“We got it,” Daisy told Erik a few days later, coming down to the basement set shops to jump in his arms. “The trust will let us do it. Kees had a meeting with Michael Kantz and it’s final, we’ll dance it.”
“Nothing else?”
“For me? No. It’s enough. No heroics, just the one pas de deux with Will.”
“Well, I call it pretty heroic,” Erik said.
He was busy with his own project: an art student wanted to present his senior portfolio in the Black Box Theater, making an interactive, multi-medium experience of art, poetry, music and light. Erik was commissioned as lead designer. It felt good to be immersed in the creative process, getting his hands dirty, getting his mind dirty, helping someone build a dream.
Class. Rehearsals. He worked, and Daisy worked. They came home at night to Jay Street where the two couples were living all the time. David came over almost every evening. John Quillis was a regular visitor. They took care of each other.
“Lucky’s pregnant,” Daisy whispered in bed, one night toward the end of January.
“I know, Will told me. Said the condom broke over Thanksgiving.”
“Lucky doesn’t want to have it.”
“And Will does.”
“It’s the exact opposite of what I expected. I thought she’d be the one to…”
“So did I.”
She sighed, moved closer up against Erik’s back. Her fingers played with the charms on his necklace. “I guess it’s one of those things where you think you’ll feel one way, and then it happens, and it’s all different.”
“I think it’s the shooting,” he whispered. “Life is so tenuous. Lucky’s afraid of it and Will wants to fight it.”
“You’re right.”
“I feel terrible,” he said in the dark.
“I feel helpless.”
“Nothing we can do. Except just be here. Be ready to do what they need when they need it.”
A week went by, a week of tense, whispered conversations and the sound of tears through thin walls. Will was spending nights alone at Colby Street. Jay Street felt immobilized for war. Poised and braced, balanced on a single eggshell. Wolves paced on the horizon, primed for the hunt.
Erik woke up one night, not to tears or wolves, but a warm thickness in his blood, a pleasantly familiar feeling in his lap. Daisy had a hand down his sweatpants, stroking a very cheerful erection.
“Good evening,” she whispered against his temple.
“What’s up,” he said, his eyes closed.
“You.”
“How ‘bout that.”
“This is impressive.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice still slurred with sleep. “I worked a long time on it.”
She was pushing his pants down his hips, and pulling him toward her. “You should put that in me.”
“I should, right?”
“Yes.”
They rolled. She was pulling her own clothes away and aside. Half asleep, he took her by the waist and languidly worked himself into her heat. Her breath left her chest with a dry little puff as her butt settled into his lap. Sweetness radiated off the nape of her neck.
“I love when you wake me up,” he murmured. He slid his hand under her shirt, filled it with one warm breast. She sighed and pushed further back into his lap.
And then a startling noise from outside their door, a knocking into the wall. A human sound. They flinched a little, then froze in the embrace. Daisy looked back over her shoulder guiltily. Erik put a finger to his lips.
Footsteps. Another thump. Silence.
More silence.
Erik touched his fingertip to Daisy’s lips. She drew it into her mouth and pushed back hard on him. He started to move in her again. Throwing out the hook, looking for her edge. Hot, wet, squeezing pressure all around him. Sugar. Skin.
Noise again, just beyond their door, and now a cry.
“Daisy.”
Daisy pushed up on her elbow, looked over at the door. “Luck?”
“Daisy.” Louder. Urgent. An edge of panic.
“Stay here,” Daisy whispered, pulling her shirt down and her pants up and hurrying out. Erik sat up, strained to hear something even as the sound of his own quickening heartbeat filled his ears.