Page 11 of Trading Up
“Mommy! I thought you said we had to- to, um, work hard to put our stuff away,” Carter said when he spotted me standing in the doorway, taking in his room. It was done up in superheroes. Superhero sheets, decals on the walls, and anAvengers rug on the floor by his bed. Tears were in my eyes. This wasn’t what I had planned for the day. Tears filled my eyes as I watched my boys playing.
“I know. Just be careful, okay, Carter? Mav? No jumping off the top bunk!” I gave my best stern face I could, but with watery eyes and a happy heart, I looked into Mav’s room. It was decorated with dinosaurs from wall to wall. He had bunk beds, but the ladder wasn’t in his room. Tears were streaming down my face when I heard him.
“Sarah? Boys?”
Row. I stepped out of my little guy's room, walking, then moving faster. It was like my feet were propelling me forward. When I saw him, I threw myself at him. Arms wrapping around his neck, his arms wrapping around my waist, tears staining his shirt, as I tried to thank him, to tell him how much I appreciated him. It was incredible. I wasn’t prepared for this, nor was I expecting it.
“Row! Unc!” the boys shouted, coming and hugging both of us.
“Mommy? Why you crying?” Mav asked me, his voice sounding scared, like he wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
“I think Mama’s cryin’ cause she’s happy, boys. This is your new home, and it had some surprises Mama wasn’t ready for. You wanna help me show her what her room looks like?”
“Yeah!” Their little voices cheered, racing back down the hallway. Row held me for a few more seconds until I could get myself under control, and then led me down the hallways to the most beautiful bedroom I’d ever seen. It was light, it wasn’t cluttered, it was airy, and I felt like I could breathe. There were fresh flowers on my dresser, my favorite beige, fuzzy throw tossed over the corner of the end of my bed.
“You did this?” I turned, looking at him. The earthy tones of the room, the natural wood, the sun coming in, the modern twists, but keeping the understated. I didn’t know how the hell he’d managed it, but he did. This was my Pinterest dream bedroom. When I met his gaze, it was heated, intense, sincere, like what he was about to tell me was the most important thing he’d ever tell me.
“I’d do anything for you.” He didn’t move his gaze, but he held mine, like a lifeline, like he was sharing the secrets he’d kept locked tightly inside the vault of his heart.
“All three of you.”
N I N E: Like We Used To
Deveraux’s POV
“I now realize that, finally, after all these years, I have a chance to win your heart and have you see me as more than just your best friend. But I need you to be ready for me. Because once I come for you, Sarah, I’m not going to stop until you tell me to. I will pursue you to the ends of the earth. I love you. And the boys. You’re a package deal, and I want it.” I stroked her cheek one more time before I moved back.
I knew this was a dream. Again. The same dream I’d been having about that night we had our first kiss, and I wanted to stay lost in that moment. That moment where she wanted me, craved me, in ways she hadn’t ever done before. I’d wanted this moment for fifteen years, but I knew she wasn’t ready for me. It was my favorite bittersweet dream. I knew she was hurting and seeking comfort. I was familiar. I was someone who hadalwaysbeen there. I was theoneconsistent in this life of hers. I was the one person who hadn’t let her down or left her ever, even when things were hard.
I woke drenched in sweat and the morning sun. I looked around my room. I scrubbed a hand down my face, knowing that something had gone wrong. Still. I wanted this. I wanted her. I wanted the boys. I never wanted to watch her with another man. Now that she was single, though, I never wanted her to think I would stand by and let that bullshit happen again. It only happened last time because I was in culinary school, working toward our forever I’d planned in my head, without ever having the balls to discuss it with her. Stretching, I tried hard to stay in the memory, the dream.
The place where we weremore.
I got up and went through my regular routine. I had to hurry through the crew meetings at the restaurants that day. I had places to be, and that included a stop at the store to buy all the little last-minute shit I needed for her apartment. I wanted to unpack her belongings and get her place exactly how she dreamed. I wanted to let her relax through this next huge milestone, one I know she never saw coming, but I wanted her to know that I saw her. After breakfast and a quick trip to the store, I used the spare key she gave me to let myself in. I set everything down, looking at the boxes stacked around the living room.
