by Liz Peters
Debbie had somehow managed to give her own professor her phone number fifteen minutes before the first lecture on the first day of class. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks further with every word that he spoke. The courage to look him in the face while he was lecturing was completely gone. If she could have melted into a puddle and soaked into the floor right now, it would have been a mercy. As it was, she was scrambling to figure out how she was going to make it through the rest of the semester without talking to her professor, because there was no way she was going to be able to look him in the eye after basically hitting on him this morning. It was just beyond her grasp.
It was so bad that she wasn’t sure she caught any of what happened during the lecture at all, and she shot out of class like a bat out of hell as soon as the class was over. It wasn’t until she was halfway to her next class that she even slowed down enough to take a breath.
“Way to go, Deb. Why don’t you show up to class without pants on next time? I mean that could only make it better right?” She was talking to herself as she hurried along the brick cobbled path on her way to the next building on her list. She’d found it on the map as she was scurrying out of the room. Though, the sound of laughter behind her stopped her in her tracks.
“I’m sure that would be quite the distraction, Miss MacIntyre. I’ll look forward to seeing you in class with or without pants.” Joshua Brennan was standing there with his hands in his pockets, leaning against one of the pillars of the building she was about to walk into with this smug grin on his face. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss him or slap him, but either action was going to get her landed in hot water. She could feel her face grow as red as her hair for the second time this morning.
“Sorry, Professor. I had no idea who you were this morning. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be late for my next class.” It was all she could come up with to excuse her behavior this morning, and it was entirely the truth.
“Hurry along then, Miss MacIntyre. It was a pleasure meeting you this morning. I look forward too seeing you again.” He nodded and made his way further along the path before she climbed the stairs into the building for her next class. Something told her this was going to be a very long semester.
Chapter Three
It had been one of those long days when Sam didn’t think she was ever going to be able to get out of the office. Since Debbie had gone back to school, things at the law office had gotten a little out of hand, and she’d found herself doing twice the work as she had been doing before. Debbie was still around to help three days a week, but she still had homework and studying to do in addition to the classes she was attending at Plains State. When she was done, she was going to do a lot towards cutting down on the amount of time Samantha had to spend in the office, but in the meantime, Sam was going to have to take up the slack around the place.
Reid had been home for hours by the time she got there. His schedule was always predictable. If he said he was getting off at five then he was home by five-thirty. She wasn’t so lucky. Samantha could predict when meetings with clients were going to happen, but she couldn’t always tell when she was going to head down a rabbit hole of research or contract writing and lose track of time until she noticed that the sun was sinking below the horizon and her office was growing dark.
Tonight had been one of those nights. To top it all off, she had turned the sound off on her phone while she was in a meeting with a client, so she’d missed the fact that Reid had been texting her since he’d gotten off of work. She’d shot him a quick sorry before she left the office, and not paid any more attention to her phone until she got into the driveway of the house the two of them shared.
It looked as if every light in the house was blazing when she parked the car and got out of it. She hadn’t even wanted to buy a car; the office was close enough she could have walked, but Reid had talked her into it. The country was vastly different from the city she’d left. There weren’t restaurants and stores on every corner, and there was no way she was going to be able to walk everywhere she needed to go. With Reid at work all day and the nearest courthouse in the county seat nearly forty-five minutes away, it would have been impossible for the two of them to make things work with only Reid’s pickup truck to share between the two of them.
She also wasn’t used to having to coordinate her schedule with someone else’s. There were nights when he was needed at the ranch for some corporate function or a wedding, and he hadn’t been waiting on her every single evening when she came home from work. Lately, since the two of them had gotten married, it seemed like he was always the first one home, and always the one waiting on her with dinner ready when she got out of the car. It looked as if tonight wasn’t going to be the exception to any of those rules.
Samantha grabbed her briefcase out of the passenger seat of her car and made her way up the short walk into the front of the house, letting herself in the front door before dropping her keys in the bowl and resting her case against the wall. She’d had enough of work for one night, and all she really wanted was to come home and spend a quiet evening with her husband.
“Hey, Reid?” She called out looking around the small foyer and staircase without seeing any sign of her husband around. Maybe he was in the kitchen, even though there was no sound coming from that room either.
When Sam stuck her head in the room, dinner was on the table, along with a note. Sam scrubbed one hand over her eyes, letting out a groan as she called out for her husband one more time, but she knew that he wasn’t in the house. The last thing she wanted to do was to reach out and take the note from the table where dinner was waiting and cold, but she had to do it. She had to get the answers that that piece of paper was going to hold. Talking to Reid was what she’d have preferred, but that didn’t appear to be an option at the moment.
