“No, no. I’m fine. I think we should just go to sleep.”
“Don’t stress yourself out thinking about all this stuff now, okay?” Jill patted his chest, as though trying to console him. “You’ve got playoffs to worry about. We’ll be able to figure out the big picture questions once you get through the Super Bowl.”
He smirked, twisting to reach his bedside lamp. “I appreciate your vote of confidence on the Super Bowl.”
“How could I not believe in the Sharks?” She pressed a kiss to the top of his shoulder. “They’ve got the sexiest wide receiver known to man.”
The light flicked off, bathing the room in darkness, and Maxwell nestled back into the pillow. They whispered goodnight to each other, but as he tried to fall asleep, Maxwell realized his mind was far too active to achieve sleep quite yet.
He hadn’t gotten the answers he wanted.
And it was getting harder to convince himself that Jill even viewed a long-term future for the two of them, beyond caring for the triplets together.
15
Another week went by in the clutches of their relentless schedule. Jill was feeling a little burnt out already, which concerned her for a number of reasons. Namely because there was no break on the horizon. And Maxwell was as good as a ghost most days in this household.
“This is what you signed up for,” she murmured to herself as she turned on the television, searching for the sports channel where Maxwell’s game would be aired. They had a home game this week, which meant she could expect him at least a few hours earlier than normal. But the man typically came back wrecked—and with good reason. He was giving his all on the field each Sunday, and during practice the rest of the week, in the hopes of hitting the Super Bowl.
The triplets were calm today, since she’d run them out good at the park earlier, and they’d had a luscious nap already. They chatted in their little language as they stacked blocks and played with toy cars. When Jill found the right channel, she collapsed into the sofa, feeling exhausted.
At this point, it was everything. Her workloads on Mondays and Tuesdays were easily enough for four full days at this point. She’d taken to calling the nanny in extra mornings so she could get caught up on paperwork at the house while the kids went with Kelsey to the park or kid meet-ups. And at two o’clock on a Sunday, she was already fully stressing about Monday’s workload. The patients that awaited her. The admin that had been left unfinished from last week. The provider meetings she’d scheduled, knowing that she didn’t have time for them.
And if it were only kids and work, it would be fine. But now she had Maxwell’s waning attention mixed into everything, which just imploded the stress and emotion of maneuvering through work and kid balance.
“This is what you signed up for,” she muttered again, working her jaw back and forth as the camera switched from panorama shots of the stadium to the bouncing breasts of the cheerleaders.
Instead of sitting there and stewing for the duration of the game about the ins and outs of her pseudo-relationship with Maxwell, she decided she’d start cleaning up. Get a head start on organizing the house so that when Maxwell got back, she could just scoot out the door and head to her own place. Where hopefully, she’d get her head screwed on straight again.
But as she picked up stray toys and got out a dust rag and then set to vacuuming the entire downstairs, she realized that maybe part of her head not being screwed on right was this love affair with Maxwell.
Maybe this was just the natural consequence of diving into a sexual relationship with a famous, sexy, athlete who had throngs of fans and women at his disposal.
Maybe she just couldn’t hack it, despite having signed up for it.
She alternated between cleaning and watching the game with the kids. During particularly exciting times, she worked on getting the triplets to shout “Touchdown!” with her. Cameron and Shelley picked it up quickly, but each time they practiced, Kevin would just mumble and clap. He’d definitely been slower to pick up new words and phrases compared to his siblings, and Jill made it a point to practice a little extra with him. After over six exciting touchdowns, Kevin hadn’t yet mastered the word—but that was okay, because the Sharks had won again, and there was always another chance for touchdowns on the horizon.
While Jill cheered and continued cleaning, the kids clapping and playing around her, she decided that she wanted to make things easy tonight. She’d order a football-worthy dinner for her and the kids, and Maxwell when he eventually made it home. Sometimes, delivery truly was the best option.
“Who feels like mac and cheese and chicken fingers?” she asked the kids. Of course, they were simply residually excited from the game, so they shouted their agreement. Jill set to scrolling through her options on a local delivery app, humming with appreciation at all the different options that looked perfect for today’s menu: loaded waffle fries, pizza rolls, taco dip platters, even pulled pork loaded potatoes. She ordered a healthy sampling of all the delicious options, knowing that Maxwell would object to at least half of them, but what was a game-day celebration without a bit of indulgence? She’d steam the man some vegetables if he protested too much.
Just after she’d sent her order through, Maxwell called.
“Hello?” She suddenly brimmed with excitement to see him again. To congratulate that sexy, hard-working athlete the best way she knew how. And if he got home early enough, they could have their fun before she went home for the night.
“Hey, Jill.” He sounded exhausted.
“Congratulations on the big win!”
“Thanks.” He sighed. “It was brutal. Hey, would you mind staying with the kids a bit longer tonight? James wants to go over some things once we’re done with the press down here.”
“Yeah, of course,” she said, trying to ignore how crestfallen she felt. “Is everything okay?”
“Thanks, Jill. Gotta run.” The line went dead.
She frowned, looking at her phone like it might light up at any second with a clarifying text from Maxwell. Her heart hammered as confusion began to set in. That had certainly been odd. He was never that quick or curt with her.
He was distracted—it had to be that. She repeated it to herself a few times as she worked to reintegrate into the cleaning and playtime flow. But it was hard, since her mind insisted on homing in on the super-short interaction and extracting something meaningful from it.
And the only thing she could come up with was the fact that this was an emerging trend. One that had started a couple weeks ago. One that proved to her that Maxwell was pulling away, and whatever flimsy, fun, or flirty affair they’d started was headed for a quick end.
After all, she barely saw him anymore. And it hadn’t been that way in the beginning. Now, even post-game, when the team was supposedly in the clear, he had more review with James? She gritted her teeth as she focused on cleaning the stove, expelling big bursts of air as she worked over her thoughts and the cooking grime. Even when they saw each other recently, things felt strained. Quiet, somehow. And it just made her worry that something was definitely wrong.
But what? She scrubbed at the stovetop so hard her elbow hurt. This situation reminded her of something. Even though she didn’t know what was wrong, she certainly had been in this position before. With her ex. She’d frequently hung suspended between certainty and doubt, for days and weeks at a time, poring over their interactions and texts, wondering what she’d said or done wrong to provoke the coldness, the iciness, the distance.