He nodded at the house with an unspoken, “You get the door.”
It was his silent apology for the place their marriage was in, and Sam immediately regretted being so sharp with him.
She closed the car doors and followed him up the walkway, carefully picking through the snow in her heels. Sure, Brady hadn’t shoveled, the Christmas decorations were still up and she feared for the shape of their gutters, but he was trying, and seeing him carry their children softened her. It reminded her of his strength, of the tremendous arms hidden beneath his winter coat. The crisp black suit he’d worn tonight showed them off, the clean lines accenting thick forearms connected to sinewy shoulders.
Brawny build, eyes and smile—they were the holy trinity that had knocked Sam over when she’d met him at age nineteen. At six-foot-five, he towered over her, and the solid wall of muscle he’d been had stirred some kind of cavewoman impulse. He hadn’t seemed stronger than everyone else—he was. But he was docile with her. And having someone that masculine follow her around campus like a puppy dog had been intoxicating. She’d felt adored and exalted. Worshipped, even.
She shouldn’t have liked it as much as she did, but something inside her had needed his attention, demanded it when they’d dated in college and when their paths had crossed again years later. But they’d lost that spark in the time since, and it was like a fire burned out, a smoky carcass left behind now that it was gone.
Stepping past him on the stoop, she unlocked the front door and flipped on the foyer light, flattening herself against the wall to make room for Brady’s massive frame as he passed her. Standing there, she couldn’t help but imagine how this scenario would’ve been different years ago. If they were in one of their dorm rooms instead of this house. Alone instead of with kids.
Back then, she wouldn’t have hesitated.
She’d have pushed him against the wall. Undone his tie and unbuttoned his crisp, white dress shirt. Smoothing her palms over his arms, she’d have waited for his breath to catch. For him to lose control and beg for her touch.
The only thing Brady lost was his balance, tripping over the snow boots Allegra hadn’t put away and cursing loudly. It shook both girls awake and doused any inkling of Sam’s desire.
“Language,” she snapped.
He mumbled an apology as he lowered the girls to the floor. Frustration twisted through Sam’s jaw, soldering it shut as she bent to hastily unzip their jackets. Why were things like this? Two seconds ago she was mentally undressing him, and now she was angry all over again. At one point, Brady’s crass behavior and fun-loving attitude hadn’t bothered her. If anything, it had drawn her in even more. But that playfulness and immaturity was fine in college. Now the concept of being an adult seemed as foreign to him as remembering not to say motherfucker in front of their children.
Allegra started to cry. Disoriented and cranky with her meds worn off, her words were barely decipherable.
“I—want—my—pink—gloves!”
Hope said nothing as usual, going mute to stay out of the crossfire. Her eyes half closed, she swayed unsteadily on her feet. Sam reached out a hand to stop her from toppling over, then freed her from her coat before yanking off her own.
“Daddy will find the gloves. We’re going to bed.”
“But I want to see the glo—”
“You’ll see them in the morning.”
She shouldn’t have spoken so sharply, but she was done, just fucking done. She hung up their coats, then took both girls’ hands before turning to Brady.
“Set the coffee machine, take the trash out and find Allegra’s gloves, please. I’ll put them to bed.”
Sam didn’t wait for his response. She led her daughters upstairs and went about the business of putting on pj’s and overseeing tooth-brushing. Hope was out as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Allegra was too worked up to wind down—first squirting toothpaste all over the countertop, then refusing to wear her striped pajamas because the ones with the pink hearts were dirty—and Sam was ready to snap again.
She didn’t want to be like this. Not if motherhood was going to be her only career. She wanted to be calm, patient, to be the earth mother she read about in the parenting blogs who never got mad and fed their families Paleo diets and put pictures of everyone healthy, smiling and suntanned on the Internet. But she wasn’t that woman. Sam’s bizarrely popular Instagram account looked cheerful, but for her it had been nothing more than a place to keep her accountable to her workouts and healthy eating, and to feel like she was connecting with the outside world. Despite how great her life looked in tiny four-by-four filtered pictures, her patience was a threadbare rug. A straggly thing that had gone thin and tattered.
When Allegra finally drifted off after three chapters from the book they were reading, Sam could barely drag herself downstairs. Sam took a breath at the landing, hoping the things she’d needed done were finished so she could go crash, but Brady was in the living room, still in his coat and sitting on the couch. A frown pinched his face, his eyes on his phone.
She needed to count to ten. To not freak out. To not bark at him again.
“Did you take care of the trash or find the gloves?” she asked.
He didn’t look up. A moment passed before he responded. “No, sorry.”
One. Two. Three… “Why not?”
“There’s an emergency at work.”
Four. Five. “Couldn’t you have helped me before you started on your emails?”
Six. Seven.
Eight.
“Brady.”
He lowered his phone but didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sorry. One of the servers went down. I’ve gotta handle this. Besides, you’re better at finding things. You always know where everything is.”
