Alicekai'd 1.29: Night at the Park

 

     It gets darker, and we decide it would be better if we all went inside, so we go to the nearby community center. Bruno gets a plate of hamburgers that some random person made (and here, that's not considered weird) while Geoff and I check out the new little tykes play area. Bruno tells us that when he's done eating, he's going to go practice burping into the microphone upstairs. Boys.

 

     It being night, the building is practically deserted, but all of us have a sudden wellspring of energy.

     "They really did a good job with this place," I tell Geoffrey. Today has been wonderful, even with the sometimes-awkward conversation earlier. I feel like we're a family of sorts, and I really start to want that.

     Gone is the happy-go-lucky, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, anything-goes Alice that had thus far inhabited this world. I'm going back to being myself again. This is the real me... only... happier. This is what I've been looking for. Sure, I've always had the wild streak, but it's back where it belongs: behind closed doors.

     "They did," he agrees with me. "They've really geared it towards families." I get a sudden wave of hopeful anticipation. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wished for it.

     "It's wonderful." That does it. I know what I want, and it's all around me.

     "YOU'RE wonderful," he tells me with a goofy grin on his face.

     "Don't you start." He claims he can't read my mind, but sometimes I wonder how good he is at reading my face.

     "Start what? I'm just speaking the truth." If I don't change the subject, this will turn into a game that'll have me either blushing like mad or jumping him.

     "Can you really tell if someone's lying? How do you do it?" There.

     He gives me a look over the rim of his glasses like he suspects (correctly) why I did that. "There are lots of factors to consider: eyes, tone of voice, intonation, head movement, and so on."

     "Is it true that if someone looks one way, it means they're definitely lying? I can't remember if it's left or right."

     "We used to think that, but it really depends on the person."

     "Well, what about me?"

     He smiles.

     "With you, it's all about your beautiful eyes. The difficulty, however, is often you let yourself believe your own lies, making them appear as truth. Often, you'll look away, which, by the way, drives me crazy because I'll do anything to get and keep your attention. Sometimes, you scrunch up your adorable eyebrows like you're fighting with yourself to keep up the lie. But mostly, you rarely lie on purpose."

     Yeah, I caught all those stealthily thrown-in compliments. "When have I lied?"

     "Hm..." He ponders. "I guess the first I noticed is when you'd talk about Don. You never really believed you'd have anything remotely serious with him, did you?"

     I grin sheepishly. "No. I liked playing with him when I'd play the game, so it was kind of a 'well, I'm here, may as well' thing."

     "I wondered if you'd lied about the 'real world' thing, but I kept thinking if it were a lie, you firmly believed it."

     "Do you still think I'm lying?"

     "I meant what I said then. I believe you. I saw no lie in your eyes, and well, if you were insane, I was determined to go down with the ship because I knew even then I was in love with you." He watches me for my reaction. I honestly have no idea what to say to something like that. I still need to tell him how I feel, and I wonder if he's fishing for it. He continues, "And I'm praying that you've lost the desire to find a way to go back. I don't want to live without you, Alice."

     "Well, it truly wasn't a lie, isn't a lie, but let me tell you I firmly see this as home. I never want to leave." I watch as his eyes soften, and the corners of his mouth lift. I'm almost forming the words, but just then, Carlie starts fussing. I move to get her before Geoff can.

 

     I feed her a bottle, and then she gets sleepy. The entire time, Geoffrey and I don't speak. I can tell he's happy, though, so I don't push it.

     He looks over and sees Carlie start to drift off. "She's making ME sleepy, so I'm going to go get a cup of coffee. Want some?"

     "No, I'm good. Thanks."

     He nods and gets a mug then returns, sitting in his goofy pink chair again.

     Once more, we sit in silence, and I watch him smile into his mug. This moment is perfect. "I love you. That's not a lie." I smirk as he almost chokes on another sip of coffee.

     He looks over at me and beams. "That's not fair, Alice. How in plum's name am I supposed to pounce on you when you have a sleeping baby in your arms?"

     I shrug in false nonchalance. "Sounds like a 'you' problem." I kiss my sleeping baby's head.

