ClickBack by Tia Kelly

bonus epilogue

Some scenes are harder to leave on the cutting room floor than others. I kept coming back to this one. I loved getting a little more time with Giselle and Jarrett after everything it took for them to find each other. And I wanted you to have that time with them, too. So consider this one more visit.

Read it after you’ve finished ClickBack. Jarrett would probably prefer we didn’t interrupt.

With love,
Tia

P.S. We’re not done with the Storm yet. Nico’s story is next in SideClick, and I can’t wait for you to spend a little more time with him.

Jarrett

November

I want my wife. Nine days of talking to her through a phone is enough, and all I’ve done since we boarded is check how much longer I have before I can get my arms around her.

Javon catches me checking the flight clock again from across the aisle. His headphones are hanging around his neck. “You got somewhere to be?” he asks, like he hasn’t been on the same trip I have.

“Home. Same place you going.” I pick up my phone instead of giving him the satisfaction of another glance at the clock. “Mind your business.”

“Then quit making it everybody’s business. You checked that thing six times. Your wife charging late fees now?” He laughs when I tell him to worry about himself, which is exactly why I stop answering.

Giselle texted after the game to congratulate me on the win, then admitted she fell asleep sometime in the third quarter and woke up near the end. I open our messages.

Me: Wheels up.

Her reply comes before I can set the phone down.

Zelly: Good. Get home safe.

Me: That’s it?

The bubbles appear, disappear, then come back.

Zelly: I love you. I missed you. I am also sleepy. Love, all three things are true. K?

A laugh gets out of me. Javon points without looking away from his screen. “Whatever she said, keep it over there. I’m trying to watch my movie without you giggling from across the aisle.”

“I didn’t giggle.” I throw the little airline pillow at him. He catches it against his chest and tucks it behind his head like I sent it over on purpose.

“Thanks bro,” he says. “Now go check the clock.”

The cabin has settled down for the flight home. Nico took a row closer to the front and disappeared under his hoodie before we leveled off. Javon looked that way once when he sat down, then put on his headphones without going after him. Ronan and one of the assistants are still talking through something from the fourth quarter. Everybody else is sleeping, eating, or killing time until we get back.

Marriage changed what I notice in a hotel room. Giselle’s glasses aren’t sitting somewhere she’ll swear she remembers leaving them. There’s no bottle of water on her nightstand, no charger of hers I’ll accidentally steal in the morning, no voice carrying from another room because she’s forgotten how big our house is. I miss all of it, including hearing her insist I’m the reason she can’t find her charger.

Giselle has been traveling, too. Bellamy and Nina took her to Los Angeles, then to Vegas because apparently one city wasn’t enough. She sent pictures from a concert, a store where she claimed she was only looking, and dinner with all three of them dressed up.

In that one, Nina was holding up something with enough garnish to qualify as produce. My wife was smiling straight at the camera with a drink in her hand. I made it my lock screen before she got back to the hotel.

A few hours later another picture came through. This time she held up a water glass.

Zelly: Hydrating. Happy? These adolescent adults are trying to kill me.

Me: You knew who you booked that flight with.

I check the flight clock again without thinking. Across the aisle, Javon does not even open his eyes. “Seven.”

“Fuck you,” I tell him.

His lazy “Love you, too” follows me as I put the phone down.

We land a little after two. The cabin wakes all at once, men who had nowhere to be thirty minutes ago suddenly determined to get off the aircraft before the door is open. I wait my turn and text Giselle before following everybody out.

Me: Landed.

By the time I get off the plane, Graves is already waiting by the SUV. He opens the back for my bag, then gets behind the wheel while I settle in.

“Treatment at eleven,” Graves reminds me once we’re moving.

“I have it,” I tell him.

“Then I’ll see you at ten thirty.” He checks the mirror. “You hear that part?”

“I heard you.” I put my phone away and look out at the streets. We’re close enough that I know every turn he has left to make.

“Tell Giselle I said hey,” he says when we reach the gate.

I get my bag out when he stops and let myself into the house. The light over the stove is on. I lock the door, leave the duffel by the stairs, and head up to our bedroom.

