by K Carr
I cleared my throat. “We should go.”
Connor’s attention snapped to me. “Ok, sure. I’ll walk you out.”
Well, duh, we were all going in the same direction. I bit back the quick retort, noticing how his grip on Megan’s hand tightened. I fell behind the three of them as we left the café. Connor had parked a few spots down from my SUV. He swung Megan up into his arms the moment we’d walked out the café and was telling her silly jokes as he headed towards my car. I pulled the key out my bag and pressed the button to unlock it. Connor’s steps slowed down. I was certain he was trying to draw out every possible second with Megan. Was I being cruel? Fuck it. I didn’t care. Today I could be less hateful, today I didn’t have the strength to fight. Today was not a good day.
“Love you,” Connor was saying for the umpteenth time as he hugged Megan. He finally put her down and opened the back door for her.
“Bye, Daddy,” she said as he helped her climb in the car. “Bye.”
He reminded her to buckle up and pulled the belt out before handing it over to her. My mom laid a hand on his arm, cheek tilted upwards. I observed the brief peck goodbye Connor gave to my mom. They exchanged a few words then she wandered around the car to hop into the passenger seat. Connor gave Megan one last kiss atop her head and promised to see her soon. He stepped back and shut the door.
“You’ll call me, right?” he asked as he approached me.
I nodded.
“Today, yeah?” he pressed.
I nodded. Today I could be less hateful.
“Ok.” Connor ran a hand through his hair as an awkwardness settled between us.
“I should get going,” I murmured.
“Ok,” He shuffled on his feet, then peered at me with an uncertain half-smile. “Can I get a hug goodbye?”
I hesitated and he held his arms open. Today I could be less hateful, just for today. “Sure.”
The first few seconds were uncomfortable, and I instinctively stiffened in his loose embrace. My arms remained at my sides, not an unwilling participant to the hug, just an inert one. But then he turned his face into my hair and tightened his embrace, and my traitorous body weakened. It would be a lie to deny how good it felt to have the warmth of his body seeping into mine, or how the weight of his hand on my back made me want to press myself closer to him. Right, enough of this. It might not be intentional, but being this close to him was making me think of things I didn’t want to think of today, especially today.
“Ok, bye,” I pulled away, it was abrupt, rough even, and Connor immediately released me.
“Bye,” he murmured, stepping back. “Drive safely.”
“Yeah, um, you too.” I cleared my throat, gaze focused on my vehicle, studiously avoiding his face.
“Jen,” Connor touched my arm. Reluctantly, my gaze swung back to him. He flashed me a small smile. “I love you.”
I blinked a few times. Of course he loved me, I still loved him too, but it had gotten to an ‘either or’ stage between us – at least from my side. It was either fuck or fight. That’s how I viewed the embers of our once happy marriage. There was so much raw pain between us, only two options remained for me. Fuck or fight. Fuck it out until we reconnected on some sort of level, or fight until the bitter end. I had no intentions of sleeping with him so it was a figurative ‘fuck him’ until the bitter end.
“Bye.” What else could I have said?
I strode off towards my SUV without looking back. Only when I sat behind the driver’s wheel and had fastened my seatbelt did I risk a glance. Connor stood there watching us. When he saw I was looking in his direction he managed half a wave which morphed into a proper wave with a blown kiss when Megan pressed her face up against the window to shout more goodbyes. He adored her so much. The sadness on his face couldn’t be hidden by the wide smiles he was sending her. I pressed a button and both our windows whirred down.
“Bye, Daddy! Bye! Love you! Bye!”
“I’ll call you later,” I raised my voice to be heard over Megan’s yells.
He blew her…us…one last kiss before I pressed the button and our windows whirred back up. Megan kept waving as I drove off. I checked in the rear-view mirror. She was still trying to wave goodbye. The light tap on my knee brought my attention to my mom.
She smiled at me. “You did good today, baby girl.”
I couldn’t return her smile, feeling drained and empty all of a sudden, as if whatever had been holding me together for this day had suddenly vacated my body.
