I smacked Lucah on the shoulder.
“Stop doing that. Stop trying to read my thoughts. It’s annoying and it’s getting to the point of pissing me off,” I said. I knew I was being a little mean, but my fuse was pretty damn short this week.
“Oh, Sunshine. I’m sorry. I know I need to cut you more slack. Stay here.” I watched as he went to my bathroom and started the water in the bathtub. A bath almost always helped. After going through the cabinets and under the sink, he told me he was going to check the guest room. No one else used this room, so the bathroom wasn’t stocked like it had been when I lived here. Then it had had at least four different kinds of bubble bath and Epsom salts. I really was a bath junkie.
Lucah came back a few minutes later with a bottle of the bubble bath from the guest room, along with an armful of candles.
“This should work,” he said, going to set everything up. He was my personal Bath Bitch. I told him that and he laughed so hard he had to hold onto the sink.
“I love how your sexy brain works.” Like always, he helped me undress and then placed me in the bath.
“Get in with me, I’m lonely,” I said, pouting. I was feeling bad for being a jerk to him. He’d put up with a lot this week and hadn’t complained one bit.
“Sure, Sunshine.” I scooted forward and put my back against the tub. He got in and faced me. I stretched my legs out and he took my feet in his hands. I got his and we both laughed.
“I didn’t think we were both going to fit, honestly,” I said. My tub wasn’t the biggest. Nothing compared to the tub we had at the apartment.
Lucah started working on my feet, so I figured I might as well work on his too. It was only fair.
“Do you… do you ever think about having a house? Not necessarily outside the city. There are really pretty townhouses. And Cambridge is really beautiful,” Lucah said.
“What is this sudden interest in houses? We have a perfectly good apartment,” I said casually.
“I know. I was just thinking about the future. Don’t you do that? Picture our lives ten years down the line?” Oh, God. In ten years I’d be almost thirty-five. That sounded very grown up. Very adult. Ten years also seemed like a long time.
“I guess. I’m a little concerned with the day-to-day right now.” I couldn’t even force my mind to go forward to after the wedding. It seemed like it was never actually going to happen, but here it was, less than two months away.
“Once again, I’m not putting pressure on you. Well, other than your feet.” He dug into a bit of a sore spot and I cringed.
“This is a completely pressure-free tub. Just tell me what you see. Off the top of your head. No thinking about it.” I opened my mouth to tell him that I needed time to think, but I guess that wasn’t the point.
What did I see?
“I see you and me and a little girl with red hair and a little boy with blonde hair. We have a house outside of the city with a yard and a dog and we go to the cabin in the summers and the science museum and the aquarium on the weekends and we’re still just as crazy about each other as we are right now.” I said it all in a rush, without thinking about the words. I let that sink in and then continued.
“And you still have Bluebird that we take driving on the weekends while Sloane and Ryder watch the kids.” I smiled and kept going. “We have a huge bathroom with a tub big enough to fit our entire family, plus the dog. I’m the strict one and you’re the fun parent. You sing them to sleep every night with your guitar and I pretend to be mad at you when you sneak them candy behind my back and tell them they don’t have to brush their teeth. Our house is messy and noisy, but it’s ours and we love it. Every time you call me ‘Sunshine’ my heart flutters, just like now. And I love you not just as my Lucah, but as the father of my children. That’s what I see.” He was absolutely silent for a few minutes. He just looked at me and I looked back at him. The bubbles popped around us and then he leaned forward and put his forehead against mine.
“I like what you see. I like your version. Let’s live that one.” I laughed once.
“Okay, deal.” Still, I was curious what his was.
“Well,” he said, sitting back. “There was more nudity in my version.” I scooped up a handful of bubbles and threw them at him. He sputtered and wiped his face.
“What? We have to get naked in order to make those children, so I was just thinking ahead, you know.” God save me from this horny redhead.
“You are such a perv. Your brain always goes to sex. You know you’re not going to be getting a whole lot after those kids show up, right?” He put both hands up.
“That’s why God invented babysitters. And grandparents. And aunts and uncles. So that parents can keep their sex lives going. That’s very a very important part of keeping a marriage alive, you know.” I wanted to splash him again. He really would use any excuse, wouldn’t he?
“I suppose. And there’s always naptime. And bed time.” His smile got wider.
“Now you get it,” he said. “I know I’m not the only one who loves sex.” No, he wasn’t. If Lucah wasn’t so good at it then it would be much easier to say no. But what would be the point? What good was love without great sex? Mmmm, sex. Sexy, dirty, delicious sex.
“I like our future,” he said, pinching one of my toes.
“Me, too.”
~*~*~