“Next time, I’ll bring Dad with me,” she said, giving me a squeeze before wrapping a thin scarf around her neck. “I’ll buy the tickets when I get home.”
“What’s Auntie Kate doing?” Sage asked in annoyance, waving her arms at Kate’s car.
“I think she’s on her phone,” Ellie lied, glancing up at me before taking ahold of her small suitcase. “I’ll carry this out myself since you’ve got Gunner.”
Her face was sympathetic and a little questioning as she kissed my cheek, but I didn’t reply as she walked out the front door. She’d known the morning I’d gotten home that something had happened between Kate and me. When Kate had never called her back the night before, Ellie had known something was up—but she’d practically swallowed her tongue when she got a glimpse of my neck.
She hadn’t said a word, but she’d known.
“I’m glad Grandma’s leaving,” Keller announced, swinging on the front door as Kate backed out of the driveway.
“Kell, that’s not a nice thing to say.”
“Now we get to see Auntie Kate every day. I like it when we see her every day,” he explained, grabbing the doorknob on each side and pulling his legs up through his arms so he could hang upside down. “I never wanted you to leave, though, Daddy. Even though we didn’t get to see Auntie Kate,” he reassured me quickly with an upside-down frown on his face. “I like it when you’re here.”
I had no clue what he was talking about, but nodded at him anyway. “I like being here, too, bud.”
“Is Auntie Kate coming back tomorrow?” Sage asked, purposefully bumping Gavin into Keller so they’d both tumble to the porch. “I want Auntie Kate to take me to school.”
“Yeah, princess. She’ll be here,” I answered, praying silently that I wasn’t wrong. “Let’s go inside and you guys can get the Play-Doh out. Gunner needs to go down for his nap.”
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
I woke up anxious the next morning a full hour before my alarm was supposed to go off. I’d been sleeping like shit for days, and the night before had been the worst.
After Rachel died, it had taken everything I had just to get through the day. What with work, the house, and the kids, I’d barely had a moment to breathe, much less do anything else—and I’d been thankful for that. I’d wanted to stay busy, and I had.
At first, and unsurprisingly, my sex drive had been nonexistent. Frankly, sex hadn’t been on my radar, and I hadn’t missed it. But after a few months, things had started working properly again, and I began having insanely erotic dreams. The urge came back, but I’d been more than happy to take things in hand. I hadn’t been able to imagine touching someone who wasn’t Rachel, and I couldn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Then I’d fucked up, and for the past week my dreams had contained a far different scenario than the ones before. The nipples I tasted were pierced, and the woman riding me wasn’t blond. She was brunette. Suddenly, I couldn’t just imagine touching someone other than my dead wife—I could remember it in vivid detail.
I hopped out of bed and ripped the clock’s cord out of the wall, too keyed up to take the time to turn the alarm off. I was in the shower moments later and gritting my teeth against the urge to jerk off to the thoughts of the woman I’d see in less than an hour. For the first time that week, it didn’t seem right to fantasize about Kate—and the fact that it had taken me eight days to realize that made me feel like a complete dick.
I didn’t want her. Even if she hadn’t been my wife’s best friend and tied to me with more threads than a fucking spiderweb, I still wouldn’t have wanted her. She wasn’t my type. I liked women who were slender, who took the time to make sure they looked good no matter what they were doing. I wasn’t into women with rounded bodies who wore sweats and yoga pants like it was their uniform.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about the way she’d felt against me? Why couldn’t I stop seeing those pierced nipples and wild hair as she’d stared up at me with unfocused eyes?
It was fucking frustrating.
After everything I’d said to her, I knew she must hate me, so I wasn’t sure why I was even worrying about it. I needed to get my shit straight before I saw her. I needed to move past the anger that I still felt and the guilt that sat like a weight in my belly. I needed to clear the air.
Because if I didn’t, I’d be fucked when it came to the kids. I didn’t think that Kate would walk away from the kids over this—it’s not like we’d gotten along all that great before—but I couldn’t be sure.