Pushing the Boundaries (Picking up the Pieces #3) (27 page)

Later that night, I laid in bed wrapped around Trevor as I stared off into the darkness, listening to him breathe. The remaining candles had all burned out; the only light in the room was from the pale glow of the moon as it shown through the window.

“You asleep, baby?” Trevor whispered against the top of my head as a hand swept over my hair in long, soothing strokes.

“Nuh-uh.” I gave my head a shake before resting my cheek back on his chest. In all the times Trevor and I had been together, it had never been like this. Yes, we held each other in our sleep, but this was different. We’d never lain awake in bed hours after, relaxed and basking in each other the way we were now. It felt right. It felt like the last piece of the puzzle had simply slipped into place. We were complete.

“What are you thinking about right now?”

I smiled and turned my head slightly to press a kiss to his bare skin. “I’m thinking how perfect this feels right now. What are you thinking?”

He pulled me tighter and let out a soft breath. “I’m thinking I really need to take a piss, but don’t want to move you off me.”

“Trevor!” I shouted as I punched him in the stomach.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” He laughed as he tried to pull my struggling body back to his.

“Way to ruin a beautiful moment,” I grumbled once he had me back in position. My head bobbed up and down as his chest continued to rumble with laughter.

“You said it yourself,
cher
; this is us. Better get used to it.”

“I’m suddenly starting to second-guess my decision.”

He tugged on a curl until I lifted my face to look at his, his eyes glinting with love and humor through the darkness. “No you aren’t,” he told me before pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose. “You love me like this,”

He couldn’t have been more right.

“I know,” I said with a deep sigh of defeat. “It’s my cross to bear.”

His fingers traveled up my waist to my ribs where he dug in and began tickling. “Oh, now you’ve got jokes!” he said as I shrieked and laughed, trying to get away from him.

“Can’t let you be the only funny one!”

He stopped tickling and I stopped struggling. “See?” he asked as he brushed stray pieces of hair from my eyes and leaned in to kiss my nose again. “We’re perfect for each other.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Now, about babies,” he started, suddenly getting serious.

“No babies, Trevor!”

His face morphed into a pout as he whined, “Why not!”

We just wouldn’t be us if we weren’t fighting every other hour. But I had to admit, it would definitely keep things from getting stale.

“You know, you aren’t helping the situation any,” I grumbled to Nana as she came back into the kitchen with an empty bowl of soup.

“The young man’s sick, Lizzy-Lu. You can’t just leave him to fend for himself.”

“Oh, you’re so full of crap!” I stomped my foot. That’s right. I was just seconds away from a full-blown hissy. “You’re the one always bitching about how you can’t stand how whiny Pop Pop gets when he’s sick, and that if he keeps complaining that he’s dying, you’re gonna make sure it happens for him!”

I hadn’t even gotten a full week of blissfully-happy coupledom before disaster struck in the form of a summer cold. And let me just say, for such a big, strong former Marine, when Trevor is sick he’s the biggest pansy-assed cry baby who has ever walked the earth. It was just further proof that women are, by far, the dominant sex. When I get a cold, I suffer through it in silence like any considerate, reasonable human being would do. I would dope up on cold meds, stay in bed if necessary, and wait for my head to deflate so I could start feeling normal again. That’s how it was
supposed
to be handled.

But
oh, no
, not Trevor. He whined, moped, convinced himself he had tuberculosis (thanks for that,
Web MD
), and tried to get me to take him to an emergency room because, in his words “This isn’t normal. I’m starting to think whatever I’ve got is fatal”.

I was in Hell. And having Nana come over here to feed the annoying ass chicken noodle soup wasn’t just unnecessary; it was bugging the ever-loving hell out of me. The man hadn’t been to work in five days. And with each of those five days, he expected me to sit at home and play nursemaid until he felt better. He was driving me insane!

“Ah, that’s the perks of being the grandparent, sweetie,” Nana smirked as she patted my cheek none too softly. “I can come over here and baby him, then take my old ass home. I’m not the one who’s stuck listening to him bitch and moan all night long.”

“Thanks for that,” I deadpanned.

“Yeah, well, welcome to married life,” she replied with a shrug before picking up her purse and heading for the door.

“Where are you going? You can’t spoil him then just take off on your merry way! You created a monster. Deal with him!”

Nana turned back around, mouth opened to say something when a shrill, tinny noise came echoing from upstairs.

What the
…

My eyes grew wide at the realization of what the sound was.

“You gave him a
bell
?” I shrieked as Nana’s face filled with laughter and a twisted smile spread across her lips.

“Ah, honey pot. I wouldn’t be a good grandmother if I didn’t delight in torturing you every now and then.”

I narrowed my eyes and glared down at her. “I’m talking to Mom about putting you in a home.”

“
Pfft
, child. I’d like to see you try. Remember where you got your fiery personality from.”

“It’ll be one of the ones that feed you nothing but oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, and make all the old people weave wicker baskets and knit doilies and shit so they can take them down to the flea market on the weekends and sell ‘em for fifty cents a pop. And when your hands grow too weak from spending too many days in the sweat shop disguised as “arts and crafts time”, they’ll wheel you in front of on old box TV to watch
Family Feud
all day until the sweet release of death comes and saves you from another miserable day of shitty Steve Harvey jokes and the uncontrollable flatulence of Old Man Buford who either can’t hear it, can’t feel it, or just doesn’t give a good goddamn anymore.”

