by Max Monroe
Jesus, she knew me too fucking well.
“Shut up. Go snap pervy photos of naked men.”
“Later, Wheorgie!”
I hung up the call and met Kline’s gaze. He was still standing by the island, watching me with uncertainty and unhappiness dulling his blue eyes.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded and tried to collect the scattered pieces of myself. “They found him.”
“That’s good news.”
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed.
We just stared at one another, lost in my earlier mania and the deeper issues it’d brought to light. A cloud of hurt feelings and harsh accusations hung over our otherwise blissful honeymoon.
“Well…I guess I better go clean up the disaster area. I’ll make us some lunch once I finish, okay?” I called over my shoulder as I walked up the stairs toward our bedroom, hoping to have a few moments to find my way back to five on the emotional scale.
To my surprise, Kline followed me.
He sat on the bed as I started to empty my suitcase. “Come here, sweetheart.” When I looked to him but didn’t move, he gestured for me to come closer.
The second I was within his reach, he pulled me onto his lap and wrapped his arms around my stomach. His face was pressed against my neck, lips brushing the sensitive spot below my ear. The intimate silence healed half the hurt, but some of it stayed, buried deep.
After a few quiet moments, I whispered, “I’m sorry I went a little crazy before.”
Hot, relieved air coated my skin. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
I leaned back, gripping his chin and forcing his eyes to look at mine. “Are you really sorry about that?”
“Yes. Of course I am, Ben.” His remorseful eyes stared deep into mine.
“What about my job?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What about your job?”
“Are you going to start being honest with me about how you really feel about it?”
He sighed and gave me a squeeze. “I’m not happy about the amount of time it will demand from you, but I’ll deal.”
“I don’t think saying you’ll deal is a solution, Kline. What if you start resenting me for traveling so much? For being occupied with work too much? Where will that lead us?”
God, the words stung as soon as I said them.
What if my job started to put a giant wedge between us?
We had gotten together in a rush. Too consumed with one another, too deep in love not to dive headfirst into our relationship. We had known each other for a few years, but we hadn’t actually been together, been a couple, for all that long.
What if my job strained my marriage?
The mere thought of that awful scenario caused tears to pool in my eyes.
Seeing tears in her eyes over the possibility of a disillusioned marriage courtesy of a fucking job was the last straw. I’d wanted to maintain our “eat, fuck, cuddle, sleep, be nauseatingly happy” bubble for these two weeks, but the bubble wasn’t any fucking good if it hurt her.
And right now? The compartmentalization on my part was very much hurting my sweet wife.
“All right,” I declared, picking her up from my lap and setting her down on the edge of the bed. Standing in front of her, I tipped her chin up until her pretty, sad eyes met mine. “Real talk time.” She steeled herself for what she thought might come. “First things first, no more tears, okay?”
“Kline—”
“They break my fucking heart, Benny. I can’t think of a scenario where I like to see you cry, but I fucking loathe it when I’m the cause.”
She did her best to stop, as I moved on. The important point wasn’t that she actually stop crying; it was that she knew I wanted her to.
“How often am I right while you’re wrong?” I asked, catching her off guard. I could see at first that she wasn’t sure how to answer, but I prompted her to be honest with gentle eyes and a soft smile.
“Not often.”
Bingo.
“So not often,” I admitted. “I’m completely prepared for the inevitable. With me being the man and you the woman, the rightness ratio in this relationship will always heavily favor you. It’s been the way of the world for centuries, but most guys are too fucking insecure to admit it.” She coughed a surprised giggle. “I’m not. When it comes to you and us, I’m gonna fuck up more often than I’d like.”
She started to shake her head, but I held up a hand to stop her.
“It’s because you make me irrational.”
Her chin jerked back, and her tears were completely gone. I was halfway there. “You’re one of the most clever-minded, rational people I know.”
“In business,” I agreed. “With you, I lose all sense of everything but us.”
She tilted her head, but I pushed on. “Look at my track record. You know it’s true.”
“Kline.” She reached for me, but I started to pace just outside of her range, before turning to face her again and kneeling on the wood floor in front of her feet.
Her hands reached desperately for mine, and this time I didn’t deny them.
“I don’t want to hold you back.”
“I know you don’t,” she cut in.
“You’re brilliant, and you deserve every facet of success you can get your hands on.”
“Baby,” she whispered.
I smiled and reached out to brush some stray hair from her face, pulling her other hand flat to the pounding beat in my chest. My voice dropped to an intimate whisper as I admitted, “But I thought I was going to be along for the ride. I thought your success would flourish with me. At my company.” I shrugged and finished with the part that bothered me most. “That I’d get to watch.”
“Oh, Kline.” She pulled my palm to her lips and kissed it.
“I’m so fucking proud of you. You’re not where you are out of luck or chance. You’re there because you deserve it. You’re tenacious and smart, and God, I’d gotten used to sitting in on shit just so I could see it.”
“I’ve been gone for months now, though,” she pointed out gently. “If that’s really it, why is it just bothering you now?”
