The Good Life

There it was; a boat, a big boat, adorned with Christmas lights and there on the deck was a table for two and a man wearing a suit and bow tie. There was a small band standing off to the side.

“Joe.” I said turning to him and locking him in a huge hug and pulled back to show off the giant small that was on my face because of him. He returned the smile and wrapped his arms around my waist, “You like it?” I planted a kiss on his lips and shook my head, “I love it.” He grabbed my hands and pulled me to the ramp onto the boat.

We sat at the table and the man with the suit, who I presumed was our 'waiter' set down a glass of water in front of each of us and a plate full of all of our favorite foods, it was perfect. The band played as we ate and we shared a quiet conversation, Joe sat so close to me there was no need for us to raise our voices and he often snuck kissed all over my exposed neck and shoulders causing goose bumps to arise all over my skin.

We finished eating and Joe looked over my shoulder at the band and gave them a quick nod, I heard the tune of the music change, “Dance with me?” he asked holding out his hand, I gladly took it and he led me a little ways away from every one else, near the edge. I wrapped an arm around his neck and laid my other hand on his chest, his arms snaked around my waist and I laid my head over his heart, listening to its constant beat. I listened to the music for a moment and realized that it was Edwin McCain’s ‘I’ll Be.’ My heart swelled as I remembered the words to the song and then to top it all off, I heard his angelic voice softly singing the words into my ear as we swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the song.

The song was over and the band began playing a random song, Joe pulled back and grabbed my hand off his chest, “I have something for you.” He said while tugging me behind him to the sliding glass door that led to the inside of the boat. He shut the door and led me to a small couch off to the side. No one was in the room, just he and I, just how I always wanted it. He smiled at me, “So, I got you a present.” I scooted closer to him, “Joe, this is enough for me, being here with you, I don’t need anything else.” He grinned at me and tucked some hair behind my ear. “I know, but I wanted to.” He reached behind him over the side of the couch and I heard paper rustling, “Close your eyes.” I did as he said, lightly closing my eyes, I felt a weight on my lap, “Open ‘em.” I opened my eyes to see a pretty large gift sitting on my lap, it was oddly shaped and the paper didn’t cover it well, I smirked at his wrapping skills, “Well, are you gunna open it?” I grinned at him and ripped off the paper, to reveal a plaque made with four tree branches in the shape of a rectangle, making a frame, inside the frame was a sign that read, ‘Home Sweet Home.’ I looked at Joe and cocked my head in confusion. He smirked at me reading the look on my face and pulling a small box out of his pocket, I opened the box to see a key. I picked it up, fingering the keychain attached trying to figure out why it looked so familiar. Then, it clicked, I clutched the key and snapped my hand over my mouth and looked at him wide-eyed, “Joe?” He nodded his head up and down, “Yep, the cabin in Salt Lake City, it’s yours…well ours.” I looked at him with the same expression, “Wha- how?” I managed to get out. “Well, they’re timeshare type things, people buy them and rent them out, I called the owner of that one and bought it from him. But no renting out for us, it’s ours, we can go there any day, any time, you just say the word, he's moving all his stuff out next week, we'll have to go up there soon and buy our stuff for it.” He said and then smiled at me and bringing his hand up to cup my cheek, “Joe, I-I love it, so much, this is the best present ever.”Then, Ikissed him and let all my passion fill the kiss. I let my kisses trail down his jaw line and whispered in his ear, “Let’s go home.” He didn’t respond so I pulled back and bit my lip and he shook his head ‘no’ I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

“We’re staying here.” He explained running his fingers over my forearm. I looked up at him and cocked my eyebrow, “What? I couldn’t just rent this thing for a couple of hours, I have it until noon tomorrow.” I nodded my head in understanding, then something dawned on me, “Joe, I don’t have any other clothes, he wiggled his eyebrows at me, “Neither do I.” I laughed at him and shook my head in disbelief, “You planned this all along, eh?” He blushed and looked down scratching the back of his neck and mumbled, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” I laughed and stood up and walked towards a hall to the way I would guess the bedroom was and turned to look at him before entering the hall, “I’m going to need help with this zipper.” I said before disappearing down the hall, I heard him scramble to his feet and run after me. I found the bedroom and walked to the side of the bed and turned on the small lamp that set off a small glow in the room.

