Chapter 26
chapter twenty-six
Ryan
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will dismantle watery arguments.
I didn’t know how Emme did it but she slipped out of bed without me noticing again. My girl wasn’t especially quiet or stealthy which meant the only explanation I could piece together was that I slept like the fucking dead when I was beside her. As much as I wanted to notice when she left me, it seemed my brain had other plans.
This left me to wander the halls of this oceanfront estate in search of my wife. I heard the shower running in her room and headed in that direction. We’d abandoned her room last night after she spilled a glass of wine in bed though she blamed that on me because I bit her nipple. I had it on good authority that she liked it when I bit her nipples so the spill was on her.
I leaned against the doorframe, and while I’d decided to not be grouchy that she’d left the bed, returned to her room, and decided to shower without me, that didn’t stop me from glaring at the soft, round shape of her in the steam. I didn’t make a habit of dropping the tension in my shoulders and chest too often and letting myself see all of her. I did it last night—and last weekend—but I didn’t know how to exist without reaching for that restraint.
I had to. I couldn’t let myself believe that after all this time she was finally mine. There was always a chance this would blow up on us, on me, and nothing that’d happened in the past twelve hours could change that.
She could be mine for now. For today. For these moments in between the rest of our lives. And I would find a way to survive that the same as I’d survived everything else. There wasn’t much else for me to do.
Although I intended to address a few important issues this morning.
The bathroom was thick with steam and the showerheads—there appeared to be five or six—roared like small waterfalls. Emme was busy scrubbing her hair and she still hadn’t noticed me.
I kicked out of my athletic shorts and opened the glass door to step in behind her. “I don’t like you sneaking out of bed, wifey. Makes me think I’m not doing enough to keep you there.”
Emme screamed and a bottle fell from her hands. When I retrieved it, I found her with an arm over her breasts and her legs pressed together like she needed to hide herself from me. “You could’ve announced yourself,” she shrieked.
“You could’ve noticed that I’ve been watching you since you started washing your hair.”
“When did you turn into such a creep?” She flicked her free hand at me and her eyes widened when her gaze fell on the hard shaft jutting out toward her. As if I could help it. She was wet , for fuck’s sake. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”
“I think it’s time for us to have a little conversation instead of you running off to your room or being very busy with cheese or pretending you’re asleep for the rest of the flight.”
Her lips parted and her eyes went even wider. I laughed. She really thought I hadn’t noticed.
“And what would you like to talk about?” she asked. “In the shower, of all places.”
“I’d like to start with this.” I pried her arm away from her breasts. “No more hiding from me, Em.”
“I’m chilly,” she said primly. “You let in the cold air.”
“It’s a tropical fucking rainforest in here. You’re all pink.” I cupped her jaw, swept my thumb over her rosy cheek. “Let me walk you through what’s going to happen next.”
“This seems like a kitchen table conversation.”
She shifted away from me and reached for a round plastic thing with little nubs on it. I didn’t know what it was until she squirted some body wash on it and went to work scrubbing an arm.
It took me a second to snap out of the trance that was a soaped-up Emme but when I did, I grabbed the round thing and took over the job. “That’s tough shit because we’re having the conversation here. Now, I’m going to say a few things that you’re not going to like but do me a favor and try to listen.”
“Really setting yourself up for the win,” she said.
“I meant everything I said last night.”
“About field day? Great, because your version sounded a lot better than anything I’ve come up with and my ass is going to be toast if I have to pull everything together in two weeks by myself.”
“About field day,” I said, “and everything else too.”
Emme dropped her gaze to the tiled floor. She was quiet for a minute while I washed her arms very, very thoroughly. “You said a lot of things.”
“I meant all of them.” I turned her to face the wall as I started on her back. “That’s what I want. Now you have to tell me what you want.”
I went into most games expecting to win but that wasn’t going to work here. Instead, I devoted all of my attention to washing her back. I wasn’t going to let myself think about what would happen if she turned around and said it felt like she’d waited years for this and life finally made sense. Just as I wasn’t going to let myself think about what would happen if she decided she wanted to enforce those boundaries and rules again.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what it means for us to…to complicate things like this. For our friendship and this fake-marriage thing.”
I had to choke back an irritable growl at this fake-marriage thing . I’d sooner survive her reaching in and ripping my beating heart from my chest than I would hearing those words ever again.
“I’m worried it will make all of this a lot harder,” she continued.
I stepped closer, letting my shaft slide into the plump curve of her backside. “It’s going to be hard either way.”
She slapped a hand to the wall, laughing. “I just—I don’t want to lose you. I feel like it’s already so much more complicated than we thought it would be and sex is jumping up to a whole new level of difficulty.”