Fuck nine and ten. Sam had to grind her teeth to fight back the shout that lodged in her gut. There was always a server down. Always some emergency. Always something distracting him, and the insistence that he shouldn’t do something because she was better at it.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
She stormed into the kitchen and set the coffee machine. Hauling the garbage to the door, she retrieved her coat, put on her winter boots and went out into the inky dark cold. She dropped the bag in the bin and rolled it to the street. Needing a minute, she looked at the sky and tried not to feel so bitter, angry and resentful.
She loved her husband. Loved her kids. But that was her entire world, when once upon a time, she’d been someone. She’d spent her days surrounded by people who were diverse and worldly, who wanted her opinion on things. She’d stay up late having deep conversations about policies and committees and legislative agendas, and she’d felt important. Noticed. Seen. She’d turned heads when she walked into a room, a redheaded bombshell who’d said things that were smart and done things that were wild, and the only stains on her clothes were from spilled champagne or the marks of passion.
These days, passion was something she only read about in books.
Sam heaved a sigh into the darkness. She should’ve been happy. She had a comfortable life. They were financially stable on a one-parent income. But she was missing in that equation, huge chunks of whoever she’d been left out on the curb like the trash. The life she’d given up was an unfinished sentence, a regret she could never shake.
But this was her life now. She’d chosen it, and her woe is me crap needed to stop.
Back inside, she opened the coat closet. She did know where everything was, from the last five years’ tax returns to all their carefully labeled boxes of baby photos. And she was going to find those damn gloves. Locating them beneath a pile of scarves on the floor, Sam stuffed them into Allegra’s jacket pockets. She re-hung her coat, took off her boots and went to the living room. Brady hadn’t moved. Fixated on the screen in his palm, he was oblivious to the fact that she was standing there.
“I’m going to bed,” she said.
His reply came slowly. “Okay. Be there in a minute.”
Treading up the
stairs and into the bathroom, Sam felt a weight on her. A decade of parenting had dumped them in a dry spell to end all dry spells. Between that and the fact that Brady worked so much, they hadn’t done anything sexual in a long time.
It was as much her fault as it was his.
She’d been physically uncomfortable with her body for years. Some moms felt beautiful when they were expecting, but she’d been miserable. And while other women rocked a curvy figure and had amazing sex lives, Sam hadn’t felt attractive since before childbirth, before the weight gain and stretch marks, the breastfeeding and sleepless nights. Before the fights over who got to be carried and who held Mommy’s hand. Even before the calls from school and doctor visits and Allegra’s eventual diagnosis, Sam had stopped wanting to be touched at all, especially once her metabolism slowed to a crawl at age thirty. That was a year after Hope was born, and by then she’d packed on so many pounds none of her clothes fit her anymore.
Brady had remained mostly unaffected by hitting the big three-oh. He no longer sported the flat abs he’d once had, but he could still eat a pile of nachos every week and fit into the same size jeans while Sam had spent the last decade wearing elastic waistbands and baggy shirts. She’d finally shed the weight, but now she and Brady barely talked anymore, and the bedroom had stopped being a place for intimacy. It was a place to snatch a moment of privacy, a few hours of sleep before somebody was grabbing at her again. They’d fallen into a pattern, a rut she didn’t know how to get out of.
After taking off her makeup and splashing water over her face, Sam downed her birth control pill and flipped off the light. Not that she needed the insurance policy against having another baby. They’d doubled up on protection after Hope was born because Sam was not getting pregnant again, but she had a feeling fishing out their probably dusty box of condoms wouldn’t be necessary. When she found Brady, his giant frame was sprawled across their bed. The TV was on, his coat had been thrown God knows where, his suit in a pile on the floor and replaced with a graphic tee and flannel pants.
So much for stripping off his dress shirt.
Maybe all he needed was some encouragement. Facing the dresser and the mirror above it, Sam pulled out the pins holding up her hair. The locks slipped softly down her shoulders, landing beneath her shoulder blades. Reaching around to unzip her gown, she let it glide to the floor. When she was naked except for a bra and panties, she found Brady’s reflection in the mirror.
Their eyes met in the glass, held there, but then he quickly skirted his gaze away.
Disappointment landed in a hard punch to her gut. She’d killed herself to get her figure back, and now he wouldn’t even look at her. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to her anymore. Or he was happier with his hand.
He reached for the remote and switched channels aimlessly. Sam yanked open a drawer and pulled her pajamas out. She threw her gown in the hamper, gathered Brady’s suit to join it, then got into bed. The mattress was massive—extra long and wide to accommodate Brady’s height. Once they’d squeezed themselves into one of their twin-size dorm-room beds, not minding how little room they had. Now, this bed large enough for three was filled with temper tantrums, homework and an ocean of empty sheets between them. She could take her iPad from her nightstand, open one of the many dirty books she had stored inside it and indulge in the fantasy they provided, but she’d left the damn thing in the car, and tonight she couldn’t bear it anyway.
Brady’s channel-changing landed on the national news. The White House correspondent was on. He paused, then lifted his arm, remote poised at the TV again.
Sam shot a hand out, catching his wrist. “Wait.”
