Mikayla woke up the next morning, feeling JC wrapped around her.  Her body felt like Jello, sore in the best way.  She knew this was only because they were alone in the house, she and Justin hadn’t had anything like that in a while.  She loved the twins, but they didn't exactly allow for privacy a lot of the time, even with Jackie right next to their room.

“You feeling ok?” JC asked.

“I’m afraid to move…  Just leave me here for the next few days…”

“Getting old, are you?” he laughed.

“Says the man turning 40 in just under 3 months…”

“I’m definitely feeling a little stiff,” he groaned.

“Did you really just make a morning wood joke?”

“Yes and no.  I mean, you can feel it, but the rest of my body is screaming ‘It’s a trap!  Don’t do it, please…’ Mostly my back.  Stay right here, I have an idea.”

“I’m not going anywhere unless absolutely necessary.”

JC slowly rolled to sit up in bed, carefully getting up off the bed.  Mikayla smiled at his naked ass, how good his body looked for almost 40.  Not that she had a frame of reference for naked men nearing 40, but damn he looked good.  He disappeared into the bathroom, coming out with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol.

“Take a couple.  I’m gonna go get some Gatorade I put in the fridge last night while you were at dinner.”

“At least put on your briefs or a towel, there’s a pretty direct view inside if you're close enough,” she giggled. 

“That’s a risk I'm willing to take. My back will scream at me if I bend over to put anything on.  I’ll be right back, my love.”

Mikayla had her own idea, chugging down the water and Tylenol before she got herself out of bed. She walked into the bathroom, turning on the water for the tub, getting some of her oils and bath salts out.

JC came into the room quietly, hearing the water in the bathroom. She was sitting on the edge of the tub, JC giving her a loving smile.  “For me?”

“For both of us.  Not too hot since you know, pregnant and all, but I thought it might help…”

“It’ll help in multiple ways, I’m sure,” he chuckled.  “My thoughtful woman.  Fuck, I don’t even know what to call you.  At least HE gets to call you his wife…”

“That could be your pet name for me, if you really want.  I dunno, clearly I didn't think about all of the intricacies and minute details of this relationship.”

“As long as you’re mine again, that’s really all that matters to me.”

“And now I have Wicked stuck in my head…”

JC gave her a confused look.  “For a guy that considered shifting to acting from music, you don’t know musical theater?  There’s a song in Wicked called As Long As You’re Mine.  And a very fitting line in it goes ‘I’ll wake up my body, and make up for lost time’...” she sang.

“Clearly I’m in the wrong business.  Maybe I could be the next Andrew Lloyd Weber,” he chuckled.  “I tend to have more music type music, not songs from musicals stuck in my head.  There's so many shows that come up every year, it’d be hard to keep it all straight in my head…”

“That brilliant brain of yours,” she smiled. “The one that gave us Digital Getdown and One Night Stand and 100 Ways…  Let’s not forget the wisdom of Space Cowboy.”

“Fuck you, those were… well, they were songs,” JC laughed.

“You know I love them because you wrote them.  You also gave us great songs like Dear Goodbye, Lose Myself, and Build my World.”

“Really, not gonna mention Selfish?” he asked, almost offended.

“Unperfect?  Clearly no one goes over correct grammar with song writers…”

JC rolled his eyes.  “Whatever, that was a fucking brilliant song for what it was.”

“It was,” she smiled.  It fits us, that’s for sure.  Let’s get in the tub while the water is still warm.”

She stepped in, waiting for JC to get in before she sat and laid down against his chest.

They were quiet for a while, letting the water do its part in their healing and recovery process from the night before.

“So you really haven’t been with anyone else since we broke up?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“I’ve had less than a handful of one night things, when I got really desperate that my hand wouldn’t do it.”

“Lance and Michael’s wedding?” she wondered.

“I may have taken a model to a hotel, somewhere impersonal.”

“VMAs?”