I shrugged. “We’re on our honeymoon. Thousands of miles away, just you and me. I know the traveling is coming, and baby, I’m going to miss you, but I’m prepared for it. Really.”
Her brow creased in confusion.
“But I was fully expecting this to be our time. The calm before the storm. You, me, and absolutely nothing else. But it hasn’t been that way. It’s been you, me, and Wes, and I don’t find him nearly as fucking pretty.”
She laughed a little, a barely there smile of realization lifting the unbearable weight from her tiny shoulders.
“I feel a little like your aging wife, and your new job feels like your mistress. Unfortunately, it turns out I’m not above showing up naked in a trench coat in an effort to restore your interest.”
“You’re no aging wife. You run your own multibillion-dollar corporation, for God’s sake.”
“Not here, I don’t. Here, I am nothing but your new husband. And I’ve selfishly been wishing you were here as only my wife.”
“Couldn’t this just be an opportunity to watch me?” she ventured, and I smiled.
“Ben.”
“Ack. Okay. So you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be doing anything while I’m here.”
“Me,” I corrected playfully. “You should be doing nothing but me.”
“Right, right. Don’t worry, I’ve got you marked down on my to-do list.”
“Thank God,” I said with a wink.
“I’ll call Wes and see if he can spare me for the rest of our time here,” she offered.
“Oh, please, let me do it,” I said a little too gleefully.
“No. Come on. He’s your friend, but he’s my boss. At least let me maintain a modicum of professionalism.”
“I think that ship sailed, sweetheart. Back around Sexually-Influenced-Email-Island,” I teased.
&nbs
p; She flushed and slapped superficially at my chest. “That was your fault too!”
I smiled and waggled my eyebrows in triumph. She tried to resist, but in the end, she couldn’t contain her smile either.
“Kline!”
“He’s your boss, but trust me, this isn’t Wes, your boss. This is Wes, my friend, and he’s sitting back in New York merrily watching as he fucks with me. Let me call him.”
“Kline.”
“That means yes. That’s the same way you say my name during sex, and I know that means yes.”
I grabbed her phone from the bed and scrolled through the numbers until I found Wes’s office. She struggled to reach, but even on the tips of her toes, my outstretched arm kept her a good foot out of range of my ear.
It rang twice before his assistant answered. “Wes Lancaster’s office.”
I raised my voice an octave and did my best impression of my wife. “Hey, Gail, it’s Georgia. Can you put me through?”
“Kline Brooks!” Georgia shrieked in the background.
I laughed and jogged out of the bedroom and onto the terrace, shutting the all-glass door behind me and holding it closed. My little Benny waved frantically on the other side.
“Georgia?” Gail questioned. She had to have been going through some fucking head trip. I didn’t sound like Georgia, but it was sure as shit her number on the caller ID.
“That’s me,” I responded.
“Oh. Okay. I’ll put you through,” Gail muttered, mystified. I winked at Georgia through the glass and her eyes narrowed.
“Thanks!”
Wes’s voice came over the line less than five seconds later. “Georgia?”
“Close,” I said in my normal voice.
“Kline. Hey, buddy. How’s the honeymoon?”
“Fucking fantastic,” I said, telling him the truth but making sure my words had a little extra bite.
“Good, good,” he murmured in response.
“Look. I know my wife is fucking essential to your operation,” I started, diving right into the heart of it and turning to face the ocean so Georgia couldn’t read my lips.
“Kline—”
“I handed her over on a silver fucking platter, so I know.” He sighed, and I heard the door burst open behind me.
I kept talking anyway. “I don’t know if you really needed her or if you just wanted to mess with me, but she’s officially off duty for the rest of our trip.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he agreed, “and it was both. Messing with you and needing her.”
I closed my eyes and forced myself to make an offer I really didn’t want to extend. “You need to talk to her before you cut off all communication?”
“Yes!” Georgia demanded behind me. “Give me the phone.”
“Yeah,” Wes replied. “But it’s not for work shit. I owe you, and I have a strong feeling you’re in hot water.”
I laughed. “Does your feeling have anything to do with the fact that you can hear my wife in the background?”
“It might,” he said through a chuckle.
“Fine. Fix this, and we’re even.”
“Done.”
Done. Because that was how problems between men got resolved.
Well, it was either that or hit each other in the face, and right now, neither of us was interested in making the trip.
New York, Monday April 24th, Early Afternoon
“He’s been missing for four nights,” Cassie said in my ear through the phone. Unable to avoid the office for more than a day, I’d given her my work number in case of an emergency or breakthrough. Apparently, she took those parameters very lightly. This was her tenth call today.
Yeah, I hear you. Yet again, I am the one answering her calls. Therefore, I’m still the idiot here.
“I know, honey. But I’m sure he’s fine. He’s scrappy. A real street cat. His assholishness might actually be coming in handy.”
I’d gotten in touch with Kline’s dad, and ever efficient, Bob had the vet on the hunt. But four long nights without an actual capture, and even I was starting to miss the little bastard. Or maybe I wasn’t, but I was visualizing the pain in sweet Georgie’s eyes when she heard the news and listening to near hysteria from her best friend at that very moment. Their pain was feeling very much like my pain.
