SNEAK PEEK #2
″Henry happened on the first try. We’re fertile.
Either pull out and finish yourself off or put a condom on and get the job done.
” I knew my husband needed the release, and even though I wasn’t going to find mine, I was willing to let him find his.
“Just make it snappy,” I sighed, the shrieking on the baby monitor picking up vigor.
He let out his own big sigh. “Never mind, just go deal with our child.” And with that, he pulled out and headed to the bathroom, muttering, “Kids are fucking cock-blockers.”
I loved my kitchen. I loved my entire house.
Seeing as we’d built it from the ground up, I’d been awarded the privilege of picking out everything from cupboards to floorboards.
The morning sun burst in through the window behind the sink and caught the green jewel-toned backsplash, making it glow.
I loved jewel tones and had decorated our home (tastefully of course) with the rich hues of green, amber and burgundy with the odd splash of brown and plum.
I wiped crumbs off the gold-veined white granite counter before turning to face my husband.
He was still in his flannel robe nibbling on an English muffin with raspberry jam and mindlessly reading the newspaper.
His carbon-copy was perched in his highchair with said jam smeared across his cheek and a mushed and mangled English muffin with bite marks squished tightly in his little fist. The other fist pounded on the tray like a slave ship drum.
″Could you get him to stop that, please?” I asked, perhaps a bit too snippy as I packed all of our lunches.
Garret grabbed his son’s fist and gave him a stern look while gently saying “no.” Henry seemed oblivious to the discipline but found interest in his sippy cup and started gnawing on the nipple of it.
″We should see if your parents will take Henry one night for a sleepover so that we can have some grown-up time. What do you think?” Garret asked later, switching gears, seeming to have ignored my bitchy snap.
I had planned to take a full year’s maternity leave and was thoroughly enjoying my time with my son, but the gallery I worked for had lost two employees in the span of a week, and another one had taken medical leave.
I’d been asked to return to work three days a week with a serious increase in my pay, enough so that it was worth giving up the employment insurance I was getting paid each month.
So I returned to work part-time when Henry was eight months old.
Yet, despite the fact that I’d been back at work for nearly two months, it was still a huge change for our little family, especially for me as I attempted to balance work, a social life, motherhood, and being a wife.
Everyone demanded something of me. Always.
Some days it felt as though I couldn’t catch a break and was failing in at least one facet of life, whether it be friend, mother, wife or employee.
Other days it seemed as if I was failing at all of them and disappointing the world.
It helped in the transition back to work, though, that Garret’s parents had offered to take Henry.
So while I was at work, I had the peace of mind knowing my child was being well taken care of by people who loved him nearly as much as we did.
Three days a week, I packed snacks and a couple of bottles of pumped breast milk for Henry and dropped him off with his grandparents on my way to work.
Then his father picked him up on his way home around five-thirty.
Our system had been working like a well-oiled machine for several weeks, but lately Garret had been texting me midday, asking me to pick Henry up because of an unexpected work “thing,” and he was arriving home after his son had gone to bed.
Last night had been one of those nights.
”So what do you think?” Garret asked again. I’d drifted off into my thoughts and hadn’t bothered to answer him. Shit . He really was the most patient human being on the planet.
″About what?” I wrapped up his sandwich and put it in his lunch bag, along with a bag of chopped veggies and an apple. The same things made their way into my lunch bag as well.
″Getting your parents to watch the little man for a night.”
″Uh, yeah … maybe. It’s going to be pretty hectic, what with the wedding and all.
Might not be doable.” My brother was getting married on Saturday, so there would be absolutely NO opportunity for us to get out for drinks with him and Emma.
And my mother was spazzing out, much as she had over our wedding, and would be in no frame of mind to babysit.
But I’d already denied my husband an orgasm this morning and snapped at him at least once, so instead I just nodded and hummed another “maybe.”
Garret came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist while bending his knees, our height difference making it a tad awkward. We began to sway.
″I miss the crazy sex we used to have. I miss having sex, period. God, when was the last time we did it?”
I honestly couldn’t remember.
″I miss the naughty pictures you used to text me in the middle of the day. Send me a picture of your boobs this afternoon, would ya?”
I smirked. “We’ll see. I’m really busy this afternoon. We have a new artist coming in. He wants to do a show, so I’ve got a lot to do.”
He spun me around so that we were facing each other.
“Okay. Remember, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
” His eyebrows playfully bobbed up and down like two dark caterpillars on his forehead before he swooped in and pecked me hard on the lips.
“All right, you’ve got the little man? I’m going to go shower. ”
I nodded before turning my back to him and then rolling my eyes as I finished packing our lunch. I had no problem seeing his, but like hell was I going to take a selfie of mine and have that floating around the internet. No freaking way.
Want to meet Dax BEFORE he met Jennifer? Grab True, Deep and Forever to learn more about his past.