Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jesse
After
“Emery, no! Don’t let them, don’t let them do it!”
“Baby, wake up,” I heard, along with the feel of my husband’s hands as he shook me, my eyes flicking open. His face was the first thing I saw. His lips came closer, gently pressing to mine and the softest, “I’m home,” whispered through them.
It took several seconds before I realized I was napping in bed, Emery was lying next to me on his side, his arm bent with his palm supporting his cheek. I’m home meant he had returned from Boston and according to the time, he hadn’t been here for more than a few minutes.
“You were so beautiful, I didn’t want to wake you,” he said as my stare returned to him. “Until you started screaming …” He put his hand on my cheek, rubbing it as though he were wiping tears, but my skin felt dry. “What were you dreaming about?”
It wasn’t a dream.
It was a nightmare.
I thought everything through, filtering what I would say to Emery before I replied, “Daddy … when they put him on the ventilator.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead, holding them there when he said, “Get your mind off of it and tell me about your day.”
That was such a good idea.
He could be so sweet.
“I took Tommy to school, went to the gym, got a massage, and climbed into bed to do some reading.” I glanced back toward the nightstand, seeing that the book was there and my glasses were on top of it. I had fallen asleep with both and Emery had taken them off.
My days had always looked so different from this.
This was going to be the new normal.
At least for right now.
Oh God.
I took a breath and another, my airway starting to feel a little restricted, my heart beating so fast. “How did things go in Boston?”
His hand was underneath the blanket, moving to my navel, tracing small circles across it. “The mayor is going to get us everything we need. I just have to keep the builder and his team focused on construction instead of what the units are going to sell for.”
“Good luck with that.” I coughed, it didn’t help and did nothing to calm me.
“I know.” He shook his head. “I called you Wednesday night when I was getting ready to go out to dinner with him. I didn’t know what color shoes to pair with my navy slacks and you’re usually there to tell me what to put on.”
“What did you pick?”
“I went with the brown ones.” He laughed, a smile spreading across his face as though he were remembering it. “I asked Charlotte her opinion and those are the ones she chose. She has good taste.”
I cleared my throat, not surprised the conversation had turned to her so quickly. “Sounds like she’s still doing really well?”
“She’s one of the best decisions we’ve made for my business.”
It didn’t matter how much anxiety was flowing through me, Emery needed to hear this. I reached forward, placing my hand on his cheek, giving him every bit of love I could pull out of my pounding chest. “You have no idea how happy this makes me.” My thumb swiped against the grain whiskers, feeling the roughness of each one. “I just had a gut feeling about her.” I barely got the last part of the sentence out when the feelings inside of me began to intensify. They turned sharp, coming on faster, making me tighten from their strength. My fingers pressed into his cheek. My legs contracting.
Oh God.
I was doing everything I could to hide this, to stop it from controlling me.
To stop it from winning.
It was always fucking winning.
My hand had pulled away from him, but his was still on me, now moving to my thigh. “What do you want to do tonight?” His fingers curved around to my hip and slid up to my ribs.
“I don’t know.”
Normally, his touch sent tingles through my body. Right now, with the war happening under my skin, it felt like needles.
I couldn’t handle it.
“I think you said the kids were going to be gone for the night, so we can go downtown and grab a few drinks and …”
The rottenness was growing. The tightening was increasing.
“Jess?”
He wanted something from me. An answer. I wasn’t entirely sure how long he’d been waiting for one. “Would you mind if we stayed in?” I pleaded. “Luz left us plates in the fridge. We can eat those and watch a movie or something. I’m just … so tired.”
I would do anything to get his eyes off me even if that meant fighting sleep during an action film that wouldn’t hold my interest.
He sighed. “I don’t mind at all, I have so much work to do.” His touch turned lighter. “There’s no need to reheat the plate, I ate on the plane.” He quickly kissed my forehead, and then he got off the bed. He went into his closet and I could hear him changing out of his jeans and button-down. When he came out, he had on grey sweatpants and a Northeastern hoodie. The only thing he was missing was a hat and I would have thought we were back in his dorm and I was lying on his bottom bunk, watching him get ready for practice.
Those days. The ones before everything started to hurt.