Breathe

by C. L. Matthews

  “She has a baby, Francis.”

  “Yes, and it’s none of your fucking business.”

  He’s right. Except for the most important part. It’s half of my husband. And after the expression on his face, I know he’s not unaware of that tidbit.

  “It is. Biologically, yes, that child is Toby’s.”

  He scrunches his face and turns. Pacing back and forth, he fists his palms with heated anger. After several back and forth strides, he raises and connects a fist with the wall, making a loud fucking sound. All of ten seconds pass before Toby bounds back in here. Fury and worry strain across his face, reminding me of the husband I’ve lost. He’s still there. Hidden, but there.

  “What the fuck?!” His words come out as an accusation, looking over me and then glaring at Francis. “Did you—”

  “No!” I hurry and reassure him. “Just got some bad news.”

  He looks over me as if he doesn’t believe me. Of course, he doesn’t. Why would he? I constantly lie to him. He grips Francis by the arm. “Nothing makes you this angry. Not unless it involves Gray.”

  When Francis refuses to look at Toby, I make sure to peer elsewhere. My lying skills, in spite of Toby, are great. My capabilities when it’s something like this? Below average.

  He sidesteps his best friend, and for the first time in nearly a year, he touches my chin. “Tell me, Sous,” he practically spits with the calmest tone known to man, using a pet name that makes my thighs clench automatically. “What is it that he’s furious about? We both know it isn’t your best friend, or you’d be more upset.”

  I attempt to shake from his grip and piercing eyes, but he holds me steady. He even leans in closer. Too close. Way too fucking close. I can smell him. That intoxicating scent that brought me peace and salvation once upon a time. It’s so spicy and male and Toby. It’s him, and I couldn’t imagine a more potent scent.

  “H-He,” I try, looking at Francis behind him.

  “Don’t look at him,” Toby criticizes, gripping my chin harder. My lips part with the sensation of him touching me. “What did I tell you? Your eyes belong here.” In his eyes, a familiar heat simmers. It’s something I thought died long ago, withering away just like our love, but here it is, festering in those hazel eyes that have scolded me more times than my own father’s.

  “L-Loren,” I stutter, knowing as soon as her name leaves my lips, it’d be the end of this skin-to-skin connection that feels like home when it should be anything but. No matter how much he has hurt me, he’s still my comfort. My love for him runs scarily deep. No matter how riddled with diseases and decay, it’s filled to the brim for this man, and I can’t seem to let go.

  His hand falls from me, his eyes almost appearing haunted.

  “So you went there with malcontent?” he grits, his jaw once again hard. “Did you hurt her?”

  I stare aghast at the accusation. Hurt her? Was he fucking joking? She hurt me. Not with just the information of biology, but with her power over my husband. How could he think I’d incite pain on that woman and her child?

  “You bastard,” I growl. “You goddamn bastard.” My hands fist and fly to his chest. I know it’s wrong. I know no one should ever raise a hand to anyone. I know it’ll cause damage that isn’t physical, but I can’t stop the pain flowing through me toward his chest. “I hate you! So much! Fuck you!” The words are hysteric, just like me and the tears drowning me. The pain is vital and real. The ache ripping open into a cavern of self-loathing and disgust.

  “Joey,” Francis tries, but my vision is too blurry. The tears won’t stop, and the hurt won’t ease, and the hatred won’t go away.

  Toby grips my fists and holds them as if they’re as precious as they are despicable. If he knew just how much damage these hands have caused me in the last year, would he care? He doesn’t even know I started cutting again. That my mental health sank because of his lack of care. His tactless cheating and unredeemable behavior left me on the verge of suicide, but he doesn’t see me.

  The ice queen. The frigid. The invisible.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Earlier That Week

  Lo

  Life hands you cards.

  Pick a card, any card! It doesn’t warn you they are placed for our ruin, and it’s up to us to make sure we win and they do not.

