Give up Forever to Touch You

Feeling the early morning sunlight hit her face Andie slowly opened her eyes a smile quickly appearing as she saw Brian. Her smile faltered slightly as she realised that Brian was awake, staring solemnly up at the ceiling. She watched him silently for a long while, knowing exactly what it was playing on his mind.

“You need to just go talk to her.” she said quietly causing him to turn his head to face her, his brown eyes finding hers.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked with a small smile as she moved a little closer to him, reaching one of her fingers out to slowly trace the outlines of his tattoos.

“Only a little while.” She said quietly looking away from his arm to look at him. “You should go talk to Michelle. I know that’s what’s on your mind.”

“Yeah I know. I’m going to go see her this morning if that’s okay?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” she chuckled.

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea about why I’m going to see her.” he said quietly.

Andie sighed, knowing that her recent insecurities were probably the main reason why Brian was worried. “Bri, don’t worry about me. I understand why you need to talk to her. This is important and you deserve to be told the truth. And from her, not Matt or anyone else.”

He smiled, moving himself closer to her, laying on his side and allowing one of his calloused tattooed fingers skim lightly over her barely covered body. “I love you.” he muttered, his thin lips curving up into a smile as he pressed them lightly against her bare shoulder.

“I love you too.” she whispered in reply, her smile growing as she closed her eyes at the feel of Brian’s fingers travelling further down her body.

“Good, now I say we take advantage of Hillary being here to keep Abi occupied.” He whispered, rolling over so that he was hovering over her body, his lips brushing lightly over her neck. She moaned softly at his touch, her arms slipping around his naked frame as she felt him grow hard against her thigh.

Confused as to why Michelle wasn’t at her office, Brian drove over to his former home, reciting what he was going to say to her in his mind. he pulled up outside the house, unable to park in the driveway due to the car he didn’t recognise parked there next to Michelle’s.

He walked up to the house, knocking loudly on the front door. He waited, listening intently to see if he could hear anything from inside. He was just about to knock again when he heard light footsteps approach.

“Hey Brian, I’ve been expecting you.” Michelle said with a smile, standing back to allow him to enter the house.

“You’ve been expecting me?” he questioned as he closed the door behind him, following Michelle into the kitchen. she nodded as she walked over to the fridge, taking out two bottles of water and passing one to Brian.

“Val told me about last night. She told me that Matt spilled the beans about Nick.” She explained as she twisted the cap off her bottle, taking a long sip as she watched Brian’s expression.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked sternly.

“Because it’s really none of your business.” She retorted calmly.

“Of course it’s my buis-“

“How Brian? How exactly is it your business? We’re divorced remember?” she spat.

“It becomes my business when my kids are involved.” He retorted quickly. “Has he met them yet?”

Michelle shook her head is disbelief, “You are such a fucking hypocrite Brian.” she yelled.

“A hypocrite? How the fuck am I a hypocrite?” he yelled back.

“So it’s okay for our children to be around your new girlfriend on a regular basis but I’m not allowed to introduce them to my new boyfriend?” she questioned.

“That’s totally different Michelle and you know it.” he replied a little quieter.

“How exactly?” she asked, her hands pursed on her hips.

“Andie was in their lives for over a year before we were officially together. They know her, they love her, they trust her.” he replied calmly. “You know her too, you know that she’s good with them, you know you can trust her with them. Me, I don’t know this Nick guy. I don’t know anything about him, what he’s like as a person or what he’s like with kids. I want to meet him before the kids do.”

Michelle sighed, relaxing slightly. She knew Brian had a point. if things had been different, she would have wanted to meet his new girlfriend before he introduced her to the children. It was only fair that she showed him the same courtesy. “no time like the present then right?”

Brian watched as she turned and headed out of the kitchen, following her as she made her way towards the stairs. “Wait, he’s here? He’s been upstairs the whole time?”

“I have the day off Brian, Connor’s in school and Ella is with my mom, I’m making the most of some free time.” She said with a smirk.

Brian nodded, remembering the times early on in their marriage when she would take days off and they would spend them in the bedroom. Those days were short lived however, Michelle soon eager to spend as much time in the office as possible, wanting to make partner in the firm above anything else. There was a part of Brian that had known back then that the marriage was going to be put under strain.

Of course for the most part he blamed himself. The career he had chosen took him away from home for a high percentage of time and for long periods at a time too. but he had wanted to make things work, even offering to quit the band so that he would be around more, but Michelle refused to allow him to do it. Then after Connor was born she returned to work quickly, worried that if she took too much time off her work would suffer and that her bosses wouldn’t consider her to be made partner. She was at the office more than she was at home and it was Brian that was the parent.

