Kayla joked.

“Yeah, that was awhile ago, it was Kristen.”

“You know that?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you do.  Too bad we couldn’t have taken bets on it, we’d’ve cleaned up like bandits.”

“And done what with the money, invest it for our retirement?”

“Baby, ‘Who Shot JR’ was the biggest thing on earth, even I wanted to know who shot the guy, and I was in and out of jail at the time.  If we’d gone to Vegas and put money down on Kristen, we would have been able to save for our retirement and feed every man, woman, and child on skid row for a year.”

“Come on.  They take bets like that in Vegas?”

“Every damn day at the sports books.”

“Huh.  I thought the sports books were for betting on sports.”

The two of them suddenly got very quiet, the same thought quietly working its way through them simultaneously until Kayla sat straight up and turned toward him on the couch.

“Steve, who won, I dunno, superbowl 21?”

Steve knew where this was going, because his head was right there with her.  “New York Giants,” he replied in a stunned monotone, his eye staring a hole right through her as he answered.  “Bears … got shafted by the draft.”

“Was, um … it an upset or something like that?”

Steve shook his head.  “No, but 32 in ’98 was.  Denver over Favre.”

Kayla’s heart started to beat faster than it should have.  “You know who’s gonna play this year, don’t you?”  Her voice was tight with barely controlled excitement.

Steve nodded his head.  “It’s a big one.  Iconic.  49’ers and Dolphins.  Montana went head-to-head with Marino.  It was huge.”  Steve swallowed nervously with a little adrenaline of his own.  “Will be.”

Now Kayla’s blood pressure spiked. “Steve.”

“I know.”

“My god!”

“I know, baby.”

“If we really want to do this—”

“It would not be a slow walk, it would be massive.  It wouldn’t just be our lives we’re changing that impact a few others—”

“It would be … thousands of people.”

“Tens of thousands,” Steve corrected, “tens of thousands.”

“Jesus.”

“Because those people would be impacting all of the people around them with all the changes our changes made.”

It was a very sudden realization that they could do something very, very drastic.  Now.  And at almost any time if in the next moment they jumped from now.  Kayla’s stomach lurched with the sudden onset of this discovery, and her body reacted as she covered her gaping mouth with her hand.  “How—how do we do this?  Like right away, how do we make this happen?”

Steve’s head was swimming, but his tension hadn’t ramped up like Kayla’s had.  “Um.  Ok, so ’84.  It’s ’84.  Today, football games are on Sundays and Mondays.”

“We’re busy Sunday!”

Steve laughed.  “Sweetness, I meant today 1984; today as in right now, it’s summer, we’re still in baseball season, Football doesn’t start for a few months.”

“Wait, can we do it with baseball instead?  Do you know baseball like you know Football?  What about, like, basketball, are they playing that yet?”

“Calm down, one thing at a time, here, this is not a sprint.”

“WHEN ARE THE OLYMPICS?!”  She shot up off the couch and dove into the jump project stack at the small counter.

“Oh, man.  Hold the phone, Kayla, just ease back a sec.”  

But Kayla was on fire.  The very real prospect of making the kind of significant changes that they were talking about was a first.  The sheer number of lives that could change in each timeline all at the same time was like nothing they’d considered yet.  And there’s no way those kinds of wide-sweeping changes weren’t going to be a sure thing.  Time was going to react like it had never reacted before. 

The adrenaline hormones coursing through Kayla created a huge anxiety response, and the slipstream took notice.  It didn’t care if their emotions were good, bad, happy, or sad, whenever there was some kind of high excitement, it made an attempt to latch on and take them for an enhanced ride.  And right now, their epiphany of the fastest and most effective way to implosion that they’d yet imagined made that particular hormone an enormous, unmissable target for the amplification effect.

“We can do this!  We can make bets!  Take bets!  We can make so much money and then give it away!  I mean, it’s gonna reset, but we can change so many lives while we’re here!  Or there!  Anywhere we are, we can do that, and Time won’t know what hit it!”

Steve followed her to the counter and watched with alarm as the pages rattled with her shaking hands.  “Ok, you have to calm down now, baby.”

“It’ll break!  And it’ll send us home, I know it!”

Steve was alarmed.  He was feeling this, too, but not like Kayla was.  He’d never seen her like this.  “Sweetness, listen to me.  You know what’s happening to you, right?!  You have to ease down right now!” 

Kayla let him take the pages from her hands and knew the amplification effect had her.  She shuddered through some deep breaths as he held her tight by the shoulders, but it was too late, the epinephrine was racing through her body, taking her anxiety to a place where she couldn’t distinguish it from sexual arousal.  Somewhere she knew this was an artificial response to an artificial situation within an artificial construct, but most of her just needed a release before she was the one who imploded.

Kayla crushed her lips to her husband’s and threw her body into him.  Steve did not see this coming and was nearly driven off his feet by her momentum.  Kayla whimpered as she groped him, needing to feel him against her, on her, inside her, around her to make her release the coil that had tightened inside her.  She tried to undo Steve’s jeans, but she couldn’t work the button with her still shaking hands, so he helped her by doing it, himself.  As soon as he did Kayla shoved her hands down into his pants and dueled with his tongue as she felt him grow in her grasp.

Steve needed very little impetus to get this young body hot, so he was there from the word go.  “Sweetness, we’re not gonna need football, we just need to keep doin’ it like this all day long.”

“Right now!” she growled.  “I need to fuck you right now!”

They’d had a lot of sex in the last two weeks since Kayla’s arrival into herself.  Sometimes in his apartment, sometimes in her apartment, never on the card table, but always with a need to feel each other’s souls.  This, however, was the first time that Kayla thought she might die if she didn’t feel Steve inside of her as soon as possible.  What is happening to me?  Oh my god.

Steve let out his own whimpers at what her carnality was doing to him.  She stroked his erection in her fist as he stamped out of his jeans, never once releasing each other’s mouths until Kayla quickly lifted Steve’s tank top she’d been wearing over her head and dropped it beside them.  Steve did the same with his own, and before she could get her pajama shorts off she jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs around him, and, once again, attacked his mouth with hers.  She rubbed herself against her husband as she wrapped her fingers in his long hair.  But the angle of his cock missed friction to her clitoris, and the sensations weren’t enough.  “I need more!” she growled, “I need it!”

Steve was now lost in his own need come, that’s how enhanced their senses had become.  He carried Kayla the short steps to the couch and fell into it with her.  “Take me,” he said low and dripping with sex from his lower register, “I’m yours.”

Kayla didn’t wait for Steve to undress her, she stood up just long enough to pull off her pajama shorts, returned to her position, and lowered herself hard and fast onto Steve’s hardened penis.  She moaned hotly as she began to ride. 

Steve held her by her hips and watched as her breasts bounced up and down with her movements.  He felt himself grow impossibly harder when she called out to him for more stimulation. 

“Suck my tits while I fuck you!”  The dirty talk was so hot Steve could only do as he was told, grunting as he licked and sucked her stiff nipples.  The sensations were making her vagina throb, her orgasm just out of reach.  “I have to come, make me come!”

Steve was completely drunk on the sex he was giving his wife.  He had to tell her; had to make sure she knew what she did to him.  “You feel so good, baby!  Your tight pussy feels so good!”

Kayla could feel that Steve wanted to come.  He held her tight with his left arm while reaching his right hand beneath them to fondle her while she bucked against him.  His loud moans dripped with the sex they were having.  They were hot, they were sweaty, and Steve was ready to explode inside her.  Come on, you want it,” he thrusted hard with Kayla’s gyrations, “take it!  Take it so I can come!”

She tried, but every time the swell of ecstasy was about to peak, she would lose it.  “Fuck!”

It was a curse of frustration, and it was not something they usually experienced.  Steve knew how to pleasure his wife, and he desperately wanted to fix her inability to reach that climax.

Desperation.  The word thrummed through him.  Steve didn’t now that the physiological confusion Kayla’s body was going through was misattributing this highest possible level of anxiety as arousal, but he did know that she, literally, needed this release.  He realized that this was a different kind of sexual desperation, and it sent a wave of concern through him, pushing that orgasmic cliff back just enough for him to think.

“Sweetness … listen …” he gasped.  “I … God, I want you baby!”  He moaned into another hot kiss.  “God, I want you!”  Then he licked the nipple of the breast he’d given less attention to.  “But … I … we …”

“Don’t stop, Steve, please!”

He indulged in how good it was as Kayla grazed her teeth against his jawline, then his neck, then bent down to bite at his dagger.  He thrust hard up into her, but then found his head again.  “Shh-shh-shh, wait,” he squeezed her hips to stay her movements, slow down, baby … slow down.”

