Always There

Maria had never felt more confused about anything in her entire life than she was the night of her birthday after she returned home with her family. She got Nathan and Ben ready for bed and took her time reading them stories from the extensive story book collection. Her heart wasn't completely into it though. And when she went to see how Olivia was doing in getting ready for bed, she sat down beside her daughter on the mattress and the two had a mother-daughter moment before she told a quick story to her too.

"Okay...what story tonight?" Maria asked.

"The first time you met my dad..."

Leaning her head back against the pillow and sighing slightly as she looked at the ceiling, Maria thought on how to begin. "Well, it was the Spring semester of my sophomore year at Cal Berkeley and I was studying for a pre-midterm exam in my room while a party was going on throughout my Uncle Ned's house. And then, all of a sudden, my door opens and your dad stumbles in with a beer in his hand while looking around the room slightly confused."

When Olivia laughed at the visual, Maria smiled.

"He was all, 'Sorry. I thought this was the bathroom.' And, instead of just leaving to find the bathroom, he stayed and started to talk to me, much to my initial annoyance. But after a few sentences out of his mouth, I figured he was a nice guy, so why not take a break and talk with him?"

"What'd you talk about?" Olivia asked.

"Oh, God. I can't remember. Probably everything and anything. But that night we talked for almost four hours straight in my room, just getting to know each other," Maria replied, her mind reeling in memory. "We both fell asleep on my bed and in the morning we went to IHOP for breakfast - my treat - and then he tagged along with me to all my classes that day. And he was bored out of his mind so I gave him paper and a pen to doodle on like he was a kid."

"What was he like? Like, what did you really think of him?"

"Well, he could be kinda shy but, just like anyone else, he could be goofy and weird. Wild and crazy. And the atmosphere I was raised in, him and I just really connected. We were very outspoken people who hated the status quo and authority we didn't believe in telling us what was best for us. What was right. We were rebels, I guess," Maria grinned with an impish smirk. "He was a charmer, too. Really polite toward me. Never a jerk."

Olivia laid on her side, watching her mother's facial expression; her own mind trying to picture her parents interacting with each other when they were younger. It was easier now that she knew who her dad is, and what he looked like.

Turning her head, Maria placed a kiss on top of her daughter's forehead. "Alright. C'mon...bed now."

Olivia grumbled a little. "Fine," she muttered as she reached up and hugged Maria. "Happy birthday, mom," she added as Maria walked to the bedroom door and turned off the light.

"Thanks, hon. 'Night."

"Night."

Maria closed the door behind her and walked down the hallway to her bedroom where Mitch was sitting on the edge of their bed only in his boxers and a smile on his face. She threw him a smile back as she walked over to her dresser and took her earrings off and began to undress. As she pulled her nightgown out, she sensed Mitch walking up behind her. When he pressed his bare chest against her back, then kissed her exposed shoulder, she met his blue eyes in the mirror and grinned a little.

"Happy Birthday, Temp," he whispered against her skin.

Turning around, she tilted her head to the side and reached her hands up to wrap her arms around her neck before they kissed. Then in a swooping motion, he lifted her up like a groom does to his bride before crossing the threshhold of their honeymoon suite. Throwing her down onto the bed, he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Birthday sex!" he exclaimed in a teasing whisper.

Maria rolled her eyes but laughed anyway, but in the back of her mind she couldn't get out of her head how almost twelve hours before Billie Joe and her were fucking like rabbits in the very same bed.

* * *

Despite the birthday sex with her husband, Maria could be found that following morning in Billie Joe's bed at his penthouse while Nathan watched cartoons in the living room. The two of them didn't even have sex the entire time. Half of it was spent just lying there beside each other, albeit naked, and more or less cuddling.

But when they were making love, Billie Joe couldn't help but have a flashback of her when she was twenty with a horrible blonde dye job in her hair.

His green, lust-filled eyes glazed over and he claimed her lips when they finished their most recent session, smiling lazily when she collapsed onto his chest with a heady sigh

"You always did like me on top," she commented after a few moments of catching her breath.

Billie Joe 'hmmed' as he wrapped his arms tightly around her and then to rub circles on the small of her back with the palm of his right hand. Lifting herself up slightly, Maria looked him in the eye, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him for what seemed like forever.

"How many times is this now?" she smirked.

"I dunno," he shrugged. "Are we counting from 1992 or from New Years?"

"New Years."

"Fifty?" he suggested jokingly.

"Yeah, right. Like it's been that many times," she remarked, rolling off him.

"Well, it definitely feels like fifty. Maybe fifty-one. Give or take a few." Billie Joe laid on his side to watch her watching him as he ran his left hand down her stomach and down to her thighs, arching his eyebrow mischievously in the process.

"What time is it? I should check on Nathan...see if he wants any lunch..." Maria began, looking for the bedside clock which had somehow fallen of the nightstand in the throws of passion when one of them must've kicked it to the floor.

Laying on her stomach, sideways on the bed, Maria hung her upper half off the edge of the bed to lift up the clock. It was almost noon. Her and Billie Joe had been at it in his bedroom for almost two hours. Nathan would definitely be going stir crazy soon from being left alone in the living room, not to mention getting hungry. Billie Joe noted this when he read her face.

However, when he crawled up over her, laying on her back, all her inhibitions of doing anything constructve seemed to melt away when she tried to roll over underneath him so that she could lie on her back and look up at him, which only garnered a gutteral moan from the depths of his throat.

"Tease," he said with a smile.

"And I didn't even do anything on purpose," she smiled back. "Man whore."

"Slut."

"Bastard."

"Hoochie mama," he muttered jokingly as he leaned forward to lick the skin of her neck.

Maria closed her eyes and bit her lip as she sighed. "Punk," she mumbled.

"Damn straight, bi-atch."

Pushing him up off of her, Maria looked sideways at him with a 'tsk-tsk' look as she sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed, sliding off. Bending down, she picked up a random pillow and chucked it at him while grabbing for her clothes and putting them on as quickly as she could before Billie Joe--

--Jumped off the bed and cornered her. Which is what he did anyway.

Pinning her between the bedroom door and his bare as all hell body, he caught her, literally, with her pants down. She'd only managed to get her shirt -- minus her bra -- and her underwear on.

"Billie, stop. I really need to check on Nate."

"You gonna come back?" he asked like a dog waiting for its master to take it outside to shit on the lawn.

Maria giggled. "Yes, I'll come back. Just let me make my child some lunch or he'll bust down the door looking for Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches only to see your two hams," she said with a grin as she slapped his bare ass.

"Ooh," he muttered, stepping back so that she could finish dressing. "It's all good I suppose. 'Cause as soon as you get back, it's like I get to unwrap a present. Getcha outta all these damn clothes, the way I like ya best," he teased.

Running a hand through her hair and licking her upper lip, Maria smiled at him and then slipped from the bedroom. She walked gently into the living room where Nathan was lying sideways on the couch, sucking his thumb as he watched the DVD of 'Shrek 2' Billie Joe had popped in for the kid. And Maria was just in time, too. The credits had just began to roll, so she turned off the DVD and changed it back to regular TV for him to watch his usual Nickelodeon cartoons.

Disappearing into the kitchen she was able to throw together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with some Cheetos and a glass of apple juice in under two minutes flat from thirteen years of practice, raising three kids. Setting up a wooden TV tray, she came back into the living room, setting the lunch down in front of Nathan, kissing him on top of the head and telling him to behave while mommy helped Billie Joe 'paint his bathroom.'

Slipping back down the hallway she pushed open the bedroom door and spotted Billie Joe sitting on his bed like an expectant father. But as soon as he saw her, he smiled.