Our Spot

Be ware the language…

Chapter 25


Gil frowned as the doorbell rang. Who the hell was that? He needed to get to the airport to pick up his family.

His family.

Nick was standing at his front door looking worried and nervous. Gil wondered when he became counselor of love. Audrey Lynn was set to drive his young friend crazy.

“Hey.”

“Hey, big guy. Got a minute?”

“Uh...I have to catch a plane, Nicky.”

“Where you going?”

Gil ushered the younger man in. “To pick up my girls.”

“Where are they?” Nick looked around at empty living room.

“The B and B.”

“Okay…”

“We had a fight.”

“Must have been a bad one.”

“Worse than bad.”

“So everything’s okay now?”

Gil’s blue eyes found his young friend’s dark ones. “Everything is going to be fine. I lied, and I shouldn’t have. I got caught. Take note. You get caught.”

“First rule you taught me as a CSI. They always get caught, one way or another.”

“When one is in love, one forgets his own rules. What’s wrong, Nicky? I don’t mean to rush you, but I don’t like being away from my girls.”

Nick stared at his former boss. Love had not just changed him. It had transformed him.

“Um Gris,-when did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Know that Sara was the one.”

“The day I met her.” Gil said quickly.

“The first day?”

Gil nodded thinking of that cold day in Boston, Sara too thin and lovely in a black parka.

Nick leaned against the kitchen counter and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I got it bad, Gris.”

“And that ain’t good?” Gil said intoning the old ballad.

“What if she doesn’t have it bad?”

“I think I missed something. You were barely able to speak to the woman two days ago.”

“I asked her out.”

“And she said?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Where are you going?”

“Las Vegas Film Festival. Audrey Hepburn tribute, dinner and dancing.”

“Very nice, taking Audrey to see Audrey.”

Nick gave a little snort. “Having Warrick as a friend is helpful.”

Gil ran hand over his hair and sat on the edge of a chair. “I could have used him a few years back. Matthew got here just in time. So what’s the problem?”

“Gris, I can’t breathe when I am around her. I say stupid things. I graduated magna cum laude. I read a book a week. I can recite the periodic table off the top of my head. I can do calculus with no calculator. When this woman is around, I grunt and stare. I stare at things I shouldn’t be staring at Gris. I might maul the woman. Oh my god…”

“What?”

“What if she wears a skirt? Maybe there’s something I can take, like Salt Peter. Is that an urban legend?”

Gil laughed. “Calm down, Nicky. I am sure that you can control yourself. I am sure that you will be a delightful dinner companion. In my opinion, Audrey is not the kind of woman to go out with you if she wasn’t interested.”

Nick squared his broad shoulders. “Okay. I can do this.”

“Nick? Keep your hands to yourself for a while.’

Nick frowned at him. “That sounds like something I would have said to you about Sara.”

Gil shrugged. “Audrey’s a nice woman, Nick. Either do it right or don’t do it all.”

Nick nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Grissom-Sidle household was back in order in less than forty eight hours. Gil was still on egg shells as far as Sara was concerned. He was constantly asking her if she needed anything. He had only put down Claire long enough to make love to Sara and only left Sara to tend to Claire.

They had just finished making love for the third time since her return.

She rolled off of her back onto Grissom pinning him with her dark eyes.

“What is the deal? You act like we never had sex before.”

Gil took a deep breath that lifted Sara with the motion. “I didn’t want to be….”

“What?”

“You know.”

“Gil, the first four months of our sex life took place in club of questionable repute. I wore leather bodices, and you pinned me up against the wall.”

“I didn’t throw you up against the wall all the time.”

“Yeah but we used to run about fifty percent.”

“You know our percentages?”

“Only because you act like I’m a sixteen year old virgin on prom night. We had a fight, Gil. You did something that was wrong. I reacted in an inappropriate manner. It’s over now. Can we get back to normal sex?”

“Sara, I didn’t just lie. I lied about an ex-wife that I didn’t like once. I maintained the status quo of that lie for nearly a decade.”

Sara looked down at him and resisted the urge to kiss his adorable mouth. God! He was sexy. She put her hormones on hold.

“Why did you lie?”

He looked into her pale face, cheeks still sun kissed by the California sun.

“I wanted you very badly. I saw you, and I wanted you, and I was determined to have you.”

Heat seared through Sara’s belly. “You didn’t…have me I mean.”

“When I saw you, it was lust. Pure simple lust and I knew I could have you. I saw how you looked at me. You didn’t even realize what you were doing. You were too young to know.”

“What?”

“You open your mouth a little bit and you stick your tongue out just a bit.”

She mimicked the gesture. “Like that?”

His erection stirred between them. “Yes like that.”

His fingers found a hip and kneaded the flesh with gusto. “By the end of our first conversation, I knew that if I was falling in love.”

Her lips were very close to his ear. “And that changed things how?”

“I wanted to protect you. I wanted to protect you from me, so that’s what I did for years.”