He had thought things might change when she had fallen pregnant with Ella, hoping that a second child would coax her into staying home and be a mother. Unlike when she was pregnant with Connor, high blood pressure forced Michelle to give up work early and for a while things were perfect. She was building up a good mother/son relationship with Connor and Brian had felt like his marriage was back on track too. She even decided to stay off work a little longer, until one of her colleagues asked her if she would be going back to work as they were considering making someone else partner to make up for her absence. It was then that they took the decision to hire a nanny.

Brian’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming back down the stairs. He looked up to see Michelle walking hand in hand with a man. He was about the same build and height as Brian, with lighter hair and eyes. There was a thin layer of stubble covering his chin and cheeks, a few tattoos visible with the t-shirt he wore.

“Brian, this is Nick; Nick this is my ex husband Brian.” she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Nick dropped Michelle’s hand to extend it out in front of Brian.

“Nice to meet you.” he said politely. Brian nodded, taking his hand and shaking it briefly.

“Nice to meet you too.” he replied quietly, folding his colourful arms over his chest, standing as tall as he could. He was silent for a moment, quietly contemplating what to say as Michelle and Nick exchanged nervous glances.

Finally, he cleared his throat before he spoke, “Listen I know this is kinda awkward, but I just wanted to meet you before you get introduced to my kids.”

Nick nodded, taking hold of Michelle’s hand again. “I understand dude, but don’t worry, Michelle and I have spoken about it and I won’t be meeting the kids until things are a little more serious between us. At the moment they don’t even know I exist.”

Brian’s eyes widened, glancing at Michelle, “Really?” he queried.

“Yes Brian, really, they’ve been confused enough over the past couple of months, they don’t need any more confusion just yet.” Michelle replied with a soft smile.

“I guess. I’m sorry.” He replied.

“Nothing to be sorry for Brian, you’re just looking out for your children. We both are.” She replied.

He nodded again, “Guess I’ll leave you two to it then.” He said with a smile, his hand slipping into his pocket for his car keys.

“I’ll see you tomorrow when you come to get the kids then?” she asked as he made his way over to the front door.

“Yeah, I’ll be here around four okay?” he replied standing in the door way.

“They’ll be ready.” She replied with a smile. Brian smiled back with a nod as he closed the door behind him.

He drove home, not really paying attention to the songs that were playing through his stereo.

He pulled up into his driveway, retrieving his ringing cell phone from his pocket as he stepped out of his SUV.

“S’up dude?” he asked Matt as he answered.

“Hey dude, I’ve just had Larry on the phone, they’ve finalised some dates for us.” Matt replied.

“When do they start?” Brian asked as he let himself into his house.

“Two weeks, for two months.” he replied.

Brian sighed, excited to be going on tour again, but apprehensive about leaving Abi and Andie. This would be his first time away from them since they had moved back to Huntington. He knew it was going to be hard leaving them for two months, not seeing them every day.

“Okay dude, thanks for letting me know.” he replied as he made his way into the kitchen where Abi was playing happily in her play pen while Andie pottered around the kitchen, the smell of cookies wafting to his nostrils. “Talk to you later about the details okay?”

“Okay dude, later.” Matt replied, Andie turning to face Brian at the sound of him entering the kitchen.

“You okay?” she asked quietly, noticing the look of apprehension on his beautiful face.

“Um, yeah I guess.” He replied with a small smile, sitting on the stool at the counter, leaning over to take a freshly made cookie off the cooling rack. “That was Matt, Larry’s got in touch about tour dates.”

Andie stopped what she was doing, a soft sigh escaping her lips. She had known it was only going to be a matter of time before he would be leaving on tour with the band, “When and how long for?”

“In two weeks and for two months.” he replied watching her as she nodded slowly. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I knew it would be happening soon.” she replied quietly, not really wanting to think about him leaving. “So how did it go with Michelle?” she asked wanting to change the subject.

“Better than what I thought actually.” He replied, breaking the cookie in half before placing it into his mouth, Andie giggling as his eyes widened as he waved his hand in front of his mouth.

“Hot?” she asked with a smirk, knowing that the chunks of chocolate would still be really hot. He nodded, his cheeks flushed as she turned and poured him a glass of milk.

“Thank you.” he muttered as he began to drink the milk. She smiled, going back to taking more freshly made cookies off the baking tray and placing them on the rack.

“So are you going to tell me what happened with Michelle?” she asked once he’d finished the milk.

Brian nodded, picking up the remainder of the cookie as he began to explain to Andie what had happened.