“My hotel room, yeah. I’m seeing a trend…”

“What’s that?”

“The major events I saw you at or we interacted, I needed someone.  I mean, I missed you all the time, but having you so close, seeing or talking to you, I needed someone, pretend they were you.”

“Josh…”

“You’re the only woman I want, Kay.  I made a big mistake, two of them in a short time.  Actually, three.”

“Three?”

“Maybe more.  First was letting what happened in my studio with her ever happen at all.  Then it was believing anything more had happened between you and Justin, not wanting you back.  Third was deleting that voicemail, missing out on being the father and husband I should have been.  Even more if you count things I said and did to try and make you angry because I was feeling like shit.”

“I was sure you were sleeping with her once we were over.  The chemistry you had in performances…”

“I was pretending she was you, Kay.  Every woman I was with like that, I closed my eyes and pretended she was you.  I’m sure that’s terrible for the women I literally just randomly picked.  Wasn’t even attracted to them, just needed a body to pretend was yours.”

“Sounds like you need a therapist or something…”

“Maybe I did, but things are good between us now.  Needing to do that isn’t an option anymore.  Why pretend when I have the real thing?”

“You really can’t see yourself with anyone else?  I’d say there are plenty of women at Eric’s events…”

“Yes and no.  Not plenty, but it’s not all dudes.”

“More like girlfriends of people there, not anyone he has as a client.”

“I guess, yeah.  Not that it matters.  I only want you, Kay.”

“If I’m on the road with Justin, and you wake up next to a beautiful woman you had great conversation with before amazing sex, you wouldn’t consider more?”

“She’s not you, so no…”

“Josh.  I love what we have going right now, but to sustain that long term?  You don’t want a marriage, more kids?”

“I’m turning 40, Kay.  I think those ships sailed.  Thankfully the one of having kids is alive and well thanks to the twins.  I’d been afraid of the possibility, but now that I know they’re here, they exist… I’m ecstatic.  I should be freaking out that I have kids out there, but it’s you, not some one night stand demanding money.  And they had Justin raising them, they got the best of everything.”

“He thought having YOU raise them would have been better.  He loves them to death, but he still feels like he was a placeholder sometimes.  At least now we have one of our own, he’ll feel like a real dad too, he’ll be the actual father…”

“How did that go when you had them?”

“We were married, though secretly, people knew we were together, so no one even thought twice about him being the father that they let him sign the papers.  If I hadn’t been tied to someone so famous, I still feel they’d have let whoever was male and in the room with me sign off as the father, even if it was a gay best friend.”

“That’s a little disturbing.”

“I’ve been looking into it, and in certain circumstances our situation would be paternity fraud.  At the same time, one could argue that you deleting that voicemail, dropping contact, could be abandonment and therefore Justin stepped in as the legal guardian.  We had papers drawn up to cover him in such an event.  Not that you would sue him or anything, but just in case.  The hospital didn't even bat an eye in question of him being the father, so I don’t know how legal all of this was or not, but it happened.  They didn't ask, and we didn’t tell.”

“Justin is looking into lawyers and stuff with all this, right?  I’ll have my people work with his.”

“You said Eric is taking this well?”

“Only because I am.  I might have been panicked in the moment of calling him, but even then he started going off and I was like ‘it’s Mikayla, I want to be part of this.  Not to hide it necessarily, but yeah.  Only really hide it because of the situation.  They’ll know, my family will know, right?”

“Shit, I told your mom I’d call her today…”

“We could call her together.”

“Not right now, that’s for sure.  I wanna FaceTime, and being naked in a tub with you isn't the best way to reintroduce myself to your family…”

“Kay, we were sleeping together by the time we went to Florida, staying at my house there.”