  “Peaches,” Jase says, smacking my mind back to focus. I’m cooking street tacos. Whether Ace will admit it or not, he lives for coming home during his breaks to eat my food. He’s jaded, my baby boy. Since Jase and I fell apart six years ago, he has been this hollow version of himself. It’s only when we’re alone and watching movies that my little man comes out. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him smile and even longer since I’ve witnessed him laugh.

  The only time he truly breaks free is when no one is watching and he’s outside with Jazzy and Lev. Jazz is a teen now, it hasn’t been as worrisome as I’d have imagined. She’s soft-spoken, kind, and needy.

  It only hurts wondering if all the pain Jase and I caused will ruin her for when she’s older. Codependency has its downfalls. One of them being falling in love. When Jase is gone for more than a few hours at nights, she gets skittish.

  She has a lot of friends, and when they fight, the world tends to be ending in her eyes.

  It scares me for her future.

  Maybe I’m a glutton for anxious thoughts, but all I want for my babies is happiness.

  “You okay there?” Jase muses, carrying a dirty Lev. He’s smudged from head to toe in ink.

  “I’m about to ask you the same,” I say on a laugh. Lev hides behind his dad, and I know he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. “What did you get yourself into, mister?” Lev refuses to look at me, and Jason just chuckles.

  “As you can tell, he’s been sneaking into the office and playing with my signature stamp.” He kisses our boy on his nose, and my heart melts. It’s like Lev reset something in Jase. Even while his temples gray a little, showing his age, he’s taking being a new-again dad with ease, and I’m somehow more in love with him.

  These past few years, I struggled. The overwhelming feeling of not being enough killed me. That’s why he stopped running Collins & Co, stepping down so I could become a full-time chef. It took him time to adjust, but it was well worth it.

  Counseling saved us.

  Love fixed us.

  Our pain brought us closer.

  When Jase places loud kisses on Lev’s cheeks, he giggles and stops hiding. “There’s my little prince.”

  “Mama,” he coos, and my heart feels like it’s being squeezed in all the right ways.

  “That’s right, baby,” I say, kissing his little nose. Diving into his sides with my fingers, I make him break out into a fit of laughter.

  When I look past Jase, I see my other baby boy, who claims he’s not a baby anymore. “Hey, baby boy.” He rolls his eyes, and I melt. He never does that anymore. It’s like the world—my damage—hid the mundane emotions in a barrier of hatred.

  Jase turns to greet Ace, but his expressionless mask is back in place, and I’m still unsure how to fix any of that. It hurts to see them against each other. “Will you wash up Lev?” I ask him, wanting a moment with Jase to tell him what happened today.

  Or rather, what has been unfolding for a while without really realizing it. After Toby signed Su Casa over to me three years ago, my life changed for the better. Jase had finally transferred the reins to Jeremiah, and it was my turn to work. Somehow, the business fell into my lap.

  I wanted to reach out to tell him thank you and ask him why, after all this time, did he believe in me.

  The worst part, I wanted to tell him about Lev.

  His son.

  Tears prick my eyes as Ace grabs his little brother. His mask doesn’t drop until he’s nearing the corner, then he’s like the rest of us, wrapped around Lev’s little finger. The power that little boy has over us all is freeing in every way.

  Jason grabs my hips and kisses me, t
aking my mind away for a breath. He consumes me, leaving me breathless as his lips own mine once again. It’s like this every time—my body gets hot, and my heart beats a little too quickly.

  I’m madly in love with him.

  My heart beats to watch his do the same.

  “Fuck, I missed you today.”

  “I missed you, too,” I whisper against his lips. He gives me one more before smacking my ass. When I yelp, a mischievous smile comes over him, and I’m stuck in my mind, wondering how I could be in this place.

  Happy.

  In love.

  Alive.

  “I met someone today,” I mention when he starts setting the table. Since we went to counseling and struggled through our issues, we made it our mission to have dinners together—all of us—always talking. No phones or technology are allowed.

  The moments around this table are just us.

  Our family.

  “Yeah? Is that why you were gone?” he asks with a smile.

