SEVENTEEN
Colby
I heard the front door shut with a soft click—but it might as well have been a nuclear bomb going off. After several arguments over nap time earlier, I’d finally gotten the kids to go lay down for quiet time though by the looks of the house anyone would think a war had broken out before I was able to successfully accomplish anything past attempting to keep my calm before rocking in the corner with a bottle of wine clutched in one hand and a pillow to scream into in the other.
Tears and flour caked my cheeks as I furiously rubbed them in an effort to look presentable. I sprinted into the kitchen, nearly taking out my right hip against the cold, hard granite countertop.
Pain throbbed in cadence with my panicked heart as a car door slammed—his car door.
Great. We were literally back to square one. I could see it now. Especially after this morning with our moment and his stupid assistant stopping by. He was going to be all anal again, and I was going to have to explain myself.
Why were things like this between us? It felt like Rip had changed so much in the past few weeks, but I knew in my soul the minute he saw this chaos he was going to lose his mind, yell, possibly tell me I was immature, and then I would cry.
“No, no, no,” I whispered to myself as I quickly shoved all the cookies that weren’t burned farther onto the counter while dumping the others into the trash. Along with the leftover flour, several cups of purple glitter slime Viera had decided she had to make, and an indistinguishable brown putty that I hoped to God wasn’t from the old grumpy cat were scattered all over the place in green Solo cups, making it look like a college frat house instead of a madhouse. Stu meowed at me and gave me a look that said he was about two seconds away from puking up a hairball again, and don’t even get me started on a cat that needed diapers half the time because life made him “anxious.”
The whole spider scenario earlier today wasn’t helping matters either. What cat eats a spider, then chokes on it? A shudder rocked my body.
“Shoo!” I tried to shove the cat away from the table he’d just jumped on, only to groan when he knocked another two cups full of slime onto the hardwood floor.
Footsteps sounded.
Stu abandoned me.
And the house still looked horrific.
Panic flared in my chest, and suddenly all I could do was stand there and watch in horror as Rip rounded the corner in his pristine black slacks and ironed navy shirt. Not a dark wavy piece of jet-black hair was out of place. His green eyes locked onto mine and twitched.
Both of them, not just one, both simultaneously. How was that even physically possible?
His height dominated the dirty kitchen, making me feel small—and stupid, always stupid. He didn’t say a word to make me feel that way—he didn’t need to. His barely controlled rage said it all.
Failure.
I was a failure as a mom.
And at present, he was there to witness my failings.
Again.
After our pact two weeks before, things had been better between us, but I knew that this? This mess would be the final straw for him.
He understood the chaos—after all, he hadn’t escaped our pact unscathed when we swapped roles—but he was still better at multitasking than I was.
I wanted to yell that it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I wanted to point my finger at him and tell him that he was half to blame, that we were never supposed to be put in this position.
That life wasn’t fair, and God hadn’t blessed me with one domestic bone in my body—and truthfully, I was ready to say that, all of that and more, because I was exhausted, and unlike Rip I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t understand the word control, any more than I could understand French.
I opened my mouth and closed it as a blue bucket next to his feet came into view. Somehow the cat had knocked it over. Water and slime now pooled in front of him, inches from the toes of his perfect shoes. With what we’d used to create the slime, which just so happened to be loads and loads of soap, I knew his perfectly polished shoes with no traction were going to take one step and slip.
“Wait!” I held out both hands.
His green eyes narrowed in on me, and then he slowly took in the rest of the dirty kitchen with a look of pure horror and disbelief. “Did we get robbed?”
I glared. “Yes, and all they wanted to do was bake cookies and make slime—weirdest robbers ever, but don’t worry, I’m sure the cops can figure things out by the very chaotic crime scene left over.” I finished with a muttered “jackass” under my breath; OK, so maybe it was less of a mutter and more of a verbal attack, but still. Come on!
He let out an exhausted sigh as the muscles of his forearms flexed, drawing my attention to his rolled-up sleeves and slightly tired look. Maybe, just maybe his day had been as hard as mine. “Look, I don’t want to fight again.”