Chapter 36
CONNOR
“Where’s Dred tonight?” Meems asks as Norm and Ethel fuss over her, making sure she’s comfortable before they leave us to eat.
“She’s visiting a friend.”
Meems brightens. “Her Babes?”
I smile. “Uh, no, she’s playing board games with Flip,” I explain.
“Ah.” She nods knowingly. “And how do you feel about that?”
“He’s her best friend.”
“That’s who he is, not how you feel,” she presses.
I cut my parmesan green bean in half and spear it with my fork. “He’s her family. They’ve been a support system for each other for a long time.”
She widens her eyes and waits.
“I mean, obviously I’m jealous. But I know there’s nothing going on between them.” Mildred sleeps beside me every night. I’m the only man who gets to touch her, kiss her, love her. But I’ve never said those words. “Their friendship is easy. They’re very close.”
“She’s an easy person to love,” Meems says.
“She is,” I agree. I want to claim her forever. To make her love me back. “But I’m not.”
“That’s not true,” she argues.
“My father hates me.”
She sighs, her expression softening as she sets her fork on the edge of her plate. “He doesn’t understand you. Your father is very much like your grandfather. His entire existence is a business transaction.”
“But Pops loved you,” I point out. How am I any different when my own marriage is based on a contract?
“He did, but that took time. And unfortunately for your father, I was the only person your grandfather was soft for. You can’t escape genetics, but you also have pieces of me and your mother. You have kindness and compassion.”
I don’t see these things about myself. I’m not selfless. “Mother lets my father walk all over her. My sisters do the same with their husbands.”
Meems sighs. “I hoped that Courtney would soften your father the way I did your grandfather. But instead of softening him, he hardened her. Your mother is too conditioned to be what everyone else wants. You played your part, but you never stepped in line for either of them.” She reaches out to squeeze my hand.
“It isn’t hate they feel. It’s frustration, confusion, fear.
The ultimate failure as a parent is being unable to see your children for who they are.
It isn’t your fault they don’t understand you. ”
Growing up, they always wanted me to be more like so-and-so’s son. After my sisters married, they wanted me to be more like Julian and Bryson.
And now here I am, still defiant, still a disappointment, still seeking acceptance where there is none. “What if I don’t know how to love any better than my father?” I feel like I’m running toward a cliff, and what lies at the bottom is an unknown that could ruin me.
Because I’m falling. I’ve fallen already. And I’m afraid of the landing.
Meems reaches across the table and takes my hand. “You love me.”
“It’s a different kind of love.”
Meems is the only person who has accepted me for who I am and doesn’t put her own aspirations on me.
Well, Mildred doesn’t push me to be something else, but I don’t know if that’s because our relationship is transactional.
Just like my mother is bound to my father for the good of her family, Mildred is bound to me for the good of hers.
But when we’re alone at night, it doesn’t feel transactional.
And it didn’t feel that way when we were out with our friends last week.
She seemed genuinely happy—not just with them, but with me, too.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I fit somewhere, and it’s all because of her.
She’s shown me how to make that happen. But if I lose her, then what?
“Different yes, but still valid. All love is important,” Meems says. “You also love Mildred.”
I nod. “I do.”
“And she feels the same way.”
I focus on my plate. Chemistry is not the same as love. “What if I can’t be a better man than my father?” Does Mildred soften me? Am I hardening her?
“You already are a better man. You didn’t marry Dred because she was going to further your career ambitions.”
But I didn’t marry her because I loved her at the time either.
I do now, but at the beginning she was the answer to my problem.
I used her softness and need against her.
I could have just given her the money. She could have posed as my girlfriend for the next year, and wouldn’t that have made Meems happy, too?
Sitting beside her at Callie’s hockey games, watching her love that little girl like she was family made it easy to propose that contract.
She came from nothing, had no one, and has managed to weave herself into the hearts of all these people without effort.
Mildred is wholly loved by the people in her life.
I wanted that same love for myself. Wanted to know what it felt like to be surrounded by friends who care deeply.
And now I have it. I have her. “I worry that I don’t deserve the kind of family Mildred has created for herself. ”
“My dear sweet boy.” Meems squeezes my hand. “Mildred isn’t the type of woman who would give her heart to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
“I know.” The problem is, I took it under false pretenses, and I don’t know how to ask to hold it on my own.
It’s closing in on nine thirty by the time my wife gets home.
She smiles when she sees me lounging on the couch in the library. “Why am I not surprised to find you in here?”
“It’s your favorite place to be.” And if I can’t have you beside me, I spend time in the place you like the most.
She drops onto the couch next to me, and I stretch my arm along the back, hoping she’ll slide into the gap. I’m not disappointed. She tucks herself into my side and checks out the cover of the book I’m reading. “Did you just pick up the first book on the pile?”
“I did. I was flipping through the tabbed chapters.”
“Those are all my favorite parts.”
“So you like the steamy stuff and the heartbreak.”
“It’s the dark moment before they figure out their way back to each other. But I only like it because I know they work it out in the end.”
I want to ask her if she thinks we could work out, but it feels like too much of a risk. I set the book down and press my lips to her temple. “How was game night with Flip?” The tightness in my chest is ever present when we talk about him. I fear I’ll never be as important to her as he is.