     Still, he gets up and deeply kisses me, being sure not to wake Carlie. He takes his coffee black.

     Next, he goes upstairs to find Bruno and make sure he does his homework. Then we both go back to my place where he and Bruno crash on my sofa, and Carlie and I nap in our beds. When we wake up, I make a quick dinner/lunch, and Geoffrey hires a babysitter.

     He takes me back to the park...

     "I wanted us to have a little alone time together," he explains. "I have a confession, Alice. I was seriously getting worried since you hadn't uttered those three magical words." He strokes my face.

     "Geez, Geoff. Have a little faith. I was waiting for the right moment. I didn't want it to be a result of anything else. Besides, didn't you say that you knew?"

     "I said that, yeah, but a man needs a little confidence boost now and again."

     "Well, I love you. There." I giggle. I expect him to kiss me, but he doesn't, instead standing stiffly like he's freaking out about something.

     I watch him take deep breaths, and I worry he's about to be sick in the bushes, which will, honestly, really piss me off. "Are you okay?"

     "I'm fine," he says entirely too quickly.

     "Are you sure?"

     Another deep breath. "Like I said: confidence boost."

     "Um... okay?"

     Oh my god. 

Alicekai'd 1.28: Day at the Park

 

 

     I have another nightmare. I'm back home in the real world, and I have to do my advertising presentation. Since I've forgotten everything, it's a disaster. I get demoted. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is I can't get back to Geoffrey, and I miss him terribly. My only comfort, if you could call it that, is pathetically playing the Sims 4 so that I can see him. It's awful watching him kiss Nancy and seeing how much he loves her. She's his true love. I wake up crying.

     "Alice?" I hear, and I wonder if it's real. It sounds like Geoffrey, but it could just be wishful thinking.

 

     "Alice, baby, what's wrong?" It does sound like him. I close my eyes real tight and try to hold on to this better dream. Then I feel him lightly shaking me.

     I pull back the covers to see MY Geoffrey with a worried expression on his face. In a blink, I'm up and hugging him.

     Little laughing, hiccuping cries escape me as I squeeze him to me.

     "Bad dream?" he guesses.

     "Terrible dream." Then I realize I'm not in my pj's. I was extraordinarily tired last night, and I'd passed out on my bed, that whole 'exhaustion failure' thing. "I've been working too hard." Thank goodness it's Saturday.

     He reaches up and pets my hair. "What was it about?" From his tone, he might be thinking it was about Mark. He's REALLY not happy he and I work together on the film, but I've also been sure to let him know how much I hate it.

     I pull back and tell him about my nightmare. It's kind of embarrassing to tell him how I missed him so much that I'd play the game just to see him--but then the torture of seeing him and Nancy together made me cry.

     He's a little too quiet for comfort, and I take a peek at him to gauge his mood by reading his expression. He has a kind of puppy dog eyes thing going, but I don't know if it's for me or her.

     He sees me looking at him. "Alice..." He reaches for me.

 

     "It was only a dream."

     "I know that now, but I didn't know that when I was dreaming it."

     "Well, it's over now," he reminds me, rubbing my arm. "And there's a newborn in the next room who's ready to age up."

     I sniff. "Yeah." Toddlers. Well, that should be different. 

     But I get a surprise.

     "What?" She's a really small toddler.

     We both 'magically' spin into different outfits as I look down at my daughter. "This... explains a lot." I'd wondered about all the new baby stuff I found I could buy. She's not an infant, but she's not a toddler either. "A new expansion pack, maybe?"

     "What do you mean?" Geoffrey asks.

     I turn to him, shaking my head. "Maybe you don't want to know." And this explains the new neighborhood as well.

     He smiles, "At any rate, Bruno is bouncing off the walls, ready to go to the park." He reaches for Carlie before putting her in a carrier on his back. "Off we go, little one!"

    As I watch the two of them leave the room, I hold my head and once more ponder reality. And I ponder whether or not I WANT to ponder reality anymore. That dream certainly showed me I like this reality better.

