*Before....

Those are all chilled and setting and everything’s in full swing for supper when I go out with a bowl of the scooped out cheesecake filling and some of the new topping and share it with Iggy and Giselle who both look tired and sleepy right after having it and I take the time to take both of them upstairs and Ingrid sort of pushed it a bit too hard and she’s hit that whole wounded animal mode and she just curls up on the couch and Giselle just sort of watches and she likely wanted to climb in there with her but Ingrid literally has her back to us and herself buried into the couch.
Giselle’s world weary little hurt sigh’s kind of heartbreaking.
I pick her up. “C’mon sweetheart you come with me and we’ll take a nap.”
She gives me this sad and hurt and sleepy nod and plants her face in my shoulder.
Her little fingers are wound into my shirt just too hard.
I use my phone and I text Holly to tell Tay because he’ll never look at his phone right now and I set the alarm and slip into bed with my daughter and roll to my side cradling her and pull the sheets over both of us into the best snuggle I can manage.
I love my daughter...I love her so much it hurts when she hurts.
I really want to be the best mom that I can be.

*And Now…

I slip in and out from my own sleep and dreams while holding Giselle. I’m pretty sure if I had have been able to really connect to my emotions when i was a kid, well younger that I’d be hurting too.

I am better now or I’m really trying hard to be.

There are things that stir inside of me that hurt but it’s a messed up sort of good hurt.

Like I know I’ll never carry a child and give birth.

I know I’m a mom though and that while I’m just starting that this will be the most precious thing to me.

The whole thing has me sleeping between moments of dozing.

But I have to guess that this is what being a parent is when you do it right?

Loving them while listening to them breathing and sleeping when they’re young while somewhere off in another part of your brain you’re making lists and thinking of how you can do the best you can for them.

Okay I’m not going to say I’m doing it right yet but Natalie sure did give me a whole experience of things not to do.

I’m in between doze sessions when Taylor comes in and I think things are all done because he slipped inside and kissed us both before he went and showered.

I love that he’s this good with her.

I love the way that he kisses me.

There’s this push and lean into me thing that he does just a little that I can feel, this really amazing thing where I can feel the tension and stuff just sort of break up some when we do it.

Even dozing it made me smile.

I semi-woke enough to watch him drying off with the bathroom door open and that makes me smile too. I like his body. I do and not just the sex parts.
I like his frame, I like how he’s a guy, a man and all that goes with like the muscles and his frame. I don’t like that stuff with me because it’s not me but on him it’s perfect.

I love he has some weight coming back on.

His entire deal with his cancer had left him way too thin really.

I mean I only knew Taylor when he was sick at first and over time and seeing him getting better after his treatment and him on the mend he literally is looking better and better.

I love these things about him, the way he moves as he walks back to the bed and the smile that goes right into his eyes when he looks at us.

When he looks at me.

He stops at the edge of the bed and leans in and we share these sweet and wonderful over and over again kisses that make me feel warm inside and a little achy but in that good way before he straddles the bed over the two of us carefully and settles into bed.

We eventually end up sleeping like a family with me and him sort of cuddled and Giselle sort of a mix between on us both and sandwiched between us.

It’s a great nap for us and it honestly moves my heart.

Thank you God, seriously thank you for my family.

I get up and slip to the bathroom and take care of things and check the time then with enough time I take some pictures of all of them before heading downstairs to do the end of the night stuff and close things up and see to the kids that are still here and hanging around.

I make sure all of them are okay for food and clothes and having stuff clean and dry before they go and I make sure they get paid for doing the things that I or Taylor hired them for.

There was a half dozen tight hugs before they leave and there’s more kids than that.

Some of them are just shy, hurt, scared.

God my heart goes out to kids like them. Heck this was me not that long ago. Sure I managed to keep my apartment roof over my had but barely, really barely and I literally didn’t have anything else.

We’re doing really well business wise but there’s always things that could go wrong or change. A lot of us are like that really just hovering from the edge by a paycheck or two.

