Episode 553: Up On The Ridge

"Here?" he asked.

"It’s pretty," she replied with a nod.

Together, they set out the blanket, and the food for their picnic, then kicked off their shoes and took a seat close beside one another.

"Why are you looking at me all starry eyed?" Lila asked, peering at him between sips of lemonade.

"You mean aside from the fact that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?"

"Excellent answer. But if there’s more ways in which I dazzle you, I wouldn’t mind hearing them, too." She giggled. "Call me greedy."

He used to. And worse. "I love how you’ve grown up."

"You haven’t turned out half bad looking yourself."

"I’m serious. There was a time," a lengthy, frustrating time, "when if we’d gone on a date like this, you wouldn’t have been laughing, you would have complained about how low rent it is."

Lila glanced off into the distance, staring at something Bowie could not pinpoint and for a moment he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing, if he’d ruined the day by recalling the past, but she turned to him with a smile. "There is nothing low rent about our own private hideaway. Just you and me." She set down her glass. "And getting as naked as we like, no interruptions."

Bowie welcomed her warm body into his arms. They kissed a long while before coming up for air. "I love the boys," he said, "I couldn’t imagine my life without them, but the occasional alone time is definitely a good thing." As their lips met again, their hands worked on the buttons on one another’s shirts, and the next thing he knew, their picnic was on hold and he’d kissed his wife onto her back, his hands roaming inside her open blouse. "Remind me to thank Ava for taking the kids today." At this rate, he might even consider thanking her tag-along Sebastian, as well.

"It’s the least she could do after robbing you." Lila lifted her head the inch it required to resume contact with Bowie’s mouth. He moved another inch back.

Episode 554: Elevation