“I was sad when I heard you sold it…”

“I’m not there as much as I used to be, I stay with my parents when I’m there, so it was the right choice.  I just wish I’d made the right choice about us back then.  It didn't matter how much I loved you, I felt hurt and betrayed and I wasn't going to let myself get hurt again.  After everything with Eva, her leaving me for someone else…”

“You’re here now, so that’s more important.  You know about the twins, and are choosing to be part of things now.  We can’t erase the past, but we can face the future together.”

“Can we talk about what you said last night?  After the first time, feeling something different…”

“It’s been a while since Justin and I had anything like that. It’s great, but we get so little time together that it’s usually more hot and heavy cuz it’s just been building up.”

“Maybe you need a weekend away together or something.  Once the kids know everything, if they're ok with it, I could watch them for the weekend.”

“By yourself?  At your place?”

“Or yours.  Maybe we could have a movie night at my place, have the kids come and check it out, see what all I need to do to make it more kid friendly.  I’m already trying to design their bedroom, turn my guest room into their room.  I meant it when I said I’d sell my place to get something more suitable for them.  I’m already kinda looking, found a place not far from you.  Like, less than 5 minutes, on the other side of Mulholland.”

“You have a 4 bedroom place, Josh.”

“Not with the studio in there.”

“Let’s put off selling your place until we know they are ok with the situation.”

“Back to before.  It’s really been all fire, no romance?”

“We’re both working, we have the twins, it’s exhausting, Josh.  When they were babies, it took months before we could really find the time to.  We went to dinner and a beautiful hotel suite about 2-3 months after the twins were born, once I was cleared by my doctor.”

“They had to give your permission?”

She laughed.  “There’s a lot to heal after having a baby.  Even with that, they don’t suggest getting pregnant again until 18 months after delivery, because internally there’s still healing.”

“Isn’t it all internal?”

“Mostly, yes.  Sometimes women tear.  Thankfully I didn’t, but probably because it was two so they were smaller.  If I’d had to have a c section, they would have cut me open and pulled out my organs…”

“Stop now unless you want vomit in this tub…” JC warned.

“Childbirth is a big deal.  Guys are finished with their part after sex, but if a woman gets pregnant from it, it takes over 2 years from start to finish and having another without putting more stress on the body.  I had wanted to breastfeed, but once I found out it was twins, I knew I’d be way too tired, even with help.”

“Are you considering it with Silas?”

“I’m not sure.  KInda, just to see what I missed out on with the twins, but I’ve heard horror stories, so I don’t know.”

“I’m afraid to ask,” he laughed. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t, given that you’re part of this now.  Justin was great about things with the twins during recovery, as far as my healing and all of that. But now, with both of you…”

“What?”

“Not that it happened all the time, but finding time with a newborn to satisfy his urges was difficult enough. Now I have two of you to deal with…”

“Between the option of the twins staying with me for a while, and Jackie helping with Silas, I’m sure you’ll be fine. I mean, not that… fuck.  We’ll figure things out, but put yourself first as far as Mom mode.  If you want to breastfeed Silas, we’ll deal with whatever comes with that.  Don’t worry about us, we’ll love and support you with whatever you want to do.  I went the better part of 5 years without someone else, I’ll make due.”

“Would you want another baby, so you get the experience you missed out on?” Mikayla wondered. 

“I know he’s not mine, but Silas will be a good sense of that, though I won’t be living with you guys. There’s an idea…”

“Josh, what… no.  No. We’re not all living together, you need your own space. It’ll be weird enough for the kids knowing you’re their dad, I don’t need them walking in on us in an intimate moment…”

“That’s why doors have locks, Kay.”

“Still no. I’d be surprised if Justin thought it would be a good idea.”

“I have a good idea for right now though,” JC said, kissing the hollow of her neck.

“Yeah?” she purred. 

“A little foreplay in the tub, finish in the shower?”

She hummed as his fingers spread her thighs apart, his fingers stroking her firmly. 

“Oh god… earlier I’d have said no way.  But now, fuck yes…”

“You really are an amazing woman. Right now, you’re all mine.”