She recognized the handwriting right away. It was Reid’s just like she’d suspected, but the message inside wasn’t something she expected to hear from her husband.
#
Samantha,
I made dinner and waited on you, but you didn’t come home. Matty called and invited me out for a beer so I went out. If you ever decide to turn on your phone and answer your messages you know how to get me.
Reid
#
He had called her Samantha, which was what he used when he wasn’t happy with her, though the two of them had never had a real fight before. Something told her that tonight might be the exception, but she had no way of knowing. Instead, she grabbed a plate, plodding off to the living room to eat alone and wait for Reid to come home.
She hadn’t even noticed the truck was gone when she’d pulled up, and she blamed herself for that. Things were busy, and she was exhausted. All she could do was sit around and let the lonely walls of the house come creeping in on her.
At the same time Samantha was pulling back up at their house, Reid was arriving at Matty’s cabin out at the ranch. Until a few weeks ago, this had been his home, and it was always going to feel a little like home, no matter where he really lived. Matty was waiting inside with a case of beer and hopefully a matching amount of distraction.
Sam hadn’t made it home in time for dinner, again, and Reid was feeling like the housewife forgotten at home while she was out working at her law office. She spent all her time there, or at least it seemed like that when she hadn’t gotten home before eight at night on a weekday in the last ten days. They’d just gotten married, for fuck’s sake. Weren’t they supposed to still be in that honeymoon period where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other? He felt that way, but she was never there. And by the time she got home from work, she had just enough energy left to eat dinner and crash into bed. At least she was sleeping in his arms, but he woke up long before she ever did to head off to the ranch for the day.
There wasn’t a moment when he was ever going to regret marrying her, but there were times when he wanted to punch the wall. All he wanted was his wife, and the time to turn the two of the
m into a family. Instead, they were still two separate individuals who just happened to be living in the same house. He didn’t know who he could tell about it. Matty was single, and he was probably always going to be single. He could talk to Rob, but he hadn’t wanted to burden the man with his troubles when Rob had problems of his own to manage. The ranch was a lot to handle on a good day. He couldn’t talk about it with Sam. Reid wasn’t going to be able to handle that disappointed look on her face when he let it all out. She was going to blame herself, and no one could punish Samantha as well as she could punish herself.
Instead, he’d let it all sit and fester, hoping to get it out over a case of beer and a chat with his old roomie. He got out of the truck, slamming the door behind him and headed in through the cabin door without even knocking.
“Hey, brother. Pass me a cold one.” Reid took the beer that Matty offered him as he sank into the chair on the opposite side of the table from his old friend. Cracking the can open, he took a long draught of the ice cold liquid before he was even fully settled into the chair.
“Slow down there, man. You’re going to drink me out of house and home.” Matty opened his own beer, taking a long swallow, though it wasn’t nearly as long as the one Reid had just taken. Reid put the can down, taking a deep breath and pulled out his phone, glancing at the screen.
Nothing.
Sam hadn’t bothered to answer his texts or the note he’d left her on the already set kitchen table. Of course. All that did was further fuel his desire to forget about everything that was going on at home.
“It’s been a long damn day, Matty. I needed that beer. I need a few more as a matter of fact.”
Matty knit his eyebrows together, furrowing his forehead into a frown as he took another long swallow from his own can.
“Everything all right there?”
Reid shrugged and put his focus on his beer. He wasn’t sure his friend would be able to understand what was going on with his life, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it.
“Yeah, just let me have a night to relax, man. I’ll be fine. I swear.”
Matty didn’t push him further. Instead, the two of them spent the evening catching up while he downed a few more beers. If his friend noticed how much he was drinking he didn’t say anything. Reid could feel some of the tension seeping out of his frame, at least until he looked down at his phone again, expecting to see a message from his wife. Instead, there was nothing, a blank screen. He didn’t even know if she was home yet or if she even cared what he was up to tonight. He grabbed the phone, shoving it into his pocket and made a promise to himself he wasn’t going to check it for the rest of the night out of sheer spite. Instead, he reached for another beer, cracking it open and resolved to enjoy the rest of his night no matter what might be happening at home.
For a moment, he felt like the old Reid, the one who would have told a woman to go buzz off when she got too clingy or close or did something else that annoyed him. But Sam wasn’t just any woman. She was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, or at least he thought so. Instead, he felt like she’d forgotten he existed now that the new was wearing off. Maybe that was all he was for her. Something new and shiny, a toy to play with, and now that the novelty was gone, her focus was right back on the thing it had always been on — work.
He hated the idea of taking second place to anything in her life, but all he could do was drown it out with another beer.
#
By the time that Reid got home, Samantha was curled up in a little ball asleep on the couch, but the sound of someone coming in the door was enough to wake her from her slumber.
