Page 56 of It's Going to Be a Chrome Christmas
“Damn condoms are all the way over there.”
Trixie burst out laughing before jumping off him to grab a handful.
Now that the dam was broken, Cayden couldn’t stop telling Trixie that he loved her. He woke her up Saturday morning by making sweet love to her. She shattered in his arms, shouting his name. He attempted breakfast in bed, but the eggs turned out worse than the steaks. He ended up offering her Pop-Tarts on a plate.
Around lunch, they took a walk around the neighborhood so he could get his bearings. There was something so simply domesticated about walking down a sidewalk hand-in-hand with his girl. Their lunch was boxed macaroni and cheese.
“We’re going to have to take cooking lessons or something,” Trixie informed him as she licked her spoon. “I have a feeling our neighbors are going to see a lot of delivery vehicles otherwise.”
“Mrs. Wynn’s been trying to teach me,” he confessed. “I’m not very good at it. Mostly I chop or dice as directed and she combines everything together.” He gestured to the two-door fridge. “Just think how many pizza boxes we can stash in there.”
They wandered upstairs after lunch. Trixie showed him her childhood bedroom, the one she’d shared with AJ until she was eight. She’d explained that the den on the first floor had been her father’s bedroom. Lee and Marco had shared the one room with AJ and Trixie in the other. After Lee had left for boot camp, AJ had moved in with Marco. One by one, herhermanoshad moved out of the house. Zyn had then moved upstairs.
Even though she’d moved out after she’d turned eighteen, her bedroom still housed most of her childhood items. Cayden wasn’t surprised in the least to find car posters instead of boy bands or Hello Kitty adorning Trixie’s walls.
“We need to decide what we want to do with these rooms.”
Cayden turned towards her. She was hovering by the open door. “We don’t need to decide right now. We can leave them as is.” He shrugged. “Maybe redoing these rooms can be a winter project.” She nodded, but he caught the pain in her eyes. Cayden approached, gripping her forearms. “What is it?”
Her lips tightened. “It was easier to redo downstairs. Up here, though…” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door that had been her brothers’ and then father’s bedroom. “It’s a bit harder, I guess. I didn’t expect that.”
“Well,” he rubbed her arms up and down, “unless a condom breaks, we shouldn’t need a nursery for a couple of years at least. There’s no rush.”
He was gifted with her sly smile. “A condom breaking? That’s the best you can do?”
“Would you rather I ‘forget’,” he made air quotes, “to put one on?”
She slapped him upside the head. “No.” She scrunched her face in thought. “You are right, though. There’s no rush to get these rooms done. With just the two of us, we don’t need the room.”
Not wanting to subject her to more memories, Cayden took her back downstairs. They popped some popcorn and watched a movie in the den. For dinner, they boiled hot dogs on the stovetop and microwaved some baked beans. Thankfully, they were both masters of the microwave and knew not to put the metal can in the appliance. It was a simple meal, but one they were quite proud not to have messed up.
Plus, he greatly enjoyed the sight of her eating a hot dog. Noticing he was staring at her, she asked with her mouth full, “What?”
In place of an answer, Cayden ended up making love to her on the kitchen table. He’d luckily had a condom in his pocket. He was going to have to start stashing them strategically around the house. He had plans to take her in every room. Well, maybe not the ones upstairs. At least, not yet.
They accidently knocked the bowl of baked beans over, splattering them both. Cayden carried her to the shower in their bedroom, loving the fact that it wastheirs. He’d never shared anything like a bedroom before with anyone—not including his jail cell. That one hadn’t been by choice, so he didn’t count it.
He’d had to run out of the shower soaking wet to grab another condom and then rush back to her. They were laughing as he took her against the wall, the hot water spraying down on top of them.
Too hyped up on the exhilarating bliss of their coupling, they decided to grab the tub of Rocky Road Trixie had in the freezer and two spoons. They curled up on the couch in the den. Trixie’s long legs lay over his as they passed the ice cream tub betweenthem. The TV was on, but they kept the volume low as neither was really paying attention to it.
Trixie was leaning forward to lick the drip of ice cream off of his chest when they heard a thump outside. They paused, faces scrunching. He was prepared to ignore it as a neighborhood noise when they heard it again, louder and closer to the house.
Carefully, Cayden moved Trixie’s legs off of his. The den had two open doorways. The one faced the stairs to the second floor and the main door; the second opened into the living room opposite of the French doors. The sound had come from the backyard. As much as he hoped it was racoons, his instincts told him it wasn’t.
He peeked through the dark living room. The shades were closed on the French doors, but he could see the glow of the outside light through them.
“Where’s your phone?” he asked softly. His was in the bedroom.
“Kitchen,” she whispered, picking up on his tension.
Cayden squatted low, making his way into the kitchen. He made sure to keep Trixie in his sights as he searched for her phone. He found it by the sink. He slid it across the hardwood floor towards her in the den. She had to stretch forward on her hands and knees to grab it.
“Stay there,” he ordered. “I’m going outside. If I’m not back in five minutes, you call 911.”
“I’m going with?—”
His stern gaze cut her off. “You stay there. Promise me.”
