by A. Aubry
“Really? That’s so cool! What happened next?” I answered him and tickled his round belly.
He squealed loudly and continued his story. One last snap of his car seat and he was good to go. I pulled the canopy over his seat to block the sun from his eyes and tapped on the musical toy that rested against the seat that Leo’s car seat sat on. I closed the door just as Leo started to squeal at his favorite toy in my car.
“So, you’ll pick him up Thursday night after work?” I turned to face Julianna.
“Yeah, I’ll probably be there around 5:30-5:45 depending on traffic. If you could feed him dinner for me, that would be great. That way when I get him home I can just start his bedtime routine right away.”
I’ll do anything for you.
I began to take a step forward, closer to Julianna but stopped myself and returned to my spot next to the car, “He’ll have a full belly and will be waiting for you on Thursday night then.”
She looked hesitant as she swallowed hard, “Thanks, I really appreciate it. You two have fun and don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything or something happens.”
I’m his father, not his babysitter, Jules.
“I will. Julianna?” The second part slipped out.
“Yeah, Finn?” Her head tilted in the adorable way that she did it and my heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t leave until Saturday afternoon for Sunday’s game. Would you want to maybe grab dinner with me on Friday night? We can talk about Leo and how we want our arrangement to continue down the line,” I nervously clenched and unclenched my hands at my sides.
She narrowed her eyes, “You sure that’s all we’re gonna talk about?”
I sighed, “I’d love to talk about us too. Work this out between us, but I know you want to be focused on Leo right now. So that can take a back burner. He is the main priority.”
“Let’s keep it about Leo right now, but dinner sounds good. Let me know when and where and I’ll find a sitter for him.”
She said yes!
“Okay, will do. Bye, Julianna.”
I climbed into the car and backed down the driveway. As Julianna’s figure grew smaller until it disappeared in my rearview mirror, I let out a breath that I had apparently been holding. I looked in my rearview mirror down at the mirror that showed me Leo in his car seat.
“Do you want me and mommy to get back together, big guy?” I cooed to him.
He screamed loudly with a smile on his face.
“I’m going to take that as a yes. Don’t worry…I’ll win her back.”
That is a promise.
It was a sad day when your six-month-old son was better company than most of your friends. When I wasn’t at work for practice and Leo wasn’t at daycare because I was at practice, my entire time was spent with him. He really did have a good grasp on tummy scooting and I could’ve sworn that he was getting ready to crawl at one point as he got up into position. Sadly, he just fell down…but he was so close!
Over the last few days before Julianna picked up Leo, we had been texting about dinner. All I had told her was to dress nice and that I would pick her up. It was a bold request but she accepted. I had gotten us reservations at a fancy Italian place downtown, one that was reminiscent of our first date. If I was going to win my wife back, I needed to go big or go home.
The only problem was that I was failing to find something to wear. I didn’t want to go with the full suit and look as though I was trying too hard, but I also didn’t want to look like I wasn’t trying at all. That was why I was currently on a three-way call with Cooper and Ashton.
“Guys, seriously, I really don’t want to look like an idiot tonight,” I sighed as I sat down on the bed that I couldn’t look at as mine.
“Well, you ruled out suit and you do not want to show up at the place in jeans, what else do you have?” Cooper asked.
I shrugged, knowing they couldn’t see it, “I have dress slacks. I could wear a black pair of those.”
“What did you wear on your first date?” Ashton questioned.
“Uh, why?”
“Because if you want to win your wife back, make her remember your very first date. Violet fucking swoons whenever I mention anything from the beginning of our relationship.”
It wouldn’t hurt to try that. I got up and went into my closet to grab my black dress slacks, white button up shirt, and black blazer.
“Okay, well I’m going to get changed and head over there. Wish me luck tonight, boys.”
“You don’t need it, man. Julianna loves you. She’s just pissed as fuck at you right now for the right reasons, but she still loves you,” Cooper answered.
Ashton laughed, “Not sure why she loves you, but it’s apparent how much she does.”
I rolled my eyes, “Thanks, guys. I’ll call you later and let you know how it went.”
We said our goodbyes and I quickly got dressed. After I sent a text over to Julianna that I was on my way, I headed out the door. Tonight was the night that I needed to change everything back to the way that it was. I lost my family, but there was no way that I wasn’t going to fight for it. The whole drive to the house, my mind was racing. Not even the music on the radio could distract me from how I wanted this night to go.
As soon as I pulled into the driveway, I took a deep steadying breath. It was important that I looked calm and collected. I didn’t want to scare off Julianna before I had an opportunity to win her back.
I got out of the car and took my time to walk up to the door. My nerves were even worse than when we went on our first date. At that point in time, Julianna wasn’t exactly mine to lose just yet. Now, she was everything to me and if I lost her, I’d lose everything. Taking one last step to the door, I knocked, waiting for Julianna to answer.
The second that she opened the door, my breath was taken away like the first time I saw her, hell even the second time. Maybe that was because she was wearing the same exact black dress and black flats that she had worn on our first date. And she looked as beautiful as ever.
