Before Him

“Life certainly seems to suit you.” Roman’s eyes course over me, my skin reacting pleasantly to the weight of his appreciation. Maybe I shouldn’t enjoy the way he’s looking at me, but I do. Not that it matters because—ack!

Stop overthinking every single thing!

“What about you?” I slice my hair behind my ears, batting the conversation back his way. “Are you really on vacation?”

“Yeah, kind of. I spend quite a bit of time in the States these days.”

That was as clear as mud, but I get it. We’re both being tentative.

Read: cagey.

“You spend a lot of time here travelling? Working?”

“Yeah.” This he offers up with the brightest of smiles, one that says he knows exactly what he’s doing. Giving nothing away.

Read: driving me crazy.

“What do you do for a living?”

“Oh, you know.” His smile turns enigmatic. “A bit of this, a bit of that.”

My eyes slide from his to the battered leather weekend bag he’d pulled the T-shirt from, then to the shiny laptop next to the TV, and the expensive-looking Canon camera popped on top of it.

Ah, hell. Please say he’s not one of those. A digital nomad. A loafer. A swanner around—a doer of very little actual, proper work! I bet he has a camper van parked somewhere or some battered pickup truck trailing an equally battered Airstream. I’ve known the type to book the pixie house before, desperate for a proper shower and a night on a decent mattress. That type is usually on their way to Crater Lake to take atmospheric images to post to their Instagram account along with insipid captions.

Not all who wander are lost.

Just unemployable.

What will you discover?

Probably that you miss a functioning toilet.

Take memories. Leave only footprints.

And don’t steal the damn towels from the bathroom!

Wander often. Wonder always.

I do wonder how they make a living in all that wandering.

Worse still are the “influencers”. Welp, there’s no way they were influencing me into a free weekend for a post from their “oh-so popular” account. I have a child to feed and bills to pay.

What if Roman is one of those? I mean, he paid for his accommodation, but what if he’s poor? We’ve been married for nearly eight years. Could that make me somehow financially liable? Despite the way my stomach sinks at the prospect, I shake off the thoughts and forcibly relax my brow. No use letting my mind run away with itself. Time to get to the point.

“I want you to know I’m gonna make it up to you,” he says with sincerity. “Financially, I mean.”

Well, that’s one point, I guess. A point that forces me to stifle my amusement because wasn’t I just thinking the opposite? Still, I suppose his idea of help will be to stick a hundred bucks in my bank account whenever he can. I guess that’s fine, too. I’ll add it to Wilder’s college fund because I’m determined my son won’t ever find himself in a position like I did.

“Text me your bank details,” he adds.

“I imagine you want to test for paternity before we get to that.”

“Seriously, Kennedy—” Whatever he’s about to say, he thinks better of. Instead, he stands and makes his way over to this laptop. “It’s probably easier to show you,” he says, sitting again. The sleek, silver computer flares to life quicker than anything I’ve ever owned. A couple of taps to the keyboard, and he swings it around to face me, and I’m looking at his Facebook page.

“I don’t have one of these,” I murmur, looking at the group of people depicted on screen.

“Yeah, I know,” he says wryly, causing my head to lift. “You think I haven’t looked for you?”

I hunch over the screen again before adding quickly, “I just opened an account for the coffee shop.”

“Where you work?”

I nod and try to concentrate on the image again, but I can’t for the thought of him being out there, looking for me.

I am a thief. I’ve stolen time and—“Whoa.”

“Dead ringer, right?” he offers up happily.

Matty, yeah. But it isn’t the dark-haired little boy who made me exclaim because that would be thanks to the all-male revue. Four men, four hot men of similar heights and builds and varying hair colouring stand in a row. The two in the middle, Roman being one of them, have their arms slung around the other. The other two, the super-hot bookends, hold kids in their arms. The laughing dark-haired hottie on the left has one arm strapped around a grumpy-looking toddler and his other hand resting on a tow-headed kid of maybe five years old. While the kid is smiling widely for the camera, the toddler is scowling, poised to pitch a plastic Thomas the Tank Engine over his head. He also looks like he should be advertising a Victorian-era soap bar with that headful of ringlets. His brother’s hair is just as curly, a little darker, and kind of springy.