As soon as I finished my rant, that stupid bell sounded from upstairs again. “Well then, I’ll be sure to tell Buford you said hello. Gotta go!” And with that, she bolted out the front door faster than a woman her age should be able to move.

When shooting daggers with my eyes didn’t cause the door to burst into flames, I gave up and started ascending the stairs to my bell-wielding husband.

“Hey!” he argued when I snatched the bell out of his hands. “That’s mine.”

“Trust me; it’s for your own good.” I shoved the bell into my back pocket and placed a hand on Trevor’s forehead. “How you feeling, honey?”

“A little better,” he answered, still sounding slightly congested. “You know, I read somewhere it’s been medically proven that sex has healing aspects.”

“And I think that head cold is making you delusional if you think that’s gonna happen,” I laughed.

“Come on,” he sulked. “It’ll make me feel better.” He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me to the bed. Luckily, he hadn’t gotten all of his strength back. “Get in here with me,” he coaxed, trying to give me one of his trademark sexy smirks. If his nose hadn’t been so red and his eyes weren’t watery, it might have worked. “Just climb on and stick it in,” he told me as he turned over onto his back and tried to push the covers past his waist.

I proceeded to pull the covers back up and tuck him in tightly. “Not happening, Casanova. But you get an A for effort.”

“You know, you’re shit with the whole bedside manner thing,” he grouched as he pulled the covers tighter around him.

“Good thing you love me
in
the bed more than beside it, huh?”

“This is true.” He sniffled before letting out a hacking cough. “I could really use a little TLC right now,” he said with a wiggle of his brows before poking his bottom lip out pathetically. “I’ll even say please.”

I leaned in and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “As tempting of an offer as that is, how about I just go get you some more cold meds?”

He burrowed his head deeper into the pillows. “You know, you’ve changed since I put a ring on it. You’re turning into a boring ol’ housewife.”

My head tipped back with laughter as I caught the corner of his mouth tip up in a smirk. “Boring ol’ housewife, huh? Well, there goes the blowjob I was planning on giving you once you got better.”

“I take it back!” he was quick to amend.

“How is it that men are the biggest babies when they’re sick, but they’ll still go out of their way to get laid?”

“It’s one of life’s great mysteries,” he said with a casual shrug. “We could be on our death bed and we’d still want you to ride us like a rodeo cowgirl.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said sarcastically as I started for the door. “I’m going to pick up some more medicine and soup. I’ll be back in a little bit. Love you.”

“I could die and you wouldn’t even care!” he called as I walked away.

Looking over my shoulder, I said, “That’s not true at all! You haven’t added me to your life insurance. Can’t bump ya off just yet.” I threw him a wink as I crossed the threshold, putting a little extra sway in my hips just to drive him crazy.

“Fucking woman’s gonna be the death of me,” I heard him groan as I headed for the stairs. Then he followed it up with, “Love you, too.”

I stood in the medicine aisle with a box in each hand as I read through the lists of ingredients and tried to decide which would be the best choice. Finally giving up, I tossed them both in my basket and turned to leave. I didn’t know much about drugs, but I felt pretty confident that giving Trevor both at one time wouldn’t kill him. Fingers crossed.

As I turned the corner, I heard someone calling my name. When I glanced back I saw Bad Date Number Twelve standing there. Or was he Bad Date Number Five? Shit, I couldn’t remember.

“Lizzy, this is a pleasant surprise,” he smiled.

“Hey….you.”

Cue mental facepalm.

“It’s Mark,” Bad Date Number Fill-in-the-Blank supplied when it became obvious I didn’t remember who he was.

“Yeah, Mark. I totally knew that,” I said with an uncomfortable laugh.

“So…” he started, aware of the sudden discomfort that floated around us. “How have you been?”

“Good! I’ve been good. You?” I reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

“I’ve been go—Holy shit!”

I spun around and tried to see what caused his outburst. “What? What happened?”

“You’re married?”

I looked back to Mark and followed his gaze down to the ring which sat on my left hand.

“Oh, uh…yeah.” Damn this store for being the hub of all things wonderful, where people came to wander aimlessly and leave hundreds of dollars later. If I didn’t love it so damn much I would boycott Target. But that just wasn’t possible. Honestly, who didn’t love Target? Expect more, pay less…? Uh, yes, please!

“Wow,” he said, still looking shell-shocked. “When did that happen? I mean congrats and everything, but we only went out like…”

“I know,” I interrupted before he could accuse me of anything unsavory. “It happened kind of fast. Totally unexpected, but
after
you and I had our date.”

“Well, congratulations again. At least internet dating paid off for one of us,” he laughed awkwardly.

“Oh, no! I didn’t meet him online. Trevor’s been a friend for a while.”

“Did you say Trevor?”

“Yeah, why?” I questioned at his strange expression.

“Trevor, as in the dude who called me before our date and told me you preferred to pay for your own meal because you were a hardcore feminist?”

Ah ha! So he was Bad Date Number Seven. And…
what?!

“I’m sorry?”

“Yeah,” the guy went on. “He said he was calling to give me some pointers so the date went well. Told me he did it for some of the other guys, too. He said you hadn’t had the best luck so he was trying to help you out.”

“He did?” I asked drily.

“Yep.”

“And he told you I was a hardcore feminist.” That wasn’t a question. I could totally believe something like that came out of Trevor’s mouth.