“You and me,” I clarified. “My family needs me.”
“It goes for them too. Everyone will get through it together. But we all need you to grieve too. I need you to let things out. Slowly. Carefully. Otherwise?” Her words hinted at everything she wasn’t saying.
I would explode.
Her eyes danced when she reached forward to grip my shirt and pull me closer. “Let me help you with that.”
I brushed my mouth across hers. “It’s my job to help you.”
“Together,” she reminded me, lips capturing mine as she continued pulling me closer and closer.
A grin tugged at my mouth. “What’re you doing, angel?”
“Trying to pull your giant self in.”
A rumble of a laugh built in my chest. “Told you, this is for you.”
“Okay,” she said seriously, only moving back far enough to press her forehead to mine, her grip on my shirt never loosening. “I need my husband to get in this tub and start letting go of some of the pain and anger he’s keeping inside.”
I opened my eyes to find her studying me, silently begging me. My head subtly moved against hers. “You gonna let me take my shirt off?”
She tugged harder, bringing me closer to the tub, in response.
I reached for the button on my pants, and she quickly shook her head. “No. Get in.”
“Savannah—”
“Right now.”
I slipped my wallet out of my pocket as I captured her mouth, using the distraction to take off my Converse and socks before she could make another move.
“That’s cheating!” she said with a shocked gasp, looking all kinds of offended as she hauled me closer. Succeeding in pulling me over the tub and nearly getting me inside, but I hurried to grab the sides so I wouldn’t fall on her.
Staring at her as I held myself above the water—above her—in my shirt and jeans.
“This is what I need,” she said resolutely. “This is what you need.”
“You’re going to pay for this in so many ways,” I promised, the rough words raking up my throat.
Heat flared in her eyes and a blush crept up her cheeks as she sank deeper into the water.
I slowly lowered myself in, a gravelly laugh breaking free at the uncomfortable feel of it all. Once I was in, I grabbed my wife and situated us so she was stretched out above me, water sloshing over the tub and onto the tiled floor as we moved. But then I had her in my arms, all bare skin and deep breaths and contended sighs, and I wasn’t sure a moment could get much better than that.
“Better?”
Her eyelids shut as she burrowed deeper into my chest. “Mmhm.” Placing a hand against my soaked shirt, she said, “Now, tell me how you’re really doing.”
“Perfect.”
She tapped my chest. “Here.”
I leaned my head back against the lip of the tub and let my eyes close too as a heavy sigh left me. All my pain freely bleeding as I let myself feel. “I’m fucking wrecked.”
I glanced around the side of the bedroom I was facing, my heavy eyelids blinking slowly as I tried to orient myself when the room was darker than it had been when I’d lain down.
I wasn’t even sure when I’d fallen asleep, only that I felt different. Better. All that heavy pain I’d been struggling under no longer seemed to be bearing down on me and filling me. The hurt and their betrayal all lingered in ways that felt manageable for the first time.
The day had left me mentally and emotionally lighter than I’d been in weeks. Yet, somehow, I was still exhausted.
And starving.
Emberly really was a genius.
I sat up, hand searching for my phone and curling around it when I found it near me on the bed. My heart dropping to my stomach when my stare skipped right past the time to the dozens of messages and calls I’d missed.
The previews showing more than enough.
I just can’t believe it . . .
Who would’ve ever thought . . .
How could he think he’d . . .
I hope you kick his ass to . . .
As much as those texts made my stomach clench, I knew they were unavoidable. That this was unavoidable. Truthfully, I couldn’t believe we’d managed over three weeks in a place where private business was town gossip the instant it happened.
A weighted sigh fell from my lips as I ignored the countless messages to text my mom. My finger paused over the screen when I pulled up her messages, my chest warming and a soft laugh tumbling free when I saw the picture she’d sent not long before of the older kids eating massive bowls of ice cream as Levi tried to snag Wyatt’s spoon.
Me: Oh my God, I love it! Hope y’all are having fun. Give my kids big hugs and kisses for me. I’ll FaceTime them in the morning.
Setting my phone face down on the nightstand, I stood and started through the house that somehow felt so big and so empty now that I was really alone—without kids coming back after a few hours at school or a husband coming back after work.
And who knew when he would.
He’d said he was moving out that night, but that was before he knew the kids were leaving with my parents. We also hadn’t talked about what this week would look like for us with the kids being gone.
But I’d still expected him to show.
Or maybe hoped he would while desperately needing him to stay away from me. I wasn’t sure. I’d been a mess.
But my world had fallen apart, and I’d vainly tried to keep it from my kids. To have small breakdowns in the moments the older two were at school or they were all asleep. Then to realize another was on the way? Something that should’ve been celebrated but instead needed to be kept hidden during the most damaging time of my life. Add on a completely booked bed and breakfast just as I let Beau back into our lives, and it was no wonder I’d been such a disaster.
My steps slowed as I neared the bottom of the stairs when I realized the house looked the way it always did at this time of evening—just as the sun was going past the horizon. The lights in the house were on even though the thick-slatted blinds were still open to let in every last bit of natural light.
Except I’d gone upstairs hours before, and the lights had all been off.
And the music had still been playing . . .
I forced myself to walk slowly toward the kitchen when my soul wanted to run and my heart wanted to guard itself against the man waiting somewhere in that house.
But when I stepped through the archway, Beau wasn’t there.
My eyes swept the kitchen as I continued through it, falling on his keys and urging my feet faster until I came to an abrupt stop just as I started rounding the corner into the great room.
Soul reaching out faster than my heart could build up walls when I saw him lying in the spot we used to occupy when we were still creating our dreams, long before we ever owned the house. Arms folded tightly over his chest and looking so tense, even in sleep.
My stare pulled to the side when his phone vibrated on the hardwood floor, his screen lighting up with one of his assistant coach’s names.
I hurried across the floor, trying to keep my steps silent, and bent to scoop up the phone before tiptoeing back to my spot where the great room bled into the kitchen as I answered, “Hey, Kevin.”