Sparrow

“Tell me about your mom,” he asked out of nowhere, me still in his arms. His tone was lazy, like we were familiar with one another more than just physically. And that was a lie I was tempted to believe.

My body must’ve stiffened, because suddenly, his fingers stopped stroking my back and his lips no longer pressed against my hair.

“I don’t have a mom,” I clarified. “The woman who gave birth to me ran off long before I was able to remember anything about her.”

“Have you tried looking for her over the years?” The softness in his tone was rubbing me the wrong way. He was not supposed to care. He was a sorry douchebag who cheated on me, forced me into marrying him and broke the law for a living.

“Are you auditioning for Dateline? What the hell is your problem, Troy?” I wiggled out of his touch, pulling myself up from the bed and standing up in a hurry. I lifted items of clothes that weren’t even mine from the floor and dressed in his shirt and my underwear without making eye contact. Tonight was not supposed to end this way.

He was still lying on the bed, his head supported on one of his arms. Naked, he watched me. “Just trying to be a good husband,” he said.

“You’re good for only one thing, Brennan.” I pulled my panties up my legs in swift movements. “And that’s for what happened between your sheets not too long ago.”

“They’re your sheets, too, Red.”

“Thought I was supposed to be lovebird from now on?” I turned my back to him, already making my way out of the room.

I heard his laugh, and my heart twisted in anticipation and sadness.

“I changed my mind.” His voice had a hard edge. “I’m not letting you fly away. Ever.”

SPARROW

“CONSIDER THIS…” Lucy’s hands were quick as she peeled potatoes at the speed of light at my kitchen sink. “You told him to fire Connor and he did. You told him to quit fucking around and it looks like he did that too. I think it might come as shocking news to you, but honey, your husband has feelings for you.”

Standing next to her, I stirred the Alfredo sauce for the rotini, dunking my finger and having a taste. I added a dash of salt, stalling. She was no longer concerned for my safety. Now, she was more interested in my love life.

“Mmm,” I said, not really eager to tell her about the part where the so-called loving husband dragged me on a plane with a fake passport against my will and screwed another girl in our bedroom.

On the same day.

Yeah, Disney wouldn’t be calling him for tips on how to play a credible Prince Charming.

“Yeah, well, we’ve been married for three months, and he’s still bottling up all these secrets, not letting me in on anything. Why did he marry me? Who did he refer to when he said ‘they’ that night before we went to Rouge Bis? He won’t even tell me what happened with Catalina.”

We were making tons of food for a charity event for the homeless shelter down the road. Over the past few months, I’d gone to the shelter often, bearing tasty donations. The volunteers who worked there were all too happy to ask me if I could help cooking for their little gathering.

Lucy was about to pour the drippings from the bacon for the Alfredo into an empty jar when I redirected her with a wooden spoon to the garbage disposal down our sink.

“Seriously? It’ll clog up your pipes.”

“Don’t run the water either,” I shot back.

She grinned, but did as I told her and poured the grease down the disposal.

I was still rebelling in small, mundane ways. Keeping him on his toes. Showing him that just because we shared a bed—and enough sex to make me walk all wobbly the day after—didn’t mean that I was an agreeable little wife. So far I have managed a few “accidents,” including breaking his iPad, staining his favorite suit with white sauce and keying his Maserati. The headboard we broke together, so that wasn’t exactly just on me.

“Look at you, all grown up and having detached sex.” Lucy gave voice to my thoughts, talking over the grinding of the disposal. “How can you hate him, doing everything you can to show him just how much, and still sleep with him at night?”

I didn’t hate my husband, but somehow, I was horrified by the concept of admitting it aloud.

I downplayed the whole situation by offering a half-assed shrug, wiping my oily hands on a paper towel. “It’s just sex. If I didn’t do it with him, I would have ended up having to stay a virgin until he dropped dead. Even I’m not stupid enough to cheat on a Brennan.”