     When we get to the park, Geoff holds Carlie in his arms and makes a beeline for a little water park thing.

     "Look, Carlie. Splash, splash, splash!" He starts splashing in the water like a kid.

     Bruno immediately went and found a little friend to play with, and I just stand here and admire everything. They did a good job with this one.

     Carlie doesn't think much of the water feature, making little aa-aa-aa-aa! noises and waving her hand in front of herself as if to get the water away from her.

     "I don't think she thinks much of the water, Geoffrey," I say with a smile.

     I'm loving this. Watching Geoffrey with my daughter does wonders for my mood. He's a natural dad. Isn't he supposed to be family-oriented? That... makes sense. I think about all the stuff about him that I tease is 'old fashioned.'

     "Aw... she just needs to get used to it. See, Carlie? It's fun!" He puts his hand in the spray of the water, making it go everywhere. Carlie screams her dislike.

     "Let's, um, let's go sit in the shade." I motion to a nearby monkey bar set.

     Bruno's friend has to go do something, so Bruno follows us to the bars.

    He bounds over to it and immediately starts swinging. "Look at me, Dad! Look at me!" He's taken to calling Geoff 'dad' instead of 'daddy' as an effort to show he's more grown up.

    "Wow, you're really good at that," Geoffrey says and smiles. Carlie looks more happy to be over here in the shade.

     I love him. It suddenly strikes me that I've never actually told him. Crap! I hope he hasn't been freaking out about that! I bite my lip as I wonder if he has.

     He looks at me and smiles, walking over to the bench and dodging his adopted son's legs as they swing back and forth.

     "Everything okay?" he asks once seated.

     "Look! I can skip a bar!" Bruno calls out.

     I respond. "That's awesome. I was too scared to do that when I was a kid."

     "Well, I'm a BIG kid." He grins and keeps showing off.

     "Alice?" Geoff tries to get my attention.

     "Everything is perfect," I tell him, answering his question.

     However, I don't know if he's totally buying it.

      "We've never really talked about Nancy. I'm sorry for that." He watches my face like the proverbial hawk, and I suddenly remember him once telling me that he could usually tell if someone's lying (S.I.M.S. training?). I wasn't really lying per se, but that dream IS still haunting the plum out of me.

     "Geoff..." I want to tell him it's not necessary, but he interrupts me.

     "No, listen. We've spoken plenty about this little tyke's father." He lightly bounces Carlie. "But you or I never bring up my deceased wife."

     My face falls. Please don't ruin today. It's been so good once that dream ended. 

     "It's fine. You don't have to." I worry it'll bring him pain. She died so suddenly after all.

     Carlie yawns and snuggles into Geoffrey's chest, getting sleepy. "It's true that I loved her," he continues anyway, "but I never... felt the connection with her that I do with you."

     "Geoff..."

     He sighs and looks down, once again ignoring my protest.

     "This was a large part of my problem... before we started dating." He wears a sad kind of smile and lightly pats my daughter's back. "I would think, 'I lose Nancy only to fall even more deeply in love with someone who doesn't want me.'"

     "That's not true," I quickly get in before I see him wipe under his eye. I want to tell him how I feel... but not in response to talking about her.

     Carlie yawns, so he moves to lay her down on the ground. A blanket magically appears out of the ether, yet another obvious sign that no one sees.

     He takes my hand.

     "That dream you had, or rather nightmare, speaks volumes to me, Alice."

      I look down. Carlie gets the hiccups, but they don't appear to bother her. I don't want to tell him after talking about my nightmare, either. 

     "You didn't want to go back to your real world, and seeing Nancy and me together brought you to tears." I can tell he's desperate for me to look at him, but I really don't like thinking about that awful nightmare. "I love YOU, Alice. Ten times more than I loved her."

     "But..." That's the first time he's said it since the end of our first date. 

     "But what?" He waits for a reply, but when he doesn't get one, he says, "Talk to me, Alice. I can't read your mind."

     Bruno's friend comes over and challenges him to a race while Geoffrey waits for me to explain myself.

