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Gage kept his eyes on the screen that said ‘You Lost.’ “That bitch took me to the fucking cleaners.” Gage chuckled.
“What?” A groggy Heather grumbled next to him.
“Nothing, go back to sleep.” She rolled over causing the covers to slide down to her legs, exposing her bare ass. She’d kept her promise and made it up to him by giving him a quicky when she got home, then she crashed. He reached down and covered his wife before returning to the game.
The “challenge again” circle lit up across the center of the screen. Damn right he was going to challenge her again. He tapped it and waited to see if she’d accept. While he did, he went to her profile. All she had was Tilly F as her name, a picture of a sunflower as her icon. If he was correct, her location told him she was roughly two hours from where he lived. As he was scouting her profile, a banner popped up across the top of the screen that notified him that Tilly F had accepted the game.
“Game on, Tilly.” Gage whispered and watched as Tilly entered a word worth eighty-two points. What the fuck. She and Gage played back and forth for an hour and a half before Tilly stopped playing and her green dot, notifying him she was online, disappeared.
Gage checked his alarm on his phone and placed it on the charging dock before he rolled over and fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Tilly stuffed a pack ofcupcakes in her son’s lunch bag before handing it off to him as he hurried to the door. If there was a morning that they weren’t all scrambling to get ready and out the door before the bus came, something was wrong. She waved them off, cleaned up the kitchen then poured herself a cup of coffee before settling at the kitchen island with her phone. She had laundry to do, needed to hit the market for the bake sale, but for the first few minutes of her day she pulled up Friendly Words. She’d fallen asleep playing last night. The home screen appeared, her friends, which consisted of only one, the man whose ass she’d been kicking, wasn’t active. She added a word worth fifty-eight points to their game, grinning as she did, before she accepted one of the two others that had challenged her. The game dragged. Her opponent was clearly doing other things while playing. She should be doing the same, but for the half hour she gave herself, she wanted to play. She logged out after twenty minutes, losing interest in the game and got ready for her day.
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Five dozen cupcakes didn’t seem like all that big a deal. Looking around the mess she’d made of her kitchen, she wouldn’t pledge that many again, but they did look pretty with the pale pink icing.
She glanced at the clock. Luke was going to be home at normal time tonight, and it was a Friday. They’d have the weekend, at least she hoped they would. It had been some time since he was home all weekend. She wanted them to have dinner together. They didn’t get to do it often, so when he was around she insisted. She cleaned up the cupcake mess, managed to get the cupcakes loaded in her car and delivered safely to the school for the bake sale that evening before returning home and starting dinner. She even uncorked a bottle of wine. After the kids went to bed, she had plans for him. Smiling to herself, she grilled up the chicken and sauteed the onions and peppers for the fajitas. She was just warming the tortillas when she heard the door close.
He strolled into the kitchen, dropping his keys on the counter. Tilly glanced over and smiled. She loved looking at him: hazel eyes, brown hair he always wore the same, cut short around his handsome face, tall, big in the shoulders and chest. “You’re a sight.”
“Smells good.” He said, walking to join her, pulling her close and kissing her like he hadn’t in a while. Which he hadn’t. He didn’t release her, just held her. “It’s good to be home.”
“It’s nice to have you home.”
Before he could kiss her again, Justin came walking into the kitchen. “Do you have to do that here?”
Luke’s focus never left Tilly’s. “One day you’ll understand it, buddy.”
“I don’t think so,” Justin said before he yanked open the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “Smells good.”
“Can you get your sister and set the table?” Tilly asked.
He grumbled, but she heard him shouting for his sister.
She sipped her wine and watched Luke with the kids throughout dinner. How their faces lit up when he was around. They didn’t see him enough. She knew his job was important, but his kids were, too. She waited until dinner was over and the kids had gone back upstairs to work on their homework before she broached the subject.
“They miss you,” she said.
“I miss them,” Luke replied, drying a dish and putting it in the cabinet.
“We don’t have them for very long. You’re missing out on so much.”
She knew she’d hit a nerve when his shoulders tensed. “I have to work, Tillian.”
“I know that, but you’re never here. I miss you. I know the kids do, too.” She chose her next words carefully because she knew how he was going to react, but this was important. Work was only part of a life. There had to be a balance. “I know we’ve discussed this before, but the kids are older now. I’d be happy to get back out there, even if it’s just a part-time job, so I’m home for the kids, but one that gives us a little more wiggle room with our finances.”
He barely let her finish the thought before he replied adamantly, “No.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting out of the house—”
“I said no,” He cut her off and kept on. “The kids need someone to be here for them and that’s you.”
Anger stirred at his words, but she took a deep breath before she replied, “I am here for the kids. A part-time job doesn’t have to change that, but you need to be here too.”