“I didn’t need your protection.” She said rubbing her wetness against one of his bulky thighs.

“You hadn’t lived sweetheart. If I had gotten you in my bed, I would have never let you out of my sight. I have very little restraint where you are concerned.”

“You could have fucked me ten years ago.”

The other hand found a fleshy cheek. “It was my one and only line of defense. You saw what happened once you had me.”

Sara flicked a tongue across his ear. “Yeah, you would only have sex with me. You wouldn’t date me.”

“You could have called my bluff in a heart beat.”

“What do you think Michael was?”

He slapped a cheek hard. “You little minx.”

Sara laughed against him. “So you gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Fuck me like you wanted to back then.”

And he did.

~~~~~~~~


Gil moved around the too small kitchen. He hoped to convince Sara that they should move. The kitchen was fine for one person who cooked one meal a day, but for a family of any size it was inadequate.

“Dad called.”

“And?”

“He will be here with bells on.”

“Wonderful.” Sara said, kissing her daughter’s curls.

Gil stopped tossing the salad they were having for dinner.

“Shit…”

Sara covered Claire’s ears. “Language, Gris.”

“Sorry. I just realized that my parents are going to be in the same room. They haven’t seen one another in, I don’t know, thirty years.”

“Stop worrying. Welcome to the new blended family. We are all mature, reasonable adults. Your Mom knows he’s coming, and he knows she’s coming. It will be fine.”

“You told Mom?” Gil asked as he diced chicken for his salad.

“She asked.”

“How did she sound?”

“Like a woman who was very glad that her ex-husband has changed. She doesn’t hate him, Gris. “

“So we all set?” Gil wanted to know. The planning had been a low key affair. Sara and Gil wanted their family and friends there, nothing over the top. Sara’s mantra was simple elegance.

Mathew was Gil’s best man. Catherine would serve as Sara’s maid of honor. Gil’s mother would have charge of Claire during the ceremony. Sara had blackmailed Warrick, with what Gil didn’t want to know, and he had agreed to play the piano.

The wedding was to be held at the Paris chapel, and a small dinner immediately after at Jim’s house, who was also giving the bride away.

A jazz violinist that Warrick was friends with would play softly while a bevy of rich, organic delicacies were to be severed.

“Oh, Matthew’s mom is doing the cake.”

“Elaine’s coming?”

Elaine Grissom had adopted Gil and Sara long distance, preferring their plan to have at least three children to Sofia and Matthew’s who weren’t sure if they wanted another. The second wife of Winston Grissom ran a much heralded organic bakery on the East Coast that catered a host of big name clients.

“Yes.”

“Does she know Dad’s going to be there?”

“Yes.”

Claire made a sound of glee as she heard the pop of a jar of food.

“What exactly is an organic cake going to taste like? I mean is it going to have real sugar?”

“For sure. Organic doesn’t mean synthetic, just the opposite in fact. They are all about real butter, heavy cream, and brown sugar. Organic bakers swear that preservatives compromise the integrity of the food. I mean, think about what your Mom baked. Didn’t it taste better when she got her ingredients from the local market instead of the Super Wal-Mart like today?”

“The local store didn’t sell stuff with preservatives?”

Gil took Claire from Sara as her small blue eyes searched for her food.

“Not purposely but it was more likely that the products were raised in areas where they were indigenous like coffee from Columbia or sugar from the islands.”

Gil spooned something green into Claire’s waiting mouth. “There is less of a need to manipulate. Also, they cut down crops earlier now for mass distribution so the tomatoes we eat may not have been grown with herbicide, but they may have been sprayed with something to keep them from ripening before they get to us.”

Gil frowned and looked at the label of the jar. “Huh. So Claire’s food is okay?”

“Yep”

Gil smiled.

“Most of our food is organic too.”

“It is?”

“You are no spring chicken, my love, and I need you around for as long as possible. Besides, I need your sperm healthy.”

“Um Sara…”

“Yes.”

“Are we….Are we using anything?”

Her lips twitched a little. “You ask me this now. AFTER I stopped breastfeeding?”

Gil gave her his "I’m just the man" stare.

“We are not.”

“Sara, is that wise?”

Sara looked at her nervous husband to be. “I thought we had this settled.”

“I know three kids, stair steps, but can’t we put a little more space between them?”

Sara kissed her daughter’s chubby fingers and made chomping sounds. “Yeah and why do we have play beat the clock with your fertility? We could have started having children a decade before, but you were too busy ignoring me.”

“I was not ignoring you.”

“Oh yeah. You were protecting me, and that’s why you called me nearly every day for a month after.”

Gil took a bite of chicken. “I didn’t say it made sense. Do you forget that I am the one that has to stay home with these kids? That’s a lot of work.”

“It is.” Sara acknowledged. “You can hire someone if you need too.”

“I don’t like that idea.”

“You are such a yenta. You know that right?”

Gil didn’t hear her. He was too busy reading the label on Claire’s baby food.