Cheater

9. Chloe

Sunday Night

I feel like I’m tiptoeing when I get into the townhome, but instead of things being quiet, Adam still has company. They’re lounging in the living room watching sports on TV. The coffee table is littered with beer cans, a stack of pizza boxes, and four chip bags. And the drink coasters sit, unused in their coaster holder.

I wave to the room which includes Adam, his brother Paul, best friend Craig, and our former neighbor Lawrence.

I get multiple greetings including hugs and cheek kisses from Adam’s guests, who each get up to hug me. After this, I move to Adam who is on the recliner. His chair is parked beside him otherwise he’d look like the Adam of seven months ago.

I haven’t seen him lounging on the furniture like this since it all happened. The only time he’s not in his wheelchair outside the bathroom is when he’s in bed or in the car. I lean over and he puts his hand to my jaw and kisses me. I drop a peck and am about to straighten up when he hooks his hand around the back of my neck and keeps me there to deepen the kiss. It lasts a few seconds before he looks directly into my eyes.

“Hi,” he whispers. “Welcome home.”

“Hey you,” I say.

I feel my chin wobble. I feel like I’m about to burst into tears. Because he hasn’t kissed me like this in months. Months and months.

“Have a good time?” he asks softly.

“Yeah, I did. I guess I kinda needed some girl time,” I say, somehow managing to keep my voice from completely cracking. It definitely trembles, though.

“Lots of food here if you’re hungry, Chloe,” Craig invites, gesturing to table. “We ordered your favorites, too.”

“Jalapeno poppers and mozzarella sticks?” I gasp with enthusiasm. I’m laying the enthusiasm on thick as these are Craig’s favorites and I’ve always ordered his favorites in the past, but the diversion is welcome.

“Of course,” Craig says and tugs my hand so that I fall onto the couch beside him. “Fried pickles, too. Stay with Alannah?” he asks me with his puppy dog eyes.

I smile. “You probably already know the answer to that, Detective. What do you wanna know?”

“She take anyone home from the bar this weekend?” he asks.

I snicker and zip my mouth with a pretend zipper.

“Killin’ me, Smalls,” he mutters, throwing his head back.

Craig is a cop. He’s pretty hot. And sweet. A little immature, but he’s had a thing for Alannah since day one and they started their little thing right after Adam’s accident. Adam complained a while ago about hating the idea of her stringing him along, but I set him straight. Alannah lays it all out on the table, wouldn’t pretend, wouldn’t let Craig think they were going to be something if they weren’t.

My guess is that she told him she was up for strictly friends with benefits, and he wants to change her mind but might be afraid of getting shot down.

“Nobody took anybody home from the bar this weekend,” I advise pointedly.

“So, Coraline and Jeffrey are still doing that dance, are they?” Lawrence asks, popping the tab on a beer and passing it to me. “For Adam,” he says. “You want one?”

I wave and shake my head as I pass Adam the beer. “No thanks. I’ve had enough alcohol poisoning this weekend, thank you very much.”

Adam takes a big gulp of the beer. And then he belches and doesn’t even excuse himself.

“Oh, I’m here for boys’ night so I don’t get manners?” I quip.

“You hang with us, you can’t be mad if we let ‘em rip, too,” Adam’s brother Paul warns.

“I neither want to smell your ass air, nor hear your ass fluttering to make that noise, thank you very much.”

The guys laugh.

Adam’s eyes slice to me. “We don’t make boys’ night rules, woman, just live by them. You’re here, you can’t get all judgy.”

There’s light in his eyes so I get to my feet, lean over, and blow a raspberry on his neck, which makes his eyes light up even more. I twist to lean over the coffee table and while I’m nabbing a mozzarella stick, Adam swats my butt.

I look over my shoulder at him and smile wide before I dredge my cheese stick in the open container of marinara sauce, and take a bite on my way to the fridge for a can of root beer.

I’m feeling hopeful when I get into bed. Adam’s already here, eyes on his phone. His friends left and he called out that he was heading to bed while I was cleaning the kitchen, which hadn’t been cleaned all weekend.

I know Adam’s still finding his way to independence and household chores have fallen on me, but Paul was here all weekend, too, so I didn’t expect to have to come home to such a mess. Almost every dish in the kitchen was dirty, so I ran a dishwasher load and still had to wash a whack of dishes by hand.

Even still, I’m in a good mood so I don’t even bitch about it.

I finish working lotion into my elbows and then fall onto the bed with a bounce. “Ah, a comfortable bed,” I say with relief. “Alannah’s guest room mattress has got to be at least forty years old.”

His eyes hit me and then go back to his screen.

“Did you have a good weekend?” I ask.

It’s a few seconds before he puts the phone down and looks at me. “Missed you,” he says, “But yeah. It was good.”

I move closer and put my head on his shoulder, then run my hand up his chest.

He doesn’t turn away, doesn’t stiffen up. This feels natural. This feels right. God, I’ve missed this.

Is it possible that a weekend apart was what we both really needed for perspective?

“Did you use it?” he asks.

He means the hall pass.

I stiffen as I look up at him. “No.”

“You had Friday and Saturday night.”

I stare with surprise at what has come out like a procrastination accusation. I move back and put my head on my own pillow, still looking at him.

“I don’t even know if I want to,” I say.

“But we talked about this.”

He’s pissed off?

“Yeah, and I listened to what you said. I thought it over. And I still don’t know if I want to do it. I don’t know if I can do it.”

I hate the look on his face. Like I’ve done something wrong by not having sex with someone this weekend.

“I’ve been in a committed relationship with you for a year and a half, Adam. I can’t just switch that off. Just suddenly start looking for fuck buddies.”

He makes a face of distaste. “You don’t need to be crass, Chloe.”