“Reid is that you?”
“Yeah…”
She didn’t like the sound of his voice. It was clear that Reid had been drinking. She’d been drunk with him a few times in the months they’d been together, and she recognized that soft slur to his words.
“Tell me you didn’t get drunk with Matty and then drive home.” She pushed up off the couch and wandered into the foyer to face him, leaning against the entrance to the living room.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Legs.” He hung the keys from his left hand on the hook beside the door before he turned to face her. He had called her Legs, the first nickname she’d ever earned from him. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe it wasn’t. At least he wasn’t calling her Samantha.
“Christ, Cowboy. You’re going to get yourself killed.” She started to take a step towards him when he held up one hand.
“How would you know what I was up to anyway? You haven’t cared enough to check up on me in days so…” He shrugged before leaning up against the wall to kick off his boots.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what that means. You care more about that damn office than you seem to care about what happened to me tonight. I’ll be fine. I’m just going upstairs to sleep this off. I have to work in the morning.” He started to make his way up the stairs when she reached her hand out to stop him.
“I hope you know exactly how full of shit you are, Reid Spencer.”
“Not nearly as full of shit as you are, Samantha Crawford.” That stung. He had used her maiden name. He hadn’t used that since before the two of them were married. Sam pulled her hand away, slinking backward towards the living room to let him move.
“You’re drunk. Go on to bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Whatever…” He wandered off up the stairs as she sank backward against the wall trying not to let out a sob when he walked away.
Reid was drunk. She kept telling herself that, but he had a point too. She’d spent a ridiculous amount of time at work lately while her brand new husband was left at home to wait for her. The guilt that rose up in her chest was more than she could take. She wanted to run up behind him and apologize, but he clearly didn’t want anything to do with her right now. Instead, she found herself slinking back to the couch to curl up with the blanket that usually rested across the back.
Samantha tried to distract herself with television until she fell asleep. She was trying not to think about what had happened tonight with something mindless droning on in the background. Instead, it was all she could think about, and she wound up crying into the throw pillow that rested on one end of the couch until she passed out sometime long after midnight.
Chapter Four
Reid was gone for work when Samantha woke up on the couch the next morning. She’d wandered up to the bedroom ready to apologize, but he was nowhere in sight, even though it was early yet for him to have headed into work. All she could do was let out a soft sigh and kick off the blanket. The alarm on her phone was going off, and the phone was sitting on the other side of the room. When she got to it, the only messages that were in her notifications were junk mail and a couple of work-related emails, nothing from Reid.
She had to get into the office for the day, but before she plodded off upstairs to get showered, she typed out a quick text to her husband.
Morning.
One simple word. That was all she could manage until the two of them finally got to talk. She wanted to talk to him, but she needed to look him in the eyes and find out how he really felt about everything between the two of them. She wasn’t going to be able to do that over text messages. She was just going to have to wait until the end of the day to get that much accomplished. At least she was going to get to spend the day with Debbie since it was a Friday and she would be in the office. That meant that maybe she’d be able to get out before some ungodly stupid hour today and that she’d at least have her best friend to talk to about everything that had happened during the previous evening.
All that was left to do was to get ready and head into the office. It was lonely, and it had been hours since she’d spoken to anyone. It didn’t help matters that the last conversation she’d had with someone had essentially been her first fight with Reid. Sam had no way of knowing what he was thinking. He wasn’t usually able to answer mes
sages until his lunch break, so she had no idea why she’d texted him, but it just occurred to her that this was the longest she’d gone without hearing his voice since he’d arrived at her apartment unannounced. Even on the morning when he went into work before she woke up he made sure to leave her with a kiss on the forehead and a goodbye.
It was the first time she’d spent the night alone since the two of them had gotten married, as well. The combination of things was enough to leave her shaken. The world felt entirely strange and different, and she didn’t like it. She needed her head in the game to get things done today, but the only thing her head was on was Reid. She felt a little lost, even when she let herself out of the house and made her way out to the car to drive into the office. Sam could only hope that the day would end better than it began.
#
Debbie was at the office early, long before Sam ever arrived out front to let herself in the front door. She had a lot on her plate, and getting an early start was the only way she could imagine that she was going to be able to get all her work here done, do all of her work for school and still have some time over the weekend to actually breathe.
The office was just as empty as her duplex was, but it was at least a change of scene. There was only so much staring at four walls you could do and still keep your sanity. She hadn’t been out with Sam or anyone else in the entire time since she’d started school, and it was pushing on three weeks since she’d done anything except work, study and sleep. Things were getting frayed around the edges as far as she was concerned, and she knew it was taking its toll on Sam too.