#bangaveragefics

Beth catches your eye in the mirror, smiles wider around her red toothbrush to show off the clean pearly whites and her brushing technique. 

Your heart swells when she smiles at you. A little moment just for you two, not yet shared with little sisters. 

With her free hand, Beth points at her eye, the centre of her chest, tapping the Snoopy cartoon on her nightdress, and then at you. You copy the moves you taught her when she was just a tot; her smile widens, spilling foamy pink toothpaste onto her chin and pyjamas. 

A muffled “Ooops” sends another drip onto the tiles and her bare feet. 

Your cover is blown, beating Steve’s Dad Reflexes to swipe toothpaste foam with a gentle thumb and shuffle Ava back a step so she doesn’t step in spit. 

“Mmmm!” 

Josie reaches for you now, Dad’s intriguing toothbrush forgotten. A quick cheek kiss placates her long enough for you to tear toilet paper and clean the spill in seconds. No harm done. 

He smiles around the bristles as the baby passes between you like the most precious baton. You soak in the tiny pocket of time, happy to hog the baby now when, for the rest of the day, you will daydream about lounging on a blanket in the shade in your backyard with books and blocks, missing the feeling of little hands on your knee when Josie pulls herself up to stand on bouncy legs.

For now, you breathe in the scent of warm milk and oatmeal with mushed banana, the lingering sleepy smell that clings behind her ears and the rolls of her strong neck. 

“Hi, my baby. Are you helping Dada brush his teethies?” 

Josie is more interested now in the collar of your work dress and the studs in your ears. She whisper-babbles back to you, warm breath against your chin, gossiping about how the big guy wouldn’t share his toothpaste again. 

“I like your dress, Mommy,” Ava says, after spitting her toothpaste into the sink. 

Steve passes her a cup of water to rinse her mouth, watches how you twirl for her and the smiles that spread on each girl's face.

“Mom looks like a million bucks,” he says once his mouth is free of foam. Your lips tingle for a minty kiss. “You’re gonna knock ‘em dead.”

“A billion,” Ava adds.

“A trillion!” Beth grins, proud of herself. 

“Woah. A million billion trillion? In this old thing?” You pantomime total shock, look to Josie with wide eyes and a gasp. “Jose, are you hearing this?” 

Josie’s gummy smile is like sunshine, and you bask in the warmth of your daughter's delight and affection, their awe. It clogs your throat and threatens to press prickly tears against your eyes.

Steve sees it - he always sees you - and rests his hand on the small of your back for an all too brief beat. He knows the ache of wanting to stay longer, linger a few minutes more or write up his resignation letter so he can spend all of his time with you, with the girls. He sees the lingering tendrils of anxiety about presenting your project proposal in front of the team, your bosses.

“Let me check those teeth,” Steve says, letting you have your moment with the little one. Both bigger girls tilt their heads toward him, flowers seeking his sunlight, and open wide to prove their teeth are shiny, their breaths fresh. 

The girls insist they brushed super well, dodging tickling fingers and unshaven cheeks that prickle their soft faces, make them giggle and melt into a puddle on the bathroom tiles. You wish you had your camera close by to capture this silly little moment, and force yourself not to think about the other little moments you miss when you’re at work.

Steve catches the fond look on your face as you nose gently at Josie’s downy hair, gives you a sad little smile. 

“You want a coffee for the road?” he asks, spying the time on the watch around your wrist. It feels like a handcuff, a weight dragging you away from all of this. 

It isn’t always this lovely, so fun or full of giggles; Beth and Ava can get into the worst squabbles, and Josie’s got another tooth coming. Some mornings, you love the bliss of the quiet drive. Today, though, so close to the summer holidays coming to an end and still nursing your post-vacation blues, you crave more time. These slow and easy mornings will soon be swept away by the flurry of back-to-school excitement.

“It’s okay, I’ll get some when I get to the office.” You lean into him, savouring the morning musk that still clings to him, cut with spearmint. 

“I'd better get going.” It’s said with a sigh that barely relieves the heavy feeling in your chest. Your mug had gone cold before you got to it at breakfast time. 

Steve presses a kiss to your temple, squeezes your hip. His voice is a quiet murmur, bringing calm and comfort. 

“We’ll give you a call in the afternoon. I’ll have my cell if you want to call me after the meeting.”