“Mommy,” Megan flopped back against the seat. “When are we going to live with Daddy again?”
Never. It was on the tip of my tongue, instead I muttered a resigned, “I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t know.”
Today would be over soon. A whole year had passed. Shaking my head I swallowed the lump which was building in my throat. If I could make it to the end of today without losing my mind, that would be a huge step of progress.
“But,” Megan paused. I raised my gaze to look at her in the rear-view mirror. She was dancing her fingers over the window. “But,”
“But what, Meg?” My mom twisted in her seat to peer at her granddaughter.
Megan shook her head. “Nothing. Can I have pizza for dinner?”
Her reflection in the mirror was a sad one. I knew all it would take to make her smile again was to declare ‘yes, we’ll go live with Daddy once again, as soon as you’d like’. But it would be a lie. I didn’t have a timeframe for anything anymore. Everything had become one-day-at-a-time since my son’s death. Everything had changed and I honestly couldn’t see us living with Connor again. Not now, not ever. Never.
Chapter 4
Connor woke up, alone in bed and with an unwelcomed hard on. After the usual split-second of waking up thinking everything was how it used to be, reality shifted into focus. It was harsh but by now he was, in a weird sort of way, used to the brutality of remembering things were not how they used to be. He didn’t want to wake up with a rock hard dick on top of everything else. Connor could pinpoint exactly when he started resenting this particular male phenomenon which doctors remained undecided as to precisely why it occurred. The moment his wife had elected to leave their family home and stay with her mom temporarily…was it temporary? Hell if he knew. He grunted in frustration and rubbed a hand over his face while glaring at the tented portion of the sheet caused by his erection. He never used to view it with resentment. It was simply a thing all men dealt with. Some mornings you viewed it as a mild nuisance, others…well, depending on how amorous Jen was feeling when she got up…those morning were great. He missed her. And he wasn’t referring to the way she brightened any room she walked into, or her general way of being. He missed her. Her actual physical presence. Her warmth against him. Her softness. The lines and curves of her body. Her lips. Her hands. The sensitive spot millimetres above her right hip bone. The feel of her ass in his hands-
Connor exhaled loudly into the silent bedroom. He fucking missed his wife. Scowling at his prominent erection under the sheet, he rearranged the words in his head. He missed fucking his wife.
This past week he had seen her twice. The first occasion was at their daughter’s school assembly. With Rose sat between him and Jen there was little opportunity for anything more than a polite greeting. And once the assembly was over and the kids ferried back to their class, Jen hardly acknowledged him. He barely got a goodbye before she herded her mother out the school hall. The second time was him dropping their daughter off the following day after school. She had stood by the door of her mother’s house and a tight ‘hello, thanks for bringing her home’ was all he got. The uneasy truce they had shared the day at the cemetery had evaporated. Now they were back to this horrible, tense battle of him trying to connect with her on some level while she hid behind her walls. Yesterday she hadn’t even answered his call, nor returned them! He held no hope that he would be able to see Meggie again this week. Today was Thursday, maybe if he called Rose he might have a bet
ter chance of making arrangements to see his daughter this weekend. He needed to call his lawyer but he was loathed to push things with Jen. The last thing he wanted was to antagonize his wife. Then there was the divorce. A divorce he didn’t want. Sighing, Connor pulled the sheet aside and continued to glare at his erect member. This was the longest they had ever been apart since they had started going out together all those years ago. The first month after she had left him had been hard. The second month had been torture. By the third month he had felt as if he was on the brink of losing his mind. Of course, none of that could compare to the gaping pit of desolation he now carried inside in him. Cory’s death superseded any pain; mental, physical or emotional.
