“Did you come, too?” she whispered.
“Of course,” I lied.
She raised her head and looked at me for a second, then slid off me and went to the bathroom. I rolled over and, when she came back a few minutes later, pretended to be asleep.
IT WAS JUST after six on Wednesday evening, and Abby and I lay on the floor. We hadn’t made it to the bed—deeming the extra few meters an unnecessary obstacle course, a waste of precious time. When I’d got home from work, she’d surprised me by walking down the stairs dressed only in emerald green, satiny underwear.
I’d fleetingly wondered what had gotten into her, but then realized we could have sex for the second time in four days. Seeing as my performance hadn’t been great on Sunday morning, I stopped wondering and started doing.
Afterward, I stretched my arms out, momentarily too exhausted to get up, exhaled deeply and pulled some clean towels from a plastic laundry basket barely within my reach. I covered Abby’s shoulders with the warm fabric. She shivered and raised her head from where it had been nestled on my chest.
“Hey,” she said, smiling, “I just folded those.”
My fingers traced the length of Abby’s back, and she sighed as she propped herself up on one elbow. I noticed the shadows under her eyes and realized she probably wasn’t sleeping well again. Before I could ask her what was going on, she said, “How was your day?”
“Ugh,” I groaned, not wanting to spoil the afterglow with stories about the office.
“That bad?” She wrinkled her nose.
“Nah,” I said. “Business as usual, you know? Got another deal done today. That’s four in less than a fortnight.”
“Congrats, Nate,” she said and kissed my chest. “Fantastic.”
I had to agree it was a pretty great result. I’d worked in recruitment for more than two decades, started fresh out of uni. But it was hardly earth-shattering stuff. I couldn’t say I hated my job, nor was I exactly passionate about it. I’d always been envious of people who said they loved what they did, or they’d always known what they wanted to do with their lives, what they wanted to be. On the other hand, I made good money, was a recession veteran, had worked my way up the corporate ladder to IT Sales Director. I could hardly whine.
My fingers slid through Abby’s silky hair. “How about you? You okay?”
She blinked three times. Slowly. “I’m fine.” A small smile. “Everything’s fine.”
She looked about as fine as I did when my brother, Paul, set fire to my hair at church one Christmas. Accidentally, of course, or so he’d claimed. “You sure?”
I should’ve bet money on her answer.
“Yep.”
Ka-ching!
She got up and reached for my hastily discarded boxer shorts, which now dangled off the side of the bed. As she passed them to me her face relaxed again, and she winked. I smiled back and watched as she slipped on her underwear, T-shirt and jeans. When Abby bent over to pick up the towels I’d pulled out of the basket, I clung to mine as if it had the makings of a magic carpet.
Abby was a bit of a neat freak. Okay, a lot of a neat freak. She was the epitome of the saying, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Except her version included family, friends and, I’d come to accept after all this time, feelings. She was better at keeping the lid on stuff than Tupperware. I’d acknowledged a long time ago I’d never completely know my wife, however much I wanted to, or tried.
“So Sarah’s at Claire’s again?” I said. “They working on that tire project?”
“Oh, Nate.” Abby laughed. “You’re so wonderfully naive. I bet you five pounds they’ll gossip far too late and barely make it to school on time.”
I grinned. How our daughter continually pulled A’s out of her bag was a mystery to me. She definitely got her brains from her mother because I’d battled like a bastard for every B I’d brought home.
Abby dumped the briefly used towels into the laundry basket (neat freak alert), then said, “I don’t feel like cooking tonight. Shall we get some food in? I fancy Indian.”
I gave her two thumbs-up and made an attempt to move. “Deal. I’ll go.”
She held out a hand in a stay-put gesture. “I’m dressed. You chill out, okay? There’s some wine and beer in the fridge.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed her hand and kissed it. “How kind of you, my beloved.”
“Anything for you, husband dearest.” She curtsied and laughed.
And with that, she was gone, leaving me lying on the floor with a tepid towel, wondering why her laugh had somehow sounded a touch too loud.
AFTER CLOSING THE front door behind me I cast a surreptitious glance toward Liam’s house, hoping he was outside and I’d catch a glimpse. Seconds later I cursed myself for thinking about him again and got in Nate’s car before easing it out of the driveway, forcing myself to keep my eyes—and all of my thoughts—away from Liam and on the road.
A few minutes into my trip to the Funky Bombay restaurant my shoulders dropped. I switched on the radio and hummed along to a tune that sounded suspiciously like what once had been Sarah’s favorite boy band, but whose name I could never remember. I grinned and thought I’d better not tell her or she’d make fun of me until Christmas, chastising me for never knowing what was and, more important, what wasn’t trendy.
The band had lost its prime position on Sarah’s bedroom wall years ago, replaced by some young actor who sported a curly mop of long, dark hair and a sullen expression. I told Sarah I thought he was smokin’, and she’d looked at me with wide eyes until I’d laughed, saying at her age I used to think my mum was dead from the neck down. Although in my mother’s case it might actually have been true.
Sarah and I had been getting along far better the past couple of days, especially after she’d let slip what she thought of Zac.
“Honestly, Mum,” she said Monday after school, “he’s an idiot. You should have seen the way he looked at me on Saturday. Really, he’s, like, a total douche.”
Normally I might have said, “So is he like a total douche or is he a total douche?” But instead of making a snide remark about her grammar I tried not to punch the air. “Sounds like you weren’t impressed.” I crossed my fingers and hoped she’d keep talking.
She did. “I mean, he’s okay-looking...”
My heart sank a little. “Even with the fluffy brown hair and caramel highlights?”
“I know.” She tutted. “Highlights, but they looked good. And I’m pretty sure every single supermodel in the world would kill for his cheekbones, and that he can stuff his face with five slices of pizza and be that fit.”
“Five?”
“Uh-huh. I counted. God, if I ate that much my bum would be bigger than Wales.” She exhaled deeply. “Anyway, so he’s, like, on his third slice already and I comment on his T-shirt. He had that Call of Duty one, you know?” I shook my head and Sarah continued, “Anyway, I said it was cool...”
“Let me guess, he didn’t like the compliment?”
“Hah.