In a while, the girls to ride their bikes to the park under his attentive eye, and Steve will push them high on the swings as the baby dozes in her stroller. They will share fruit snacks and he will carefully wipe sticky fingers and faces, and make sure their sunscreen is topped up, kiss any knee scrapes or head-bumps, all before lunch.

Your head turns just enough for that longed-for minty kiss, shaped like a smile that spreads wider as Josie butts her head against your cheek, babbling her complaint at being left out and squealing with sheer delight when you kiss her cheek as Steve kisses the other. Ava and Beth beg to be next. A few extra minutes with them is much more important than beating the traffic.

A travel mug of coffee sits in the console as the radio DJ tees up Bootylicious, and you wave goodbye to the quartet assembled at the front door. A flurry of kisses blows back and forth from car to porch and back again, caught in tiny hands and bigger ones and stowed away in pockets until you get home. 

Driving off is never easy, seeing the house grow smaller in the rearview until you turn left out of the cul-de-sac. You're comforted by the fact that in just a few hours, they will be waiting for you at the door, eager for Mom Kisses and the promise of after-dinner ice cream.

Your eyes drift down his chest, watching the slow rise and fall, follow the trail to the dip of his navel and lower, the marble carved peaks of his hips and the heavy resting head of his soft cock against his thigh. It makes your mouth water, your cheeks pinch hot.

“Take a picture, last longer.”

His voice is deep, slurring with sleepiness.

You won't need a photograph to remember him like this, remember today, tonight; how you sought each other out despite the heat, skin that tasted like sunscreen and chlorine and salt. The softness that followed, the kiss of cool air and the sound of his fucked-out laugh on the kitchen tiles.

Eyes open now, smiling wide and dozy, your tummy somersaults and swoops when you catch him watching you.

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself.”

Smiling back, your cheeks ache like when you have been sucking a sweet too long. The only cure is a kiss, and you dip down to bring your lips together. Your medicine is sweeter than sugar, like homemade sangria and sunshine.

You feel each link of the chain between your fingers as he draws you on top of him, skin on skin, heat be damned. It slips and spills higher over his throat, the masculine bump of his Adam’s apple and the thick chord of muscle that wears the mark of your lips and teeth so prettily.

Your hand feels small when he catches those wandering fingers, seeking the cool kiss of metal wrapped around your ring finger beneath his thumb.

Slow kisses melt into shared smiles, noses pressed against each other’s cheeks. A warm breathy laugh tickles your cheek, your neck, catches on the still-damp lotion on your chest.

“Pretty. Suits you.”

Heads together, you admire how diamond and gold glint in the setting sunlight, well, what’s left of it. It says good night with the promise of another sunrise tomorrow, another day together.

Words catch in your throat. How beautiful the ring is, how much he must have spent on it, how you cannot wait to spend the rest of your days and nights with him, summers and winters. Still overwhelmed, you look away from the ring back to Steve and he’s already looking at you.

Gazing, adoring. It makes your heart swell.

“I love you.”

Those words never fail, always on the tip of your tongue when you are together, bouncing around your head when you’re apart and missing each other.

“I love you,” he promises. Awake again, his sleepiness has slipped away.

The last of today’s sunshine fades on the wall, bathing you both in twilight as the heady heat fades away. It’s cool enough now to pull up the sheets, late enough to stop fighting sleep, but all you want now is each other.

Gentle hands turn bold, you feel him hardening in your palm. Between your legs, he coaxes a flood of wetness with careful practised fingers - you are still sensitive from last time, swollen with hunger for more of him. His lips never stray from yours, murmuring his praise and adoration against your mouth as he pushes inside. Steve’s kisses soothe the ache and stretch, proud of you for taking all of him.

“Feels so good,” you whisper, a needy edge to your voice.

Your thigh inches up higher, and you can feel where his fingerprints will linger tomorrow - you will show them off in something skimpy, drive him wild. The pleasant ache is forgotten when he moves, thrusting slow and deliberate. Filled all the way up over and over and over, you see his heavy eyes and the spit-slick shine of his lips in the dusky shadows and feel the burn on his cheeks.

“That’s it, baby. Taking me so well.”

His whispered words send a zing of electricity from your head to your curling toes, but through the heady needy fog you can hear that edge to his voice that tells you he is just as desperate as you are.

A gentle tug of sunstreaked hair has him moaning for you, calling you a brat with a breathy laugh before you do it again - harder this time. You kiss him and give back that sweet praise; tell him how good he feels, how you love how he fucks you, how you love him. Both of you are so close, sweat sheened again where you are pressed together.

