“What? Why?”
He stops in his tracks, turns back around, and stares right at her. “Why? You wanna know why? Want me to get Grady out here to answer that question too?” he asks her, to which she shakes her head adamantly that she, in fact, does not want her big brother, who is quite overprotective, to be brought in the conversation.
“Right then. Not. A. Chance. You’re fifteen. Need more reason?”
“Dad, don’t be…”
He cuts her off before she can dig herself into a deeper hole. “Nope. End of discussion. First of all, it’s against school policy, thank the Lord above for that,” he says as he looks to the heavens, and I know, without a doubt, he is truly thanking God for blessing us with a strict school dress code policy. “Second of all, you don’t need to be searching for reasons for boys to notice you. You’re beautiful enough as it is when you’re fully covered.”
“But…” She half-heartedly tries to argue her position again.
“I said no. End of discussion.”
“But, Dad, it’s not to get boys to notice me! The shirt is cute!”
“I have no doubt the shirt is cute. I also said no. Besides. School. Policy.” He grins widely, knowing he’s got her there. He’d gladly make her wear a nun costume to school every day if he could, but having the school policy as backup makes his argument that much easier.
She throws her arms up in the air and screeches, “Inconceivable!” before stomping away. It’s possible we may have made her watch The Princess Bride one too many times.
Barrett roars with laughter at her response, smiles my way, clearly satisfied with the way his end of the discussion went, and turns on his heel, heading back to the kitchen to help Harper with the rest of her spelling words.
By the time eleven o’clock rolls around, I’m exhausted and so is Barrett. We’ve both had long days, and tomorrow will be the same. Tomorrow night, we get to cheer on our boys under the Friday night lights while they work to continue their undefeated season. As we crawl into bed next to one another, alone for once, we take one look at the other and almost weep. It is so rare for us to be able to climb into bed at the same time, and we almost don’t know what to do with ourselves when we do.
Unfortunately, once again, exhaustion and questions over tonight’s dinner topic trumps sexy-time, and soon we’re both lying next to one another in silence, but at least we’re together and touching. Touching means more than sex at this point in our lives. Touching is intimate, and we are desperate for the intimacy. At least I am. I have no idea if Barrett feels the same way or not. We actually have to be able to have a conversation for more than fifteen minutes a day that didn’t center around something involving the kids in order to understand what the other is thinking. I hear Barrett’s breathing start to slow, but there’s so much we need to discuss before I can sleep.
“Babe.”
“Hmmm?”
“You awake?”
“Hmm-mmm.”
“Babe. We need to talk. Wake up. Earlier today. On the phone. What else were you saying?” I lightly push on his shoulder to help him fully wake up.
“Huh?”
“Open your eyes. This afternoon when we talked about what you and Cole discussed. You were talking…”
He interrupts in his sexy sleep voice, eyes still closed, “And you were in your dream world and not listening.”
“Yup. That time. What were you saying?”
He sits up in bed and rests his back against the pillows resting against the headboard. His naked chest looks so inviting for me to rub my hands over as he scrubs his face to help wake himself up, making the muscles in his arms and shoulders bulge and contract.
I raise up also and sit cross-legged on the bed facing him.
“I was trying to tell you we talked to Andy. He’s going to take a few weeks off so he can focus on figuring out where to go from here. He says he can’t trust her now and has no desire to stay with her, or stay in the house she did the nasty in with some other dude, so he’s moving out. The boys are old enough to make a choice about who they want to stay with. They’re pretty pissed at their mom. They want to stay with Andy, so he’s trying to find a place to live for all three of them and all the junk that goes along with it.
“Anyway, he was grateful that we offered him some time off, but he seems surprisingly good. Obviously it messed with his head, and he needs time to work out the logistics, but he’s moved on to the angry phase of grief, and he has plenty of it directed at her. It seems to be working for him.”
I open my mouth to speak but Barrett holds up his hand to stop me. “Don’t even start. He needs to deal with it the way it works for him.”
“You’re sure? If he needs a place to stay, you know he’s welcome here. We don’t necessarily have an extra three bedrooms, but we can make it work.”
Barrett nods his head in agreement. “Yeah, Josh and I both told him that already. But thank you for saying that, too. Means more to me than you know. I’m sorry I blew up at you this morning. I guess I’ve just been feeling on edge lately.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And apology accepted. And I’m sorry, too, if I ever make you feel like I don’t trust you to lead this family. You’ve never once steered us wrong, and I do have faith in you. I love you. You’re a great husband and father.”
“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself at the whole wife-and-mother thing.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say and playfully punch him in the shoulder.
He gives me a huge cheeky grin in return. As much as I want to ignore it, I can’t. We need to talk about something else tonight before I’ll be able to fall asleep.
“Barrett, the MaryEllen and Keri thing. I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned it more until now. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Seriously? Why haven’t you talked more about either of them? Either MaryEllen’s retirement or Keri’s job?” My voice comes out accusatory, which I didn’t mean but… maybe I did.
“Probably because you didn’t ask. Probably because it didn’t seem to be top of your mind. Lately, if it’s not something that directly affects you, you never ask or care to know more,” he says, voice a little harsher than I’m used to. “That’s why I get so frustrated when you suddenly act like you should have so much input in the business. You never ask, never want to be involved, and then suddenly you think I’m screwing something up so you have all these ideas and plans. It’s frustrating as hell.”
“Barrett, I care. You know I do, right?”
“I know that, Tess. But you haven’t seemed very interested lately, so I’ve just not brought up anything going on there, aside from the Andy-thing.”
“I’m sorry, Barrett. I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s fine.” He shakes his head and shrugs a single shoulder. “Well, it’s not. But it will be, right?”
“Right. I promise. I’ll make sure to be more active and stuff.”
“Well. Don’t try too hard.” He chuckles.
“Nice.” I laugh. I pause, twirling my hair in my fingers a little, nervous to bring up my next question, but I have to so I just pull up my big-girl panties and do it. I lick my lips and run my teeth over my bottom lip and muster up the courage to ask my next question. “So, Keri?”