The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured.
“I accidentally went fast when I tied you up,” she reminded him.
Accidentally?
Coert fought back laughter and ran his finger along her jaw.
“I’m not accidentally gonna do anything when you’re tied up,” he replied.
“Are you gonna kiss me?” she whispered, her eyes drifting to his mouth.
“Oh yeah,” he whispered back.
He ran his finger down her throat to his diamond that was resting in the dent at the base.
Always resting there.
She never took it off.
She got up on her toes and he edged back.
Her gaze lifted to his.
“Like . . . now?” she pushed softly.
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, trailing his finger along the slanted neckline of her dress.
“Coert,” she begged.
“Do you know how much I love you?” he asked.
Finally, she touched him, her hands coming to the sides of his waist, her fingers digging in.
“I love you the most,” she said as answer.
He flattened his hand against her chest, stroked it up and caught her behind the neck.
Cady gasped.
“Not even close,” he growled.
And then he kissed her.
Cady’s green dress was still on the kitchen floor the next morning.
The black silk scarves were also still tied to the headboard.
And it’s important to note, regardless of the overwhelming incentive to do otherwise . . .
Coert went slow.
Be Happy
Cady
Present day . . .
“WHAT THE FUCK?”
I couldn’t help but giggle.
Coert looked at me but jerked a head to the carnage that had just happened on my TV screen. “That’s funny?”
No one on earth would describe the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones as funny.
But Coert’s response to it was.
He looked back at the TV. “Why are we watching this again?”
“Because it’s brilliant,” I told him.
He looked at me. “Everybody dies.”
“Weeeeellll,” I drew it out. “You won’t get this yet but it’s worth sticking with it. One word. Ramsay.”
“Do I wanna know?” he asked.
“It’s a long row to hoe but the harvest is pretty sweet,” I shared.
My phone binged with a text and I looked down at it as Coert scowled his way through the credits after the bloodbath of the Red Wedding.
Thanks, Auntie Cady, but I have something going on that weekend. Tell Coert and Janie I said hi!
I frowned at my phone.
“Let it go,” Coert ordered.
I frowned at him.
His eyes dropped to my frown and then came back up. “What happened to Switzerland?”
“I’m completely Switzerland,” I declared.
“This is the third weekend in a row you’ve pushed her to come up here, Cady. She just left a month ago.”
“A month is a long time. Long enough of it to pass for her to come up for another visit.”
“No. It’s long enough of it for you to remind Elijah who his one is since he’s still going out with that woman you disapprove of, not to mention, this is the third invite in three weeks, pushing for a visit from Verity,” Coert retorted, then concluded, “That’s not Switzerland.”
“That girl’s not right for him,” I declared, looking back at the TV.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
She was not Verity.
Obviously, that wasn’t the answer I gave Coert.
“She’s grasping,” I stated.
“How’s that?”
I looked to Coert. “He told me she asked him to see if I’d let him move into the studio. She had one date with him before Christmas and Verity happened in between. But they haven’t even been dating a month and she’s asking him to move to a nicer place?”
“The apartment over the garage is essentially one room. It’s a huge room and when he and I tossed some back while watching the game a couple weeks ago I saw it was a nice room. A really nice room. With a freaking killer view. But it’s not as nice or big as the studio.”
“Elijah needs a new truck and he’s saving. Walt told me what rent I could get on that garage apartment and it’s more than Elijah pays because he removes snow and helped us take down the Christmas decorations that he also helped put up, and he’s going to mow the grass in the summer. But I also know the rent I could get on that studio, and I can’t cut him a deal that would let him save up for a truck that would be a deal that wouldn’t be a hit to his manhood. He’s trying to get his life in order, including his financial situation, which is somewhat dire because he spoiled his last girlfriend rotten since she was also grasping and only kicked him out when he had to put his foot down that he couldn’t carry on giving them a lifestyle he couldn’t afford and she didn’t contribute to. He doesn’t need another woman giving it another hit.”
I knew Coert saw my point when he looked back at the TV.
I looked back to my phone right when Coert’s binged, stating, “We share the same birthday. I’m asking her up for then so we can have a big celebration.”
“Uh, no you aren’t.”
Coert had his phone in hand but his attention was on me.
“I’m not?”
He fell slightly to the side toward me on my big, round sectional.
I liked watching TV at Coert’s. I especially liked doing it when Janie was around watching with us, or not and just coloring.
But I liked it more that Coert was giving me my lighthouse for the time I could have it by spending the night with me most nights when he didn’t have Janie after the men and kids left (including spending the night when the girls were there—after the rest left, everyone had a bed because Shannon and Kath didn’t mind sharing since Shannon and Kath didn’t mind staying up until the wee hours talking about everything under the sun).
And I especially, especially liked cuddling with him on my big round sectional in front of the TV.
