Problems

VIII: A Good Feeling

[A Few Weeks Later]

"Mommy just 30 more minutes, please?" Aubrey begs as Demi gets her tucked into bed.

"No ma'am. If I let you stay up, it's gonna be harder to get you out of bed in the morning."

"I'll wake up, I promise."

"You said that last time Aubs. Besides, tomorrow's Friday, so we can stay up as long as you want."

"Fine. Can you at least sing to me till I fall asleep."

"Of course I can." It's not long before Aubrey dozes off to the sound of Demi's soothing and soulful voice. After lying there for a few minutes to make sure she was asleep, Demi quietly gets out of the bed, turns out the lights and walks out.

She makes her way back down stairs to turn out the lights. Her phone that's sitting on the coffee table starts buzzing and a picture of her and Jesse pop up.

"Hi honey." She says with a smile.

"Hey, what are you doing?" He says pulling into her drive way.

"I just put Aubrey to bed."

"I was counting on that...open the door, there's something hot and sexy waiting. Well at least that's how my lady describes me."

"Mmmmmm say no more." She opens the door to her handsome man standing at the door.

"I come bearing goodies." He says walking in with bag of groceries.

"The only goodie I need is you." She says before they share a kiss. "What are you doing here at this time of night."

"We both had a long week, especially you, so I brought the good stuff. Cookie dough ice cream for you, strawberry for me."

"Massage oil?" Demi asks after taking the bottle out of the bag.

"Yeah, I thought maybe you'd like one...unless you don't."

"Are you kidding, I'd love a massage. I've been a little tense lately."

"Don't worry, I'll loosen you up a bit." He says grabbing a couple of spoons out of the drawer. "So my sister is flying in this weekend, and my mom wants to have dinner Saturday night and I want you to come...if you're up to it."

"If it's okay with your parents."

"They've actually been waiting to meet you ever since I told them about you."

"Same with my mom. How about we make this a meet the family weekend?"

"Let's do it."

"Saturday around noon I'm taking Aubrey to the aquarium. If you're not busy, I would really liked it if you joined us. I rarely bring anyone I date around her, and her opinion is what matters most, so I want you to meet her first. Make it passed Aubrey and you're golden."

"I just got 10x nervous than I was about meeting your mom."

"Aww don't be nervous. She's the sweetest kid."

"That's a very bias opinion. Children can be demons. I would know because I have a 4 year old nephew, and he bit me once."

Demi laughs. "Well Aubrey doesn't bite. When I say she's an angel, I mean it. She can be sassy but that's about it."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Shit's about to get real." Demi says sticking a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.

"You got a little something on your bottom lip."

"Get it off for me....pleaaaseee."

"Sure." Gently licking the ice cream from her lip, it turns into a passionate kiss. Demi had a good feeling about Jesse. It hadn't been long, but she knew this she and Jesse worked, and Jesse felt the same.

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It's around 5am the next morning Demi's already awake, downstairs working out. Jesse wakes up to the sound of his alarm and notices she's not in bed. He gets up and gets ready. He heads downstairs to the gym to see Demi on the treadmill. She notices him walk in and slows the treadmill down to a walking pace.

"Morning, Love."

"Good morning." Demi says, catching her breath. "Leaving so soon?"

"Yeah, I put off doing paperwork last, so I gotta get to the office, do that, then pick up my sister from the airport."

"Babe if I knew you had to wake up so early, I wouldn't have went 3 rounds last night. I'm used to the late nights and early mornings."

"So am I. And trust me when I say I'll never complain about getting good sex."

"Just good?"

"More like great."

"That's more like it."

"I should get goin. What you got planned today?"

"Drop Aubrey off at school, have a spa day and that's pretty much it. Wait for babygirl to get out of school."

"See if you can find a sitter for a couple hours, I wanna take you somewhere." Jesse says.

"Where?"

"If you find a sitter, then you'll find out."

"Fine. See you soon. Have a good day."

"You too. I'll call you later." They share a kiss before he leaves and Demi carries on with her morning workout.

Later that day, after Demi picked up Aubrey and dropped her off at her mom's, she met up with Jesse at his house and they left. Jesse still wouldn't say where, so she'd just have to wait and see.

They pull into a parking lot, and Demi reads the big sign on the building. "Redd's Gun Range." She says out loud. "You're crazy if you think I'm going in there."

"I promise you it's not as bad as it seems. I honestly think you'll love it."

"You take all your women here?"

"Hell no....and I don't even be having women to bring here. But I enjoy coming here when I have the time, and I thought maybe you would too."

"Okay. I've never shot a gun before so don't make fun of me."

"I won't. Promise."

Jesse's a regular so it didn't take long for them to get in and get situated. "Alright you wanna go first or you want me to?" He asks.

"No, you can."

He nods. Picking up his firearm, he calmly aims and fires multiple rounds. Hitting his intended target every time. Demi stands behind him and watches. She gets more nervous as her turn approaches, but the nervousness fades as Jesse stands closely behind her and helps her get in a correct stance and explains how to aim so that she too can hit her target.

He starts her off small with a .22. There's not much of a kickback, so it won't be as difficult to ease into. "Okay, whenever you're ready." He says before stepping back.

She waits about 10 seconds and takes a deep breath before firing. Realizing it's not as bad as she thought, she fires off back to back rounds until it's empty. "Let's see how you did." Jesse pulls in her target chart. "Not bad. Not bad at all." He says admiring her ability to stay within the target. "You sure you've never done this before."

"Nope."

"Well, this just means that I should probably never piss you off." They both giggle.

"Okay reload it, I wanna go again."

"Go for it."

After spending time at the range, they eventually had to part ways so that Demi could get back to Aubrey and mentally prepare for meeting Jesse's parents and most importantly introducing him to her daughter.