I throw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “I can’t believe you’re being so blasé about this.”

“I just thought you’d take the opportunity, like we discussed.”

“I’ve taken the opportunity to think about it. That’s what I agreed to do. I’ve never, not ever in my life met some guy at a bar and hooked up with him the same day. Never.”

“Whatever.” He repositions himself so I’ve got his back.

I stare for a minute in shock.

“Adam,” I snap.

“I’m tired, Chloe.”

“This is bullshit!” I snap. “Fucking bullshit!”

He doesn’t make a move to look at me. He says nothing, so I repeat, “Bullshit,” as I grab my pillow and storm out to go sleep on the couch.

Fifteen minutes or so later, I’m flicking the channels irately and needlessly, because I wouldn’t be able to focus on the TV even if I found the most amazing program ever created.

Adam rolls out and stops in front of me. “I’m sorry,” he says.

My eyes search his face. I don’t know what to make of all this. It’s like I don’t even know him anymore.

“You do realize we’re fighting because you’re mad that I didn’t fuck someone this weekend, right?”

“I just… Chloe… this is gonna sound screwed up but if you’d do it, then I can get through the mental shit attached to it.”

“Are you serious with me right now?” I sit up and gawk at him in shock.

He drags his hand through his hair frustratedly. “I know how it sounds and I’m sorry. But all weekend I was trying to come to terms with this. All weekend. Then you come home and tell me you didn’t do it, which means I get to keep waiting for the shoe to drop so I can figure out if I’m gonna be okay with it. ”

“If you’re gonna be…” I tilt my head. “You? This… this is just all about you, is it? Do you realize you’re bullying me into doing something that’s out of character for me and you want me to hurry up and do it so that you can figure out if you’re okay with it?”

He looks away with remorse before he responds. “And you. You’ve gotta figure out if you’re okay with it, too. It’s late. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Come back to bed. I’m sorry, okay?”

“No. Let’s talk about it now,” I amend. “I wanna know… what was all that when I got home? The playfulness. The sweet kiss. The ass swat. Was that all for show? For the guys? Not for me?”

He says nothing, just grinds his teeth.

“Yeah. That there?” I point at him. “That behavior tonight when I got home after being gone for forty-eight hours? That’s the kind of thing I’d be happy with. A nice kiss. Playfulness. Looking at me like I’m more than your fucking roommate.”

He looks like I’ve struck him. The pain etched into his features hurts me, too. “So… you want me to fake it?”

I huff. “Wow, Adam. Just wow.”

“Explain yourself, Chloe.”

“You faked it tonight for them, you can’t fake it once in a blue moon for me? Sadly, though, I wouldn’t call it faking it. I’d call it trying to be supportive, affectionate, and caring to your partner. Trying to give them some intimacy. But what do I know, right? I’m the selfish one. Right? Because I want to feel wanted. Because I didn’t run out and cheat the minute you gave me permission like a goddamn machine.”

He shakes his head with disgust. “You don’t know what I’m going through. You can’t possibly imagine what I’m going through, Chloe.”

“I know,” I say softly. “I’ve tried really hard, Adam, but I can’t know what you’re going through. All I know is that I’ve been trying really hard to be everything you want, everything you need, everything I think I’d want if I were the one in your position. And that’s all I can keep doing. I know you’re still going through it and I’m not trying to add to your stress, which is why I told you to forget the whole thing. Why I apologized to you for the vibrator incident. I fucked up. And I apologize for it.”

“But I’ve told you… I’ve told you that I don’t want to fake it. I need to wrap my head around how my life’s gonna be. And I want you beside me for it. I do. I want that as much as I did before.”

“Do you?” I ask, tearfully, feeling like my chest is about to cave in.

“Absolutely. I love you.”

“I love you, too. But I don’t need to cheat on you. I just need you to put in a little effort with me. I know it’s hard with all you’ve got going on, but I’m just asking for a little bit of effort.”

“Please, honey,” he pleads, “Try. Try it my way. Use the hall pass sometime in… say… the next two weeks. If you can, if you find someone to do that with, we’ll talk about it again in two weeks. Two weeks from tonight, you tell me you’ve done it and then we’ll both take the week after that to see how we feel about it. See how we both feel about setting a wedding date.”

I say nothing. Because he’s still pushing despite everything I’ve said. And it hurts. It hurts and it’s confusing.

“Deal?” he asks. “I’m not trying to bully you into doing something you don’t want. I think that if you can get over the idea of it meaning you’re a cheater you’ll see it could be the answer. I’ve thought about it a lot and I think it could work for us.”

I stare at him for a long moment through the tears in my eyes.

He waits while my heart twists up in knots.

“My parents have an open marriage,” he blurts.

I’m taken aback.

“Dad cheated. They almost split up. She wanted to work it out. He told her he couldn’t promise he’d be faithful. Asked her to leave the marriage open. He told me he was ninety-nine per cent sure she didn’t fool around with anyone. He also told me not feeling trapped with one person made it so he only occasionally stepped out. He said it saved their marriage. He loved her even more once they changed things up. Can you think about it? I know you’ve tried hard to put me first and I’m not trying to bully you. I’m trying to hold onto you. Think about it?”

I blow out a long breath.

“Deal?” he asks.

“I’ve thought about it. I’m still thinking about it,” I whisper.

“Try? Please try it my way.”

“I’ll try. But if I-”

“Just try.”

I nod.

“Thank you,” he says softly, pain in his eyes. “I know you don’t want to accept what’s happened to me, how it changes things, but you need to do that, Chloe. You need to understand that I’m asking you to do this for you, for both of us.”

I sigh.

“Coming to bed?” he asks.

“In a while,” I say softly.

He stares at me for a long moment before he nods and then motors away from me.