by Chloe Liese
Our wedding night was explosive. And just like the night of my rehearsal dinner, I feel like I’m about to detonate. Slow, deep kisses. Touch wandering each other’s body, teasing, coaxing sensation and desire from parts of me I’ve forgotten could be so exquisitely sensitive.
“Well.” I clear my throat and sip from my water bottle. “Good. At least someone’s getting some.”
Aiden huffs a laugh and sets his hand over mine, sliding our fingers together. “Home tomorrow.”
And we have a marriage counseling appointment the next day with Dr. Dietrich. Who just might give us the green light for sex again.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles softly, one by one. Lowering my hand, he slips his finger over my ring, spinning it and revealing the tan line I’ve earned after a week in the Hawaiian sun. “Impressive,” he murmurs.
“Well, not all of us can have a beard tan.”
His eyes widen. “Shit. I didn’t even think about that. Man, now I’m committed.”
“Hardly. You could shave it, spend one afternoon working in the yard, and it would be evened out.” I look him over, practically bronze now, sweat glistening on his skin, and swallow a sigh.
“Not that I’ll be doing any of that,” he says, returning to his book.
“That’s right. You’ll have the man cubs to delegate to.” Viggo’s and Oliver’s penance for their prank gone wrong is doing our yardwork until Aiden’s fractured arm has healed.
Aiden grins evilly and flips the page of his book. “That’s going to be so gratifying.”
A laugh jumps out of me but quickly fades when Viggo walks by, searing my retinas. He’s wearing a speedo, and holy shit, I wish I’d never seen that.
“Christ, Viggo,” Axel mutters, shaking his head. “The lengths people will go for attention.”
Ziggy slaps a hand over her eyes. “I can’t unsee it,” she groans.
Everyone else in the family is either doing their own thing elsewhere or blissfully preoccupied. Lucky them.
Oliver hoots and scrambles for his phone as Viggo struts down to the water, glorying in our horrified reactions. Just as he gets to the water’s edge, Oliver’s phone starts blasting. Viggo spins, faces us, and starts busting surprisingly good moves that I’m too scared to watch any longer in case the speedo doesn’t hold up to his hip thrusts.
Aiden’s laugh bursts beside me like a firework in the night sky, so bright and rich that it stuns me. “I knew it!” he says. “Oh man, that kid is dead meat.
“Oliver,” he barks.
Ollie peers over his shoulder, looking wary. “What’s up, Aiden?”
“You and the parrot haven’t by chance been spending any time together, have you? Particularly on the first day when you and your parents arrived bright and early, before everyone else?”
“Um.” Oliver’s cheeks pink. “Why would you ask that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Aiden says casually, slipping the bookmark in his book. “She seems to have quite the vocabulary. In fact, verbatim the vocabulary of that song you’re playing.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask him.
Aiden narrows his eyes at Oliver. “The parrot keeps harassing me with explicit lyrics.”
I frown at him. “Esmerelda? The polite old lady parrot that says Top o’ the morning! And Hiya, toots!”
“To you she says that.” Aiden drums his fingers on his chair. “You’ve heard her call me ‘hot stuff.’”
“I mean, she’s not wrong.”
He gives me a look. “She’s not saying it because she actually thinks that about me. She’s saying it because someone taught her.”
I frown at him. “Is that possible?”
“Seems so.” Aiden throws down his book and stands, as Oliver scrambles upright. “I might only have one good arm, Oliver Abram, but I know your weakness.”
Oliver blanches. “No tickling, Aiden. You know I can’t take that shit.”
“Should have thought of that before you sicced the Lil Wayne of parrots on me for a week straight. You know how disturbing it is to shower with a giant green parrot sitting on the counter nearby telling you ‘li-li-li-lick, lick that cream, make her scream’?”
As Aiden stalks toward him, Oliver backs away, hands up. “It was just some harmless fun!”
