Fidelity - SF6 (2 page)

Jamie crept across the room as quietly as she could and found her camera. She turned off the flash to avoid waking them and moved around until she could perfectly capture both of their peaceful faces. The late afternoon sun was still warming their bodies and creating deep shadows across the bed. With the flash off she was able to take several pictures without waking the pair. She moved around the room stealthily, trying to capture the simple beauty of their slumber. She knew that Ryan would wake soon, since she seemed to have a sense for when Jamie was in the room, but she cherished every moment of her intense observation. It was so rare to find Ryan asleep and her expression unguarded that she went over to the loveseat and sat down to just gaze at them. When she caught the first vague stirrings of awareness moving through her lover’s body, she turned on the flash and took several more quick shots, then she laid the camera down and crawled into bed behind her. Snuggling up to the warm back, she rested her face on the smooth skin as she felt her partner begin to fully wake up.

"I feel like I’ve been drugged," Ryan mumbled sleepily.

"When did the baby get here?" Jamie asked.

"Tommy paged me when I was still at work. He got called in to work, and Maeve wasn’t home. So I went and got her at about 3:30."

"What did my two favorite babies do all afternoon?"

"She wanted to play her favorite game of ‘try to kill Ryan by running up the hills in my jogger,’ so we did that for about 45 minutes. Then we played in the yard with Duffy. We came down here at about 5:30."

"Ryan," she asked thoughtfully, drawing little patterns on the smooth skin right in front of her. "How did you know she wanted to run in the hills?"

"Oh, you can just tell. We communicate nonverbally, but it’s just as effective," she replied airily.

Just then they heard the front door open. "You guys there?" Conor called.

It was a measure of her comfort in their home that Jamie answered for them. "Yeah, we’re all down here."

Since their open door was visible from the landing, he went down, but stopped in the doorway. "Can I come in?" he asked rather hesitantly.

"Sure," Jamie replied quietly. "We’re helping Caitlin take a nap."

He took in the tableau of the three on the bed and shook his head. "I hate to get all mushy," he said, "but this is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I should take a picture of you three."

"My camera’s right on the loveseat," Jamie informed him, "but I’m so overdressed," she teased as she snapped the waistband of Ryan’s boxers.

"Good point," Conor replied sagely. "I’ll wait..."

"Take the picture while you still have fingers that work," Ryan threatened.

"Yet another good point, Sis," he laughed as he snapped a few. "Hey, aren’t you on dinner duty tonight?"

"Looks like takeout," Jamie suggested. "What sounds good?"

"Italian combos," the siblings said in unison.

"I don’t know why I bother to ask," she complained aggrievedly. "Are you sure you’re Irish?"

"The Irish are just Italians with bad weather, bad food and no opera," Ryan confidently informed her.

"Don’t forget the pubs," Conor reminded her.

"I didn’t forget the pubs," Ryan insisted. "The Italian version of the pub is the espresso bar," she elaborated. "We could have had espresso too, but we need the pubs to have someplace to drink away the rain."

After the adults had finished their combos and Caitlin had consumed her brown mystery meat with carrots and peas, they walked her home since her parents were both due home by seven.

Jamie decided that this was a perfect time to bring up the subject of a small vacation for Tommy and Annie, and she and Ryan discussed the particulars during their walk.

"We have a proposal for you two," Jamie began when they were all sitting in the living room. "Ryan and I have talked about doing this ever since we got back from the ride, and it seems like we’re about to run out of free time. So, if you approve, we’d like to watch Caitlin for a few days after I come home from Rhode Island."

Annie looked at Jamie, then at Ryan. "You know you can have her any time you want. But why on earth would you want to have her around the clock?" She obviously realized how harsh that sounded and moderated her question. "I mean, I know it’s fun to be with her for a few hours, but it’s quite a different thing to have her for days at a time. You wouldn’t have a moment to yourselves."

"That’s our point," Jamie said. "We think you two need some time alone. Ryan tells me that your anniversary is coming up, and we’d like to do this as a little present for you."

"Are you serious?" Tommy asked, since Annie couldn’t make her mouth work. "You want to give us time alone? Completely alone?"

"Yes," Ryan confirmed. "We really think you need some time to just relax. We see how hard you both work to take care of the munchkin here, and your schedules don’t allow you to be alone enough. We’d really like to give you this little gift."

Annie finally got her mouth to relay the messages that her brain was firing. "But we can’t…" she stuttered. "We can’t impose on you for something like that. It’s just too much."

"Look, Annie," Ryan explained. "Once school starts I’m going to be busier than I’ve ever been. I have a game almost every Friday and Saturday, and I’m going to have a ton of homework. My time with Caitlin will really be reduced and spending time with her now will fill my tank up a little bit. We really want to do this–both for you and for us."

"How much time are we talking about here?" Annie asked, her excitement showing in her dancing blue eyes.

"We could go for a week," Ryan said, "but whatever you think is best for her would be fine."

Annie cast several questioning glances at Tommy, but he was apparently content to let her make this decision. "I’d guess that four days would be her capacity," she mused. "Would you just hang around the house, or what?"

"Well, we were really planning on going to Disneyland," Jamie proposed. "Neither of us have been, and we thought it would be more fun if we had Caitlin with us."

Annie smiled broadly, charmed by their naïveté. "I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but at her age, she would be just as happy to sit in the back yard and dig a hole with her little shovel, but if you don’t mind taking her, I certainly don’t mind her going."

"Fine with me," Tommy agreed. "Then when she’s 20 and complains that she never got to go anywhere, we can point to this trip that she won’t remember, just to make her mad!"

"That’s what parents are for," Ryan agreed with a laugh. "Taunting the kids is one of the biggest perks."