“O-ok.”  Kayla stopped and looked at him desperately as she gulped in air to catch her breath.  Steve held her face in his hands; and that face reflected the utter frustration of their coitus interruptus.

“Think real hard.  This is important.”

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed with difficulty.

“We’re not done here.  Promise.  But think real hard.  If I told you to stop, you could, right?”

Kayla sobered slightly.  “I—I just pounced!  You didn’t want it?  I’m—”

“I always want it.  But I think it came from what was happenin’ to you.  And it’s not like the other times we’ve been all hopped up on that effect, it’s different.  You don’t—seem—ok—and what if this happens to me, am I gonna be able to stop if you say stop?”

Now Kayla sobered a lot.  It was not the first time Steve stopped his pleasure in the throes of his own passion to show his concern for her.  “Y—yes!”  She swallowed hard, her clitoris screaming for attention.  “Yes, baby, yes.  Of course, you will!”  She caressed Steve’s face with her fingertips, the sensation giving him goosebumps.  “God, I love you so much.”  Far more tenderly than anything that had happened in the last several minutes, Kayla bent her lips to his and sent every bit of her love to him through her kiss. 

Steve rubbed his palms up and down Kayla’s thighs.  “I just don’t wanna hurt you, baby.  If I—”

“You won’t.  You couldn’t.”  Steve nodded and angled his head up for another kiss, which Kayla gave him.  This time, her tongue insisted he open for her.  They kissed passionately like that for several more moments before she broke the kiss.  “How blue are your balls?”

Steve groaned.  “Really fuckin’ blue.”  And they were.  They ached with the large amount of blood that had rushed to his genitals without the release of the tension required by ejaculation.  “I honestly don’t think they’ve ever felt like this.  I’m still hard as a rock.”

“And you stopped.  For me.”

Steve nodded.  “I did.”

Kayla swallowed hard, again, the amplification effect lessened but not gone.  “Still worried?”

In answer, Steve bent Kayla’s head toward him so he could whisper hotly in her ear, “You’re not fucking me hard enough, Kayla.”

With the sexiest smile she’d ever laid on him in her entire life – and that was really saying something – Kayla rocked her hips against her husband’s cock and told him to say it again.

“Fuck me, Kayla!”

“Again!”

Steve sucked Kayla’s entire breast into his mouth and grunted when it caused her to buck even more forcefully.  She still hadn’t come, and her desperation was now piqued to where it was before.  He needed her to have the release.  So, he bit at the erogenous spot on her neck that always sent her over the edge.  It was usually the final piece he could count on to put her over the edge.  But not this time.  Kayla whimpered with need, and Steve was feeling it, too. 

Steve leaned them down so he was laying on the couch.  He pulled her crotch up to his face and began licking.  Kayla clutched the back of the couch with her left hand and the couch cushion with her right so she could have leverage to gyrate her hips into his motions.  Steve separated her labia with his thumbs to reveal her swelled clitoris and used the entire pad of his tongue to give her the exquisite friction she needed to release her orgasm.  Kayla moaned the torturous pleasure in rhythm with the now very quickly building waves, and she smiled knowing her climax was almost there.

Steve knew he was making her feel so good.  Giving her the pure ecstasy splayed across her face.  He lapped up her wetness, knew it was for him, and felt unbelievably powerful.  Finally, as his tongue flicked and sucked on his wife’s clitoris, Kayla came in a release that shook her entire body.  Steve wrapped his arms around her thighs and felt them tremble.  Her entrance contracted hard around his tongue, and her breasts quaked with the full body orgasm that finally gave her the release the amplification effect put there.  Steve tasted her cum and continued to lick.  He wanted to keep her needing more.  So he could keep fucking her.  So he could come as hard as she did.  And make her come again.

But Kayla couldn’t actually take any more.  She was spent, overstimulated, and panting hard in her upper register.  She was still trembling when she finally said the words she rarely did.  “S-S-Steve s-s-stop.”  Without another word, Steve stopped what his tongue was doing.  Kayla pulled herself away then turned to lay on top of him.   Her cum pooling at Steve’s belly, Kayla couldn’t form any more words.  She wasn’t really there, instead she was floating somewhere above their bodies, basking in the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced.

Steve was sexually unfulfilled but utterly relieved to feel the slowing of his wife’s heart against his own chest.  She shook with aftershocks while Steve held her tightly, both arms around her middle.  Finally, Kayla found her voice.