I missed Elijah, who came over for dinner and to lounge when Coert and I were giving Janie a break from me (though, lately, most of the time Elijah was spending with this new girl, something I did not like).
But living life with Coert doing things like making him catch up on Game of Thrones and snuggling on my couch (or his when Janie was asleep and before I left to come home) I adored.
We just . . . were.
Life just . . . was.
After the drama of us coming back together again, it was like the nearly two decades in between melted away.
It was beautiful.
“Baby, my first birthday with you since we’re back . . . I like Verity. I want the opportunity to get to know her better. More, I wanna see her with my own eyes and make sure she’s okay because she didn’t leave here in a good state. But I want all of that birthday action for myself.”
And hearing that, he was going to get all that action to himself.
It had all fallen apart after I’d shared my birthday with Coert years ago, and I would look back at that day and see it for how it was, something I didn’t see when it was happening.
This being Coert’s bad mood that he tried to hide, which I knew after the fact was because he couldn’t allow himself to buy me a present (though he went out of his way with a big store-bought cake with lots of icing flowers and he made me a big dinner after he made sure I took the whole day off, the rest of it when he wasn’t cooking we spent in bed).
It was still the best birthday of my life.
And it was the best present I could ever have just to get it back again.
I slid closer to him and put my hand on his chest. “I want this birthday to be just like the last one we had together.”
He grinned. “I’ll schedule a day off when I get to the station tomorrow.”
“Just
A shadow clouded his features before he forced it clear.
Oh yes, he’d wanted to buy me a present.
I pressed into his chest. “Running to catch up doesn’t mean that. It isn’t about presents. Running to catch up is about this.” I threw an arm out to indicate Game of Thrones.
He raised a brow. “Marathon watching a fantasy show where everyone you like bites it?”
I grinned at him. “Yes. Precisely. Everyday stuff that just is. Being just us. Having just what we should have had.”
“I should have been able to buy you a present that birthday, Cady.”
I shook my head. “But don’t you see? Having you do something special meant more to me. And it’s my birthday so I should get what I want.”
He stared in my eyes, looked at my mouth, covered my hand on his chest with his and curled his fingers around before he looked back into my eyes.
“It’s your birthday, you’ll get what you want, honey,” he said softly.
I grinned again.
Then something occurred to me.
“But I get to buy you a present.”
He burst out laughing, which nearly drowned out the second bing of his phone reminding him he had a text.
He also wrapped his arms around me and settled back, taking me with him.
I curled my arms around him as he muttered, “Why am I not surprised she’s trying to pull a fast one?”
“I learned your birthdate from a private investigator’s report,” I told his chest.
His arms convulsed and the humor in the room slid away.
“I missed it again last year,” I went on. “October.”
“Cady.”
“You got one. I was with you during the one I had with you and you didn’t tell me I had that because you couldn’t. You got to make the tradition for me. So I’m calling it. I get to make mine for you.”
He didn’t fight it.
But I was learning that about Coert (or remembering).
If I wanted it badly and he sensed that, Coert rarely fought anything.
“You gonna make me pie?” he asked instead.
“Yes.”
“Stick candles in that thing?”
He was ruining my plans by guessing them!
“Maybe.”
“You best quit making Janie and me pies all the time then, Cady. It won’t be special.”
I tipped my head back and saw his chin dipped to catch my eyes.
“It’ll be special.”
His eyes warmed with sadness and nostalgia and gratitude before he gave me a light kiss and pulled away.
He looked back to the TV. “We got a deal. Now you wanna queue up another hour of torture or are you gonna give me a break with this?”
“You really don’t like it?”
He returned his attention to me. “It’s brilliant.”
“You’re teasing,” I surmised.
“Was a fan of Robb’s, a big fan of Cat’s,” he shared, referring to characters on Game of Thrones, “so that wasn’t all that fun. Your buttons, though, since Mike’s gone, need pushing or they’ll get stuck in the off position.”
I lifted my chin and ignored Coert’s lips twitching when he caught it.
“I love Mike but I do not miss his button pushing,” I informed him.
“I’m just glad my girl got herself some real older brothers who give her shit in their different ways because they love her, not the asshole she had who treated her like shit because he was an asshole.”
I relaxed into him. “I’m pretty glad about that too.”
And I wasn’t more glad he was glad but I was pretty ecstatic about that as well.
Unfortunately, Coert kept speaking.
“And it’s good to understand it was them who drove her to be the screaming feminist she’s become.”
I tensed against him. “I’m not a screaming feminist. It’s that you’re a bossy, domineering chauvinist and it’s my duty to point that out.”
“Jesus,” he said through a grin, “you don’t even see it coming.”
It was maddening, but I actually made a harrumph sound when I turned my attention to finding the remote in order to queue up the next episode of GoT.
Coert lifted his phone while I located it and aimed it at the TV, but I didn’t go to the next episode when I heard Coert mutter a rather annoyed, “Fuck.”