“I kicked his ass, which is not unusual.” She follows the seam on my pants with a fingernail.
“Sounds like there’s a but in there.”
She looks up at me, eyes a little sad. “He’s struggling.”
“Personally or professionally?”
Flip is at the top of his game. He’s having an amazing season. He has the best scoring record on the team, and he’s pushing his way into the top ten in the league. But just because he’s doing well doesn’t mean he feels great about it.
“They don’t always function independently of each other.”
People outside of this career don’t realize how easy it can be to go from the top to the bottom. And with all the positive press he’s been getting comes a resurgence of the negative coverage from the past.
“So both then?” I ask.
She nods and tries to get closer, so I pull her into my lap. I want this with her, these moments when she lets her guard down and shares with me, even if it’s about the person I’m most jealous of. Maybe especially then.
“Are you worried about him?”
“Yeah.” She shifts and kisses my neck, inhaling deeply. I can’t see her face to understand what’s going on in her head. “He started to see what we all see about Tally at Rix and Tristan’s wedding, and now that he’s aware, he can’t make himself unaware.”
“Ah. That’s tricky.”
“And now he’s realizing how his past choices could affect his present and his future. He doesn’t feel like he deserves to have a person,” she says.
I nod. He and I have that in common. The difference is, I’m selfish enough to try anyway. “Time can change a lot of things.”
She skims the edge of my jaw with a finger.
“What else is going on in that busy head of yours?” I ask.
“The holidays will be different this year.”
“What do they usually look like for you?” I run my fingers through her hair.
She lifts her head, kissing my chin. “Typically on Christmas Eve I put food baskets together for the unhoused people who frequent the library, drop off gifts at the group home, and eat Thai takeout.”
“Seemed like fate threw us together last year.”
“Mm-hmm… It did,” she agrees.
Last year we ran into Roman at a local Thai restaurant and ended up at his place for Christmas Eve. It inspired a plan to make Lexi and her sisters’ Christmas less difficult since it was their second holiday without their parents.
“What about Christmas Day?” I ask.
“I usually go to the soup kitchen in the morning and help prepare dinner.”
I stroke her cheek. “Do you ever do anything for yourself?”
“All of that is for me. I get to brighten other people’s days, and I’m not alone during the holidays.”
I want to tell her she doesn’t have to be alone ever again. I’ll spend every Christmas with her for the rest of my life.
She traces the shell of my ear with a fingertip.
I can’t promise her this Christmas will be easy, but I can take her mind off the things that weigh her down—and my own as well.
I press my lips gently to hers. Her warm, soft hand curves around the back of my neck and she angles her head, allowing the kiss to deepen. Weeks have turned into months and time is slipping through my fingers. I don’t want to lose her, but I don’t know how to deserve to keep her.
Mildred shifts to straddle my lap as we explore each other’s mouths. I run my hands down her sides, settling on her hips, needing her closer.
We break long enough to rid each other of our shirts, and her bra. Before she can reclaim my lips, I dip down and capture a nipple, laving the tight peak, then sucking softly.
I need her under me, her hands in my hair, my name a moan on her pretty lips. Laying her on the couch, I stretch out over her and carefully remove her glasses, setting them on the table behind her head. I brush my lips over hers. “Let me take care of you, darling.”
Her fingers slide into my hair as I kiss a path down her throat. I tease her nipples, relishing every gasp and moan, alternating gentle suction with sharp bites.
When I reach her navel, I rid her of her jeans and panties and sink to the floor, hooking one of her legs over my shoulder and pressing her other thigh open, her knee against the back of the couch. I turn my head and bite the inside of her thigh, making her gasp and roll her hips.
Her toes curl against my side, her voice breathy as she lifts her shoulders from the couch. “I left the door open.”
“Everyone is asleep.” I kiss my way along the inside of her thigh.
“They might not be.” She bites her bottom lip when I suck her skin.
“Then they’ll know I take care of my wife’s needs.” I continue my path to the apex of her thighs. “And you look so lovely spread out like a feast for me.”
“Such a good villain.”
“Every moment of every day.”
Mildred sinks back into the couch, eyes darting between me and the door as I drop open-mouthed kisses on her skin. I suck and tease until she’s pleading in desperate whimpers.
“So sweet when you’re begging for my mouth.” I lap at her, and she writhes under me, hands in my hair, nails biting into my scalp. “So beautiful when you’re coming on my tongue, wife.”
Mildred bucks and moans, body shaking as she comes in waves. And I can’t get enough. I nab a condom from my wallet and roll it down my length, then fit myself between her damp thighs.
Our gazes lock and her eyes flare as I sink into her, filling her, claiming her.
“You feel so good.” Her fingers skim my cheek.
“Like heaven,” I agree.
She wraps herself around me, pulling me closer, my body pressing her into the couch. Her soft skin under my fingers, her warm breath breaking against my lips, the scent of strawberry and vanilla, and the taste of her on my tongue.
We kiss and fuck and cling and pant.
She comes again, gorgeous, unguarded, and mine.
I want her to stay. For this to last.
I want to love her for the rest of my life.