“I love you so much.  I love you so much.”

“Sweetness,” Steve murmured.

“You … you didn’t …”

“I don’t need to.”

“Yes, I … lemme,” she said as she tried to slide down to give him what he’d given her, but Steve held tight.

“No.  You just lay here and sleep now, baby.  We’ll take care of me next time.”  The ache settled in Steve’s balls.  It did not feel good.  But it would pass.

Steve pulled the brick red blanket over them, and Kayla literally fell right asleep. 

Steve awakened at about 3am to the sound of the toilet flushing.  He panicked for a moment of disorientation but then righted himself when Kayla’s naked form spooned into him.

“Sorry I woke you,” she whispered.

“Mm.  S’ok, baby.  You ok?”

“Mm-hmm.  Had to pee.”

“That happens.”  Kayla chuckled.  “Everything else ok?”

She knew what he was asking.  “Not sore.  Totally fine.”  Then added regretfully, “Really left you hanging, there.”

“You needed it more than I did.”

Kayla nodded and kissed his hand that embraced her.  “You’re right, that was all the heightening effect of the slipstream.”

Steve raised his head a bit.  “I hope I had something to do with it.”

“Of course, you did,” she derided him.  “But you were definitely right, I went into some kind of – I dunno what that was, but it was …”

“Good?”

Kayla nodded.  “And bad.  I felt my blood pressure in my temples.”  That was not what Steve wanted to hear.  “Dangerous.”

“Shit.”

“But the best orgasm you’ve ever given me.  I mean it.”

Steve puffed out his chest.  “Best sex ever, huh?”

“No, definitely not.  But the orgasm was.”

Steve remembered a conversation they’d had in Hawaii about sex and how it felt.  And he understood what she was saying.  Meanwhile, the discussion had gotten him hard again.  He was working on calming himself down when Kayla gently pushed herself backwards into him, encouraging him to do the same.

“Are you sure?  You’re not tired, Sweetness?”

Kayla nodded.  “I’m never too tired for you.  You need to come,” she whispered.  She reached back, took his erection in her fingers, and stroked him as he rubbed up against her bottom.

Steve kissed Kayla wetly where her neck met her shoulder and held her.  “I want you,” he whispered sleepily.

She shifted her legs slightly and felt his erection where it needed to be.  “Then make love to me.” 

Steve gently entered his wife and let out a breath.  “I love you, Sweetness.”  Holding Kayla as the semen finally shot out of him gave him the release he needed, made Kayla happy, and allowed them to sleep very peacefully for the rest of the night.

The next morning Steve was feeling very possessive and didn’t want Kayla to go to work. 

“Isn’t my surprise shower in,” she looked at her watch, “like five hours?”  Back in Kayla’s apartment, they’d showered and gotten dressed, and now she pulled the white hose that nurse’s still wore here up her legs and over her rear.  “God I hate nylons, they’re so stupid, especially in the summer.”

“Yeah, much easier to do you from behind when you’re not in those.”  Kayla smiled sexily as she poured the just done percolating coffee into two mugs.  “I dunno,” he continued, “I just feel like we’re gonna jump soon, and I don’t wanna separate.”

“Can you feel it?”

“Not really.  I just…” he shrugged.  “I’m feelin’ insecure?”  He palmed the back of his neck.  “Here, I mean, in the timeline.  Now that I’m back in my right head and not this head,” he palmed his crotch, “I’m spooked at what happened with you.”

Kayla nodded.  “You’re right.  That was serious.  But I do want to point out one thing.  I told you to stop and you didn’t even hesitate.”

The corners of Steve’s mouth turned up.  “Yeah,” he nodded. 

“You worry about that too much.”  Steve was silent.  “It’s not the first time you’ve questioned if you’d be able to stop if I wanted you to.”

Steve nodded.  “I guess that spooks me, too,” he admitted.

You could never hurt me.  Ever.”  They embraced, and she could feel the apprehension in Steve’s arms.  “Ok?”

Steve nodded.  “Ok.”  But they were both sure it would probably come up again. 

“We need to talk about the sports betting.  I promise I won’t become a horny monster.”

Steve reached down and fondled Kayla’s rear through her white uniform dress.  “You can become a horny monster, Sweetness.  Just keep that blood pressure within normal limits.”  Kayla smirked as she gently pulled away and pecked him on the lips.  “And let’s wait a few days so your sensitive lady parts can take me.”