I looked to him. “What?”
“Kim,” he stated.
Kim?
“What?” I repeated.
He took his arm from around me in order to stab irately at his phone and I heard a text whoosh before he focused on me.
“I told her that next week when I have Janie back we’d be doing our first sleepover with you. It’s important to note I told her this. I didn’t ask her if it’s okay. But she took it like that,” he stated then turned his phone to me.
I read Kim’s text of, Sorry, Coert. This is too soon. And it’s too much too fast. I hate to say this but I really can’t allow it.
I also saw Coert’s very recent response of, I wasn’t asking.
“Maybe you should have taken a breath before you responded,” I suggested carefully.
I didn’t like the look in his eyes when he replied, “And so it begins.”
“Coert—”
“I know her, Cady, and this is a sign that she’s starting her shit back up again. Janie loves you. I had that callout last week and left you two together and all she could talk about the next day was how you ditched dinner and ate snack food and watched Beauty and the Beast, and you didn’t care that she made you watch it twice, back to back. She’s down with this. She’s ready. The doctor says you’re good. We have time to make a baby. But we don’t have a decade. Things need to move. And I told Kim about it as a courtesy. I don’t tell her what can and can’t happen at her house. She can’t tell me what can and can’t happen at mine.”
“And if she had a man in her life and had him stay over?” I asked cautiously.
“If she knew him a day, a week, a month . . . no, I would not be down with that. That said, I know she loves our daughter so I might not be down with it but I’d have no choice but to trust her to make the right decision. And bottom line, our lives are separate so I don’t get a say in how she lives hers unless she’s making stupid decisions that I know are gonna affect my kid. This is more, though. She knows our story. You aren’t some woman I’m getting to know. You’re Cady. The future is not in question. The future is set. She knows that too. But she’s big on control. I haven’t seen it in a while but this is not unfamiliar territory. I learned the hard way you don’t give an inch because Kim won’t take a mile. She’ll go for a hundred of them.”
“You have experience with this but even so, what would it hurt to, say, maybe give her a couple more weeks? Offer a compromise?”
He turned into me and replied instantly, “It hurts every day I wake up without you beside me. Yeah, I know now I’ll get you back but I lost that for too long and I don’t like it for even a day, much less every other week. If it was just me, I’d have asked you to move in the night we got back together. It isn’t just me. I’ve been seeing to my daughter. And the time is right. You’re not moving in. One sleepover next week. Maybe two the next time she’s with me. And then we’ll see about more and taking that to permanently. But Kim doesn’t make that call. We do.”
“I think perhaps we need to set a precedent with her that we’re all in this together . . . for Janie.”
“I see where you want this to go for Janie, Cady, but that isn’t Kim. If she’s backsliding and not genuinely . . .” he trailed off because his phone binged.
He looked at it and turned it to me.
It said, Uncool.
And as I read that, another bubble popped up with, We come to mutual decisions about these things. Your actions affect more than just Janie, Coert.
He looked at his phone and muttered, “I don’t have to
He then started stabbing his phone with his finger again.
“Coert, I really think you should take a second to consider your response before you reply to her,” I cautioned as I watched Coert type out, Give me one good reason.
He hesitated.
I looked at him.
“You think I deserve one good reason?” he asked.
To be honest, I actually did.
So I bit my lip and nodded.
He turned his attention back to the phone and I heard the whoosh.
I stared at his phone, worried.
I didn’t know what Coert was doing but I could feel he wasn’t worried. I could feel he was still annoyed.
Kim didn’t immediately reply.
I turned my eyes to Coert. “Do you want me to get you another beer?”
Before he could answer, his phone binged.
We both looked at it.
I haven’t even met her yet.
“I hesitate to say . . .” I said hesitantly. “But that’s a good reason.”
“You up to meet Kim?” Coert asked.
Actually, no.
I wanted to like her because, until now (and she did have a good reason for now), she’d been great.
From afar.
It was exceptionally difficult to factor out the beauty of Janie, but regardless, what she’d done not only trying to trap Coert (and succeeding in doing that in a way she was still in his life, in that room, controlling his emotions at that moment) but also learning she’d attempted to use Janie as a weapon against him to get what she wanted was not conducive to me being objective about Janie’s mother.
But this was it. This was life. This was us in the form of “us” being more than just Coert and me.
So I had to.
“Yes,” I answered.
Coert turned back to his phone.
I did too and watched him type in, Lunch, any day this week. Weatherby’s. Your call. We’ll see you there.
He hit send and then he said, “Now I can use a beer but I’ll get it.”
A soft whoop signaled she’d immediately texted back and both of us looked at it.
Just her and me.
I wasn’t a big fan of the “her” when “Cady” would have been nicer, and the use of “her” slightly worried me, but I wasn’t going to point that out.