Now he was, unfortunately, getting used to not waking up next to his wife. It was another shitty thing to live with: missing the touch of his wife. His dick throbbed and he spared a glance at the alarm clock on his bedside table. 5:49am. Eleven minutes before his wake-up alarm was due. Hell, he had the extra time, might as well rub one out. It was mechanical, a means to an end, a biological quest for a small measure of release from pent up sexual tension. Connor stroked himself a few times. She wouldn’t let him touch her intimately. To be honest, before she had fled their home, those first seven months after Cory’s death; neither one of them had initiated any form of sexual intimacy in the relationship. And she’d been at her mother’s for five months now, slightly over five months. Fuck. A whole year. He hadn’t had sex with his wife for a whole year. Of course, making love to his wife had stopped factoring at the top of his daily list of things to do after losing his son. No, this past year was all about surviving the unsurvivable.
He gripped himself a shade tighter, stroked a beat faster. Did she miss him too? God. They were fire together, had been from the start. He couldn’t touch her physically, but he could fantasize.
And he had years of memories. A head full of vivid images of his Jenny.
Connor exhaled softly, eyes closing as he thought about how responsive she used to be under his touch.
‘Do you want to?’ Connor couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice even if he tried. Jen was hot and he’d been wanting to take the next steps with her since their first date. This was only their sixth ‘hang out’ as she liked to call them. It was a date, their sixth date, and he really wanted to see her naked. Clearing his throat, he tried the comedic route. ‘Remember our first date-’
‘Wasn’t a date,’ she clarified with that mischievous grin of hers.
Connor exhaled shakily. Damn. She was so fucking hot. Those lips of hers. Inhaling sharply, he narrowed his eyes at her. ‘It was a date, but let’s not argue over the fact you asked me out first,’ He was grinning now. ‘Remember when I told you I wasn’t easy, that I didn’t want to be stereotyped because I was blonde? And I said you had to earn my trust first? Remember that?’
She nodded. ‘Yup.’
‘Well, I’m easy for you,’ he declared. ‘If you wanted me right now I would happily forget my morals-’
She let out an outraged gasp. It was faux outrage but she was managing to keep her expression on point. ‘Connor! You shameless hussy. What would your pastor say? Pre-marital sex is sinful.’
‘I’ll ask for forgiveness,’ he quipped. ‘Afterwards, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she smirked. Then she glanced over her shoulder. ‘I don’t know. I have exams,’ her words trailed off.
Connor looked behind her. She stood in the doorway of the room she shared with two other girls while he was out in the hallway. He bit his lower lip, wanting to kiss her again. He liked kissing her. Their second date, he had been the one to ask, was a corny movie date which was spent with more lip-locking than screen watching.
‘Are your roommates in tonight?’ he asked in a husky voice.
Jen shook her head.
‘You look really pretty,’ he murmured, reaching over to gently grip her hip. ‘I like your hair when it’s a big afro like that.’
Jen arched a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Is this your attempt to get into my panties?’
‘Yes,’ Connor grinned. ‘But it’s the truth.’ And it was. He had always been attracted to Jen, ever since she had first joined the climbing club with Lala. It had been something he kept to himself though. Before she had asked him to that Valentine’s party, Connor didn’t think she’d go out with someone like him; plus her and Lala usually kept to themselves at the Centre. Sliding his thumb under her t-shirt, he made little circles over her soft skin. ‘Do you want to?’ Then he hastily added, ‘Only if you want to, Jenny.’
She stared at him for a moment with quite a serious expression on her face. ‘You’re not going to feel guilty afterwards and start talking about God or whatever, are you?’
‘No,’ he huffed while silently apologizing in his head and promising to be a better Christian tomorrow. God would understand. Why would he give them fully functioning sex organs and hormones at their age if not to explore said sex organs? Connor had gotten good at rationalizing his sexual escapades. He was good at compartmentalizing this aspect of his life. Shit! Half the people his age in his church back home were having sex too. It was natural…yeah, he would ask for forgiveness tomorrow. Stepping closer to her and sticking his hand fully under her t-shirt to slide around her back, he said, ‘I know you’re not – it’s fine if you don’t believe in Christianity,’ The conversation was going in the wrong direction. His dick was hard and he didn’t want to think about religion right now. ‘Look, I like spending time with you. Do you like spending time with me?’
She nodded once.
