I look into his hand to see two small, orange, bell-shaped pieces of foam resting inside of a tiny plastic bag.  I look at them quizzically trying to decide the correct response one should have when receiving something that looked like dresses for Polly Pocket dolls.

“Um, you shouldn’t have?”

Carter laughs at my obvious confusion.

“Oh I should have.  Especially if I want to live through another night of sleeping next to you.  These, my dear, are the best earplugs ever.  They have bins and bins of them at work.  If you like them, let me know and I’ll bring a bunch more home.”

He got me earplugs.  He really DOES love me.

I take the bag from his hand and tear open the plastic with my teeth so I can pull the squishy orange plugs out and look them over.  I roll one between my finger and thumb to shrink it, and then I push it into my ear.

I repeat the process with the other one and lie perfectly still as the foam slowly expanded until I can’t hear a single sound except for the whoosh of my breathing.

“THANK YOU SO MUCH, THESE ARE PERFECT!” I tell him.

At least I assume that’s what I said.  To me it had sounded more like the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

Carter smiles and I see his mouth move.

“WHAT?”

His mouth moves again.

Does he not understand the concept of earplugs?  The word itself is pretty self-explanatory.  Ear.  Plug.  From the Latin root, “I can’t hear a fucking thing that is coming out of your mouth.”

I stick my finger in my ear and yank one of the plugs out.

“As I was saying, you’re welcome.  I have to go to work now.  Does this ensure that I can go to sleep from now on knowing all of my appendages will still be attached when I wake up?”

He pushes himself up off of the bed, and I pull the other ear plug out and toss them both on my nightstand so I can follow him out of the room.

“I do solemnly swear not to Lorena Bobbet your penis,” I tell him as we make our way down the hall and out into the living room.

Carter says a quick good-bye to Gavin who is sitting on the couch watching cartoons and then grabs his work bag off of the floor beside the front door.

“Don’t forget Liz and Jim’s co-ed pre-wedding party, that we are never to refer to as a bachelor-slash-bachelorette party, is this weekend,” I remind Carter as I plant a kiss on his cheek.

“I know.  Drew already sent me three texts since lunch trying to get me to admit that I was joking when I told him there wouldn’t be strippers.  I got a call from his phone after the last text I sent but he never spoke.  I think he was just silently weeping in the background.”

Carter opens the door and then turns back to me before walking out.

“Oh and don’t you forget that my parents are coming in this weekend from Columbus.  I can’t wait for you to finally meet them!”

I close the door behind him and lean my back against it.

“Yay.  Meeting the in-laws,” I cheer to myself in a completely non-cheery way.

5.  Suck for a Buck

Friday night is finally here and the work week is over.  Not that I really have anything to complain about in that regard.  I own my own business (someone pinch me!), and every moment I spend in the shop makes me happy.  But even when you love what you do, it’s still nice to forget about it for a few hours.

The minor freak-outs about Carter are pushed to the back of my mind since everything has been so perfect between us the last couple of days.  He doesn’t jump when I walk into the room anymore, and he isn’t whispering on the phone when I get out of the shower.  A normal woman would probably suspect cheating, but not me.  I had already followed him a few times and checked his text messages.

Seriously.  Don’t judge me.

Gavin is spending the night at my dad’s house, so as soon as I get home from work, I pack his overnight bag and then got ready for the party.  I still haven’t stopped thanking Liz after she informed me that she didn’t want a traditional bachelorette party where a group of girls get in a limo and go to a strip club.

Thank God.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting liquored up and heading to a female strip club, but a male one?  That’s just gross.  Have you been to an all male strip club before?  These oily, long-haired, jacked up on steroid men come prancing out in banana hammocks, thrust their hips in your face, and dry hump your leg.  It’s disgusting.  Have you ever had a sweaty man you don’t know rub his penis on your knee?  It makes me throw up in my mouth a little just thinking about it.  And let’s be honest here, the penis – not the prettiest thing in the world to look at.  If it’s some guy who calls himself the Italian Stallion, wearing a Speedo with the Italian flag on it, dancing to the theme song from 'The Jersey Shore', while he has one foot up on your knee and hip thrusts his dangling... Okay, I’m just going to stop myself right there before Carter finds me curled up in the fetal position in the corner mumbling about Italian penis, and he thinks I’m saying “penne” and doesn’t understand why pasta is making me cry.

As I was saying, Liz doesn’t want any of that.  She wants to rent a nice limo bus and go to a few local wineries.  I’m pretty sure the evening will still include inappropriate behavior, but at least it won’t also include ruining a man’s self esteem by pointing and laughing at his junk.  Unless of course Drew decides to get naked for some reason.  I can’t be responsible for my actions at that point and it won’t be my fault of he cries.

Once Carter and I are dressed and ready to go, we placed Gavin in the car and head over to my dad’s to drop him off.

When we stop at a red light, Carter takes one hand off of the wheel and places it on the inside of my bare thigh.

“You wore that short skirt just to torture me, didn’t you?” Carter asks softly so Gavin won’t hear him from the backseat.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say with a smirk as I cross my legs.  The movement forced his warm hand higher up my thigh and his fingers graze just under the hem of the tattered jean skirt material.

I'm not lying when I say I kind of enjoy the fact that Carter and I work opposite shifts.  I like the peace and quiet during the week and spending alone time with Gavin.  It makes the adjustment from being a single mother to living with the father of my child not so bad.  I had spent so many years on my own and having my son all to myself, it was nice we weren’t thrust right into something that was a complete one-eighty from what we were used to.  Even so, it doesn’t stop me from missing Carter during the week.

Or more specifically, missing having sex with Carter during the week.

When you have sex once, get pregnant, and then go years before you ever have it again and when you do have it again, it’s mind-blowing and delicious and better than finding a pot of gold, a unicorn, and a leprechaun who shits diamonds at the end of a rainbow, having to wait a whole week in between having this wonderful sex is torture.  Just having Carter’s hand on my leg puts all sorts of dirty thoughts in my head - thoughts that have no business being there when our son was in the backseat.

“I think you and I are going to need to make an important phone call tonight,” Carter says with a wag of his eyebrows.

I laugh, remembering the first time we had sex again after the night he took my virginity at the frat party.

When Gavin had knocked on the bedroom door right at the tail end of our reunion (emphasis on union) and then asked us what we were up to, in a panic I told him we were making phone calls.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

I place my hand on top of Carter’s and slide it just a little bit further under the edge of my skirt.