Turns out I fucking love being married. I can’t get enough of my creative, nurturing, sweet wife. And I can’t help but think, what would it be like to have kids with her?
An image of Lila, pregnant, flashes into my mind. I imagine wrapping my arms around her from behind and feeling the swell of her belly. I can practically see the morning sunlight in our kitchen, smell the cinnamon from whatever she’s baking, feel the warmth of Lucky laid across our feet.
And then Denver arrives in my head like a cold wind down from the mountains, a door slamming shut on that vision of the future.
When Lila becomes a mother, it will be to another man’s child.
She’ll build that life with someone else. Someone who can give her what I can’t.
The idea feels deeply, profoundly wrong.
I watch my wife laugh at Jonah pumping his fist from atop his horse and say nothing.
Further up the street we find Walker and Sadie with the twins in a double stroller. Both girls are in pumpkin costumes, Anne already asleep and Mari systematically removing her stem hat and handing it to Walker who keeps putting it back on without looking.
Sadie’s dressed as a witch, and Walker is a werewolf, complete with face paint, torn-up flannel, and prosthetic pointy ears.
The costume suits my brother a little too well, if Lila’s admiring look is anything to go by.
Fuck, now I’m becoming as territorial as Walker. I never thought of myself as the jealous type. Never had reason to be. Ikept my distance, kept things casual, kept my heart where nothing could touch it.
Then I met my wife and apparently I’m a different man entirely.
“You two look gorgeous!” Lila tells them.
Sadie takes one look at my fur coat and turns to Walker. “You owe me twenty dollars.”
He drapes an arm around her waist and kisses her cheek. “You were right. As always.” He turns to me. “Slade,” he says solemnly. “Best you’ve ever looked. The vibe really suits you.”
“At least I bothered with a costume,” I volley back. “You’re the same nasty, nocturnal, hairy beast as always.”
Sadie laughs. “He has a point, babe. You’re totally the ‘howl at the moon’ type.”
He squeezes her hip and gives a mock-glare. “This costume was atyourrequest, darlin’.”
Lila beams up at me, then at Sadie. “I’ve always wanted to do a couples costume.”
“You guys are rocking it. You both look so hot,” Sadie tells her.
“Hey!” Walker says. “I’m the one who sat through an hour of face paint. Pimp Ken just had to put on a fur coat.”
She pats his shoulder placatingly. “You’re the hottest furball here, sweetie.” Then she grins at us. “Walker was so sure that Slade would never agree to dress up. I told him he ought to know a wife can always bend her husband to her will.”
My brother’s gaze heats as he looks at her. “Yes, she can.”
Ugh. I look away. I don’t need to think about my brother that way.
But the thing is I’m envious as hell, because I would love for my wife to persuade me in exactly the way they’re implying. The truth is that she didn’t have to do anything but ask, and I instantly said yes.
The group of us watch the parade for a little longer.
Lila leans over and asks, “Where are Tanner and Rafe?”
I pause. I can’t give away the secret, not at this crucial final moment.
“Probably halfway through a fifth of whiskey at Rosemont,” I say. “Figured we’d all tag up there after.”
It’s true. Just not the whole truth.