I talk to Holly and Min and some of the others as they’re leaving too and I spend some office time with Kendall and have a coffee and a cinnamon roll with her as we go over the books. It’s important to me to know what’s going on with like the bills and where things are going with our business.

It’s a relief that we’re actually making money and that we’re paying like we are.

We talk a little about getting more online with things for ad space and things while print is good for a certain demographic it’s a thinning out medium so it’s how to figure out that stuff and where to get it to those who can see it.

Then I look at the stuff Heaven did with my gift for Nona.

That’s the old woman, a literal Nona that kept me alive and fed and sane when things were bad.

That’s why I want a scrapbook of her recipes and things from her life to give back to her and have others that I can send out to her remaining family.

There’s pictures Heaven has but there’s more too with drawings based off the pictures added in and scanned in pages of things and a lot of them have entries that’ll go with those that are printed out and easy to read.

I’m definitely inspired to have this for my family and with Grams and Gramps and everyone. I want to do another version of our family cookbook and have one for Ingrid for Giselle.

I’m there maybe a little too long before going back to bed my head full of ideas.

It’s not that long before we’re all up and Giselle slept right through pretty much all night and I take her to potty while Taylor’s getting breakfast and while he’s doing that and showing Giselle things I head out for a quick jog/run taking my phone and filming them some.

Tay with our daughter getting called daddy.

Her face as he’s getting her to mix cinnamon with sugar in a bowl.

Iggy’s look as she’s waking up, even as bad as it is.

“Smile for the camera Iggy.”

She looks at me and squints and gives me the finger.

“C’mon, smile and say morning baby. It’s for Giselle when she’s older.”

She still squinting asks. “Like a video diary thing?”

“Yeah, I figured…..” I didn’t want to go there but she nods.

Then she looks up at the camera with this pretty real smile full of her love as much as there’s tiredness and pain there too.

I’m not into women but I love her for trying.

I hug her long and tight.

She says. “I want to do two for her Jenna, one for her while she’s younger but I want to do one for older her.”

“Done.”

I hug her again and go for my run and after that I needed the cool morning air on my face.

I’m heading out as there’s staff coming in and I do my waves and head out.

I sort of have a route I go through here and it’s not far either and I really should do it more often but I’m not who I used to be so training isn’t my thing any more. Running is burning of fat and it’s just exercise. Now the reps of running up and down the loading dock steps before and after my run that’s for my butt.

It still feels good to do this though and then there’s that boost of the runners endorphins.

Hey whatever works for you right?

Running helps me.

I head inside and up and back to the apartment going through the scents of proofing doughs and of things getting prepped.

And into Taylor making cinnamon french toast for all of us and Iggy’s lemon herbal tea and it’s early in the morning and we have *Kiss from a rose.* And I’m smiling that he’s teaching my daughter rock and roll.

Iggy rolls her eyes at me taping more stuff as I’m coming in and makes a face. “You two have a song? Of course you two have a song.”

I make a face back and that gets Giselle laughing and giggling and doing the same and I definitely get that down and recorded and then we’re eating breakfast and Taylor made a new invention for Iggy.

Lemon french toast.

It smells amazing and it’s literally as simple as lemon juice in yogurt with the eggs with honey and grated lemon zest.

They’re definitely getting along better.

She feeds me some to try and it’s good. “That’s amazing...he made that for you?”

She blushes and hunches. “Yeah I told him I’m fine.”

Taylor’s making more and says from the stove. “And you and lemon get along, it seems to stay down there Sunshine.”

She blushes again.

“Sunshine?” I ask him.

“Because she’s so beaming and cheerful in the mornings.”

Iggy gives him the finger and yeah i get that on film too.

She’s trying, he’s trying, we have to right?

It was a fun breakfast one that Ingrid ended with her saying. “Jenna go shower you smell.”

I get ready to go shower and she sends Taylor in with me pushing him towards the door. “You too, go have some of that freaky hetero stuff. Giselle and I can wash the dishes.”

There isn’t that many dishes so they can handle them and honestly we don’t take a lot of pushing to snag some intimate time.