I smiled, taking a huge breath. I smirked, feeling good about what I had planned.
Hours later, as I finished putting the decals on the walls of Mavrick’s new room in the apartment, I thought about it. That night. The one I always dreamed of, got lost in, bathed in. It had been a few months since that kiss, and it was all I could think about. The way her lips tasted, so soft and smooth. The way her body melted into mine, giving in to me, the way she fit like the last piece of my puzzle. I needed her to be sure. I needed her to know that I was what she wanted because she wasallI wanted. And if she picked me without being ready…I didn’t want to think about that.
It was hard to be away from her now.Now that I know these new things about her.It was hard to know she was living with him until tomorrow.Because what if he wanted her back, and more importantly, what if she agreed?It was hell knowing she was sleeping in the same house as that epic fuck up.What if he tried something with her? What if she wanted him?
I hated that she was still there, but her petty little self was loving his reactions to everything she’d done, sending me updates. It started with the milk in the car. She had to wait for weeks for that one to come to fruition, but she called me laughing so hard one day, telling me he demanded she makean appointment to get the car detailed because he thought something died in there. She politely told him fuck no, that she didn’t have time, and she didn’t make his appointments for him because she wasn’t hispersonal assistant. She said he flinched, hard, when she said that. The pause in conversation was too long to not be awkward.
When the pamphlets and magazines started showing up in the mail, at work, and home, he was pissed, cussing all the time, saying he’d been calling these companies and he didn’t know why they kept sending him mail and packages, and calling him. She said he came home one day screaming into his phone that he never purchased the subscription and he wanted off the list, along with some very colorful words. She hurried the kids into the backyard to play, laughing her ass off every time one of those started.
I had heard rumors that some of the religious institutions she sent his information to would follow you for life, and I couldn’t help but love the message she was sending in the subtle, petty way she had about her when you pissed her off. She was like a hornet; fine if you left her alone most of the time, but once you poked her, she attacked.
Then there were the phone calls that started not too long after the pamphlets, packages, flyers, monthly newsletters, and whatever else they offered. The phone calls kicked things up a notch for him. She said he seemed to be on edge all the time. It was giving her more cause to distance herself and the children from him and his erratic behavior.
Insurance agents were always eager beavers to get a sale, any sale, no matter how many times they had to call. Car, life, health, home, pet, it didn’t matter, and all for both personal and business-related, she signed him up for both on whichever she could. The greedy fuckers. They hustled hard, every day, evenmonths after they “took you off the list”. Somehow, you were alwaysmysteriouslybeing cycled through their listagain.
I loved how petty she could be. It was beautiful, and I swear I wanted to call her Karma sometimes. I had her in my phone as My Karma. Because what goes around comes around. All the love I poured into her, her children, our friendship, everything…it would all come back around. But when it came to being petty, she put my mom and my aunties to shame. Because the woman was as petty as petty could get. She could be downright diabolical, a true Petty Crocker. The woman was a mastermind at doing thingsjustto piss you off or make you think you were losing it. She had mentioned possibly moving everything over just an inch or two before she and the boys left the house. She wanted to fuck with him just enough for him to think he was going crazy.
“Could piss him off enough that he agrees to my terms in the divorce,” she said one afternoon when she and the boys were visiting.
I moved down the hallway, thinking of how she’d be living here in a matter of hours. I took the boxes from Maverick and Carter’s rooms and broke them down in the kitchen, stacking them on the huge pile that had started with the ones in the living room. I called Derrick my interior design friend. I wanted to do the decorations in the house exactly how she wanted them, but I was going to need help. Hell, he did the decorating for my apartment.
But their rooms? I had to do those myself. I had to pour my love into making those perfect because I wanted her to feel my sincerity. I wanted her to be as consumed by me as I was by her; I wanted her to drown in the love I poured into these rooms like I drowned in her very essence, every day. I hoped one day I’d be able to happily drown in her and those boys every day. I wanted them. Forever.