“My sensitive lady parts can take you right now, big boy.”

“Ooh, that an invitation?”

“No,” she laughed, “I have work!  Unless you changed our mind and think we should just abandon the whole thing, find another houseboat, and go.  Because I’m down with that.”

“Tempting.  But, let’s get married first.”

“We are married,” Kayla reminded him.  Steve smiled.  Then she said, “You wanna come with me to work?”  It was Steve’s day off, so he could.  And, yes, he definitely wanted to.

“It’s not like the Emergency Center or your rotations.  You’re kind of low man over there. You sure that’s gonna fly?”

“What are they gonna do, fire me?”

“Actually, yeah.”

Kayla shrugged.  “Who cares?”

“There’s that spunk.”  Then he went to the closet to look for another shirt.  “Yeah, Sweetness, I do wanna come with.  Maybe they can put me to work.”

Kayla shook her head slightly.  “Well, that might be pushing it.  No HIPPA yet, but I’m in the ER, they’re not going to let you do much.  You can definitely hang out in the at the nurse’s station, though.”

Sure enough, Steve made himself right at home at the large central hub of the Emergency Room’s nurse’s station.  He knew quite a lot now about where to be that was out of the way and the situations where he should make himself scarce.  It was a slow day, though, which was always a good thing for an ER, and everyone from the orderlies all the way up to the attending doctor were completely amused by Kayla’s fiancé holding court.

“I have an ear infection in Room 2, and a UTI in Room 4,” Kayla said as she picked up the folder that belonged to her UTI.  Then she leaned over the desk and gave Steve a kiss.  The candy striper sitting around waiting for someone to tell her to do something batted her eyelashes with an, “aww!”

“Baby, I miss Dr. Brad.  I wanna razz him.”

“Wow!  Haven’t heard that name in ten or 12 years.  Guess that’s about how long it’s been since you’ve gone with me to work.”

“This would have never flown at Cedars, would it?”

Pfft!  “Not on their worst day.”  Kayla gave him another peck, then headed into Room 4 where she pretended not to be a doctor.

At noon, Steve and Kayla acted extremely surprised when Deb led them down the elevator and into the hospital cafeteria where eight friends and co-workers of this timeline’s proper Kayla waited to give them the best little lame shower they could put together in a day.

“You guys!” Kayla balled up her hands under her chin just like Stephanie used to do, “you shouldn’t have!”

“Yeah,” Steve parroted, including the hands, “you shouldn’t have!”

“This ain’t for you, Ahab,” Deb chided.

“Aw, don’t be like that, Baby Nursey.”  Steve looked over to see if Kayla had heard the Ahab this time, but she was talking to another nurse.  “And by the way, might wanna ixnay the Ahab.  Kayla doesn’t like it.”  Deb shot him a doubtful look.  “I don’t give a shit.   But it upsets her.  Bein’ real with you.”

“Hmm,” Deb considered.  “Can I call you Asshole?”

Steve chortled.  “Sure, but she won’t like that, either.”

“Girl,” Deb jeered.

“How ‘bout Steve?”

Deb raised an eyebrow with a single nod.  “Yeah, ok.  Fine.”

“I’ll even call you Deb.”

The nurse smiled, because she was really quite pleased with herself, and rocked the side of her hip into his.  “You’re welcome.”

Steve smiled back at her quite warmly.  “Thank you.”

“And Baby Nursey is fine, Asshole.”

Shortly thereafter, when Kayla opened the present everyone had gone in on together, she gave Steve a self-satisfied look.  “Guys, we don’t have a blender, this is perfect!”  Steve broke out into a hearty laugh that no one understood, but it felt good.

The next day, Steve and Kayla headed to the courthouse and spent their anniversary getting married again.  It was at least the sixth time, on these jumps alone, and doing so made them both feel like they were doing something to affect the slipstream.  It didn’t make them feel any more husband and wife than they already did, but it gave them a sense of proactivity.

They spent their anniversary reminiscing about their first wedding, which they’d just relived on their previous jump, talking about their kids, and laying a real path for their sports betting plan.  He didn’t know the other American pastimes like he did the NFL, but he really did have the advance information they would need to make themselves a ton of money. 

