The Imperfections

I dozed off for about a half-hour, but that’s good—it means Brant should be almost home.

Well, I think that until I see that the notification I got was a text message from Brant that reads, Gonna be a little late getting home. Don’t wait up.

Heaving a heavy sigh of disappointment, I haul my legs off the couch and push myself up. I’m so tired I wobble a little, then I cover my mouth as I yawn and stretch out.

“Scout,” I call softly, looking around for him.

He opens his eyes when he hears me calling for him, but he’s curled up in his dog bed in the living room. He’s grown a lot since I met him and he’s starting to get too big for it. We’ll have to get him a new, bigger bed soon.

“Are you gonna sleep down here tonight?” I ask him.

He must be, because rather than get up and follow me upstairs to bed, he keeps his head on his paws and just looks up at me.

He probably wants to wait for Brant to get home. Once his whole family is here, he might follow Brant up to our room.

I turn out the lights and leave him be for now.

In our bedroom, I consider stripping off my clothes and waiting for Brant naked, but I’m so sleepy, I decide against it. If my husband wants sex when he gets home, he’ll just have to wake me up and convince me to leave the warmth of my soft, cozy nightie.

Not that he should have a problem convincing me of that, but he can work for it, at least a little.

I drift off to sleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, and I don’t stir until the movement of Brant climbing into the bed jostles me awake. My eyes burn too much to open them, but just knowing he’s near brings a little smile to my face.

“Hi, baby,” I murmur almost unintelligibly as I roll over and reach for him.

He doesn’t reach over and pull me against him like he normally does, and when I secure my arm around his waist, several things register all at once.

First, he’s still wearing a coat. Why is he wearing his coat in bed?

Second, that’s not what Brant smells like. The scent of him does smell faintly familiar, but it’s not one I’ve picked up recently.

Lastly and most alarmingly of all, it doesn’t feel like Brant’s body my arms are wrapped around.

My eyes pop open and horror explodes in my chest as they land on Theo’s face, darkened by shadows. “Hey, Alyssa.”

I gasp and scramble back away from him, my heart racing and my stomach falling. “What the hell?” I cry out.

Laughing, Theo watches me lose my shit without moving. “Not who you were expecting?” he asks.

I sit up quickly, pushing myself back on the bed so I can climb off. “You have to leave. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but you have to leave.”

Theo turns and climbs off the bed only a second after I do. He moves to the door before I can, blocking the only exit. “Bri and I had a big fight tonight,” he tells me. “A bad one.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him, wide-eyed.

He frowns at me. “Now, that’s not very nice. You used to care. Remember? When you cared about me?”

Sighing as my heart starts to settle down from the shock of seeing him, I rake a hand through my hair and shake my head. “That was a long time ago, Theo.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,” he says, his gaze drifting to my protruding abdomen. “You haven’t had my baby yet, so it can’t have been that long. You just moved on fast, that’s all.”

I don’t like the way he says that, like it’s a failing of mine. “We were never really together. And you’re married,” I remind him.

Nodding slowly as he walks toward me, he says, “And now you are, too.”

I take a wary step back, keeping my gaze locked on him. More firmly, I tell him, “You have to leave, Theo. Right now. The bar’s closed, Brant will be home any minute now, and he can’t find you here.”

As if I haven’t spoken, he says, “And you’ve got even more to lose than I do now. I mean, Bri might be a bitch sometimes, but your husband? He’s a fucking psycho.”

“Bri is not a bitch, and Brant will kill you if he catches you here. I’m not kidding, Theo. You have no idea how mad he was last time. If you hadn’t run away, he probably would have strangled the life out of you right there in our barn.”

“He didn’t hurt you, though,” Theo remarks. “Maybe he’s not as bad as Bri makes him out to be. Maybe her protective big brother is more a legend in her mind than he is in reality.”