Brady froze, and Sam tried not to read too much into his tension at her touch. She listened instead to the report, and, for a minute, pretended her parents had never asked her to come home, that she hadn’t gotten stuck here and lost out on the most amazing opportunity she’d ever had.
Guilt burned like acid. She should’ve been thankful Mom had recuperated. Happy she’d run into Brady again. Grateful that she’d gotten married and had two beautiful children. But she’d wanted more for her life. And watching the glittering lights of the Washington Monument on the television, all she felt was invisible.
She let go of Brady’s wrist. “You can turn it off.”
Moving to her side, she wiggled off her wedding and engagement rings for the night. They pinged against the heart-shaped dish on her nightstand, and Sam closed her eyes. The TV’s sound stopped, and then there was darkness behind Sam’s eyelids as he shut off the lamp. Hearing him shift beside her, she silently asked for his touch. She yearned for those huge arms to pull her in, for his chest to press against her back, to know he’d noticed her sadness and it mattered.
He turned away from her instead. Sam didn’t bother to stifle her tears.
Crying silently, she waited for sleep to claim her.
2
What the hell was that noise?
Brady reached out for the blaring sound. His phone alarm, that’s what it was, but why was it going off so freaking early?
He smacked around his nightstand until his cell was beneath his palm. Squinting his eyes open, he looked for the word snooze on the screen and tapped it. No, definitely not time to get up yet. It was dark out, for Christ’s sake. But something stuck in the back of his mind even as his eyes drooped closed. He had something to do today. Was it Tuesday? Friday?
“Sam, what day is it?” he mumbled. “Do I have to go to work today?”
He probably did, what with the alarm and all. But, seriously. Too damn early.
“Sam?”
No answer.
He rolled over and found the space beside him empty. Not a shock, even though he didn’t like it. She was usually up before him, the girls always needing something, but Brady wasn’t sure that was the reason he woke up alone lately.
Could two years be considered lately?
He turned back to his nightstand, reached for his phone again and tipped the screen so he could read it. Monday. Six a.m. And clearly a school day, because Allegra was shouting down the hall. But his eldest child was always shouting these days. She was a hurricane in a ten-year-old’s body, the Tasmanian Devil on the wrong dose of Ritalin.
Sam had it covered, though. Her voice carried upstairs in that tight tone that proved she was aggravated but trying to keep her shit together.
She often used the same tone with him, especially when he asked what day it was or what he needed to do. It was a good thing she hadn’t heard his question this morning or she’d have bit his head off. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his job. He loved it. It was the only place he felt fucking competent. He just legit couldn’t recall information like what day it was sometimes—there was too much going on in his head to keep track of stuff like that—and relying on Sam to provide him with the answers was easier than figuring it out himself.
Sitting up, Brady flipped through emails to fight off the grogginess. He had two client meetings today and a server migration to check. The Apps Team was late on three projects, two sites were going live, the Web-Dev Group was about to push a new release and the offshore-hosting-support department had been working all night on those damn failed servers.
Time to get up.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing when his bare feet met the hardwoods. Their house was old, but they’d chosen it because of its character, and because his parents gave them the down payment for it before Dad sold his legal practice and they moved to Maine. It had three bedrooms, a finished basement and a backyard they could use when it wasn’t in the single digits outside, but the floors didn’t hold heat for shit and the ceilings weren’t built for someone as big as he was.
Brady towered over most people and had since about the fourth grade. He was so tall they’d needed a specialty size mattress and frame—California King, it was called, extra wide and long enough that his feet didn’t hang over the edge. He could’ve pretended to be an NFL player if he were in the ki
nd of shape he used to be. He wasn’t sporting a dad-bod—he hadn’t gotten that bad—but his abs weren’t as hard as they’d been. And yesterday’s appetizers, pasta and wedding cake were a “treat-yo-self” indulgence he’d treated himself to a bit too much.
The gym was definitely in order today.
Heading toward the bathroom, he had to duck under the doorframe to get inside. He was like a wizard in Hobbiton in here, or the Giant in The Princess Bride, clumsily fumbling through his life. He’d certainly fumbled last night.
Flipping up the seat, he did his business and sighed. He should’ve told Sam how incredible she’d looked, or at least asked her to dance. He’d meant to say something, but he was on information overload—making sure he had Jack’s ring in his pocket. Not forgetting to email himself his speech, which he did, then scrambled right before the toasts and found it in his drafts. His brain didn’t have enough operating power; like a single-core processor, he couldn’t do that many things at once. By the time they’d gotten home and he’d dealt with that damn server error, Sam had been so pissed it seemed smarter to keep silent, even when she’d undressed in front of him.
Had it been a hint, or not? She hadn’t been interested in sex in ages, and Brady needed things simple. It was easier when Sam spelled things out, like in college when she’d call him over to her dorm. Her mouth open in that half smile, she’d hook her finger into his shirt and whisper exactly what she wanted him to do to her.
She asked, he did it. Simple, and near goddamn perfect, because Brady was not the initiator. Something visceral inside stopped him from making the first move. Something primitive he had no desire to talk about.
Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3) Page 2