Steve had learned through all of these years of compiling the jump project that the best way to ingrain information was to write it down to forge a pathway from the information into the memory.  So, he started all the way back with Superbowl I and wrote out every single salient piece of information he could until he got to their present day of 2009, which had just played Superbowl XLIII.  In the next week Steve documented teams, winners, in some cases even scores.  He didn’t have all of them committed to memory, but he had quite a few, and the ten or so really big ones he knew everything for.

“You’ll be, like, seven years old for the first Superbowl, why bother with that one?”

“Why did you go all the way back to birth for our jump project?”

Kayla nodded.  “It better not come to that ever again,” she said with absolutely zero mirth.

“Here’s hopin’.”

They were going to have to be there another two months to make football betting work for them, nearly six if they waited until the Superbowl.  

The next day Kayla was waiting for Steve in the living room, as they now called Steve’s apartment, after he was done at the garage.  She always marveled at how clean his hands were.  No matter how full of grime, grit, oil, and exhaust they got at work, he scrubbed them clean before he came home to his wife.   

“Hey baby,” he said as he shut the door.  She looked adorable with her hair blown dry into a straight style that was not remotely 1984 but a lot more like 2002.  The unique effect of the latter style on this youthful version of her made him smile with appreciation for just how pretty she always was.

“Hey yourself,” Kayla said.  I got you a wedding present.”

“You did?  Is it something I can lick off of you?”

Kayla laughed.  “No.  But if you want to lick me later, you can do it anyway.”

“Ok, I’m in.  What did you get me?”

She tilted her head to the card table where a big rectangular-shaped gift was wrapped up in blue paper.  Steve picked it up and immediately said, “this is heavy.”  She got on her knees and sat back on her heels as she watched him tear open the paper.  “Ooooh, my baby really is the smart one.”

The sports almanac Steve now held in his hand was half the size of a phonebook, though every bit as heavy.  Steve’s eye widened at the table of contents.  It had every single detail of just about every American sport from their inception to the current date of this timeline.  It wasn’t going to help for the next 25 years, but it sure would give them an enormous bit of gambling fodder.

Steve looked upon his wife and felt suddenly very voracious.  “You just got me hard, Dr. Mrs. Johnson.  With a book.”

Kayla gave him a sultry laugh.  “Wanna lick, Mr. Johnson?”

He most certainly did.

On Sunday, September 2^nd, Steve and Kayla went to the closest OTB parlor and placed a small bet on the San Francisco 49ers to beat the Detroit Lions.  They were extremely good odds, as the ‘Niners were the favorites all season long, so it didn’t pay much.  But they needed to start somewhere to test their plan.  They did this for every one of the season’s first six games, betting against them only in Game 7 – the only game San Francisco would lose that season – where they placed a very large bet on the Steelers and were rewarded handily.  The odds were significantly against Pittsburgh’s favor, their dynasty having waned considerably by 1984.  “We got about 12 more years before The Bus saves their asses,” Steve said as they sat down with their beers to watch the game.

“They take a bus to their games?”

“No” he chuckled, “that’s the nickname for their running back, Jerome Bettis.”

“Oh.  Like the Fridge.”

“You keep talkin’ football, baby, I’m not gonna be able to control myself.”

“I could list the names of the bones of the ankle and it would get you off.”

“Really, all you have to do is look at me.”

Kayla smiled, though it was nothing like the smile she had for him when they left the OTB with several thousand dollars from their winning bet. 

“It worked!” Kayla gushed on their way home in the Nova.  “Look at all this money!”

The fall leaves rustled outside the car while they waited at the stoplight.  “Watch your blood pressure, Kayla.  I mean it.”

“I’m fine.”

“And keep your voice down, too, we don’t want to get carjacked before we can use it.”  He was right, it was a lot of money they left with, and they were one of the only ones who did, so anyone could have followed them home as marks for their winnings.

“Sorry, you’re right.  I’m just excited!”

“How excited?” Steve asked cautiously.

“I’m fine,” she assured him again.  “BP in check.  I promise.  What about you?”

“I’m young, want sex all the time, and my wife is sitting there looking like that as she holds a shitload of green.  So, I’m needing to get you home.”

“Are you trying to make me wet?”

“Why, are you?”

“I think we’ve had more sex since I got here to Cleveland than we have in the last million jumps combined.  I’m always wet.”

“Mmf.  You’re killin’ me.”

“Too bad I’m wearing pan-teeees,” she teased opening her legs a little.  She knew he liked that word.