  “How—”

  “Came home to surprise you with a little one-on-one time,” he teases with a smirk. God, I’ve missed that smirk. We rarely have time to fool around with Lev so still young and disastrous. He gets into everything. When we do, it’s usually a fast fucking against the shelves in the pantry or him eating me out while I’m on the dryer, pretending to do laundry. As always, though, my favorite times are when Lev is at Millie’s, and Jase spends every waking moment inside me.

  It’s like we’re teens again, unable to stop pushing boundaries, not wanting to spare a moment.

  “Don’t pout, Peaches. I have it on good authority that Lev, Jazzy, and Ace have a date with their grandparents tomorrow.” My face heats, and he saunters over to me, taking my mouth again, sending shivers up and down my spine. “And tomorrow, when they’re gone, I’m going to fuck you so hard, you’ll be feeling me for days.”

  A moan shakes free, and it almost makes me forget why I needed Ace to take Lev. Shaking my lustful fog that Jase has no issue putting me in, I press a hand to his chest to force some distance. He’s the best distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.

  “For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking with a local chef. Her and her husband are looking to expand into Hollow Ridge, and she asked me for my opinion.” His eyebrows shoot up, almost as if he’s as surprised as me.

  “Why you?”

  “She had the same teacher as me in culinary school,” I say, wondering out loud. “Which maybe piqued my interest a little.”

  He laughs lightly. “That or you were happy someone cares about food as much as you do.”

  Smacking his arm softly, I watch him grab a finger full of guac and pop it in his mouth. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Yet you love me,” he teases.

  “You’re distracting me, Jase,” I complain, shooing him away from the food.

  “Okay, Peaches. Talk,” he mocks, leaning against the kitchen table. His legs are widened, lazy, and fogging my brain a little too much. Closing my eyes for resolve, I finally open them to a smirking Jase with that tongue-in-cheek look I adore so much. “So, what happened?” He gestures for me to keep going.

  “She showed up as I was ordering and told me she had to use the bathroom. After a half hour, I got nervous and went inside, and she wasn’t there. She made a huge deal about this meetup and then basically stood me up.”

  “That’s odd,” he muses, scratching his head. “Did she seem on drugs? Maybe one of Nate’s—”

  “No, no, nothing like that. She was young, seemed really nice, but something made her not come back to the table.”

  “Maybe she was too nervous to meet her idol?”

  “Perhaps,” I accept with a shrug. “But when I went on Facebook to ask her what was up, her profile was deactivated.”

  “Well, if there’s a red flag, that would be it,” Jase sounds out, and when I go to respond, Lev comes running into the kitchen in his little dinosaur jammies and wet brown hair. During these moments, he looks so much like Toby that it physically hurts.

  Would he forgive me if it came out about Lev?

  Would he hate me more?

  Would he want to take him away from me?

  My heart shatters with that. No, that’ll never happen. Not ever.

  “Mama!” Lev yells and bounds into my arms. “Ace-y said I could have ice cream after dinner if I was good in the tub.”

  “Were you good, little prince?” Jason asks from beside me. Lev looks at his dad with a toothy grin and nods.

  “He only soaked the entire ground,” Ace admits. “I’d say, he’s a charming little prince.” I smile at my son, seeing the light and dark battle inside his ocean eyes, wondering when they became so dreary and dejected. He’s not the little boy who drank hot cocoa and cuddled with me when I was sad.

  He’s tragic and beautiful, and I wish I could fix the past and make his heart glow again. He’ll find the person who does that, and when he does, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.

  “Tacos?” Jazzy asks, slipping under Ace’s arm. She’s grown so much in the past five years. She’s sassy and spunky, but also quiet and reserved.

  It’s like she’s in the middle of the battle of her life, and all for something I can’t offer her, so all I can do is try to understand and guide her. But we’re not close. Not like her and Ace, and definitely not like her and her father.

  Our dynamic is hard, but I’ll never stop trying.