“Harmless?” Aiden’s mouth twitches, suppressing a smile. “Possibly. But was it also aggravating? Bizarre? Uncalled for? Absolutely.”
Oliver stumbles over a beach chair, glancing over his shoulder. “Aiden. Your arm,” he says pleadingly. “You shouldn’t run. You need to be cautious of it.”
“Unfortunately for you,” Aiden says, throwing his sunglasses onto his chair behind him, “I’m experiencing an uncharacteristically reckless moment.”
Realizing he’s screwed, Oliver takes off down the shore, Aiden streaking after him. And when my troublemaking brother gets tackled to the sand, his screaming laugh is swept up in the sun-warmed wind.
“Well.” Dr. Dietrich smiles at us over her glasses. “That sounds like quite the trip.”
Aiden squeezes my hand gently, his thumb circling my palm. I squeeze back.
“It was,” he tells her. “I had a good conversation with my business partner about more evenly distributing responsibilities. I stayed off my phone and prioritized being present, relaxing as much as possible.”
I smile at him. “Aiden planned an incredibly romantic date, and we had lots of good downtime together. It felt like we made some strides, talking and reconnecting.”
“And how did that come about?” Dr. Dietrich asks.
Aiden peers over at me, vivid blue eyes holding mine. “We had honest conversations. We talked a good bit about what you said before we left—about how we’ve changed and how we want to better understand what that means for loving each other.”
I squeeze his hand again.
“How do you feel, being home now?” Dr. Dietrich asks.
My smile falters slightly as I meet her eyes. “I’m a bit nervous to be back in the real world, with its pressures bearing down on us again, but I feel…hopeful. I feel excited, too. Like there’s so much to figure out and learn together.”
Aiden’s grip tightens. “I’m nervous, too. I don’t want to get sucked into work the way I was. But I feel like we’re in a better place, that it’s less likely to be something that comes between us. Freya knows all there is to know about the project. There are no secrets.”
Dr. Dietrich smiles between us. “Well, dare I say, I was apprehensive about you two disappearing on me so early into our work together, and I’m certainly not saying you’re done with therapy, but this time away served you.”
Aiden turns toward her. “How do you think?”
“What you both just told me demonstrates that you’ve arrived at an important milestone in reconciliation: building back trust. You’ve made peace with the very unsettling truth that people who love each other can hurt each other deeply, often without meaning to. It’s like knocking over a lamp. One rogue elbow when you weren’t looking, and the glass is shattered, the shade irrevocably bent. It’s so easy to break something, and so paradoxically hard to put it back together. Even when we do, it never looks the same.”
Aiden’s eyes hold mine as we share a brief moment of unspoken recognition.
“What you’ve decided,” Dr. Dietrich says, “is that you can see the beauty in those stitched-up, glued-together places, that you’re willing to learn for the future. To watch that wily elbow while acknowledging the possibility that hurt will come again, hoping this time it will be gentler, that this time the glue of forgiveness can mend the cracks that come.”
I lean into Aiden. “I love that.”
He wraps an arm around me. “I do, too.”
“Good,” she says brightly. “So, on to the next order of business. Sex.”
Aiden chokes on air and blinks away. I pat his thigh gently.
Dr. Dietrich shrugs, wearing a
warm smile. “Let’s talk about how you’re doing on that front. I’m going to take a gander that something happened intimately between you two. Because this”—she points to our bodies, wedged against each other on the couch—“screams, we might have bent the rules a little bit.”
I blush. Aiden clears his throat and says hoarsely, “Yes. The rules were a tiny bit bent.”
My blush deepens as I stare at my hands.
“Well, that’s good. I approve. In fact, I’m lifting the ban. With one contingency.” She stares at Aiden, then glances toward me. “Complete communicative transparency. Sex is vulnerable. If you’re ready for that intimacy, I want the conversation and dialogue flowing honestly and trustingly. When you’re hitting a roadblock, back up, regroup, talk. Then reattempt physical intimacy. Okay?”
