Happy Birthday: A Novel

“Yes,” she said simply in answer to his spending the night, and he called the driver of the limo and told him to send up his bag and then he could go home. It arrived five minutes later, and Jack carried it to her room and set it down. She was sitting on her bed, smiling at him. The room looked immaculately neat, and hadn’t seen a man in years. There was one lamp lit on the bed table, and the light in the room was soft. He gently took her clothes off and lay down with her, as they looked at each other in her enormous bed. She felt like she had been waiting just for him, for a long time.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said gently. “Is your leg okay?” He nodded and then laughed.

“I’ve got a bullet wound in my leg, a bad back, football injuries to my knees. Baby, you are getting yourself one very banged-up old man.” But he looked and felt like a boy in her arms, and then she turned off the light. She had worked hard with her trainer, and looked great for her age. But she didn’t want him comparing her body to a twenty-two-year-old’s. He kissed her, and all the passion that had been waiting in both of them exploded. They both forgot about his leg and his back, they were so hungry for each other that they couldn’t get enough of each other, and made love for hours. He’d never had a night like that before, and the difference, he realized, as he drifted off to sleep holding her, was that this time, for the first time, he was in love, and so was she.

Chapter 15

April called her mother the next morning as Valerie stood naked in the kitchen, making scrambled eggs for Jack. She had burned the first batch, and was now diligently scrambling the second, while he read the sports page of the paper. He had made her so comfortable and happy that she didn’t mind standing there nude with him.

“How was it?” April asked her.

“Incredible,” Valerie said dreamily, no longer thinking of the game, and then rapidly rescued the eggs before she burned them again, and told April she’d have to call her back. She said she was on the other line.

Jack kissed her as she set the eggs down in front of him, and he ran a hand slowly down her body. He was an extraordinary lover, and had been exquisitely happy with her too, and he insisted that neither his leg nor his back had gotten hurt. He had been afraid to have sex for months, and suddenly it seemed as though he could do anything he wanted. But their lovemaking hadn’t been acrobatic, it had been tender and so powerful it was overwhelming. He had never felt that way before.

He looked happy as he ate the eggs.

“I’m better with French toast,” Valerie apologized, and he laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll bet. I’m just teasing you. The eggs are great, and so are you. What are you doing today?” He had taken the day off, to bask in the glory of the Super Bowl. He didn’t have to be on air again for two days, so he decided to give himself a well-deserved break. He had left a message on his assistant’s voicemail before breakfast.

“I have to work.” And Dawn was expecting her.

“I think you should call in sick,” he suggested, and she laughed.

“I never do that. What if I lose my job?” She knew that wouldn’t happen. And she had no tapings until Thursday, but she had a lot of work to do. She had taken Friday off to go to the game, which was something she never did.

“If you get fired, I’ll support you. Maybe I’ll quit mine.” He was kidding. They both laughed. After their night of passion, neither of them was in the mood for work. This had never happened to Valerie before.

“Great. We’ve been lovers for …”—she looked at the kitchen clock—“five hours, and we’re already both headed for unemployment.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said happily. “We can stay in bed all day and make love.” She had to admit it sounded appealing to her too.

“Maybe I could,” she said dreamily. “I haven’t taken a sick day in a year, come to think of it, maybe two.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” he said, putting his arms around her, and getting instantly aroused.

She reached for her cell phone on the table, between kisses, and left a voicemail for Dawn, telling her she had come back from Miami with a terrible sore throat and was taking the day off to stay in bed. It was half true anyway, about staying in bed, as he took her by the hand and led her back to her bedroom. They were passionately making love again five minutes later, and lay spent in each other’s arms when it was over.

“You’re too young for me,” she panted, totally out of breath. “You’re going to kill me.”

He was just as breathless as she was. “You make me feel like a kid again,” he said, holding her close, and stroking her hair, and a few minutes later, they fell asleep in each other’s arms and woke up again at noon.