The bedroom door is open, and some old sitcom is playing low. Giselle is asleep in my gray shirt, her glasses crooked and her book open against her chest. The comforter has been pushed toward my side, and the little fan is running beside her. I turn the television down and take the book before it can slide off her.

Her eyes open when I reach for her glasses. “Hi,” she says, still working out whether she’s awake.

“Hey, babe.” I set her glasses beside the book and bend to kiss her. She puts her hand behind my neck and keeps me there when I start to lift my head.

I sit beside her, and she leans into me. For a minute, I’m fine staying right here, even with my shoes still on.

“You smell like the plane,” she tells me.

“That’s an expensive plane.” I kiss the corner of her mouth, trying to persuade her to overlook it.

“Those germs have money?” she asks.

I laugh against her neck. “I showered after the game.”

“And then got on a plane.” She lets me kiss her again before settling back against my pillow. “Wash the league off. Move faster if you expect me to stay awake.”

“You’re making me work for this welcome,” I tell her.

“I believe in you,” she says.

I call the whole thing disrespectful on my way toward the bathroom, and her laugh follows me. I shower, brush my teeth, and leave the towel on the hook.

When I come back, she’s sitting against the pillows with the television muted. Her eyes travel down me slowly enough that I take my time crossing the room. “Better?” I ask.

“Much,” she says, holding out her hand.

I get onto the bed and pull her toward me. She laughs, then stops laughing when I kiss her. I’ve missed her mouth, especially the way she keeps trying to finish a joke against mine.

“Miss me?” I ask.

“I already told you I did,” she says. “Were the words less true because I typed them?”

“Little bit.” I kiss her again before she can call me needy, which doesn’t stop her from doing it against my mouth. “You can tell me again.”

She laughs and helps me get the shirt over her head. As she settles back, I see a dark mark beneath the edge of her panties. I stop with my hand at her waist, trying to make it out in the light from the television.

“What?” Giselle asks, following my stare.

“That.” I look toward the mark, and her smile begins before she can hide it. I reach for the lamp, but she turns it on herself.

“Go ahead,” she says.

I ease the fabric aside and lean closer. There’s a faint redness around the ink that I recognize from my own tattoos. Giselle barely agreed to the initials we had put on our ring fingers on our wedding day. Now I’m looking at my whole signature just above and to the left of her pussy, right where she knew I’d find it. I follow the letters to the long stroke at the end before looking up at her.

“Is that my whole fucking name?” I ask.

“It is,” she says, watching me.

I keep my fingers on the fabric, clear of the fresh ink. “And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“I figured you’d find it,” she says.

“Babe, you put it next to your pussy. Where the fuck was I gonna miss it?”

“My bikini line,” she corrects, laughing at me.

I look down again. “Call it whatever you want. I know where I’m looking.” She covers her face, but I can still hear her laughing. I let the fabric fall back into place before I reach for her hand. “When did you do it?”

“Vegas. A week ago,” she says.

“Who did it?” I ask.

“A woman at the shop you use,” Giselle says. “I called because I knew you trusted them. Your guy recommended her. I checked her work, talked to her first, and sent her what I wanted.”

“Bellamy and Nina were in there, too?” I ask. When she nods, the dinner picture comes back to me. “How drunk were y’all?”

Giselle turns her head toward me. “Why is that your next question?”

“Because I saw how drunk y’all were that night, and now you’re telling me you left Vegas with my signature under your drawers,” I tell her. “I feel like there’s a story.”

“We were festive,” she says, with enough dignity that the word immediately sounds guilty. “Nina was disrespectfully lit. Bellamy had appointed herself trip director, which apparently meant she could order for the table and make executive decisions about other people’s sobriety. I was fine when I signed the consent form.”

“Fine enough to sit through my whole name?” I ask.

“That was the problem,” she tells me. “I’d made the appointment sober. Then the needle started, and I discovered I hadn’t thought enough about that part.”

I laugh. “What did you do?”

“I took a shot of D’Ussé.” She says it quickly, then adds, “Bellamy had a bottle.”

I stare at her. “Bellamy brought emergency cognac into my man’s tattoo shop?”

“She called it medicinal,” Giselle says. “Your guy thought it was funny.”

“He’s dead to me,” I tell her. “I can’t have my people encouraging y’all.”

