“Yeah! It’s going to be so fun!” Becky and Rachel shout together.
“Have a good time,” he says.
“Well… I’ll just get the girls out of your hair…” Amber trails off before hustling the kids out the door and to her minivan while shooting me ridiculous faces and thumbs-ups when Rick isn’t looking.
“Jesus. Are we back in high school?” he grumbles when she finally drives away.
“Amber is harmless,” I tell him.
“I like my privacy.”
“And yet, here you are at my house,” I remind him.
“Can we talk?” he asks me after a moment.
I let out a heavy breath. “Sure, come on in.”
I lead the way into the kitchen and pull a bottle of wine from the fridge. I wave it at Rick, silently asking if he’d like a glass too, and when he nods, I pull down two wine glasses. He’s clearly planning to stay awhile, and that does not bode well for my night of self-care, where I can indulge in wine, Netflix, and frozen pizza. And if I’m really feeling froggy, the carton of chocolate peanut-butter-swirl ice cream I have hidden in the back of the freezer.
I pop the cork and pour, sliding Rick’s across the counter to him. I pick up my own and take a healthy swig. The timer on the oven dings, and I slip my hands into oven mitts before pulling the heavy door down to reveal my dinner plans for the evening.
“Oh my God.” He laughs. “Are you still eating that shit?”
“Hey! Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“I think you fed me enough of it to last a lifetime while we were married,” he says, and it’s like a bucket of ice water has been thrown over us. We’re both thinking the same thing now. How happy we were in the early days of our marriage, and how I cried at the flight-line when I said goodbye, not knowing it was a final goodbye and not a deployment farewell.
“Yeah,” I say softly as I lay the pie I no longer want on the range to cool. My belly sours at the memory of how things were left and what could never be.
“Well, it hasn’t killed me yet, so another night won’t hurt,” he says after a moment. Rick is obviously trying to put us back on sturdier conversation ground. Unfortunately, our past is a veritable minefield. I guess I can help him out.
“So you’re assuming I’m inviting you to stay?” I tease, knowing he will feel like he can relax again.
“You know you are.” He laughs.
“Is that so?”
“You already gave me a glass of wine,” Rick argues. “You can’t not offer me some of your crappy frozen pizza now. It’s like that bookIf You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”
“You are ridiculous.” I laugh before cutting the pizza into several big slices and placing them on plates. I hand one to Rick and then pick up my own piece, folding it in half and holding it like a giant pizza taco.
“You can take the girl out of Jersey,” Rick says, and I turn my head to see him watching me shovel pizza in my face as fast as possible.
“God, this is nothing compared to pizza by the shore,” I moan around the bite in my mouth. “I would kill for real Jersey pizza right now.”
I pick up my wine glass and take a healthy sip to wash down the slice I just mauled. When I open my eyes again, Rick is watching me with blatant interest.
“What?” I ask and dab at my face. I’m not exactly trying to be cute here. There’s probably sauce on my face, because he made it perfectly clear the other day in the offices that he’s not going to go down heartbreak road with me another time.
“Nothing,” Rick says with a smirk playing about his mouth and a definite predatory gleam in his eyes. “You’re cute is all. I had forgotten how much I missed this.”
I self-consciously brush a lock of my hair that’s come loose from my messy bun back behind an ear. I don’t know what to do when Rick is sweet like this. It scares me so much, because it reminds me of how things used to be, back when we were young and had no idea how cruel the world could be. But that was then, and this is now.
“Come here,” Rick growls, his voice low and commanding, and it serves to snap me out of my trip down memory lane. I snap my eyes up to meet his and see his face looks harsh and intimidating under the fluorescent lights of my kitchen.
“W-w-what?” I stammer. My instincts are telling me to step back, to turn around and run, but I don’t. Instead, I stay frozen, my bare feet rooted to the floor.
“I said come here.” His words are terrifying. This is the political mercenary; my sweet sailor is long gone. I should run, but I take a step forward, and then another, all against my better judgement.