Iggy does change the music to The Tragically Hip and I’m pressing Taylor up against the sink in the bathroom as I dance up against him undressing as the intro guitar to *Wheat Kings* is playing.

Acoustic and the rhythm is soothing and just sort of fits the mood as I sink to my knees and grasp his manhood and start to nuzzle, smell, then take my hardening husband into my mouth.

I fall into making love to him this way in that into him and the tunes doing this eyes closed thing where I’m rolling my head from side to side letting my mouth move around him and mixing that with rocking back and forth on my knees in times as well.

I love doing this for him.

Heck I love doing this for me.

And it gets better as his hands slip through my hair cradling my head and he moans, then moans my name.

And there’s this little sway with the music he’s doing too.

It’s really erotic.

And like while I’m sure that Iggy was not thinking of us having sex when she changed the music it’s definitely working for me.

When Taylor hits his point of no return I pull back and keep just the head of him in my mouth as he orgams and fills me with his treat for me.

And it is that for me, he’s literally the only person I’ve ever done this for and the only one that I ever will for. I love his taste, his sounds as I savor him and he knows that I am doing that too.

Oral sex, oral love making get too much of a bad reputation. It’s not a dirty thing.

And I keep going after I swallow him down getting us to the point where he’s hard again then I kiss my way up his body and then we get the lube and condoms from the drawer and soon I’m moaning his name as we changed places and he picked me up and set me up on the counter by my butt and I coo as he sinks into me.

That’s one of the things about getting him off before this and that’s that he lasts longer the second time around.

And it’s so perfect having him and his hot hardness inside of me moving in and out touching those deep places, that deep place as he makes love to me and plays and sucks on my breasts and he takes me to where I pop off.

I moan into his mouth as we kiss and I orgasm.

Proof of my girlhood getting off like this.

Girlygasm without touching and without the need for the boy bits that I used to have.

It gets better and better as we go longer and he edges me and I get off again and another time as I’ve my legs wrapped around him and my arms as Taylor’s tempo picks up into that amazing eyerolling hard thrusts.

My fourth takes him over his own edge as my body shiver and shakes and tightens around him as he makes me girly spurt and pop off.

We hold each other, tears of happiness there and breathe, catch our breath and breathe together kissing until we’re ready to actually have our shower.

And the intimacy in the shower is like the best downspiraling foreplay that is just as good to me with us getting closer and closer still.

Even drying off, kissing then a lot, brushing teeth together and that sweet hot sexy thing we have where Taylor lets me soap up his face and use his razor and shave his face...it’s so trusting and there’s such a deeply loving thing too as I use my soapy fingertips to feel his face and the grain of his stubble as I shave him clean.

And I swear I legit love the scent of a man’s shaving cream washed freshly off smoothed skin.

It completely set the day and my morning as I dress in a set of some of my sexy panties and matching bra in deep forest green and slip into a skirt and one of my Maverick’s tee shirts and do a little more time this morning on my make-up.

Iggy’s staring watching me and she goes gets cleaned up and her and I head down to get things ready for the day.

I get that she still might have feelings despite her moving on and having an ex and everything, or that she’s trying to take all the changes in me since we drifted away after everything went sideways badly.

It’s something that we’re working on considering she literally pushed Tay and me into having some needed personal time this morning.

That sort of look and staring lasts only as far as getting downstairs and Taylor’s got “The Sunshine special, lemon french toast with cream cheese icing drizzle.”

She’s staring at it there written on the board and the fact there’s a yellow heart and a smiling sun drawn there and he even wrote along it Iggy rocks.

She looks stunned and near tears because in her life there’s not been a lot of Sunshine with everything that’s happened to her and I was too damaged to see it happening back then.

I grab a napkin as my eyes tear up as Taylor walks over and wraps her in a big hug and he thanks her. “Thanks so much for the time this morning for Jenn and me this morning Sunshine. It means a lot, that was really cool.”

I managed to get my phone out and get pictures and recording it too.

Times like this, images like seeing the two of them together are worth saving.

They’re worth the work and the pain.