That takes her out. She folds forward laughing, and I catch her around the waist before she puts her forehead into my knee.

“The first shot didn’t do anything,” she admits when she sits back up. “So I had another.”

“Wait.” I’m laughing too hard to keep my voice straight. “How long did you give the first one before you decided it wasn’t working?”

Giselle hesitates. “Maybe a minute.”

“A minute?” I drop my head. “Babe, D’Ussé hadn’t even cleared customs yet.”

“She was still working, Jarrett. I didn’t have time to wait.”

I laugh hard enough to feel my shoulder. “You didn’t give the first one a fucking chance.”

“It eventually worked enough,” she tells me.

“You eventually got tipsy,” I say. “That’s what happened.”

“You have tattoos, but you don’t have one here,” Giselle says, looking down at the placement. “That woman was sewing your last name into skin God did not design for foolishness.”

That makes me laugh all over again. “And your friends helped?”

“Absolutely not. Bellamy was supposed to hold my hand, but every time I reacted she started laughing and dropped it,” Giselle says. “At one point she was holding the D’Ussé more faithfully than she was holding me. Nina recorded my face until I threatened her life.” She sees my expression change and adds, “It’s deleted. I watched her delete it.”

“Good,” I say.

“Then justice arrived,” she continues. “Nina sat down for her piercing after laughing at me for twenty minutes and screamed before the woman even touched her. Bellamy tried to laugh quietly and almost slid out of the chair.”

I bark out a laugh. “And you were supportive, I assume.”

“I had tears in my eyes,” Giselle tells me. “From the Lord restoring balance.”

I can picture my wife in that chair, trying to hold still while her friends make themselves completely useless. “So what did the other two get?”

“Bellamy got something tiny for her daughter,” she says. “Nina can tell you her own business.”

“That bad?” I ask. Giselle starts laughing again, which is enough of an answer. I look down at what she brought home. Of all the things she could have chosen, she wanted my handwriting there. “You’re gonna have to let me look at this again.”

“You’ve barely looked anywhere else,” she tells me.

“And I’ve kept my hands off it. You could give me some credit.” I ease the fabric aside again. Looking is only making me want to touch her more.

“You want credit for leaving a fresh tattoo alone?” Giselle asks.

“I’m taking whatever you’re giving.” I look up at her. “You knew who you married. And you still went and did this.”

She laughs as I let the fabric fall into place and stretch out beside her. Her knee rests against my thigh.

“You like it?” she asks.

“You put my autograph on your pussy and want to know if I like it?” I ask.

“I’m asking.”

“Hell yeah, I like it.” I’m still looking at the spot her panties cover. “This might be the best I ever wrote my name.”

“Top three signatures for sure,” Giselle says.

“Top three?” I ask. “Name them.”

“Your first league contract. When we got married.” She smiles at me. “In no particular order.”

“Hold up.” I look at the tattoo again. “This is that one? You took this off our marriage license?”

“The actual one,” she says. “I took a picture from our copy and sent it to the artist.”

That quiets me. I remember reading her name before I put mine beside it. I wanted to get it right, even took an extra second before I started writing. She noticed. All the times I’ve signed for somebody, and she chose the one I’d signed with her.

“Yeah,” I say. “That one is up there.”

“You do not control my list,” Giselle reminds me.

“My name, your ranking. Fine.” I settle onto my side. “What’s three?”

“The third technically hasn’t happened yet,” she says, watching me.

I am still smiling. “What am I signing?”

She rests her hand against my face. “Your baby’s birth certificate.”

I look at her. I heard every word, but I need her to say something else before I trust what I think she means. Her hand stays against my face while I try to catch up.

“What baby?” I push myself up the bed, the sheet catching around one leg. Giselle does not laugh, and that is what gets me there. “Giselle.”

“Yes,” she says.

I look at her stomach, then back at her. “You pregnant?”

“Yes.” She holds my eyes this time, and I sit down hard beside her.

We’d talked about kids. I knew we probably wouldn’t have one together, and I was good with that. I love our life. Ten seconds ago, I was asking about her tattoo. Now she’s telling me she’s pregnant, and I keep looking between her face and her stomach like something’s going to help me catch up. “How far?” I finally manage to ask.