Aiden’s face is grim, his eyes tight. Which…I have no idea what to make of that. I’d guess it’s a matter of his anxiety and how it’s impacted his sex drive, but it seems like that was obsolete in Hawaii. If it’s not that, what is it?
“Okay,” I tell her.
“Yes,” he whispers. “Okay.”
“Great,” Dr. Dietrich says, spinning in her chair and scooping up a remote from the pile of papers that even I can say I find disturbingly messy. “Now, the fun part.”
She presses a button, startling us both when a screen pops up from the thin side table next to her desk. Riffling through one of her desk drawers, she pulls out two controllers and tosses them our way. “Time to kill some zombies.”
Aiden frowns at her. “Are you actually telling us to play video games?”
Dr. Dietrich sighs. “It’s the pedagogist in you, constantly questioning my methods.”
Aiden blushes. “Sorry.”
I set the remote in my hand and peer over at Aiden. “He broke his arm, Dr. Dietrich. That gives me an unfair advantage.”
She grins. “Good thing you’re playing together. You two against the world. How’s that sound?”
Aiden’s thigh nudges mine as he holds my eyes. His smile is dazzling. “I like the sound of that a lot.”
25
Freya
Playlist: “Ready Now,” dodie
“Do you think it’s weird that my mom wasn’t here when we got back?” Aiden asks.
I shut the tea drawer with my hip and drop the sachet in my mug. “It hadn’t struck me as weird, no. I mean, she knew we’d be home shortly, and she said she had a brunch she’d forgotten about. Seems like a good reason not to stick around to give us the report on how many times Horseradish tried to eat your shoelaces.”
Aiden drums his fingers on his laptop, with his back to me. I can’t see his face, but I notice the tense set of his shoulders.
“Are you worried about her?” I ask him.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it. I just…had a feeling something was up.” He shakes his head. “I’m overanalyzing.”
“You could text her, ask her if everything’s okay. Maybe she’ll tell you if something’s going on.”
Aiden snorts, his fingers back to typing. “Yeah, ’cause Mom’s an open book.”
“I know she can be hard to get to open up.”
“Understatement of the year. Then again, who am I to talk?”
“Aiden, don’t shortchange yourself.” Adding a spoonful of honey to my mug, I screw on the lid and stare at the back of his sweet, stubborn head. “You’ve been in talk therapy since I’ve known you. You are a hell of a lot better at articulating your emotions than almost all men I know, barring my brothers, and God, do I wish they articulated less.”
He laughs drily. “Yeah, but I still have a ways to go.”
“And you’re working on that. We both are.”
Aiden glances over his shoulder and meets my eyes. “Yeah. We are.”
The kettle starts to whistle. I grab it off the heat before it screeches. “Need anything while I’m in here?”
Narrowing his eyes playfully, Aiden says, “I need to recover from the fact that all these years we haven’t played video games because my wife said, and I quote, ‘I’m not that into them’ and then here you went and slayed the zombie game at counseling.”
I grin from behind the counter, pouring hot water into my mug. “I didn’t say I wasn’t good at them, just that I’m not that into them. Because I’m not. It was something Ax and Ren and I did sometimes, and I got good at it.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not even sure if I really know you anymore.”
A warm laugh leaves me as I cross back into the living room and plop on the other end of the sofa. Sipping my tea, I peer at Aiden over my mug, watching him struggle with typing, given the cast. His fingers can still move fine, but he’s clearly hurting.
“Do you want to dictate to me?” I ask.
He glances my way. “Sorry?”
“I offered to let you dictate.” I nod toward his computer. “Looks like typing hurts. I can help you crank out some emails more efficiently, get you caught up, and then you don’t have to be uncomfortable.”
His expression is unreadable as our eyes hold each other’s. Finally, he blinks away. “Yeah. That…that would be great. Thank you.” Carefully, he lifts the laptop with one hand and sets it on my lap.
I spin it around, then stash my mug on the coffee table. “Ready when you are.”