“Damn straight you’re wearing panties, we were just in a sports book.”

The minute they got home, Steve relieved Kayla of those panties, and they went at it like horny teenagers for the rest of the night.

The next day Kayla went to the finance department and had herself a sit-down at one of the brand new, truly ancient computers.  The beige monster’s screen had one color – orange – and it took a whole lot of nothing for her to find what she was looking for.  While she was blown away by the very unfortunate ease with which she was able to view the finance records, she was grateful that she wasn’t going to have to work too hard for them.  She and Steve then went to three different banks to turn their cash winnings into three cashier’s checks.  Their final step was to anonymously mail them to the hospital, covering the entire medical bills to date for one cancer patient, one middle-aged man with ALS, and a baby born too soon that Deb was working hard at caring for.  The baby girl was exactly as premature as Joey had been.  In 1984, that was a much more difficult struggle than it would be for 2009 medicine, but there was a chance, and Steve and Kayla were very happy to honor their baby boy by increasing the success of the baby girl’s survival.

The mystery of where this money came from swept through the hospital, and it became a mystery worthy of “Who Shot JR” local fame.  Even the network news affiliates covered it on the local news.

One day at the height of the hubbub, Steve saw Deb sitting alone in one of the waiting areas on his way out after having had lunch with Kayla.  He couldn’t pass up a chance to mess with her, so he went and plopped down in the chair next to her.  She saw him coming and straightened up. 

“Why you loitering over here, Baby Nursey?”

“Hey Ahab,” Deb said softly, giving him zero of her signature attitude. 

Steve dropped his smile.  “What happened?”  He prepared for her to tell him the baby had died.

“Nothing.  I’m just … real tired.”

“Baby’s ok?” 

Deb was kind of surprised at the investment Steve seemed to show for this little girl.  “She’s touch and go every single goddamn day.”  She exhaled heavily, and Steve could see her eyes get just a little glassy.  It wasn’t like this girl at all.  “You know what it’s like being a NICU nurse?  It’s a lot of death.  A lot of babies that don’t make it, Even more babies that do make it but won’t ever be 100%.  They leave here with CP or lifetime asthma.  The lucky ones are just born addicted to heroin, and they have decent prognoses.  The doctors do their job, they know what they’re doing.  But it’s the nurses who do all the work.  We rock them and put the tiny tubes into their bodies and make sure their pic-lines are clear.  We’re the ones have to give the hard information to the parents who only ever blame themselves whether they deserve it or not.  And no matter what, we’re the ones taking care of these babies.  The doctors are there for rounds and to give orders.  But we’re the ones there when those babies come into this world, and we’re the ones there when they go out of it.  You can’t be a bleeding heart and be a pediatric nurse in the NICU.  You can’t care about any of them any further than something clinical.  ‘Cause if you do, you’ll shoot yourself in the head to put yourself out of your emotional misery.”  Deb took another big breath and blew it out.  “Today just got to me, and my hard outer shell thinned a little.”

Steve swallowed past the lump in his throat remembering the nurses that cared for Joe for those days in the hospital when he was fighting for his life, too.  He felt the exact parental guilt Deb had referenced, because it was the stress he’d put Kayla directly under that contributed to her early labor.  Steve pushed it away, because that was over.  Then he took Deb’s hand in his.  “You’re a good girl, Deb.  A real good nurse like Kayla always said you were.”  Tears pooled in the rims of her eyes.  “Come’ere.”

“No.”

Steve pulled her to his side anyway and rubbed the shoulder he embraced with his hand.  Deb laid her head on his shoulder.  “It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Better not, Asshole.”

“Kayla’s not gonna like that one.”

“Whatever, Ahab.”

Deb let herself have the moment of comfort before wiping her eye really quickly and leaning back up.

“So, baby’s better?”

“The same.”

“Did you guys try kangaroo care yet?”

Deb curled her lip and looked at him sideways.  “How the hell do you know about kangaroo care?”

“My wife is a nurse.  I know stuff.”

“She reading peds journals or something?”

“She’s a real smart nurse.  Like you.”

Deb crossed her arms and smirked.  “You’re pretty decent for a grease monkey.”

“You loved me from the word go.”

“You are trippin’.  Can I go now, I’ve gotta get back to work.”

“Who’s stopping you, I’ve been trying to go home since you flagged me down.”