     I let out a huff. "You're going to think it's stupid, but I always sort of thought of her as high society while I'm... The Britechester Hussy." I take a breath. "And her influence on you was better."

     He chuckles. "I love your influence on me."

     I roll my eyes. "Ugh!" Then I try to pull my hand free, bringing it to my side, but he doesn't let go, holding it tighter and laughing a bit louder.

     "You're not The Britechester Hussy. Please don't let me hear you call yourself that. And as far as influence goes, yeah, she kind of pushed me in that high society direction, taking full advantage of my family's name and status. But I was never really comfortable with that. All I really wanted was to go to work, come home, and be with my family." He watches me as that sinks in. "I'm saying you're better for me, Alice. No offense to her, may she rest in peace, but if there are soulmates, I firmly believe you are mine."

    A warm glow begins to fill me.

 

     "Really?" I can't stop the smile from slowly spreading across my face.

     "Shit, Alice, has it really taken this long for it to finally sink in?" He doesn't look angry, more of a happy kind of exasperated.

     "I mean I believed you, believe you, but... really?" I guess I did have lingering doubts. Like what if I'm just the runner-up prize after he lost Nancy?

     He smiles with a little shake of his head. "Really."

     He leans in to kiss me. Not a long one, but it's still a bit of a surprise considering we're out in public. And it's in front of Bruno... who doesn't indicate he noticed, probably still racing his friend on the monkey bars.

     Geoffrey Landgraab really loves me! I'm a billion times more giddy than I was that day Don Lothario asked me out.

     Geoff lets out the tiniest huff. "I mean this in the nicest way possible, but sometimes, you really make me want to shake you."

     I giggle. "I guess I have a hard time changing my mind once I've made a snap decision about something."

     His eyes squint as if trying to figure something out. "And what, precisely, snap decision are you overcoming, may I ask?"

     "Well, I mean this was ages ago, and I thought I'd gotten over it. But I guess it was still lingering in a tiny way." His expression still asks me to explain, so I do. "I'd convinced myself you hated me."

     "How in plum's name did you ever come to that conclusion?" He pauses. "Wait. Was it that day I saw you and 'him' at that pub together? When I acted like a total loon."

     "I don't think so. No, I think it was when you found out I was pregnant with another man's child."

     Bruno interrupts. "I'm going to go fishing!"

     Geoff responds, "Okay. Just be careful, and stay where we can see you."

     "Duh." He trots off.

     We get quiet. I think I ruined the mood by bringing up that Carlie is Mark's daughter, that no matter what, that will always be true. I can feel Geoff watching me, and I can't look at him. If only she were really his. 

     He speaks like he's finally putting pieces together. "You really did believe that, didn't you?"

     I nod, having gone so high to pitching so low right now almost brings me to tears.

     "So you just decided to ignore the whole 'I could never hate you' bit."

     I shrug. "People say things they don't mean all the time. It made more sense for you to hate me." I pause. "I hated myself."

     "You shouldn't, and I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you never do again."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicekai'd 1.27: Something

 

     Work has me stressing out, and what's worse, I let Mark have Carlie this weekend. I'm alone. Too alone. This didn't used to be a big deal. Now it is.

 

     "Hi, are you busy?" I've called Geoffrey.

     He chuckles. "I was just about to call you. No, in fact, the house is too quiet. Bruno is camping with the scouts this weekend."

     "Come over," I order.

     "Yes ma'am." I can hear him smiling.

     Now for the wardrobe change.

 

     This aught to get his attention. I'm wearing what I call the 'anime guy's fantasy girl' outfit. Yeah, Geoff may not fit that stereotype exactly, but I think it'll still work.

     I wait in the living room and am practically bouncing when he arrives.

     I don't miss his expression when he sees me through the windows in the door, and I grin as I open it. "Come on in."

     He steps in, his eyes speaking volumes. Good. I need it. I need something real, better than the crap I've had to deal with all week.

    He clears his throat. "Wow, Alice. That... outfit."

    I stop and turn to him.

     "What do you mean? It's a hot day." Seasons last much more than a week, I've noticed.

     "Okay... I can maybe accept that excuse for everything but the stockings." He looks down at my legs.

