Lifting up on my tiptoes, I pressed a kiss to his lips, already missing him before I’d even left. “You’re kind of incredible, you know that?”
“I do, but feel free to say it as often as you want.”
I lowered back down, feeling my lips pull into a pout as I stepped back, preparing to leave. Why did it suddenly feel so damn hard?
Once again, my stupid face gave me away. “I don’t want you to leave either,” he said, flooding my chest with warmth. “But your sister comes first.” He looped his finger in one of my belt loops and pulled me to him. “Besides, we’ll have plenty of time for us.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said with one last kiss before finally forcing myself to the door. “I’ll talk to you soon. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”
“I’ll try not to, baby.”
I gave myself until I reached Muffin Top to wipe the elated smile off my face. I needed to be there for Tali, and there was no way I was walking into that house with a just-banged-to-within-an-inch-of-my-life glow while her marriage was falling apart.
I barely recognized the woman who answered my sister’s front door. Her eyes were bloodshot, her cheeks were red, and her nose was swollen from a serious crying jag. Her hair was piled in a ratty mess on top of her head, and it looked like she was still in the clothes she’d worn the day before.
“Kitchen or living room?” I asked.
“Kitchen. If I sit in the living room I’m going to wallow right into the furniture.”
I followed her into the immaculately clean kitchen, taking the stool next to hers, and began unloading everything I brought from Muffin Top. Six maple bacon muffins, all for her, and the largest coffee they sold.
“All right,” I started once I had her all set. “Start from the beginning, but first, are the kids home?”
She shook her head. “I called Mom super late last night and asked her if she and Dad could come get them early this morning. They showed up just before eight to take them to the lake for the day.”
I nodded and braced for what was to come. “Okay, then hit me with it. Let it all out, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Okay.” She sucked in a fortifying breath and jumped right in. “He got home late last night, like always,” she added sarcastically, “and like always, he took a shower and passed right out. So I went through his phone.”
“Oh God. Tali—”
“I know! I know, okay? Anyway, he had all these emails and texts from this woman named Eve. Apparently she’s an intern at his office.” I imagined Slutzilla. The home-wrecking shrew had a name now, and for some reason, that made me hate her even more. “All her messages were really flirty, bordering on inappropriate, you know? Like, as a woman, I was able to read between the lines to the subtext.”
“Were his responses the same?”
“Well . . .” She bit down on her bottom lip and hesitated. “No. But that doesn’t matter! Not once did he tell her to stop or that she was being inappropriate. He just ignored the flirty banter, which is just as bad!”
I nodded solemnly.
“It was seeing those messages that finally pushed me over the edge. I called Mom, like I told you, and then I started packing up all his shit.”
Leaning over, I placed a hand on her arm. “Honey, have you even slept?”
“I can’t. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat—” She stopped to chomp into one of the muffins. “Well, I can’t eat anything but these. Anyway, he was still asleep by the time the kids left with Mom and Dad, so I dragged his suitcases down the stairs, making sure to be as loud as humanly possible. He woke up and came out of the room in time to see me heaving them into the front yard.” She washed the muffin down with a gulp of coffee.
“What happened next?”
“I ripped into him. I told him I’d seen the messages and everything. He swore up and down that nothing had happened and was never going to happen, that he didn’t look at her that way, but when I pointed out that he never once said in any of his replies that he was a married man or asked her to stop, he didn’t get it. It was like I was talking to a freaking wall, Mar. I got so angry that it all started pouring out of me. I yelled about him never being home, about missing important milestones in our kids’ lives because he’s always at work. I got in his face and accused him of being a shitty, absentee father. I said he’d basically turned me into a single mother, so there was really no point in having him under the same roof anymore.
“I yelled about feeling like nothing but a roommate and how he hasn’t touched me in longer than I can remember. I broke down and started crying when I told him he makes me feel undesirable, that I don’t feel like he wants me anymore. I told him that even if he hasn’t cheated, it doesn’t matter, because what we have isn’t a marriage, that he doesn’t even see me anymore. I’m just here, in the background like wallpaper.”
My own eyes had welled up, the tears spilling free at my sister’s sadness. “What did he say?”
She sniffled, wiping at her cheeks before looking to her lap and shaking her head. “The same shit he always says. He promised he’d do better, that the only reason he worked so much was so the kids and I could have this house and I could drive a nice car and have designer clothes and not have to work. Like any of that matters to me,” she snapped.
“He swore he’d stop, that he’d be there for us more, and that he still loved me more than anything.” She looked up at me, her chin trembling as a fresh wave of tears fell from her eyes. “But it’s too late, Marin. I’ve heard it all a million times. His words don’t mean anything anymore. I don’t think he wants me. I think he wants someone to take care of him and make him dinner and wash his fucking underwear! I didn’t sign up to be his maid. This was supposed to be a partnership.”
On that, she broke down completely, and her words became a garbled mess. All I could do was hold her as she cried. My heart broke because it was so obvious hers was breaking.
I moved us into the living room and held her as she cried herself to sleep with her head on my lap, and I stayed right there until she woke up a few hours later, feeling a bit more in control of herself.
Our folks couldn’t keep the kids away forever, but after that crying jag and nap, Tali was feeling much stronger, and was prepared to have the talk with Erika and Matt, explaining that Daddy wasn’t going to be living at home for a while.
I stuck around as long as I could, but she wanted to be alone with the kids when she told them, so, reluctantly, I left, with orders that she call any time of the day or night if she needed me for anything.
It was already evening by the time I left, so I headed straight for my apartment, feeling the exhaustion of the night before and the emotional turmoil from today weighing me down like I had an anvil tied around my neck.
I waited until I was snuggled up in my bed, a happy little rom-com playing as background noise on the TV, before I dialed Pierce’s number.
“Hey. Is your sister okay?” he asked right off the bat.
What was it about his voice that made everything feel better? “No, but I’m hoping she will be in time.”