Before (After 5)

Emery sits down on the floor. Her basket rests on her crossed legs, and she’s scarfing down a handful of colorful jelly beans. I turn toward Tessa and Auden. He’s in her arms with his arms wrapped around her neck. In her arms he looks almost as big as his mum. I have no fucking idea where the time has gone or how I—a fucked-up rebellious little shit—produced such empathetic and calm children.

I mean, Emery has had her share of tantrums, sure. Like when she threw a plant into a wall. But that wasn’t hard to deal with: I took her door off the hinges. I don’t fucking play that spoiled-child anger bullshit. She doesn’t have anything to be angry about at eleven, not the way I did. She has two parents who love her and are always here.

Really, they are both great kids.

Tessa and I are always here for both of our kids. They’ve never gone without a hug, kiss, and at least two mushy I love yous before the end of each day. Emery gets some of the trendy stuff that circulates as social currency among the popular kids at school. I never want my kids to be like I was, the kid with the holes in his shoes. I want them to know how it feels to want things like toys and then teach them a way to earn them, by doing simple things like hugs and kisses on the cheek and encouragement, which are never going to be scarce around here. We decided that the moment they were born. I wasn’t going to be like my father, either one of them. I was going to raise children who knew they were loved, never having to guess or assume that they were alone in the world. The world is too big to be alone in, especially for two little Scotts.

I stopped the pattern of piss-poor dads right in its tracks before I could ruin two little lives.

Within an hour, Emery is passed out, one leg sticking straight up on the back of the couch and one arm dangling over the side. Auden is on his favorite couch that, while supposedly “miniature,” takes up too much space but that Tessa brought home over my protestations anyway. The couch came complete with a nice overpriced ottoman, which also takes up too much space for a Brooklyn living room. I was overruled in the furniture discussion, so here I am staring at my six-year-old, who’s sprawled out in a candy coma with traces of chocolate still smeared on his square little chin. He’s got more of me than his mum in him.

“Look how sweet they are,” Tessa says from behind me. When I face her, she looks exhausted; her eyes are cloudy and her skin is slightly pale.

I touch my lips to her cheeks, hoping to kiss some of the color back into them. She sighs, and I feel her hands rest on my stomach.

“What do you plan on doing during this nap time?” I ask her. She always manages to use every valuable minute of the kids’ nap time—which has been getting shorter and shorter—for productive things. She’s too busy, that woman, but she doesn’t listen to shit I say, so there’s nothing to be done here.

I watch as she mentally checks items off her list. “Well,” she says slowly, then begins spouting off things like “call Fee about the cake” and “get Posey to double-check those bouquets” and something else I don’t hear when I bring my hand to the front of her loose pants. She eyes me carefully as I tug at the drawstring and dip my fingers into her panties.

“Don’t distract me,” she complains, but pushes her body toward me, making me apply more pressure.

“You’re working too much,” I tell her for the thirtieth time this week. She rolls her eyes for the thirty-first.

She grabs my free wrist and lifts my hand to her chest. “Says the man who doesn’t sleep for days when he has a deadline.”

She’s open to being distracted by me today, a little different than usual, but I’ll sure as hell take it. I palm her roughly and watch as her tits push up to her neck and back down. She whines, whimpering for more of me. I’ll give it to her.

Grabbing her hand, I lead her down the hallway. She walks quickly, anxious to get to our room. The moment we step through the doorway, Tessa slams the heavy thing, nearly knocking loose a giant framed painting of the kids from the wall. When she’d first proposed getting it done, I found it creepy, but Tessa loved the idea of having an image of them the size of a damn billboard in here. The only part of this I had a say in was that it be placed on the opposite side of the room from our bed. No way am I staring at an abstract neon-painted version of my children while fucking my wife. No fucking way.

“Come here,” I tell her, beckoning her to my lap. I’m sitting on the edge of our king-size bed. We shared a bed with both of our children sporadically over the last few months. Auden went through a nightmare phase, one where I kept myself awake at night wondering if this was something he had inherited from me. Emery followed suit, being jealous of her younger brother, and came asking in whispers for protection from her “bad dreams,” which I knew wasn’t true. She was wiping her eyes like she was six again and everything.

Both of them lay between us.

It was awesome, let me tell you.

“Hardin?” Tessa’s voice is soft, raspy, and her eyes are on mine. “What are you thinking about?” she asks. Her fingers trail up and down my stomach, her nails gently scratching at my skin.

“The kids and when they used to sleep in our bed.” I shrug, smiling at her.

“That’s awkward,” she says with a shake of her head. But a smile peeps through her lip.

“It’s only awkward because it’s me who’s distracted instead of you this time, my darling.”

I tease her hardened nipples, and she moans. I lift her shirt over her head. It drops to the floor, and she shakes her hair back, making her look wild, red cheeks and pink lips. Wild blond hair and hungry eyes. I reach out, tracing my finger over the lining of her black lace bra. This woman wears the sexiest lace bras. I dip under the material and tug at her nipples. “Lie down, baby,” I instruct. She drops her pants and panties, kicking them to the floor, and lies back on the bed. She reaches for a pillow and tucks it under her head. Her eyes tell me exactly what she wants: she wants me to go down on her. It’s her favorite lately.

She’s tired, worn down, and her feet hurt, so she simply wants to be pampered. This will be reciprocated, of course—my woman returns the favor, taking my cock down her throat on mornings when the kids let us sleep past 7 a.m. Tessa lifts her legs up, bends them, and opens her thighs wide directly in front of me. I bite down on my lip, trying to squash a groan before it falls from my lips.