“Eleven weeks and a few days,” she says. “They dated it at the scan yesterday morning.”

“Almost three months?” I look at her again. “When did you find out?”

“The afternoon before that. I thought I’d worn myself out on the trip,” she tells me. “I was tired and a little queasy, so I made an appointment. They did a pregnancy test with everything else. I was still explaining why I didn’t need one when the nurse came back.”

“How the hell did we miss almost three months?” I ask.

“I had an IUD, Jarrett. My periods have been doing whatever they want for a while. Pregnancy wasn’t the answer I was looking for.” She takes my hand. “After the test, I called Dr. Brooks. My doctor here. They worked me in to make sure everything was where it should be.”

“And it is,” she adds before I can ask. “The baby’s where it should be, and the scan looked good. The IUD came out without me realizing it. Dr. Brooks called it spontaneous expulsion.”

I stare at her. “How do you lose an IUD?”

“I didn’t leave it in an Uber, Jarrett,” she says.

A laugh gets out of me before I can stop it. Then I remember something she said months ago, and apparently it shows on my face.

“You’re not taking credit for this,” she tells me.

“I didn’t say anything. I just remember you joking I was gonna knock that thing into your ribs, and now it’s gone.” I look at her. “The timing is interesting.”

“Spontaneous expulsion,” she repeats, already fighting a laugh. “Your dick did not defeat my IUD.”

“I wasn’t gonna use defeat,” I tell her. “That sounds arrogant.”

“You were about to say something worse.”

“Outlasted?” I ask.

She drops her face into her hands. “You’ve been a father for twelve minutes and already think your dick needs a medical citation.”

I take her hand when she lowers it from her face. “Were you by yourself at the appointment?”

“Nina drove me. She stayed,” Giselle says. “I wanted to know what was happening before I told you. And I wanted to tell you here.”

“I wish I’d been there,” I tell her.

“Me, too.” She moves closer, and I put my arm around her. We sit that way while I try to get used to what she’s told me. I keep looking down, half expecting to see something I missed before.

“There’s a picture,” she says after a while.

My head comes up. “Where?”

“Downstairs in my bag,” she tells me.

I’m out of bed before she finishes.

“Jarrett, put something on,” she calls after me.

“For who?” I ask, already at the door. “Anybody downstairs better have a good fucking explanation. Where’s your bag?”

“On the chair by the entry table.” Her laugh follows me into the hall. “You can just bring the envelope.”

I hear her. I come back with the whole purse anyway.

Giselle pushes herself higher against the pillows when she sees it in my hand. “You brought my entire bag?”

“I’m not digging through your purse. Men get lost in there.” I put it in her lap and sit beside her while she finds the envelope.

The print she hands me has her name across the top. I turn it toward the lamp, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. I know the baby has to be small, but I don’t know which part I should be looking at first. “Show me.”

“That’s the head,” she says, pointing beside it. “And there. See?”

I lean closer. Once she shows me, I can see the shape of the baby, curled inside the picture. “That’s ours.”

“That’s ours,” she says, watching me instead of the photograph.

I keep looking. There’s somebody in there. Our kid. I want a better look, another angle, something that lets me understand how this has been happening while we’ve been going about our lives. “They give you anything else?”

“I recorded a little when she checked the heartbeat,” Giselle says, reaching for her phone. “She said I could.”

She taps the screen. A fast sound comes through the speaker, and I look up at her before I even think to ask.

“That’s the baby?”

“That’s your kid’s heart,” she tells me.

I look down at the photograph again while the recording plays. The sound is coming from that little person. Our little person. I’ve been talking for most of the time I’ve been home, and now she’s sitting beside me waiting for a response I can’t get out before the clip ends.

“Play it again,” I say.

She does. This time I lean closer without pretending the phone needs me any nearer to hear it. “That’s really coming from the baby?”

“Yes,” she tells me.

I take the phone from her and run it back myself.

I’ve spent most of my adult life around noise. Twenty thousand people yelling at once doesn’t shake me anymore. A whistle can stop my whole body before I think about it. None of that helps me with ten seconds coming out of my wife’s phone. I play it again.

“Jarrett, you have heard it three times.” Giselle is laughing now. I lift one finger without looking away from the screen because she is talking over my child.

