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Knit 3
While Je
He’d bet a month’s pay she was up to something.
Or maybe she wasn’t up to anything, but was simply nervous about having him around when they normally made a point of keeping Zack, Grace, Dylan, and Ro
But he still got the feeling there was more to it than that.
The minor bathroom issue that could have been resolved with a single twist of a wrist.
The sudden need to have a lamp looked at in her bedroom, when she could have just unplugged it and told her aunt she should have an electrician check over the house’s wiring when she got back.
The cold bottle of beer shoved into his hand the minute he walked through the door, and the second one she literally ran downstairs to retrieve.
That was the strangest thing of all. Even while they’d been married, he could count on one hand the number of times Je
If he didn’t know better, he’d suspect she was trying to get him drunk, too.
Of course, he shrugged off that thought as soon as it popped into his brain, because even Je
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been three sheets to the wind, let alone flat-out, ass-on-the-ground drunk, but if it was going to happen, it would take something stronger than Corona.
Taking another pull from the bottle in his hand, he set his toolbox down beside the bed and flipped the switch to turn on the lamp Je
He shook his head and lowered himself to the corner of the bed, facing the doorway. Continuing to sip the beer that had no chance of making a dent in his blood-alcohol level, he listened to the sounds of Je
The muted shuffle of her rapid steps as she crossed the floor. The smack of the refrigerator opening and closing. The echo of her moving back the way she’d come. He heard her bouncing up the stairs, heard her stumble and mutter a mild curse (because for Je
Then again, he had a feeling he’d have been able to sense her movements anywhere. Not only in a big, empty house, but in the middle of a crowded city street… a busy bar… an ear-splitting rock concert. Something about Je
Living without her these past eighteen months had been a fun and inventive form of pure torture. He’d brought it on himself, he knew that. And he’d wished a thousand times, or maybe more, that he could go back and handle things differently.
But even if he had, it wouldn’t really have changed anything. They’d still have been in the same boat as when she’d filed for divorce in the first place.
So as much as he might have hated it, it was probably better that he’d been forced to move into a small, two-room apartment. A place where, even though Je
He wasn’t crazy. His friends might have thought he was if he’d ever admitted to them just how much he missed his wife, but he figured it was no worse than an amputee who continued to feel their missing limb and think it was still there, even when it clearly wasn’t.
And that about summed up his relationship with Je
Yeah. That was something he’d prefer no one-especially his best friends and his ex-wife-knew. He sounded like a damn Lifetime movie-of-the-week. Sappy. Broken. Pathetic.
Much more of this and he’d have to check his nads at the door.
Eyes locked on Je
No sooner had he set the bottle aside on the same nightstand as the lamp he was supposed to be fixing than Je
“Is there something I should know about this beer?” he asked her, eyeing the cold Corona quizzically. There was something going on here, getting fishier by the minute.
“No, why?” she replied just a little too quickly and with a little too much pitch to her tone.
He remained silent for a beat before shrugging a shoulder and raising the bottle to his mouth. “Just wondering.”
His throat flexed convulsively as he swallowed, taking in a full three-quarters of the fresh beer. He didn’t have a reason for taking so long to drink, except that it bought him some time to think, to contemplate what might be going on here, since he didn’t believe for a minute that she’d called him over just to help with a few random household tasks.
“So tell me again what the problem is with the lamp,” he said, setting the second bottle of beer next to the first and begi
A wave of dizziness washed over him and his vision went from black to fuzzy to black again.
“Whoa.” Blinking in an effort to bring the room into focus, he stretched an arm out toward the carved oak headboard and slowly lowered himself back to the mattress.
“Gage? Are you all right?”
Je
“I’m fine. I just-” He continued to blink, trying to shake off whatever had suddenly taken hold of him. His eyes were dry and tired, his tongue feeling about three sizes too large for his mouth, making it hard to talk. Not that it mattered much, considering his brain seemed to be having a difficult time putting two thoughts together.
“Why don’t you lie down,” Je
She was beside him now, one arm around his back, helping to lower him to the mattress, the other pressing against his chest to make sure he went down.
“What did you do?” he thought he asked, though it might have come out as more of a slur.
“Nothing, you’re just tired. Lie back and go to sleep.”
But he wasn’t tired. Or he hadn’t been when he’d gotten here. He’d been wide awake-or darn near-after her phone call woke him from a dead sleep. How could he be tired again already? Unless…?
It was right there, on the tip of his tongue. The reason he was so groggy all of a sudden, the reason he felt like he needed a nap and might not have much say in whether he took one or not.
But then it was gone as his grogginess grew. It didn’t help, either, that Je
He let his eyes drift closed, let her lull him in a way she hadn’t since they were first married. When they were still crazy in love, and before he’d fucked it all up.