“Woah, déjà vu,” Julianna said, her eyes wide when she caught a glimpse of what I was wearing.
“And you still look as beautiful as ever in that dress,” I smiled.
Her cheeks dusted pink and I knew that I did something right for once. Julianna turned to pick her black clutch up off the table before she went to our son.
“You be good, sweet boy. Mommy will be back soon. I love you,” she kissed his head.
When Leo looked over at me, I waved and his responding smile told me that everything was going to be okay. Julianna turned back to where I stood and joined me on the stoop outside before she began to close the door.
“Keep her out as long as you want!” Angie’s voice yelled out after us.
Julianna rolled her eyes and sighed, “Sorry about that, you know how Angie is.”
I laughed. If it were up to me, I would follow Angie’s suggestion, “Yep, she definitely hasn’t changed one bit.”
Julianna followed me to where my car was parked in the driveway. Hopping into the car, I backed out of the driveway and drove in the direction of the restaurant that I hoped would bring Julianna back to me.
“She has changed one little bit…” Julianna looked out the window.
It took me a second to realize that she was still talking about Angie.
“How so?”
“Her and Bo got engaged.”
Took him long enough.
“So, he finally did it. It’s about damn time. He’s been holding onto that ring for months.”
Her head turned away from the window to look at me, “You knew about it?”
I pulled up to a red light and looked over at her, “Of course I knew about it. Bo is my best friend. Even asked me to be his best man at the wedding for whenever he did pop the question.
A small smile pulled at her lips, “Yeah, Ang asked me to be her maid of honor.”
“Very fitting since you two are best friends.”
&
nbsp; Julianna pursed her lips as she nodded before turning her attention back to the window. I easily pulled the car into a space and waited for Julianna to join me on the curb once I was out of the car. She looked up at the sign and bit her lip.
“I hope you still like Italian,” I smiled and led her to the front door.
“Really going for the first date vibes, aren’t you?” She teased quietly.
I chuckled as I held the door open for her. I let the hostess know that we were there for our reservation and we were quickly escorted back to our table. Julianna was quiet as she looked at the menu until the waitress came to take our orders. Once all was said and done, I followed Julianna’s lead and took a sip of my water.
“Why did you cheat on me?” Julianna’s voice was so soft it was almost a whisper.
I nearly choked on my water. That was a question I was not expecting this evening, she seemed rather adamant that she wanted this to be about Leo.
“I thought we were here to talk about Leo?”
“And we will, but we need to talk about this first,” Julianna took a deep breath and put her hands on the table, “Now, Finn. Why did you cheat on me?”
“To be honest, it felt nice to be wanted again,” I stopped from continuing as I saw the waitress approach our table, choosing now to fill our waters.
Julianna pursed her lips and waited for her to leave before she asked her next question, “What do you mean wanted again?”
Okay, moment of truth time. She will probably hate me after this.
“After Leo was born and I was back to work, it was like I took a back seat. You were always worried about Leo or talking about Leo whenever I was home. The only time that I could get you to shut up about him was when we had sex. Then I knew that you were focused on me and me alone.”
Julianna took a second to consider my answer before she replied, “Finn, the only reason I talked about Leo so much to you was because you were gone a lot. You have practice during the day, away games where you’re gone for a few days at a time. You miss things. You missed his first tooth finally pushing through, you missed when he first held a bottle all by himself. I thought if I filled you in when you got home on everything that we had done or what he had done, then you wouldn’t feel like you missed out on those things.”
Wait, so she did it so that I wouldn’t feel left out? Why the hell did I think she was talking about it and not caring what I thought about it?
“It does hurt me to miss those things. It also hurts me to be away from my wife. When I come home, yes, rundowns of what happened with Leo are nice, but what I want is for my wife to tell me that she missed me. All I wanted was for us to snuggle on the couch and watch movies like old times when Leo went to bed. I didn’t want to lose what we had before he was born,” I admitted.
Damn, did it feel good to get that off my chest or what?
Julianna sighed, “We weren’t going to lose that part of ourselves. Yes, I doted on our son a little too much, but I was trying to make up for the fact that his father was traveling and couldn’t be there with him. This is all a learning experience for me as much as it is for you, Finn. Leo is our first child; all parents spoil their first kid with love and attention and neglect each other slightly. It takes some time for adjusting to finding the right balance.”
She was making some sense.
“Okay…I get that now…”
I watched as she took a drink and cleared her throat.
“Did you have sex with Victoria?”
Fuck.
“Nothing past oral.”
She furrowed her brows in disgust, “Now all I’m gonna think about is your mouth on another girl and your fingers in another girl when I look at you.”
Wait, what? I never touched Victoria like that.
“Julianna, I never did anything to her.”
“You just said nothing past oral.”
Okay, yeah that did sound bad.
“Okay, let me rephrase that, nothing past foreplay.”
“That’s the same damn thing!” She whispered angrily at me.