“Hold on. I’m listening,” I tell her.

“It’s the same recording,” she says.

“Shh.” I lift the phone a little closer.

Her mouth falls open. “Did you just shush me for my own uterus?”

“You just told me that’s my kid’s heart. Let me listen,” I tell her.

“Our kid,” she corrects, and something about the correction hits almost as hard as the sound did.

I look at her before I say it back. “Our kid.” I let the recording finish once more, then lay the photograph beside us and set her phone next to it. If I keep holding it, I’m going to play that sound until sunrise.

Giselle watches me for a moment. “You okay?”

“No idea.” I look at her. “Ask me tomorrow. Right now I keep hearing that little heart.”

She threads her fingers through mine. “I want this baby.”

I look at her. She holds my gaze, her fingers tightening around mine.

“Yeah?” It is the only thing I manage, and even that comes out rough.

“Yes.” Her answer comes quickly, then her voice softens. “That’s the part that scares me. I already care what happens. Before the appointment, I kept telling myself I’d only known for a few hours. I could deal with whatever Dr. Brooks told me because I had barely had time to understand any of it.” She looks toward the picture between us. “Then she showed me that, and suddenly I wanted everything to be okay.”

I bring her hand to my mouth and hold it there for a second before I kiss her knuckles. Anything I say about everything being fine would be for me, not her, so I leave it alone.

“I’ll be forty-six when the baby comes,” she says. “Rae’s going to have a sibling younger than her son. I can’t quite get the picture right in my head.”

“Neither can I.” I pull her closer, and she leans against me while I look at the picture on the sheet. I’ve already started wondering who the baby will look like. Her eyes. My mother asking to see every picture. Vonnie finding out he’s going to be an uncle. I haven’t been told any of those things will happen yet, and I want all of them.

“I’m scared, too,” I admit.

“You are?” The surprise in her voice makes me look at her.

“Hell yeah. I landed thinking I was coming home to you. Now I got a kid with a heartbeat and no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” I pause. “Happy, though. Don’t get that part wrong.”

She laughs and holds on to me. “Me, too.”

After a while, I pick up the picture again. “Zion is going to bug out.”

Giselle’s hand tightens over mine. “Can we wait?”

“Yeah.” I answer before she can start making a case for it.

“I want to get through the first trimester. Well technically we’re almost there so maybe until we reach some solid footing in the second,” she says. “Beyond the next appointments. Get used to it before everybody else gets excited or worried for us.”

“Then we wait,” I tell her.

“Nina’s the only one who knows,” she says. “You know she won’t tell anybody.”

“Good. But I want to be there when we tell Zion.” I look at Giselle. “And Rae.”

“You might want to let me tell Rae first,” she says. “She’s going to have questions.”

“About what? We’re married.”

Giselle laughs. “That is not going to stop her.”

“Then you handle the questions,” I tell her. “I’ll just sit there.”

“You’ll answer every one of them.”

She’s probably right.

Giselle settles against me again, and I prop the photograph beneath the lamp on the nightstand. The tattoo catches my eye as she moves. I’m still looking at it when she touches my arm.

“What?” she asks.

I hesitate. “Did you get to talk to the doctor about Vegas?”

“All of it,” Giselle says. “The drinks, the tattoo, everything I could remember. Once she told me how far along I was, I started auditing the last three months of my life.”

“What did she say?” I ask.

“We talked through it. She gave me the plan from here, and I’ve already started my prenatal vitamins.” Giselle looks down at the photograph. “I keep thinking about how much I drank. Laughing about needing another shot while I was sitting there pregnant.”

Now I feel like an ass. We were both laughing about it, and I’m the one who brought it back like something she needed to answer for.

“Babe, you didn’t know.”

“I know. But if something…”

“Hey.” I take her hand. “I was there when we made this baby. I didn’t know either.”

She looks up at me.

“I’m glad you went. I wanted to know what she said. That’s all.” I brush my thumb over her knuckles. “You don’t owe me an explanation for enjoying yourself on a trip.”

“I’d just like to stop going over it.”

I put my arm around her, and she rests against my chest. For a while, neither of us says anything. Then she kisses me, slowly enough that I forget what I was about to say. Her leg slides over mine.