Aiden props a pillow under his cast arm but then grabs my feet and sets them on his lap. Slowly, he drags his thumb up my arch. “Okay,” he says.
I nod. “Dictate away.”
“Wait. Let me savor you saying that for a moment.”
Kicking him gently, I earn his oof followed by a laugh. “The only place you get to boss me is in that room at the end of the hall. And it’s staying that way.”
Our eyes meet. Aiden swallows roughly. His hand wraps around my ankle, whispering up my calf. Soft. Sensual. My toes curl against the sofa cushion.
Aiden’s eyes search mine, as his hand drifts even higher. Gripping the laptop, he lifts it away, then sets it on the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” I ask quietly.
“Work can wait.”
“It can?”
He smiles softly and clasps my hand, tugging me until we’re side by side, my legs bent over his lap, his good arm wrapped around my waist. One soft kiss to my lips, before he pulls away and meets my eyes. “Come with me?” he asks.
I tip my head, curious. “Okay.”
Slowly, he stands from the sofa and tugs me along with him.
Horseradish and Pickles scamper along with us, tripping me up, so I bump into Aiden. He catches me on a laugh and lands with his back to the wall, my body tucked against his. Spinning, he leans into me and plants another gentle kiss to my lips, before dragging me the rest of the way into our bedroom.
“What are we doing?” I ask.
His expression dims, careful, guarded. “Shower with me?” He frowns, lifting his cast. “I’m tired of baths. And…I miss showering with you.”
A lump catches in my throat. As I step closer, I cradle his face and press a kiss to his cheek. “You have to wrap it.”
“Damn. I thought I could just lean dashingly half out of the shower and protect my arm.”
I laugh. “I’ll grab some plastic wrap and tape. You’ll still make it very dashing, have no worries.”
When I come back, Aiden’s sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at his feet. I walk toward him until we’re toe to toe. He doesn’t look up.
“Aiden?”
Suddenly, he wraps his arm around me and tugs me close, his head resting against my stomach. Stunned, I blink down at him, then carefully slip my fingers through his hair, hoping I can soothe whatever’s troubling him. “What is it?”
He sighs heavily, pressing a kiss to my stomach and resting his head against me, squeezing me to him tighter. “I have something I need to tell you.”
My pulse starts pounding as apprehension washes through me. He sounds so dejected. What could it possibly be?
“I�
��m listening,” I tell him.
“I’m going to tell you this way,” he says, still clutching me, head pressed to my stomach. “Because it’s easier for me.”
“Okay, Bear.”
“I said at marriage counseling, that my anxiety was affecting my sex drive.”
I tip my head and stare down at the crown of his head, willing myself to stay calm, to hear him and not imagine the worst, not that I can even imagine what that would be. “I remember.”
“I said that after you pointed out the physical distance between us, that I’d stopped initiating.”
I swallow the threat of tears. “Yes.”
“That was true.” He exhales slowly. “But it wasn’t all of the truth.”
My grip on him tightens as I wait for him to find the words. “It’s more than that,” he whispers. “It has been. And it’s not you, not about you at all,” he says roughly. “It’s…me. It’s my—” Scrunching his eyes shut, he presses his forehead to my hip, thumping it there softly.
“It’s my fucking brain, Freya. My anxiety’s been so goddamn bad that it messed with my ability to respond to you, and I felt broken and ashamed. And I didn’t know how to tell you without dashing your hopes for a baby. So I kept it to myself, because I hoped I could fix it before you noticed, before I’d have to try to explain…everything that was going so wrong. All the ways I felt I was failing you, our dreams, our plans.
“And then we were on vacation, trying to keep it together for your parents, and I couldn’t risk upsetting you, when I knew how much it meant to be a positive front around them. I’m sorry I kept it to myself for so long. I promise, you know it all now. Everything that I held in, everything I’ve been struggling with.”
I stand, reeling as his words sink in, as countless moments in our recent sex life flash before my eyes.