"Are you sure you know what you’re in for, guys?" Tommy asked seriously. "She can really be a hellion nowadays, and I’d hate for you to have your trip ruined."

"I know there’s a chance that she’ll hate it and want to come home," Ryan agreed. "But I think it’s worth the risk. Besides, we’ve discussed our plans for having a family, and it would be nice to get some firsthand experience. It might give us a more realistic impression of what it’s like to have a baby."

"I’m sold," Tommy said. "I’ll put in for a few days off when I get to work tomorrow."

"So where do you plan on going for your trip?" Jamie asked, very excited at the prospect of them having their first vacation in nearly two years.

They looked at each other in rather stunned silence as they both realized that they were free to leave the house alone for the first time in a year. "I’m happy to turn off the phone, lock the door and sleep," Annie admitted.

"That sounds a little boring to me," Tommy said thoughtfully. "I’d like to go to a nice resort where we can turn off the phone, lock the door and sleep," he said with a laugh. "But we have a lot of bills coming up. So I don’t know if that’s possible."

"Maybe something will turn up," Jamie said with a sly smile that only Ryan caught. "You never know."

When they were getting ready for bed, Jamie prevailed upon Ryan to pose for a picture of the temporary tattoo that Jordan had bought for her. She had her in just her undershirt, lying on her side with one leg drawn up. She finished the roll, and took it out of the camera, slipping it into her bag to drop off for developing. "I think that might be a nice picture for our Christmas card this year," she teased.

"Just remember, paybacks are a bitch!"

"And knowing you, it will be a doozy," she acknowledged wisely.

"Count on that, Babe," she agreed as she pulled her onto the bed. "I’ll have lots of time on my hands during the next week to think of an apt punishment."

"Speaking of hands," Jamie teased, pulling Ryan’s hands to her face and kissing them tenderly. "How many times a day do you think your hands will be in my favorite place while I’m gone?"

"I don’t know. This will be a new experience for me," she admitted. "Since you’re my major erotic stimulus I don’t know if I’ll have the need with you gone."

"I don’t know, Baby. I think your drive will continue unabated," Jamie guessed.

"We could have phone sex every night," Ryan said suggestively.

"We could," she agreed. "My cell phone has nationwide access. Have you ever had phone sex?"

"Does having sex in a phone booth count?" she asked with her most innocent face.

"No, Ryan, it does not, you little exhibitionist."

"Then I have not had phone sex," Ryan said proudly.

"Oh boy, virgin territory," she said sleepily as she snuggled closer and drifted off, wrapped around her partner like a human blanket.

As soon as Jamie thought her mother would be awake on Friday morning, she gave her a call.

"Hi, Mother," she said in greeting. "Feeling generous today?"

"For you? Always, Dear. What do you need?"

"I wanted to ask a favor of you, Mother."

"Anything in my power, Sweetheart. Just ask."

Ten minutes later, Annie was staring at Jamie in open-mouthed shock. "But...but...but Jamie, we can’t just go use your parents house," she stuttered.

"Why not? It’s my mother’s home, and she is very happy to share it with me and the people I care about. She was very enthusiastic when I asked her. You’ll offend both of us if you don’t accept," she threatened.

"But won’t they want to use it?"

"No. Mother will be in Newport for the rest of the month, and my father doesn’t go down very often at all. Mother said he’s sailing in a race the weekend you’d be there, so there’s no chance that he could go even if he wanted to."

"But Jamie, this is just so generous. I don’t know if we can accept. You know how Tommy is about gifts."

"It’s not a gift, Annie. It’s a big house that’s sitting empty on a week that you’d like a little vacation. It won’t cost my parents a dime more to have you there. They have the pool heated all the time, the lights come on every evening at dusk, there’s a maid who comes in even when they aren’t there. It’s a waste not to use it."

"Did you say a pool and a maid?" she asked weakly, finding a chair and sitting down before her legs gave way.

"An indoor pool that you can go skinny dipping in," she added, keeping up the pressure.

"Okay, we accept," she said decisively. "And if Tommy makes a fuss he can stay home. I’ll go alone!"

Jamie didn’t play golf that afternoon, deciding to stay home and get ready for her trip. When Ryan returned home from work, she lay with her head hanging from the end of the bed and watched her partner pack. "You really are good at this, aren’t you?" she queried from her upside-down perspective.

"Years of practice," the blonde admitted. "I can pack for a month in one suitcase if I need to."

"Where did you ever go that you were limited to one suitcase?" she teased, knowing that the Evans family would never be concerned with paying for excessive weight on a flight.

"I’ve had some pretty rugged trips," she informed her with a scowl.

"Like what,
Provence
on $2000 a day?"

"No, smarty pants. Like riding llamas up to a remote mountain in Peru. Or a wildlife preserve in Kenya, or..."

"Your mother rode a llama??!"

"No. I took a lot of vacations with just my father," she recalled fondly. "We were quite the pair when I was young. I looked forward to those trips for months," she said with a faraway look in her eyes.

Ryan rolled over quickly and jumped to her feet. The quick motion made her very dizzy, and she stumbled drunkenly until she reached her lover. "Whoa!" she said as she grabbed her head. "Head rush!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, you just looked sad, and I wanted to give you a hug," she said, doing just that.

Jamie let out a heavy sigh as she snuggled into the hug. "Who’s going to do this for me next week?" she asked in a small voice. "I’ve become very hug dependent, you know."

"Can you store up some extras? I could hug you all afternoon."

"I didn’t think about how hard this was going to be when I agreed to go," she admitted. "I used to just pack up and leave and not give it another thought. But now, I don’t think about anything but when I’ll be with you again. It’s really going to be hard to live without you, Baby. I don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep."