by L. D. Davis
“What are you talking about?” he finally asked, with a tired sigh. He dropped down on the couch and waited patiently.
“It’s after midnight, it’s a new day,” I said. “What we couldn’t or refused to fix yesterday, we can fix today. Today you can choose to be the husband I married; funny, sweet, loving, and caring. You can choose to be the father you are more than capable of being and love your daughter. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t want a child before I got pregnant, you have one now. You can do those things or Rosa and I can leave and we will get divorced. I can raise her with or without you and I can live with or without you. I love you, but I don’t need you, Jerry.”
Jerry looked at me for a long time before dropping his gaze to the floor. He was silent for so long I thought for sure had made his decision. I started to get up, but his voice stopped me.
“I haven’t been good to you and I haven’t been good to the baby,” he said.
“Her name is Rosa,” I said sharply.
“Rosa,” he weighed her name on his lips. He finally looked at me then. “I love you and, believe it or not, I love Rosa. I can’t tell you that I’m going to become Husband of the Year or Super Dad, but I will… try. I don’t want a divorce, Donya.”
I should have asked for explanations—why didn’t he want a divorce, why would he only try and not do, and if he still loved me and if he loved Rosa, why had he been so cold and distant for so long? But I didn’t ask. I took his word at face value.
“Okay,” I said after a moment. “Thank you.”
I stood up and started towards the bedroom, but Jerry’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. He moved in front of me and put his arms around me. Automatically, I reciprocated and put my arms around him, too. He held me close and whispered in my ear.
“You’re still my princess,” he said. “I’ll try to make you happy again.”
I didn’t answer. I just let him hold me, but I knew deep down that only one person could ever make me truly happy, but I didn’t have him. So I’d have to make do.
PART THREE
Tied
Chapter Fifty-Two
I watched with apprehension as Emmy transformed from a smiling, glowing, happy woman into a monster, shouting and snarling. Seconds later she burst into tears.
“Why can’t everyone just do what I want them to do?” she asked no one in particular. Luke pulled her into his arms, and she mumbled some other indiscernible words that were muffled because her face was in his shirt.
“I said I would do it,” I said, still staring in shock at her shaking back. “I just thought that maybe that was something you would want to handle yourself.”
For the rest of my life, I will swear that Emmy’s head twisted around on her neck like some demonized fictional character, and her eyes were orbs of fire. I’ll stand by that statement for the rest of my life. “Obviously I can’t handle it myself,” she snapped at me in a raspy voice that was foreign to her vocal cords.
I put a hand on my hip. I flew into Chicago earlier that day, alone, with a baby, so that I could be of some assistance to her and Luke. There was a snow storm due the day I was supposed to fly back home, which meant I would most likely be stuck in the tundra of Chicago for no less than a week. I could have stayed the hell home and sent a congratulatory card. I was just about to put her in her place when a strong arm closed over my shoulder and gently pulled me back away from Emmy.
“We’ll do what you asked us to do,” Emmet said soothingly. “We’ll go to the venue and talk to the caterers, choose your new linens and make sure everything is in order there.”
Emmy had pressed her face against Luke’s chest once again, so her next words were muffled and barely understandable.
“And you’ll pay the bakery for the cake?”
I wanted to ask her what exactly she would be doing, but Emmet quieted me with a light squeeze of his hand. I looked at him with a scowl, but he shook his head. When Emmet didn’t immediately answer, Emmy looked at him and screeched “And you’ll pay the bakery for the cake!”
“Yes, you miserable beast,” I snapped before Emmet could stop me.
That quick, she changed. She smiled tearfully and threw herself on me.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I love you so much.”
I rolled my eyes and patted her back. She released me and stood on her toes to kiss Emmet’s cheek. She probably would have hugged him to death as well if he had not been holding Rosa in one arm. He had been holding her since he walked into the house soon after my arrival. His face lit up when he laid his eyes on her, and he hadn’t stopped telling her what a beautiful baby she was.
“Thanks, guys,” Luke said with a sigh.
“No problem,” Emmet said. He nodded towards the family room. “You think Diana will mind having an extra kid to watch?”
I looked at him and offered Rosa my finger, which she gratefully took and pushed into her mouth. “No, that’s okay. She can come with us.”
“It’s like six degrees outside and raining,” Emmet said, looking at me.
I had only ever left Rosa alone with Sam, Fred, and Mayson. Luke’s young cousin Diana or Diane or whatever, seemed like a nice girl, and Emmy, Emmet, and Lena swore by her, but I was nervous about leaving Rosa behind.
“She’ll be fine,” Emmet said softly.
“Diane is awesome with kids,” Luke said.
“Are you guys going to leave soon? The day is only so long.” Emmy was starting to turn sour again. I had never seen so many mood swings within such a small space of time.
I looked back to Emmet, and he squeezed my arm reassuringly.
“Okay,” I conceded.
A few minutes later I was leaving Rosa behind with a virtual stranger, but she seemed happy enough. Lucas was entertaining her, making faces and making her laugh hysterically as she sat on Diana’s lap. Emmy would be home all day, so I took some solace in that.