     Again, I fake innocence, which I know he's not buying. "I like the way stocking'ed feet feel on the carpet. It's nice."

     "Suuuuure," he says with a grin, looking like he'll play along. "If you say so."

     I giggle. "Have a seat." I watch him as he does. I'm about to pounce. All I've gotten out of him is kissing, and I want more. Something.

     He raises his eyebrows and has a seat, then he starts backing into the corner of the sofa when he sees the way I approach him. "Alice, what's going on?"

     "Can't I just be happy to see you?" I kiss his cheek.

     "What are you trying to do to me?" His breathing picks up speed.

     "Kiss you." So I do. Deeply, and he responds, holding my head. I climb on top of him.

     "Alice, what's going on?" he manages to ask while I kiss him.

     "I want to kiss you," I reply simply, inching my hips forward.

     "I say this is... a bit more than that." His hand rests on my thigh, just at the edge of my skirt.

     "You don't like it?"

     "Didn't say that." His hand moves up under my skirt, his thumb pressing into my hip socket. The sensation surprises me, and I break the kiss, pushing my hips forward.

    Then I'm moving against him, feeling his shorts press into me more and more.

    "Alice..." Whatever he wanted to say gets lost.

    "I want you," I whisper into his ear.

    He moans. He wants to give in, but he's already told me the whole 'marriage only' thing. "You know... how I feel... about that."

     "Geoffrey, please. I need SOMEthing."

     Suddenly, his head pops up, and he kisses me, also moving us. Curious, I let him.

     "Something," he states as a question.

     "Yes." I wonder what he has in mind.

     He further moves me, and to my surprise, he pins my arms over my head, looking down at me from where we lie on the couch.

     He touches my face in a tender gesture. "First, tell me what's going on."

     "Geoffrey..." I struggle. Where does he hide that strength?

    "Ah-ah-ah-ah. Answer my question."

    This is totally a mood-killer. "Fine. I've had a shit week at work. I wish I'd never agreed to play the role. I wish they'd never cast HIM as Jarred. I'm so sick of playacting that I'm in love with him as that character that I REALLY, REALLY need something real." I blink back tears. He already knows Mark has Carlie this weekend, so I don't have to tell him that part.

    He gently leans down and kisses me. "Thank you."

    "For what?" I want to punch him.

    "For telling me what's bothering you." His hand continues to stroke my face.

    I struggle again. "Well, now that you know, you can let go of me."

    He breathes in. "I never said that was part of the bargain." His thigh moves between my legs, and his hand traces down my neck to land on my chest. I gasp.

     "So you need something, huh?" he asks as his thigh really gets to work and his hand massages me.

     "Yes," I breathe out. Dayum, how is this even this good? We're not even really doing anything, but I'm ready to explode. I start struggling. I want more, but he continues to give me the steady movement of his thigh between my legs. Too slow!

     "Faster," I gasp out.

     He watches me. "No. In fact, I think we need to slooooowwwww..... doooowwwnnn." And he does just that, making me cry out in frustration.

     "Geoffrey PLEASE!" I try to move my hips on my own, but he just increases his own pressure, pushing me into the couch cushions. I move my head from side to side.

     "No, no, Alice. Right here." He tries to hold my eyes with his own, but I can't keep mine focused.

     Then his hand leaves my chest and starts assisting his thigh.
 

     I scream and can't control the thrusting of my hips into his hand, which he encourages again and again until I'm finally spent.

     I'm dimly aware of him wrapping both my legs around him.

     He kisses me and starts with his own thrusts, looking for whatever friction he can acquire in this clothes-on experience. I like it; it does a lot for me as well, and I start letting him know. He likes that, and he stops kissing me so he can hear more. I see his eyes roll back as he finally finds his own relief.

 

     I'm well and truly spent, but I try to stay awake. I can't keep my eyes open, though.

     Geoffrey once again strokes my face. "My precious, precious Alice," he whispers.

    I want to ask him what he means by that, but I can't muster up the lucidity.

     I feel him kiss my forehead, and then I fall asleep.