“You think he’s falling in line with the right cats, though?” she asked ridiculously. “Georgie’ll be so pissed if she comes home to find him in a gang of runaways.”
I rubbed at the tension in my forehead and turned my chair to face the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office.
“Well, if he does, we’ll be here to force him into rehabilitation through intervention.”
“Right,” she scoffed, like I was the crazy one. “Like there’s a cat rehab. Good one, Thatcher. It must be right next door to the cat detective.”
“Cass—”
“I lied to her.”
“Who? The cat detective?” I asked, completely lost.
“Wheorgie, numbnuts! I told her about the microchip, but I didn’t tell her that we hadn’t actually found him.”
“The vet’s been getting a signal,” I told her, even though she already knew. I hoped that hearing it again might help to calm her down. “He’s just been moving around too much to pinpoint an exact location for pickup.”
“Yeah, Thatcher. I know all these things. Jesus.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned back into my leather desk chair and sighed. “You called me. What exactly are you after here? Honest to God, I’m trying.” Harder than I would with anyone else, I thought to myself. “But I can’t for the life of me figure out what you want.”
“I don’t know either,” she said, but fuck, the uncertainty, the longing—all of it made her simple words sound an awful lot like, I just wanted to talk to you.
“Cass—”
“I gotta go, T-bag. Let me know if you hear anything about Walnuts,” she rushed out. And then with a quick click of the line, she was gone.
I spun around to my desk and tossed the phone in the cradle before rubbing a hand down my face in annoyance. Everything between us felt foreign, like I couldn’t get a handle on it. The weirdest part was not knowing if I wanted to.
“Mr. Kelly?” my assistant, Madeline, called on the intercom. Reaching forward, I pushed the button on my phone panel to answer.
“Yeah?”
“There’s someone on the line for you from Green Gardens in Frogsneck, NY?”
Fuck. That was the venue for my parent’s surprise fortieth anniversary party next month. “Put them through, Mad.”
“You got it.”
Two quick rings confirmed her response before I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Tom,” I greeted. My hometown was the size of a chicken nugget, and only one person would be calling me from Green Gardens.
“Thatcher? It’s Tom.”
“Yeah, Tom. I got that. That’s why I said ‘Hey, Tom.’”
“Oh.”
“The reason you’re calling?” I prompted when silence consumed the line for nearly half a minute. It was times like these that made me really not miss home.
“Oh. Yeah. I know you said you wanted an open bar and that you wanted lobster and steak, but that’s gonna be pretty expensive, bud. I just wanted to double-check before I made the order because once it’s in, it’s in. I can’t do you any favors, even if I like you.”
“Thanks, Tom, but I’m good. Open bar, lobster, and steak. Don’t worry about the order, I won’t leave you hanging.”
“Oh, right, right,” Tom agreed, taking a tone I knew well and absolutely hated. “I guess I forgot you’re some hot shot zillionaire whoseewhatsit in the city these days.”
My patience was unraveling, but I fought hard to pretend like I had some. “Yeah, that’s not it, Tom. It’s just my parents’ fortieth. They deserve a nice night.”
Mad gave a quick knock and peeked her red head in the door. “Someone is here for you,” she mouthed.
I nodded and rushed
to get Tom off the phone. “Listen, I have to go. But thanks for checking in. I really appreciate it.”
“All right. I guess I’ll put the order in if you’re sure.”
Mad peeked in again and raised her brows in question. Waving a big hand, I signaled to let whomever it was in.
“I’m sure. Thanks, Tom.”
My eyebrows pulled together as Cassie bounded into my office while Mad held the door. She wore tight jeans and a crop top, and I’ll admit, my gaze traveled to the bottom of her shirt—or half of a shirt—in the hopes there was boob swell to be seen more than once.
“You bet. I guess this means you’ll be coming home soon, huh?” Tom asked, fucking refusing to get off the fucking phone. And with my new guest, I was obviously getting zero work done today.
“Yep,” I said grudgingly. “That’s what it means.”
“How long’s it been?”
Five years. It’d been five years.
“A few years,” I murmured as I tried to make out Cassie’s charades. Her arms waved and her tits bounced, and she’d just started to get down on the ground and crawl around on all fours.
Is she licking the tops of her hands and purring?
“Gotta go, Tom,” I reiterated. “Thanks for checking in. See you soon.”
The phone barely met its base before Cassie jumped to her feet.
“Thank fuck. I thought you’d never get off the phone.”
“What are you doing here, Cass? How the fuck did you know where my office was? And what in the fuck are you doing crawling around on my floor?”
“Well, hello to you too,” she said, and it struck me like lightning. We were so similar, so like-minded. So much so, neither of us knew how to handle it. “And it’s called Google, Thatcher.”
“What’s going on?” I asked again. “I thought you had somewhere to be. And how in the hell did you get here so fast? Do you have a teleportation device I need to try out?”
“Bob called me. Said he couldn’t get through to you. The vet’s got Walnuts.” Her eyes fucking gleamed.
“Bob called when? Weren’t you just crying to me about that little shit being missing?”