Steve slips his fingers between your legs again, blindly finds his mark with a subtle shift of your hips right there. The feeling of you coming undone pulls him over the edge and you lie together, as before, panting and fucked-out and happier than ever.

His breath slows, deeper and deeper. Even in the darkness, with your eyes closed, you find your path again and fall asleep with the steady beat of his heart beneath your cheek, the promise of it on your finger.

All of those things are great, you cannot wait to scrub away the sheen of sweat and the dry feeling that lingers on your hands after hours of stacking returned books and settle yourself into the groove in the couch with a carb-heavy dinner and cold white wine, the perfect remedy for the summer programme planning meeting-induced headache.

Now, home is so much more than simple pleasures and little luxuries. 

It’s the man who kissed you goodbye on the stoop before you turned in opposite directions for work this morning, both sleepy-headed as you set the countdown until you see each other again. Tick tock, tick tock, two whole days together over the weekend.

It is the man who races you back to the apartment, waiting with a triumphant smirk and an invitation to share the hot water, or a smiley face in steam on the bathroom mirror. When you win the race, the sound of his key in the lock and his goofy ‘honey, I’m home’ makes your tummy flutter.

Home is more than four walls and a front door; a small apartment at the top of Lakeview, perfectly poised between the library and the record store, with friends and favourite bars dotted around the Windy City. 

You have been playing house with Eddie since you were both gap-toothed with scraped knees, making up magical lands and adventures from morning until the sun set and only re-entering the real world to raid your fridge or eat the sandwiches Wayne made with cold cuts and crispy salty chips. It made sense that you would always be home for each other. 

The final few steps do not feel so arduous when you know he is home before you; the sound of Black Sabbath already playing from the stereo beckons you back into the cosy confines of your apartment. Smiling to yourself again, you take a final step over the threshold, feeling weightless.

Through the shred of War Pigs, Eddie catches the jangle of keys and the quick click of the closing door. He skids on socked feet from the kitchen to the short hallway, smile wide and eyes sparkling. 

“She’s home!” 

Eddie’s arms span out wide, swathed in wide swishing satin. He’s wearing your robe again, half open over his bare chest and boxers. The check print and his inked-up hairy legs are a wonderful contrast to the delicate swish and sway of painted florals. 

When it’s not wrapped around your bed-warm body in the mornings or draped on your lotioned post-shower skin at night, it hangs on the back of the bedroom door like a silky waterfall. That is until the seasons turn and the printed satin is carefully laundered and folded away, replaced with teddy-soft terrycloth until the weather warms again.

It just smells like you, which justifies how often Eddie wears it when you’re not home, and sometimes when you are. It is not just your lotion and perfume, your shampoo and the coffee you mopped up with the edge of your sleeve the other morning. An indescribable essence of you has been threaded through the thin fabric, sewn through satin like a phantom thread. 

And now it smells like Eddie too; the collar holds a musk that you cannot name, other than it is totally Him. 

You can smell it now as he wraps you up, a gentle blend of his and hers. Eddie’s hug manages to drain every ounce of tension and stress from your body, loosening your clenched jaw and tight shoulders with a simple squeeze. 

“Missed you,” murmured against his neck, your cheek pillowed by satin and a spill of curls that escapes his scrunchie. 

“Bad day?”

The slow pass of his hands along your back melts away the tight ache that had settled just beneath your waistband. 

“No, just better now.”

Even with your eyes closed, you can feel his smile, hear it. 

“Aww, you like me or somethin’?” he murmurs, a wisp of warm breath tickling your neck that cries out to be kissed.

Eddie is a weak man, easily tempted at times, and presses three sweet kisses from the collar of your shirt to the base of your jaw. 

“Or something.” 

He feels your smile too, the curve of your mouth against his shoulder. He has to see it, pulls away just enough to sneak a peek at pure sunshine. Your teasing is taken with a grain of salt, betrayed by how down bad you are for him. 

“Hungry?” he asks, gliding his thumb along your cheek with an almost hypnotic gentleness.

“Yeah, are you cooking for me?”

Beyond the shower clean scent of him, you find notes of garlic and rich tomato. Your stomach rolls ravenously, mouth wet at the thought of his pasta sauce.