“Your sister is a bridezilla,” I said to Emmet as he opened the passenger door for me.
“To the nth power,” he said with a laugh.
He closed my door and walked around to the driver’s side. He opened the door, quickly closed the umbrella and got inside. I rubbed my hands together as I waited for the heat to kick on and wondered if the heat ever really came on high enough to defeat the frigid air outside. Emmy was lucky that I loved her because there was nothing else in the world that would ever bring me back to Chicago in the dead of winter.
Emmy’s relationship with Luke had changed dramatically since she and Lucas first moved in with him. Hell, it had changed dramatically since Lucas’s party. Several months later, they were pregnant and getting married, and Emmet and I were put into wedding serfdom by an apparently insane Emmy.
Her pregnancy hormones could make any man think twice about wanting to knock up his significant other, but Luke was patient with her, and clearly adored everything about her, even her demonic mood swings. I was truly happy for them. Despite Emmy’s sordid past, she would make a good wife, and Luke was the champion Emmy needed to battle her many demons.
She was lucky. She was marrying her champion. My champion was married to someone else.
“I don’t think I could ever get used to this ridiculously cold weather,” I said, rubbing my hands in front of the vent as if it was a campfire. A cold, unlit campfire, because the air blowing out of the thing did nothing for me.
“Give me your hands,” Emmet said, holding out his gloved hands.
I looked over at him, feeling unsure, a bit uncomfortable, and a little thrilled. Hesitantly, I put my hands together and pushed them toward him. He enclosed my hands with his and began to rub vigorously. I looked at our hands and was reminded of a night of skateboarding and having cold hands.
I met Emmet’s eyes, wondering if he remembered it too, and I could tell by the intensity in his eyes that he did remember. Without taking his eyes away from mine, he brought our hands to his lips and blew warm air onto my hands. I shivered slightly, but it wasn’t from
the cold.
“Better?” he asked quietly a moment later. He gave my hands one last rub down and then released me.
“Thank you,” I managed to say as I turned to face forward in my seat. I was startled to find that the windows had quickly fogged up. The things that could signify made me blush and made my stomach flutter. “Let’s get going before bridezilla comes storming out here and destroys the city.”
Our first stop was the venue. By the time we arrived there, Emmy had already called to add to our list of things to do. We went inside and spoke to the event host and confirmed the final count of guests, discussed how the room for the ceremony should be set up, and then had to correct the way the reception hall was set up. Due to a mishap on the venue’s part, we also had to choose different linens for the reception. We nailed down some other necessary details and after an hour we headed back out into the cold to run a couple of other errands that Emmy had given us.
For a little while, I forgot that it was the first time in years that Emmet and I had spent any extensive time together. After those initial first few minutes in the car, our conversation came easily. We cracked jokes and Emmet talked about work. We talked about our kids, but we did not talk about our spouses. It seemed to be a mutual understanding that Casey and Jerry were off limits.
After we had paid for Emmy’s and Luke’s wedding cake, we each got a couple of pastries to go. As Emmet paid for it, I bit into my gourmet cupcake and moaned happily as the sweet buttercream hit my tongue. Emmet looked over at me, amused.
“You’re worse than Owen,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, even though my mouth was full of cake.
He looked me in the eyes, reached out and gently swiped his finger across the corner of my mouth. When he pulled his finger away, I saw a decent amount of frosting on his finger. I started to laugh at myself, but then Emmet put the finger in his mouth and slowly sucked the frosting off. There was nothing innocent in the move. It was sensual and made me feel hot under my layers of fabric.
While I stood there stunned, Emmet took a hold of my wrist and brought the cupcake to his mouth. He took a bite, from the same spot that my teeth and mouth had been on moments before, and I was reminded of an ice-cream cone on the boardwalk when I was just a kid. He licked the frosting away from his lips. If that wasn’t enough to make Donya, Sex Goddess and Lover stir in her deep, long slumber, Emmet very quietly said, “You have frosting on your lips,” and then licked his lips again. He looked at my mouth as if he wanted to take a bite out of it.
“You are a beautiful couple,” the old man said jovially from behind the counter.
Startled by our one-man audience, his words, Emmet’s actions, and my inaction, I dropped the cupcake on the floor. It landed with a soft plopping sound.
“Oh, shit,” I said and bent over to pick it up.
That hot, confusing moment ended there and the rest of our time together that afternoon was quiet as each of us tended to our own thoughts.
*~*~*
Later that evening, Emmet drove Rosa and me back to our hotel. I knew he would make sure that we were safely in our room before taking off, but to my surprise, he had taken his coat off, like he was going to stay awhile.
For an hour, he played with Rosa, showering her with the kind of love she had never received from Jerry. Emmet was truly taken with my daughter. When he gazed at her, it was with love, sadness, and remorse. He didn’t have to say what I already knew. She should have been his all along.
I once questioned whether or not I was capable of cheating on my husband. I didn’t judge Emmy for her place in a wicked love triangle, but I didn’t think that could ever be me. However, after Rosa was asleep, and as Emmet’s fingers grazed over my cheek, my jaw and down my neck, I realized that could be anyone, especially me.