‘Good,’ He lowered his head, seeking her lips. She responded to his kiss with matched vigour, making every single cell in his body tighten in anticipation. He pulled back, breathing heavily. ‘So why don’t we maybe spend a different kind of time together tonight?’ His question came with a sly wink and Jenny laughed, which was not the reaction he wanted.
‘Do these lines of yours actually work?’ she drawled.
Connor pouted, then let his hand fall away from the smoothness of her skin as he stepped back. Sticking his thumbs into the loops on his jeans, he affected a jaunty pose. Her gaze drifted up and down his body and it took every bit of his self-control to not yank her back into his arms. Connor was already picturing how good she would look next to him…naked…no, on top of him…underneath – fuck.
‘I’m waiting to find out,’ he retorted playfully.
Jen licked her lips and Connor hissed under his breath. She had no idea what she was doing to him. When he spotted the devious glint in her eyes he wondered if she did in fact have a full grasp on how much he wanted her.
‘You know, blondes do have more fun,’ he teased. ‘Don’t you want to have fun with me?’
She squinted at him. ‘Hold up, I’m definitely not blonde and I damn well better have more fun than you if I let you get anywhere near my panties.’
Connor almost choked between a startled laugh and an aroused growl. ‘Stop talking about your panties if you won’t let me see them.’
Jen rolled her eyes before a slow sexy smile began lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘Shut up and get in here.’ She grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and tugged him inside the threshold of the apartment. ‘Blondes have more fun, my ass. Let’s see about that.’
Connor continued stroking himself, reminiscing about the first time they’d crossed the line into something real and durable. He had fallen for her fast, but they did say: when you know, you know. And he had known. Focusing on the movement of his hand over his dick, he thought about the way she used to pant. Short, feathery gasps of air which changed depending on how he touched her. They sounded almost desperate when his tongue was working over her clit. Connor’s own breath quickened as the good feelings started building. And she enjoyed being on top, he liked that she liked being on top. It wasn’t so much about being in control – Connor let out a shaky breath as his body tightened – no, definitely not the control aspect. Their lovemaking was a more or less equal brea
kdown of give and take. She enjoyed being on top so she could watch as he was reduced to a senseless creature whose only purpose was to serve her. His breath hitched as his body responded to his determined strokes. Serve her. He wanted to serve her, to make her cry out in pleasure, to feel her slippery wet heat welcoming each thrust of his –
Connor let out a low grunt as his whole body strained towards the point of release. A few seconds later he sagged against the mattress; eyes clenched tightly, body still twitching. The warm stickiness of his ejaculation was fast cooling against the even warmer temperature of his skin. It took less than a minute for the high of his orgasm to dissipate into a gungy feeling of pathetic hollowness. Self-pleasure could never replace the vulnerable intimacy of another’s touch. He missed his wife. Taking care not to make a mess, he rolled out of bed and headed to the en-suite to clean himself up and get ready to start the day. After a quick wipe and relieving of bladder, he brushed his teeth then jumped into the shower. The warm water flowed over him and he started thinking about percentages.
40-50% of married couples in the US ended up divorced. It seemed very likely he and Jen were heading for that statistic. Then if you added the fact they had suffered the loss of a child…Connor placed a hand over the tiled wall, needing the extra bit of support. What was the likelihood of a marriage surviving after the death of a child?
And they had married relatively young. Wasn’t there a statistic about the high rate of people who got married young seeking divorces later on in life? Was 24-26 too young? He hadn’t thought so. Yes, they were different people to who they were back then, but they had grown together – as a couple – and things had been so fucking great until Cory’s death.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
The water raced down his face and he felt the familiar knot of something in the pit of his stomach. He still remained undecided as to exactly what it was. Rage. Despair. Anxiety, no, fear; not anxiety but fear. Loneliness. Was it loneliness? Abject loneliness. He missed Jen. He missed Meggie. He missed – oh god. He missed Cory so fucking much. Taking a ragged breath he fought against the urge to…to what? Scream? Sob? Punch the tiled wall? Connor rushed to finish his shower. He needed to start his day, get busy so his mind didn’t dwell on his messy life.