His coy shrug makes you smile, proud of himself for predicting that you needed a night off dinner duty and an obscene amount of pasta as your week draws to a close. Eddie had noticed the tightness in your jaw, the way your shoulders had crept higher and higher with each working day.

“Just somethin’ easy, carby. That okay?” 

The way your eyes sparkle - something between thrilled and touched by his kindness - gives you away before you can crush into him again, arms winding around the solid trunk of him to squeeze. 

“I love you.”

Your voice is muffled against his chest, but Eddie can feel it; the way your lips form those three words, the adoration that radiates from you into him. He drinks it up. 

“I love you.”

He kisses the top of your head, crowning you with his love.

You stand there, in the hallway of your home together, a slow rocking sway, foot to foot.

Before you let each other leave - you to the bedroom to strip off your clothes and wash the day away, Eddie to the kitchen - one more kiss, syrup-slow and sweet, is shared amongst the lived-in clutter. A box of books and clothes to donate, a borrowed amp to return, the rescued-from-the-sidewalk side table holding your keys, a vase of flowers and a framed photo of you, Eddie & Wayne at a barbecue in Forrest Hills.

Slowly you part, coming unstuck from each other so that you can come back together again over plates of pasta and plans for your weekend.

When you are shower-damp and scrubbed clean, your hair dripping on the plains of your shoulders, you remember your robe has been stolen by a handsome thief. A wash-worn t-shirt lies folded on the counter with your pyjama shorts, waiting for you beneath the heart traced in steam, oozing with adoration. 

Butter soft beneath your fingertips, you bury your nose in the stretched-out collar and breathe in the scent of him. The scent of home.

Eddie smiles when your mouths meet again; another deep kiss to make you melt between him and the scuffed brick wall at your back. He holds you tighter, closer, and presses up against you to make sure you don’t trickle away into a puddle or twirl off back to the dance floor with your ‘come get me’ eyes. He wants you a little longer and fancies his chances of getting to take you home tonight. 

He need not worry; the only place you're going is to find a cab, then home to your place or to his. The music is less loud here, but the base rumbles between your twisted-together bodies.

You can feel him, thick and hard and warm against you through double layers of denim - his and hers. There is buttery leather and surprisingly soft curls beneath your fingers, the sharp line of his flexed jaw and the cool hardware on his jacket. He makes you feel greedy for wanting all of it, all of him, the soft and the hard parts (but especially the hard part tonight). 

He makes this little noise when you tug his hair and his jaw falls slack when your nails catch on his scalp just right. You make a note of that for later as he licks into your mouth again, making you keen for him as he pairs that slow deep slide with the firm press of his thigh between your legs that feels so good. Your hips take up a slow roll, encouraged and steadied by his hand at the top of your ass and the perfect press of your jeans right there.

You’re not sure where he begins or where you end anymore, with blurred edges and winding limbs even when you break for breath briefly. A hammering fist on the door is just about enough to halt your kisses - but only after a couple of tries on the handle and an unsuccessful first knock. 

“Hello?!! Come on, man, I need to piss!” 

“Hold the fuck on.” 

Eddie’s voice is rough, a sharp pissed-off bark that echoes around the bar bathroom as you hide your warm face against his chest and give in to a dose of the giggles.

“Somethin’ funny?” he asks, soft just for you. 

His smile is stained with your lipstick, and you do your best to swipe the worst of it away with your thumb as you float back down to earth. He does a little to fix the smear below your lip, tender from kissing and the nip of Eddie’s sharp teeth. 

“I think they’re going to know…” you murmur, resisting the urge to take one more taste for yourself.

There will be no hiding it from whoever is banging on the door, whoever is queued up behind them with their full bladders and baggies of coke. It was not like either of you were subtle enough to fool your friends, even before you both disappeared together tonight. Not with your matching stained mouths, or Eddie’s tighter-now jeans. Not when you leave together tonight and arrive for breakfast together in the morning.

“Is that so bad?” 

You give in to that need for one more kiss, slow and sweet unlike the last one. It says enough to answer his question. 

Loud music and the sound of your own heart beating hard are not quite enough to drown out the complaints and wolf-whistles as you leave the locked bathroom together. Eddie leads again with confidence, bolstered by your lipstick on his face and your hand in his back pocket. Neither of you miss how the table of your friends raise their bottles and glasses as you pass them, a few bills exchanged for bets placed as you go find that cab and decide ‘your place or mine?’