Finding What's Real

He'd taken private time each day to reflect and grieve. He was confident in where he was mentally and how he felt about Kira. The space hadn't dimmed their spark in the least. In fact, he felt like they'd be able to make a long-distance relationship work if she was willing.

As he drove back across the country, he rolled the windows down and blasted one of Kira's Spotify playlists. When he got home, he was going to check on his kitties, check in with work, and then go see her. He was going to hold her and make love to her and ask her to be his.

When he was four hours from home, "Fat Bottom Girls" started playing through the car speakers. "Yo, Sis, what's up?"

"Hey, I just got home and wanted to see where you were."

"I should be home by dinnertime. Why?"

"I'm just checking on you. That was a long drive to make alone."

"That's why I split it into a four-day trip. It's been good. You want to come over for dinner? I can pick something up on the way."

"I'll pass. I have another shoot coming up and I made too many diet concessions while we were in Cali."

"You know I give you shit about your weight just because you're my sister, right? And I know your appearance is important for your job. But I don't actually mean any of it."

He could hear her scoff. "Duh, bro. Did you not know my ringtone for you is Robbie Williams' Dickhead?"

"I haven't heard that one."

"Hang on..." she said. His phone buzzed. "There you go. You can listen to it on the way home. And thank you for making sure I knew, though I don't know why you just brought that up now."

"I've just been doing a lot of reflecting. I love you, Angie."

"Love you too, Dickhead. Get home safe!"

She disconnected and he clicked on the link to the song. He replayed it at the end, laughing his head off.

*

He pulled into his driveway and breathed in the Atlantic air. He was so glad to be home. He keyed into his house expecting to be singing along to the kitty chorus immediately but was shocked at the silence. He walked into the living room to find both kittens curled up on a blanket that was covering a sleeping Spice.

She came. She was here! As he approached, both Link and Lara started purring loudly and stood, stretching and nuzzling and mewling. "I missed you guys, yes I did!" he whispered to them, nuzzling them back.

"Hey, you," she said softly.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, winding her hair around his hand and kissing her softly.

"Missed you." Kiss. "Wanted to see you." She deepened the kiss.

"How long can you stay?" His giddy heart pounded while waiting for her answer.

She shrugged. "I negotiated with my boss to indefinitely work remotely. I can be just as effective here as I can be there. I'm going to stay at Angie's so we're not 'living together' already."

He was sure his heart was going to prance across the room and his smile was going to jump right off of his face. "Really?!"

She pulled him on top of her and kissed him again. "Really. Thank you for giving me time to process things and to see that we would still be the new version of us, even if we weren't there in person. I think I can trust what we have now."

"I'm so in love with you, baby."

"I'm so in love with you too, Vin."

"I need you." Vinnie ground down against her.

She nudged him aside and removed the blanket to show that she was just in a big tee shirt with no underwear.

"Fuuuuck, baby." He made to put his mouth on her, and she grabbed the neck of his shirt.

"Fuck me now, eat me later. I'm so fucking horny from all the texting I can't stand it!"

He stood and tried to rip his jeans off, getting comically stuck on his shoes and making her laugh.

"I can wait long enough for you to take your shoes off."

"I can't!" He got one shoe off and one leg out and decided that was enough. He thrust home and they both cried out, her pussy wrapping so perfectly around him that he just stayed still and buried his face in her hair for a moment.

"Ungh, move, please. This is torture," she groaned.

"Oh, is it?" He moved microscopically.

"You're going to be a shithead right now?" She flipped him off the couch and onto the floor, his breath leaving him in a whoosh with the impact. Somehow, he stayed inside her, and she started riding him furiously, the setting sun coming through the window behind her and making her hair glow. He tugged at her tee, and she took it off to reveal her bouncing breasts. He crushed her chest against his and smacked her ass with both hands before grabbing it and pistoning up into her until she was cumming all over him and grunting in his ear. Fuck. Yes. He rolled her over, took a nipple in his mouth, and bit down, making her scream. He pounded into her until she was contracting around him again and he was filling her up.

"Mine," he grunted to her with one last thrust.

"Yours," she panted. "I'm yours."

Epilogue 1

Several months later

Angie was running on her treadmill in late October when her cell phone rang. "What's up, Jazzy?"

"Hey, gorgeous. I need a big favor. Huge." Jazz's tone was urgent and pleading.

"Sure, you know I'll do anything for you." She hoped the anything wouldn't come back to bite her, but Jazz had helped her launch her career, plus, he was family now.

"One of my colleagues had a model back out at the last minute. I owe him big time, so I told him you would help. It's not your normal type of shoot, but it will be easy for you and will save this guy's ass and make us look like heroes."

Angie shrugged, even though Jazz couldn't see it. "Sure, no problem; what kind of shoot is it and how should I prepare?"

"Oh shit, I gotta go. Just show up and it will be fine. I'll email you the flight info. Love you, bye!"

She hated the idea of showing up and seeming unprofessional by not knowing what to expect, but since she was doing a favor, surely the photographer would be understanding. Her phone chimed with an email. The flight was at 5 am tomorrow.

"Asshole," she grumbled. Hopefully, they had a decent makeup artist on staff that would be able to cover the inevitable bags under her eyes.

*

The next morning, she arrived on set at 10 am, and as soon as she walked through the door, I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas started blasting through the speakers at a deafening level. She physically cringed and stumbled backward through the door. She hated that song. Loathed it.

"Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry early Christmas! You must be Angie!" A man wearing a Santa suit and holding a camera approached her.

What. The. Fuck? She raised her voice to be heard over the music. "Can we turn that off?"

Santa gestured at someone who turned it down but not off. "Sorry about that! Just some mood music for our jolly shoot today!" He beamed at her.

Had she entered a Hallmark Christmas movie? Was this like an alternate reality thing? She stared at the man and blinked, but he just kept smiling at her. She squared her shoulders. May as well get on with it. "Just point me in the direction of makeup and wardrobe," she requested as politely as possible.

"There's a screen over there that you can change behind." He pointed to the corner of the room.

She walked past a hay bale with a gaudy, plaid ribbon attached to it. There better not be livestock involved here. She reached the screen and stepped behind it to find an ugly, polyester, sexy Mrs. Claus outfit that looked like it had been worn by many people before her. Oh, Jazz, I'm going to get you for this one. She velcroed- not zipped, not buttoned, but velcroed the crop top and skirt on, and her body was immediately covered in unpleasant goosebumps at the feel of the scratchy interior fabric.

Let's get this shit over with. "Okay, I'm rea...what. The hell. Is that?" All professionalism had left her. Standing beside the ugly hay bale was none other than a Llama. An ugly, smelly, spit machine with teeth. It seemed to leer at her, and she swore it was gathering a mouthful to shower her with right now.

"That's Clementine," Santa told her. "She's the sweetest girl this side of the Mississippi. Aren't you baby? Santa walked over and hugged the stupid thing around the neck.

She hated llamas even more than hokey Christmas songs. One had spit on her as a child and it had traumatized her for life. Kira had tried to get her to visit an alpaca farm because apparently, she loved anything llama or llama adjacent. Then she'd called Angie dramatic when she'd told her she'd rather roll in cow shit.

Just then, All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth started playing. Her mood darkened further. Professional, Angie. Be professional. "Makeup?" she asked.

"Nope, none needed for this one. We'll handle everything after the fact. It'll be jolly!" Santa assured her.

Jolly. It will be JOLLY. "Whatever you say, Santa," she said through clenched teeth.

"Steve, not Santa. Sorry, I got caught up in the Christmas spirit and forgot to introduce myself. We'll try to make this quick. Just get in close with the lovely Clementine."

She inched closer to the furry beast and started doing her normal grouping of poses as the camera flashed.

"Closer!" Santa...er...Steve commanded brightly. "She doesn't bite!"

She inched closer still and the animal started to fidget restlessly.

"You aren't afraid of her, are you?"

She gave Steve her best go fuck yourself look. Steve just laughed and kept snapping away with the camera.

"This is great. Now stand in front of her and put your arm back around her neck like you're dancing with her."

She obeyed but jumped when the beast made a snorting noise.

"Look up at her lovingly. Isn't she beautiful?"

Angie continued to follow instructions as best she could, and the stupid music kept playing, and the stupid THING kept looking at her.

"Okay, I think we have enough. Thanks for your help, Angie! Be sure to kiss Clem goodbye."

"I'll pass," she grumbled and ran back behind the screen.

*

When she got off the plane, her phone lit up with notifications from the group chat. She opened it to find that everyone had commented on a new album...of her, sans makeup, with the spitting nightmare. It seemed like Santa had gone out of his way to snap photos at the most inopportune moments, like when she was blinking or grimacing. Or both at the same time, so she looked like she was falling down drunk and trying not to puke. Well, she was trying not to puke.

Vinnie: this one's going to be my new contact photo!

Kira: OMG, priceless!

Ali: Awwwwww, it's so cute!

Jazz: these are for a humorous holiday advent calendar. you know, the ones where you open all the doors? It's a PSA not to drink so much during the holidays sponsored by Reingold.

Jason: hahahahhahahahaha

Jason: hahahahahahahaaahahaha

What. The Actual. Fuck?! She was going to kill Jazz. They'd never find the body. This was cruel and unusual and possibly career suicide.

She stormed out of the gate and stopped dead. Kira and Vinnie stood there wearing Santa hats and holding a sign that said, "GOTCHA! and a cell phone with Jazz, Jazon, and Ali scrunched in on the screen."

They were going to prank her until the day she died.

Epilogue 2: Four years later

Kira sat at the end of a row of stadium seating beside Jazz. Beyond him were Angie, Vinnie, and Jason. There was a lot of giggling and elbowing going on down there.

"See, I told you it was better to sit down here by me," Jazz whispered in her ear.

She giggled. "Yep, I should have expected it. You would never know they didn't grow up together."

The five of them had become one big group of best friends, and outside of the big group chat, they all texted each other regularly. Everyone had special common ground with someone else. Kira had been waiting all her life to find those connections and she'd never been happier.

She absently twisted the understated wedding band on her finger. She and Vinnie had gotten married in a small ceremony three years earlier. Angie had argued for a giant ceremony since money wasn't an object, but that just wasn't her jam. Jazz had designed the perfect dress and it had been exactly what she wanted.

She and Vinnie had applied to be foster parents and hoped the approval would come through soon. She couldn't wait. Soundproofing the bedroom was also urgently on the agenda.

As the names started being called, they all listened respectfully until they got to the C's. When Allison Carruthers' name was read, they stood and screamed and made an embarrassing spectacle of themselves. Ali, wearing combat boots under her gown, just smiled and waved.

This? This love, this family, this joy? This was real.

End