  When we’re all seated at the table with the tortillas I made from scratch sitting in the center, and the garnishes and extras sitting in a circle around it, we all dig in. It isn’t until we’re all into our second and third tacos that Jazzy speaks up.

  “Bobbie called today,” she admits. The immediate feeling that overtakes me is dread. But she wouldn’t call Jazzy to tell us Nate is dead. She wouldn’t... right? Heat and cold fight for power over my skin. Heat from worry, cold from that numbness that always tries to burst free of the confines I’ve locked it in.

  “Yeah, she said Nate is doing better, but it’s Toby she’s worried about.” My eyes burn with awareness. Bobbie and I connected three years ago. When Toby gave me the restaurant, she reached out, telling me that he fell into his vices. He’d been going to Alcoholics Anonymous for months, and the only step he couldn’t quite accept was making amends. Step eight. She reached out because Nate and Toby stayed close, being accountable together, trying to overcome.

  Is Toby drinking again?

  Did his spiral happen because I ruined him?

  Choices.

  We all have them.

  Why does guilt make me believe I forced some of his?

  “Why’s that, baby?” I ask, not hinting to anything, but the way Jase grips his glass tells me I’m not being as subtle as I want to be. Regret for what happened with Toby eats me alive constantly. How could it not? I gave birth to his child.

  While Jase and I decided not to have a test done, I took one when Lev was two and started looking more like Toby than Jase. When Jason found the papers, we fought a lot. We ended up going back to therapy because, at that moment, I broke his trust.

  Now, Jase accepts that Toby is biologically Lev’s father, but he is his dad. Always will be.

  “Uncle Frankie says he doesn’t go home sometimes and disappears randomly. Bobbie only confirmed the same. She has tried getting in contact, but he ignores her. While she doesn’t believe she has a duty to keep pushing, she cares about him.”

  I nod, wondering when my daughter got close to Francis, Bobbie, and Nate, all while I feel out of the loop.

  “How’s Nate?” I ask, deflecting the attention from the taboo subject of my ex-best friend.

  “He’s thirty-seven days clean,” she answers after she swallows some Pepsi. I stare at my daughter who mirrors me in every way but our hair. She’s blonde like her father, but as she ages, she’s looking less and less like me and growing into a beautiful young woman. It makes me choke up to think that in only five years, she’ll be leaving
for college, too.

  “That’s good,” I try, tears blurring my vision.

  When will the pain become easier to bear?

  Will I ever overcome the havoc I brought upon the ones I love?

  Can I fix my soul and spread the tide, in hopes I won’t be eternally damned?

  My face flames, feeling someone watching me, and when I look up, it’s Jase.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Breathe.

  He moves his lips with my mantra, and a few salty droplets leave my eyes.

  “I love you,” he mouths, and I fall in love again and again, wondering how two lost souls could break so much, yet always find each other again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Present

  Toby

  As she brushes her teeth, I pace the floor outside the bathroom. Not sure how I did, but I convinced Frankie to leave without any more arguments or fighting. Told him—promised—I wouldn’t hurt her. Not that I’d ever raise my hand to her for anything other than what she wanted. She liked being manhandled a little in the bedroom, but I’d never physically hurt her otherwise.

  Why did she see Lo? Why do I hate my best friend? Why does my blood boil with the need to fuck my wife and remind her that no one will ever be me and can’t satisfy her like I do?

  My body is hot as hell, my skin inflamed, and the hangover hammering into my head doesn’t help matters. I’m so pissed I can barely function.

  After my girl sobbed, holding onto me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time, I couldn’t hold back. It’s like her icy exterior defrosted and started to melt for me. She showed me more passion and pain in those five minutes than she’s offered since our separation.

  She’s so fucking beautiful.

  I hate it.

  I despise how radiant she is even while being a mess. It’s insanity, knowing she’ll always own this important part of me.

  She does. She owns me, every fucking inch.

  Even last night when Jameson helped me fuck Bry, it was Joey I was fucking in my mind. She has the power. All of it. She could destroy me, and sometimes, that’s all I want.