“You’re more beautiful every time I see you,” he whispered as his lips just barely touched the skin under my ear.
He didn’t kiss me, but he wanted to. It would only take one small move from either of us to make it happen. I could move only a quarter of an inch in his direction, and his mouth would be on my skin. One of his hands held my hip firmly. I was inches from feeling his hardness against me, but we both resisted the urge to move forward.
I curled my fingers in the fabric of his shirt and deeply inhaled his scent. I wanted to rub my body all over his, capture that scent in my pores and make it a permanent part of me.
“I love you,” Emmet breathed on my neck. “Do you still love me?”
“You don’t even have to ask,” I whispered.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I love you.”
He sighed heavily with relief and his hand squeezed my hip as he resisted the urge to pull me closer.
“You should go,” I said, even as my fingers curled tighter in his shirt.
“I should,” he agreed, but made no move to do so.
Tears suddenly stung my eyes. I inhaled a shuddering breath and simultaneously released Emmet’s shirt and took a large step back away from him. My body’s natural instinct was to go back to its home, but I resisted and wrapped my arms around myself for some comfort that didn’t quite hit the mark.
Emmet looked disappointed but resigned. He knew just as well as I did that we had crossed a line. We poked at it with our toes in the car earlier, and then stood squarely on the thing in the bakery, and before either of us could get our bearings, we had crossed it and had stood on dangerous territory.
“Thank you for bringing us back,” I said to him.
“You don’t have to thank me. I’ll do anything for either of you.”
“We’re not your responsibility,” I whispered.
Emmet stared at me for a long time. He was hurting, and I was hurting, and we were both feeling rather guilty. I rubbed my chest to try to alleviate some of the pressure.
“I will always have a responsibility to you,” he finally said. “And now to Rosa, too.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond. He picked his coat up off of the couch and headed to the door. He pulled it open and turned around to look at me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
I nodded as I continued to rub my chest. He didn’t want to leave. It was clear in the way he hesitated at the door, the way he looked at me, and the way he felt. I didn’t want him to leave either, but I knew he had to. Just when I thought that I would ask him to stay, he turned and left. I collapsed onto the couch and began to mentally and emotionally redraw the line.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Early the next morning when I was still trying to see straight, one of the hotel employees knocked on the door and handed me a small manila envelope.
“What is this?” I sleepily asked her.
“It was just dropped off for you at the front desk,” she said pleasantly. “The gentleman said you lost it, and he was returning it and didn’t want to disturb you.”
“What gentleman? And what is it?” I searched my mind, trying to recall if there was something I was missing.
“I don’t know ma’am,” the woman said apologetically.
She walked away, and I let the door close. I weighed the envelope in my hand for a moment as I tried to guess what could be in it. Finally, with a yawn and a shrug, I turned it over and proceeded to open it. I tipped it to expel the contents and gasped when it landed in my hand. It was the charm bracelet I had mailed to Emmet years ago after our biggest fight ever.
“Oh my god,” I whispered as I stared at the bracelet.
I thought for sure that Emmet had gotten rid of it long ago. Why did he hold on to it for so long?
I looked inside the envelope and discovered a folded piece of paper. I pulled it out and unfolded it, careful not to drop the bracelet.
"This is yours, always, as is my soul."
I dropped the note and envelope on the couch and eyed the bracelet in the palm of my hand. It was shiny and looked brand new. The heart and the kiss were polished and the diam
onds twinkled in the light. As I examined the bracelet, I discovered yet another charm. It was a flower, covered in pink diamonds. At the center of the flower was the letter R, created with Rosa’s birthstones. It was incredible and the most beautiful piece of jewelry I owned. A hand went to my mouth as I attempted to stifle the sudden sob that tried to push through my lips.
“Emmet,” I whispered.
Rosa started to stir in the other room. I brought the bracelet to my lips and then put it on my wrist. It wasn’t until it was securely latched that I realized how naked my wrist had been all of that time. I dropped my arm and felt the familiar cool metal slide into place and went to get the baby.
*~*~*
Emmy didn’t want a bachelorette party if she couldn’t drink. Instead, I treated her, Mayson, Tabitha, Lorraine, Lena, and Casey to a day at the spa. All of the men were forced to babysit their own kids, but Emmet had volunteered to watch Rosa because Jerry wasn’t due in until the morning of the wedding.
I couldn’t stop the smile that appeared on my face when I saw him that morning at Emmy’s. My hands and wrists were covered to block out the cold air, but I mouthed a thank you to him, and he understood that I received and was wearing the bracelet. Casey appeared at his side as he took Rosa from my arms.
“She really likes you,” she commented as she watched Rosa put a slobbery hand on Emmet’s cheek. I froze, waiting for him to freak out as Jerry did whenever Rosa got any bodily fluids on him, but he didn’t.
“I really like her,” he answered with a big smile as he began to pull the zipper down on Rosa’s snowsuit, and I relaxed again.
“I see that,” Casey said lightly, but there was some tension around her eyes. She turned to me and said, “Are you sure I can’t help you with the spa bill?”