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Her issue before? Definitely not arthritis. I asked.
Her flowerbeds were for therapy and kept her sanity when she couldn’t reveal to anyone what an enormous mistake she’d made by not divorcing Rex. As if someone has unkinked a water hose, Davina chatters to me while we tend the backyard about what those years were truly like for her.
Bartending I’ve learned to listen with an open mind as people share their stories and try to break the chains binding their hearts. Since William mucked everything up, I’ve been using her open emotions and the regrets she reveals as a distraction from my own.
All the while, I doubt our kinship will survive the frost.
We toiled, soaking in the last of the autumn sunshine today. Although the season is short-lived, rain will keep us inside during the winter months. On nights like these, I’ve become accustomed to sapping my energy to go to sleep early. The schedule I keep makes it easy for Cary and me to be passing ships. We so rarely tumble into bed together, both ready to pass out after a long day, and being able to do so seems earned.
Normally I’d slip my arm around him, splay my fingers over his chest, and lay my cheek to his warm back. Tonight my back is flat to the mattress. My dowdiest pajamas hide my legs and arms. The sheets add a second layer of protection.
My intentional wardrobe malfunction is not the deterrent I anticipate it being.
Cary rolls onto his side and slides his hand below the waistband of my pajama pants, stroking his fingers through my curls.
“What would you do if I shaved that all off?” My nose is in this month’s issue ofCarolina’s Bridal,the magazine that’s supposed to photograph our wedding venue for their spring edition. It was the closest thing on the nightstand I could find as a distraction.
“Buy a cat. I’d need a pussy to pet.”
I roll my lips between my teeth. His joke is funny, but we can’t get along the way we used to. “Some of the mill girls are bare down there.”
“There’s a visual of your friends I didn’t need. Also, I suppose I understand in Cece or Kimber’s situation. Maybe dancers are used to that? But why do you need to do it? Is there something you aren’t telling me? You wanna dance for me?” His knuckle provocatively rides my landing strip.
“I thought you might like something… different.”
“I got different when I landed you, Doll. Don’t go changing to try and please me when what I’ve got is perfect the way it is.”
“Cary?”
He hums, kissing my neck.
Wetness pools between my thighs. Cary knows what he’s doing when he shows me the things our bodies do to each other’s, bringing the siren out of me that sings his dirty praises and makes me beg for him to take me harder.
“What happens when you’re ready to blend in and this version of perfect starts to sag?”
His palm skims up toward my belly—a place I’m conscientious about toning and moisturizing, since the skin there wasn’t so stretched before I had my son—and he cups my too small for my liking right breast.
“Feels perky enough to me,” he says, weighing it in his hand. Flicking a thumb over my nipple, he sends chills down my spine.
Cary turning me on isn’t helping me use my age to my advantage. It’s time for him to have a realistic view of what a ten year’s difference means a decade from now. I won’t be in my prime. Hell, the prime of my life likely came and went.
His humor is him trying to lighten the mood but, “I’m serious, Cary. I was last year’s model before we even met. Give it a few more years and I’ll be broken down by the side of the road with two flat tires and my engine block scraping the highway and not enough ground clearance for the track at Le Mans.”
“Oh, fuck. It cranks my jack all the way up when you talk cars to me, Doll. Let me oil your chassis and remind you what a damn talented mechanic I am.”
He tries to kiss my fears into submission, but I move my face and his forehead hits my pillow, pissing Cary off. I won’t talk dirty back. He flings the covers onto the floor and jumps to his feet.
“What the hell is wrong with you tonight? What? Do you want me to offer to pay for you to get new double Ds? A nip here and a tuck there, like Davina’s had? Will that make you happy? Will it wash away all the concerns you have that I won’t love you unless we’re the exact same age? Because fuck me, I’ve wanted those tits in my mouth since the day I met you. I’ve wantedyou. The past twelve weeks, I’ve fought foryou.”
He paces between the wall and the bed, not averting his gaze from me. Clothed from head to toe I’ve never felt so naked and ashamed.
“What you’re terrified of isn’t your birthdate or mine. It’s not some stupid chicks in a parking lot gawking at me in public the wayIconceded I wouldn’t watch men do to you at Sweet Caroline’s. Or somewhere down the road, me growing a beer gut and having a midlife crisis and cheating on you with someone younger. It’s that your fucking ex ruined your version of perfection.
“You’re acting too stubborn to see another man standing in front of you, ready, willing, and able to put the pieces back together. It’s not that you don’t trust my love for you, Holly. You don’t trust any man could love you, would want better for you or Bhodi… And that leaves me with shit end of the stick.”
He reaches for the comforter, pulling it the rest of the way off of the bed, and heaves the bedroom door open. The knob sticks in the drywall.
“Wh-here are you going?” I swallow.