I walked to the dresser and began taking off my jewelry. I heard Joe come in and looked in the mirror to see him slip off his blazer and kick off his shoes. I stepped out of my shoes and saw his button up fall to the floor, I looked back into the mirror and he made eye contact with me through it, I laid my palms on the cool wood of the dresser and leaned against it, he slipped out his pants, exposing his boxers and walked over to me. He ran his hands from my shoulders to my hands and rested his palms on the dresser next to mine. He moved my hair to the side and kissed my bare neck and shoulders, “Joe…” I moaned. He kissed down my back to the top of my dress, he grasped the zipper and slowly made his way down, the dress slipped down my waist and fell at my ankles exposing my black lacy Victoria’s Secret underwear.

Joe ran his hands up my bare back and sponged a layer of kisses over teasing my exposed skin. I finally turned in his arms and pressed myself against him and pushed my lips against his he grabbed my hips and pulled me closer to him while gladly returning my kiss. He picked me up and shoved me onto the dresser, demanding more kisses, I obliged to his request and wrapped my legs around him, pulling him to me, his hands gripped my hips and I detached my lips from, his trying to catch my breath and sending kisses down his neck, letting them linger there. I stopped for a moment and looked up at him, his head was leaned back, eyes closed, and he held a small smile on his face.

I continued kissing his neck and made my way to his collar bone, laying my hand on his chest and snaking one around his neck, he gripped me tighter to him and softly spoke my name. I smirked to myself and alternated between each side. I felt him harden against my leg and stopped and forced myself to swallow down my dry throat, he tried to back away, “Kay, I’m sor—” I cut him off with my lips and pulled him back to me with my legs that I had still wrapped around his waist. I ran my hand down his torso to the elastic of his boxers running my finger back and forth in between the elastic and his stomach across the skin right below his bellybutton I broke the kiss and looked in his eyes as I slowly slipped my hand down further and wrapped my hand around him, his eyes drifted closed and his head fell onto my shoulder, his breathing increased as I picked up the speed of my movements, he nibbled at the skin on the side of my neck letting out a deep moan every so often.

I smiled to myself because I was obviously doing something right. “Oh my God, Kayden.” He breathed out after a few minutes and grabbed my waist harder and he let out a loud groan and threw his head back. I felt warmth on my hand and pieced together what had happened he picked his head up and looked down at my hand, “Oh Kay, shit, I’m sorry, I should’ve pulled away…” I shook my head, “It’s okay, Joe.” I kissed the tip of his nose and peeled myself away from him and walked into the small bathroom to wash my hands. I washed my face while I was at it walked back to the bedroom to see Joe in the bed with his hands behind his head staring at the ceiling I smiled at the sight of him and picked his button up off the floor buttoning a few buttons at the top and climbing in next to him, laying my head on his chest, his arm drifted down to lay across my back.

We laid there in silence for a while and he turned to look at me, “Kay?” I locked my eyes with his “Hmm?” I asked. He laid a hand on my face, “Promise me that just because we’ve done this physical stuff that it won’t become awkward between us.” I looked at him confused, “Why would it be awkward?” He let out a sigh, “I don’t know, I just don’t want you to feel like we have to do that all the time just because we've done it before,I don't want you to think that's what you have to do to make me happy, because you--you make me happy.” I laid my hand over his on my face and brought it to my mouth kissing the top of his hand. “Joe, I did that because I love you and I knew that it would make you happy, and to thank you for the best day of my life, and don't worry, I don't think that.” I blushed and looked away from him for saying that. He pulled my face to look at him, “Your welcome babe, but in that case, thank you.” He said and pulled me closer to him. “I love you, more than anything or anyone.” He whispered into my hair. I entangled my legs with his, “Love you, too.” I breathed out into his neck and slowly drifted off to sleep to the sound of his breaths and the rhythm of his beating heart.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of a distant horn I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and rolled out of Joe’s grasp and walked to the window to see a boat passing a little ways away, the source of the obnoxious horn, wonderful. I looked over at Joe and admired his sleeping form stretched out on the bed, his tousled hair hanging over his eyes. The horn sounded again and I cursed under my breath as I saw Joe starting to squirm. He rolled onto his back and I saw his eyes flutter open, I walked over to the bed andlaid down restingmy head on his stomach letting it rise and fall as he breathed. “Hi.” I spoke after a few silent moments. “Hey beautiful.” He said while stroking my hair, “What time is it?” he asked. I looked over at the clock on the wall and groaned, “Seven-thirty.” He laughed and my head bobbed up and down on his stomach causing me to giggle. He sat up causing my head to fall into his lap, he fingered a strand of my hair and said, “What about we go home, get dressed, and go catch some breakfast?” I picked my head up and pecked his lips, “Sounds wonderful.”