When the kiss ends, my hand is on her thigh, and I remember the question.

“What now?” she asks.

“I got one more doctor question.”

Her mouth curves. “Go ahead.”

“Did she say we’re good to have sex?”

“Yes,” Giselle says. “I asked. I told her about that little bit of spotting before the trip, too. It hasn’t happened again, and she said I don’t have a restriction. If anything hurts or feels wrong, we stop.”

“I like having sex with my husband,” she adds when I keep looking at her. “I wasn’t leaving without asking.”

I laugh and draw her onto the pillow. She keeps hold of me while I settle beside her, but I hesitate when my hand reaches the waistband.

“You’re nervous,” she says.

“I found out I was somebody’s father about half an hour ago,” I tell her. “Give me a fucking minute.”

“I would, but you’re staring at me like Dr. Brooks put a caution sticker on me,” she says.

I laugh, and she glances toward the nightstand.

“At this rate, I can get my little toy out of the bedside drawer and take care of myself,” she tells me.

“Like hell you will.” I look at her. “That little toy didn’t spend nine days on the road missing you.”

“Neither did you, apparently,” she says. “You came home to conduct a medical review.”

I pull her panties down her legs before she can say anything else disrespectful and toss them toward the foot of the bed. “Review concluded.”

“Was I cleared?” she asks.

“Stop playing with me,” I tell her.

She is still laughing when I bend over her again, but the sound changes once my mouth returns to her skin. I take my time because I want to and because some part of me still needs to feel that she is all right beneath my hands. Her fingers stroke the back of my head, then tighten when I reach the place that ends the joke altogether.

On the way back up, I kiss just above her tattoo. “Still mine.”

“The tattoo?” she asks, all innocence.

I look at her. “Smart ass.”

She draws me over her, and I settle between her legs, one hand braced beside her shoulder and the other at her hip. I have done this enough times to know exactly where I belong, but tonight I take so much care getting there that Giselle notices before I do.

“Jarrett,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“Just don’t go sending our child up into my rib cage after what you apparently did to the IUD.”

I stop and look at her. “That shit is not funny.”

“I’m kidding,” she says immediately. “Jarrett. Bad joke. I’m sorry.”

“Terrible fucking joke,” I tell her.

“I know.” She rubs my arm while I try to get what she said out of my head. “Hey.”

“What?”

“Whose name did I go to Vegas and get tattooed down there?”

“Mine,” I tell her.

She kisses me before I can say anything else, and I finally let myself kiss her back without holding so much of myself away from her.

I push inside her carefully. Her breath breaks against my mouth, and I stop long enough to feel her around me before she tightens one leg at my hip and brings me deeper.

“I’m okay,” she says.

“I know,” I say. This time I mean it.

I move slowly at first. Her hands travel over my shoulders and down my back, pulling me closer whenever I give her too much room. She tells me what she wants, and I give it to her. I’ve missed hearing her like this, missed being the reason she can’t finish a sentence. When her voice breaks around my name, I want to hear it again. She holds on to me, meeting every stroke, and I stop making her pull me closer.

Later, Giselle has one leg thrown over mine, sleep starting to come back for her. The muted television lights the room, and the photograph is still propped beneath the lamp. My hand rests low on her stomach. When she shifts closer, I leave it there.

“You okay now?” she asks.

“Define okay.” I turn my head toward her. “I got home thinking I was about to have regular married sex and sleep until treatment. Instead I found my autograph on your pussy and met my kid through your phone.”

“Busy night,” she says, trying not to laugh.

“I’m processing.” I reach for her phone. “Send me that recording.”

She sends it along with the pictures. When I open it on mine, she settles back against me and lets it play. I know what I’m hearing now, but I still look at her stomach while I listen.

The recording ends. I start it again, and she laughs softly against my chest. Her hand finds mine and settles it over her stomach.

My first league contract. When we got married. A birth certificate. I look toward the tattoo, then at the picture on the nightstand. She’s going to have me thinking about this every time somebody hands me a pen.

I kiss Giselle’s shoulder and listen to our kid’s heartbeat through my phone one more damn time, grinning while she tells me I’m ridiculous.