“No, it’s not. I never touched her besides her thighs and maybe her breasts once or twice.”
Her eyes rolled, “They looked much better than mine.”’
Oh, baby, they were nothing like yours.
“Hers were fake, not as good as your real ones.”
Her mouth practically hit the floor.
“So what, you just let her suck your cock?” Her mouth quickly shut and she glanced around to see if anyone heard her.
I looked down at my water glass, “She only gave me hand jobs.”
“God, you’re disgusting,” Julianna said, hiding her face in her hands.
This was going worse than I thought.
“I felt like you didn’t want me, Jules. What the hell was I supposed to do when a girl stuck her hand down my pants and jacked me off?”
“Uh, I don’t know? Maybe say, stop I’m married?” She shook her head at me.
“I told her that! Do you think I wouldn’t tell someone that I’m married? I wore my fucking wedding ring around her all the damn time! She didn’t give a fuck.”
For what reason, I wasn’t sure why. It was like it turned her on that I was married.
Julianna stood up from her chair, the legs making a loud sound as they scraped across the floor, “I want to go home.”
She took her belongings and left the restaurant before I could stop her. We had obviously been making a scene because people around us were staring. The waitress came back, and I handed her way more cash than was necessary, saying that we didn’t want our food, and went back in search of Julianna. I panicked when I didn’t see her standing out front, but I heard her soft cries and I followed the sound around the building. Julianna was fiercely wiping at her cheeks as she cried.
“Julianna,” I said softly.
“Finn, this can’t work between us,” she whispered.
We could make it work, I wanted to make it work.
“And why not?”
“Because if you loved me, you wouldn’t have let a girl do that just because you felt like I didn’t want you. You didn’t fucking talk to me about how you felt. Am I supposed to read your damn mind now? Did I become psychic at some point in time and you know it, but I don’t?”
This was true. I hadn’t talked to her about how I was feeling. I felt like she wouldn’t listen…
“But I do love you. I love you more than anything in the world.”
“Then why didn’t you fucking talk to me?!” She said a little too loudly, her voice echoing off the small alleyway around us.
“Because I’m fucking stupid, okay? I followed my fucking hormones and they led me in the wrong fucking direction.”
I had no other excuse. I was stupid. Only my stupidity would push me in that direction.
She finally looked at me, “You can’t say that. I still had sex with you whenever you wanted to. I never told you no.”
This was also true. She was more than willing to jump into bed with me. She was just never really in it mentally when we were doing it.
I moved closer to her, “In my mind, you weren’t all in it. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did. I thought if you didn’t want to take care of me like that then fine. That was when I met Victoria because her dad is our medical coach. She practically threw herself at me. My body and mind reverted to its old ways of all the girls before you and found that attractive.
“The more time that I spent with her, the more I realized that I didn’t want anything with her, I wanted things with you. The night that you caught us at Yard House, I told her that we couldn’t do it anymore. I was going to come home and talk to you about all of this. You probably still would’ve fucking hated me like you told me you did that night, but at least I would’ve come clean to you then.”
Julianna shook her head, her voice scarily soft, “I didn’t tell you that I hated you.”
“What?”
“That night, when I
caught you, I didn’t tell you I hated you.”
She must have…she obviously fucking hates me.
“I could have sworn you did, it felt like you did. My heart was so broken over how I had hurt you like that. I didn’t mean for it all to get that far. When Victoria first kissed me, I thought hey okay someone to just kiss every once in a while. But they weren’t your kisses, Julianna. They weren’t the ones that make my heart skip a beat or send electricity through my veins.
“Every time that I came home to you and you greeted me with a kiss, or I came over to whatever you were doing and you puckered your lips at me, that was one of the highlights of my day. You don’t understand what the fuck you do to me. Hell, I barely understand what the fuck you do to me. I will fight tooth and nail to get you back if I have to, Julianna. Not just because we have a son together but because I fucking love you.”
A bigger weight had never been lifted off of my shoulder than that one. Julianna’s eyes got wide as I spoke, and I knew I was finally getting through to her.
“Why do you love me?”
That was the one question that I was hoping she would ask.
“Because you are you. You’re sarcastic, funny, smart, sassy, stubborn as all hell. You are incredibly sexy, and you take amazing care of our son. I love you because I know that you love me too and you will do whatever it takes for me to know that. I was an asshole, I shouldn’t have done what I did. It’s too late for me to take it back now. We can either move forward from this, or we can just let each other go. But I will never love anybody like I love you. I will never want anybody as much as I want and need you in my life.”
She looked pissed and I was preparing for her to slap me.
“God damn it, Finn!” Julianna reached and gripped my shirt before bringing me in close to her and kissing me hard.
I lost all control as I gently pushed her back against the building and silently begged for her mouth to open. The second her mouth allowed my tongue to meet hers, I seized the opportunity. Julianna groaned quietly and I needed to feel her against me in any way that I could. My hands carefully loosened her grip on my shirt before I laced our fingers together and pinned her hands against the wall behind her.