“Spare me.”  Steve stifled a laugh at the ‘80s slang he always did enjoy.  Deb stood up and headed back to the NICU.  “Enjoy that free blender.  How’s it treating you, by the way?”

“Real good, Baby Nursey.  Very blendy.”

“A’right, see ya, Ahab.” 

It was the last time Steve would see her in any timeline.

Caroline heard about this Anonymous Angels mystery, as this had been dubbed, all the way in Salem and called her daughter later that week to ask if that was her hospital.  Kayla truly enjoyed talking to her mom.  It was the first time she’d done so since the jump to their wedding, so not really that terribly long, but it gave Kayla a lot of happiness to hear her voice. 

“So, how is that Robert?” Caroline asked.

“Robert?  Oh, Robert!  Right.  Actually, I’m—with—someone now.”

“Not Robert?”

“No,” she chuckled, “We were never serious.  This guy, though, I think he’s gonna stick.”

“Really?  Well, what’s his name?”

Steve was listening to the conversation from the pulled out bed as he wrote down sports statistics for 1978.  He grinned ear to ear as she explained about her new “boyfriend.”

“Well, his name is Steve, and you should probably get used to him.”

“Steve.  Well, what does he do?”

“Right now, he’s a mechanic?”

“You sound like you’re not sure.”

“No, I’m sure!”

“You sure you’re sure?” Steve jibed quietly.

“Shush!” Kayla whispered with her hand over the mouthpiece.  “Yes, he’s very talented.  And he takes very good care of me.  We actually take really good care of each other.  And he makes a really good version of your chowder.”

“My chowder.  I’m not so sure about that,” Caroline only half laughed.  Kayla assured her that it was good but, certainly, not her mother’s chowder.  “Well that sure does sound like a good relationship, honey.  How long have you been together?”

Kayla paused, feeling this need to say the real number.  “Ya know, mom, it feels like 33 years.”  Steve looked up and raised an eyebrow. 

“That’s … strangely specific,” Caroline said.  “Especially since you’re only 23 years old.”

Kayla laughed.  “You’ve got me there.”

Caroline asked her about the Anonymous Angel Mystery and if she knew anything about it.  “Yes,” Kayla replied, “Me and Steve have dipped into our retirement savings to do it.  We’re making a killing at the Off Track Betting parlor her in Cleveland.”

“Very funny.”

“Yeah,” Kayla singsonged. 

Steve slowly looked up again and shot her a look.   “What the fuck are you doing,” he mouthed at her.  Kayla tried hard not to crack up before assuring her mom that, no, they hadn’t figured out who the donors were yet, and yes, she’d come home soon and bring Steve to meet the family.  Then she hung up and jumped into bed with her husband.

“Sweetness, you are a bad girl.  Seriously a very, very bad girl.”

“I know.  I think you should punish me.”

They made love very sweetly that night, enjoying each other, pleasuring each other and feeling the love and security of their bodies and their souls.  They fell asleep naked beneath the red blanket, spooned in their favorite position, and jumped in their sleep without a hint of a lick of a warning. 

Kayla opened her eyes and felt sharp, stabbing pain in her belly.  She tried to get up, but she couldn’t move.  She felt the straps across her arms but and her legs bent at the knees.  She also felt the unmistakable sensation of a speculum open inside of her.  Kayla darted her eyes around looking for what she assumed was her OB.  But why couldn’t she move?  Why the straps?  The operating room lights were impossible to miss, she knew exactly what those looked like, and actually the entire room looked just like an OR.   And that’s because it was one.  Was this her ear surgery?  Her open heart surgery?  When did she jump?  Maybe she was still in Cleveland.  Maybe something happened to her.  She tried to reach for her mouth to check for a trach tube, but the paralytic prevented her from moving her limbs.  She could feel, but she couldn’t move.  This couldn’t be her ear surgery.  She was struggling to stay awake.  Where was she?!

The searing pain in her groin made her see stars.  She moaned in agony, prompting the nurse that had been out of view to now come into it.  “Uh oh,” she said.”

“Uh oh?  What the hell is uh oh?!”  Kayla knew that voice.  “She’s awake?!  How the hell is she awake?!”

“She shouldn’t be!” the nurse complained, “I’m not an anesthesiologist, but she really shouldn’t be!”

“Well put her back under!” 

Kayla was completely unable to move, but her lungs worked just fine as she let out a bone-chilling scream at the sight of Ava looming over her.

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