“I mean, if you do it right.”
She laughed but it was an indulgent laugh, like she wanted me to know it was a good joke but I was pushing my luck right to the edge. “I don’t want to lose you,” she repeated. “That’s my bottom line. When I think about the end of the summer, when your deals are closed and Grace is married, I get scared because I know this will end and I can’t lose you in the process.”
I stroked the scrubber down her sides as I weighed the risks in front of me. I could all but guarantee she shut me down or go on holding myself back until the end of my days. I was fucked either way so I asked, “What if it doesn’t end after the summer?”
She whirled around, her expression panicked. “Sooner? Not before the wedding, right?”
“No, silly girl. I’m not missing that wedding for the world. I need to meet this jam farmer.” I turned her back to the wall. “We talked about the end of the summer because we had to get through so much during that time.”
She wagged a finger at me over her shoulder. “No, you wanted to get back to your life by the end of the summer and be done with this.”
I swatted the finger away. “I never said any part of that.”
“But—yes, you did! You said it that day in my apartment. When we were looking at our schedules and you screwed up my window.”
I ran the scrubber down the line of her back and around the flare of her hips while I tried to figure out how the hell I gave her the impression I wanted to hustle my way through this marriage. “The window was already broken,” I said, though it didn’t matter and it wasn’t going to fix this new issue of ours. “It continued to disintegrate when I looked at it a little too long.”
After a pause, Emme said, “I thought you wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. That you were just counting down the days and…and when your deal is done, we’ll be done. And it hurts whenever I think about it because I love you, Ryan, and I miss you when you’re not with me but I know I’ll break if we spend the next month in bed together and then it’s just over. I don’t want to break and I don’t want to lose you. I can’t .”
Blood whomped in my ears. I rested my head on her shoulder for a second before realizing the better place for me was on my knees. When I hit the tile, I skimmed my hands up the insides of her legs. She took a step out when I nudged her. “You won’t lose me,” I said, my mouth following the crease where her thigh met her cheek. “You will never, ever lose me.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.” I swept the scrubber up her legs, over her ass. Across her toes, which made her giggle and jolt. Between her legs, my fingertips slid along the pulsing heat of her seam. Everything squeaky clean. Perfect for making a mess all over again. “We already have the summer planned. Let’s just see where that goes.”
“I think I know where that goes and it’s to your bedroom.”
I sank my teeth into the ripe round of her cheek and pressed two fingers inside her. She slapped the wall and dropped her head down. I licked my way up her crease. “That room’s been nothing but good to you, wifey.”
“You play dirty,” she said on a moan.
“That’s what you think? You have no idea how I play. I haven’t even stepped on the field yet.” She didn’t say anything for a few minutes while I licked and bit and teased until her legs shook. Then, “No deadlines. Give me that and I’ll give you what you want right now.”
Her shoulders hitched and I had the distinct sense she was going to tell me to fuck right off. This was how it would end—my wife would leave me kneeling in a shower on Nantucket, and the one relationship that’d gotten me through the worst days would wither.
But then she held out a hand to me, saying, “Come here,” and all the tightness in my chest dissolved.
I closed my arms around her torso, holding her tight as the water washed over us. “I love you too, Em.” That bliss lasted for about ten seconds before I groaned up at the ceiling. “ Fuck. I didn’t bring a condom. I’ll be right back. Don’t move. No, actually, keep that clit warmed up for me and?—”
“I can’t get pregnant. I’m on a bunch of meds that shuts it all down.” She glanced down at my cock, her lips pressed together in a disapproving frown. “But I don’t know where that’s been.”
“It was in the back of your throat last weekend.” The frown deepened. “All clear. Nothing for you to worry about.”
She squeezed my hand. “Then don’t leave me.”
I parked myself on the tiled bench— fuck , that was cold—and led Emme to face forward in my lap. “Right here for me,” I said, holding her waist as she scooted back. “There you go, gorgeous. That’s my girl.”
She gripped my forearms, bracing herself. My legs were slippery and her feet didn’t touch the floor. She wobbled but I wasn’t letting her go anywhere. “I’ve never done it like this. This position. It’s kind of weird, not being able to see you.”
“Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head and a spray of water droplets from her hair hit my chest. This bench sat right at a convergence point of all the showerheads. “No, but I don’t want you to tease me if I do it wrong.”
