Page 22 of At Last

7.

Caitlin

With Jade in my arms, I walk over to a booth covered in brown butcher paper for a tablecloth. Two white squeeze bottles of a red, tomato-based barbeque sauce and one white squeeze bottle of a vinegar-based barbeque sauce, a squeeze bottle of specifically Heinz yellow mustard, Heinz ketchup, salt and pepper shakers, and a napkin dispenser sit at the end of the table closest to the wall.

Jade begins to rearrange all the bottles, giving them voices as if playing with dolls until Duke shows up at the table with a tray of white Styrofoam to-go boxes and three paper cups, two large and one small, all with plastic lids and straws. He sets the small one in front of Jade, a large one in front of me, and a large one across the table from me.

Then he opens up the first box, handing it off to me. The second, he sets in his spot, and the third, he opens and sets in front of my daughter. Each to-go box has a plastic fork and knife rolled in a white, paper napkin inside, resting on top of the least messy entrée.

Duke glides into his spot and immediately digs in to his meal.

The linoleum has cracks. The dingy walls could have used a new paint job about ten years ago, but hands down, my new man has brought us to the best barbeque I’ve ever eaten in my life.

And he watches my mouth chew and swallow every bite I take. It’s as unnerving as it is sensual. With each of his bites, sauce clings to his overly shaggy mustache and some drips onto his goatee, saucing some of the silver hairs red. Far from what should be considered sexy, I can’t help the urge to lick every drop off his face. But as my little girl is here, that urge gets checked pretty quickly. I’m doomed with this man if I’m finding his messy beard sexy. It’s sauce. Sauce isn’t sexy.

After I ball up my napkin and toss it in the box, he collects all our trash to throw away, and we leave to take on Nashville.

We drink in every family-friendly sight Nashville has to offer. The Adventure Science Center. I thought we were going to have to take up residence in one of the interactive exhibits the way Jade fought us leaving, which she only relented because Duke whispered something in her ear. What he whispered quickly became apparent when he led us to the largest candy store I’d ever laid eyes on. It putWilly Wonkato shame. And my daughter reacted like, well, like a kid in a candy store. Duke was next to her the entire time, her partner in crime, filling bag after bag.

They got candy, I got coffee. Eventually. After we walked off our food truck dinners, we made our way to the Starbucks for Frappuccinos. The icy drink went down smooth, a nice reprieve from the Tennessee heat. Though Duke is a badass, manly biker, and apparently manly bikers don’t drink cold coffee drinks, as I found when he ordered his Grande Americano. At my eyebrow raise, he shook his head and uttered one word. “No.”

Pit stop over, we took on Nashville again.

The lights of the city brighten the streets. The sky has purpled from the sun setting. We stop, I think our last stop of the day, in front of a street corner cowboy crooning out a country song, just him and his guitar. I’m not much for country music, but the guy has talent… and then there’s the ambiance.

Jade has her arms wrapped around Duke’s thigh, leaning into it. And he has a hand resting on her shoulder. He drapes his other arm around my shoulders, and pulls me close, dropping a kiss to my temple.

Tucked in his arms, we look like a family. I feel like a family. Aiden never made us feel like a family. I guess because he’d already started up with the woman from Australia. He never wanted to go on any family adventures, and rarely went with us for the obligatory ‘he’s her father so he should be there’ appointments. But here’s Duke, not her father, treating us as a family. The kind of family I always wanted for my daughter.

Those are exactly the kinds of thoughts I shouldn’t be having so early on with the man. I’m torn. Torn because I have to look out for Jade, but I don’t want to alienate Duke if this really turns out to be something between us.

It’s time to get going back home when Jade begins to drag her feet every step. Duke, who’s been holding her hand the whole way, scoops her up into his arms, and grabbing a hold of my hand, tows me behind him.

We don’t head back to the parking lot where he’d parked the truck. Instead, he walks us down to the crosswalk to cross the major thoroughfare, and back up the sidewalk to a towering, semi-fancy hotel, pushing me through the automatic double doors, then right up to the reception desk where he pulls a credit card from his wallet—connected to his belt loop by a thick chain—to buy us a room for the night.

Duke stops in the gift shop to buy Jade a little Nashville nightgown, pink with a Stetson hat and an acoustic guitar on the front, and I add a package of pink, princess pull-ups. Jade can be a hard sleeper when she’s really exhausted, and with all the walking we’ve done today, she’s exhausted. Which means as a precaution, she wears the pull-up.

Up the elevator lined with rich, dark wood and forest green-gold thick-striped paper, we stop on the fifth floor, turning left from where we’ve stepped off. And we move down a hallway, again of rich, dark wood. But the walls had been papered in a gold with pinstripes of forest green. Gold sconces for the light fixtures, gold kick plates on every door along with gold door handles.

Seven rooms down from the elevator, we reach ours. Duke swipes the key card. The light flashes green, and he pushes open the door to an amazing hotel room. Unlike the greens and golds of the hallway and elevator, we’re met with lush creams and copper along with the dark wood. Only one bed, a king. But the room has a pullout sofa. Which after locking up, I walk over to pull out, tossing the cushions on the floor in front of a circular, dark wood table holding a lamp and the obligatory hotel room service menu.

He lays Jade down on the mattress. I remove her clothing, drape her nightgown down over her body, where the hem hangs to her little calves, and then help her out of her star panties and into a pull-up.

Once I tuck my girl in, I lay down next to her. Jade is out before her head hits the pillow. Right as I close my eyes, I feel myself being lifted and open them back up to see Duke’s stunning silver-gray eyes meeting mine. He carries me to the big bed where he drops me and proceeds to strip my shorts down my legs.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-yell.

“Getting you naked,” he grumble-whispers as if the idea should have been common knowledge.

“I can’t get naked with you here.” Being a mom, I’ve mastered the whisper. This being a panicked whisper. “She’s in the room with us.”

“She’s sound asleep, Doc. Ain’t nothing waking her up.” He’s probably right, but I can’t tell him that because it will only encourage him to strip me more.

“We can’t here.”

“Honey, I need to taste you again. Need it.”

Oh damn. I want him to do that, too. What that man did to me in my living room was nothing short of magical. My magic man. “Let’s go in the bathroom.” I offer as an alternative.

---