We made it back to my house and changed clothes and headed to a diner down the road. We ate our breakfast and just enjoyed being in one another’s company. He couldn’t make me happier if he tried. I studied him from across the table, he had little habits that made me love him even more, nothing big, he just had little quirks that were absolutely adorable. The way he ate one thing at a time, eggs first, then toast, then bacon, then his grits, the way he licked his lips after he took a sip of orange juice, the way he looked at me when he caught me staring at him, with that crooked grin and that gleam in his eye. I couldn’t help but fall in love with him every time we spent time together. I was broken from my trance my cell phone ringing, ‘Yo tell me what you want what you really really want I’ll tell you what I want—‘ Ah the ringtone I’d set for Nick, long story, it was really late, we were delirious, and we sang karaoke, I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

“Niiiiiick.” I answered the phone. “Hey Kay, what’s up?” I smiled at Joe across the table, “Nothing just eating some breakfast with Joe.”

“Awesome, well mom wanted me to call and tell you two that she’s cooking lunch today, and she wants you to come over, kind of like your birthday thing here because she figured Joe wanted you all to himself yesterday.” I laughed at what he said and looked over to Joe, “Well she was right about that one.” He began laughingwhich caused me to laugh, all of their laughs were contagious, especially Kevin's, he got me every time. Joe got a confused pout on his face which he wore extremely well. I laid my hand onto his from across the table and gave it a small squeeze. “We’ll be there Nick, what time?” I heard the phone shuffle around and a muffled, “Mom what time?” Come from his end. “She said around one or one thirty, no rush.” I nodded and looked at Joe who now wore a scowl on his face, I scrunched my face and narrowed my eyes at him. “We’ll see you then, bye Nick.” I hung up the phone, “Okay whats wrong with you now?” He rested his chin on his hands, “I don’t want to go there, I just want to hang out with you all day.” He pouted. “Aww, poor baby, we hang out all the time, we need to spend some time with them, it’s been a while.”

He let out a sigh, “Fine.” I smiled up at him, “Thank you, babe.” I said leaning over and kissing his lips. “Mmhmm.” He said. “Let’s go home and nap before we have to go over there, what time do we have to be there?” he asked. “About one thirty.” I told him stifling a yawn.” After he had mentioned a nap I realized how tired I still was.

We went home and slept until about one and then headed to his house. Paul and Denise had barbequed and it all looked delicious. We ate lunch and talked and laughed with each other, “So Joe, what’d you get her for her birthday?” Kevin asked. I gulped, it was a big present, I didn’t want them to know he was spending that kind of money on me, I don’t know how’d they take it, shit, I didn’t even know how I was taking it, I was still in somewhat of a shock. “Well, Joe started; remember when we went to Salt Lake City?” Everyone nodded, “Well we kind of fell in love with everything there, so…” he hesitated, everyone looked at him expectedly while I just stared at my plate. “I bought the cabin, for her, for us, it’s kind of like our get-a-way place, a vacation home I guess.” He explained, everyone seemed shocked for a moment, “Well dear, that was a thoughtful idea.” Mrs. Denise broke the silence and smiled at us, Joe nodded and grabbed my knee under the table assuring me it would be fine. “Well, we have that big meeting tomorrow at the studio, you ready for that Joe?” Mr. Paul asked. Joe nodded and cut his eyes over at his dad, “Yeah dad I’m ready, so what’s for dessert?” He asked. Mrs. Denise jumped up, “Well we got you a birthday cake Kayden.” She smiled over to me before heading in the kitchen and emerging with a gorgeous 2-tier white cake with black polka dots and the number ‘19’ written on the top in red icing. I smiled at how much I loved all of these people as they sang me happy birthday. My wish? That everything would stay as perfect as it was right now.