“Do you not understand how good sex is with you?” I held myself steady at her entrance, the head of my cock throbbing at her unrelenting heat. “It’s not good. It’s fucking insane. I’m thirty and it wasn’t until our wedding night that I realized I could rebound that fast. I’ll never be the same again and I can’t even be mad at you for it. If you’re doing it wrong, it’s still going to rewire my nervous system. Are you ready yet?”
“Okay, okay, calm— oh fuck. ”
I banded my arms over her torso and rocked up into her as the shower spray hit right between her legs. Within a minute, she was already clenching hard around me.
“I can’t help but notice,” I said, her nipples clothespinned between my fingers, “but this shower could fit an entire yoga class.”
Emme belted out a deep laugh and I knew I loved my wife—and there was a good chance she loved me the same way too.
Claudia: “Boston’s bling party sparkles on Nantucket; Ralston’s offensive line shines”
Claudia: link to Barstool Sports
Amber: how cute are they? oh my god it’s too much
Claudia: isn’t that dress gorgeous? That color would make me look seasick but it’s incredible on Emme
Mom: She’s an angel!!!!
Chloe: I love that she wears such fun dresses to these events
Mom: So much fun!!! Such a sweetheart!
Amber: someone needs to convince Ryan to bring her home so we can tell her these things
Ruthie: good luck convincing Ryan to do anything but precisely what he wants
Mom: You know he’s very busy, Ruth
Gramma CeCe: let the boy live. He deserves some room to breathe. It’s bad enough the whole world is watching this courtship.
Chloe: I’m just waiting for him to decide to take us on another family vacation. We’ll get plenty of time with her then.
Amber: You mean another one of his holiday avoidance tactics? And yes, I’m waiting for that too
Claudia: fingers crossed for a nice, quiet cushion between games this Christmas
Ruthie: I’m praying for a bye week. I hate when he takes us all on vacation for the holidays but has to leave after a day or two
Claudia: 41 images attached
Amber: how do you find all these photos?
Claudia: I’m a dark web huntress
Mom: Claudia! Don’t joke about things like that!
Claudia: who said I’m joking?
Chloe: Ryan can’t bring Emme home because he’s too busy looking at her like he wants to unhinge his jaw and swallow her whole
Gramma CeCe: they’ll make beautiful babies
Claudia: Gram, can we not instigate this early in the morning? Please I’m begging
Mom: I’ve been waiting so long for a grandbaby!
Chloe: I have no more words
Claudia: …and look what we’ve started
Mom: I’m aware you have children, Chloe. I was there for all 39 hours of you laboring through the first delivery and 44 minutes for the second.
Chloe: then why do you keep talking about wanting a grandbaby? YOU HAVE 2
Mom: Good heavens. Don’t you know when your children are sad and unhappy, Chloe?
Chloe: Of course but I’m also aware that they exist, which is all I’m asking you to do
Mom: Then you understand how helpless you feel as a mother when those babies are unhappy.
Mom: Your brother has been unhappy for a terribly long time. He’s been so lonely. He has all of us but everything about family has been hard for him since we lost your father.
Chloe: Oh come on! That’s not true! He’s insanely rich and famous and before that, he was insanely popular. He has everything he could possibly need.
Mom: It might look that way but the money and fame can only fix so much.
Chloe: He doesn’t even participate in the family group chat!
Ruthie: Remind me again who set up hefty college funds for those kids of yours?
Gramma CeCe: Mind yourself, Ruth.
Mom: The only time he wasn’t lonely was when he was with Emme. A light would come on when he was with her and it would burn out when she left. I see these photos and the first thing I notice is that the shadows have finally cleared from his eyes. He looks like himself again and it’s been too long since he did.
Mom: Now that they’ve found each other, all I want is for him to be happy. Maybe he can have a family to call his own. He needs more to love than football.
Claudia: excuse me why am I crying
Claudia: extremely rude for you to make me feel my own feelings
Amber: it’s so funny how we only have these conversations over text. Like we’d never say a word of this face to face
Chloe: probably because we spent 5 years watching our father die on a hospital bed in the dining room and that shit never really goes away
Chloe: I’m sorry. Sometimes I’m a self-centered bitch.
Amber: yeah we know
Ruthie: It’s probably good that we’re getting all of this family mess out now. Less to horrify Emme with later.
Mom: He’s been awfully generous to all of us. I think we can give him the time he needs to come around.
Claudia: or we could break into his condo and just wait for them to show up
Gramma CeCe: give him a few more weeks.
Claudia: then we’ll break in!
Gramma CeCe: I’ll bring the crow bar and hooch
Ruthie: It’s not a great idea to put that in writing
Claudia: did it leave a scar, Ruth?
Ruth: what?
Claudia: when corporate law surgically removed the humor and joy from your body?