28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Mack
T he last few weeks have been a strain on us all. Watching Ace go through whatever he's going through wasn't easy, he only sees the blatant betrayal as you obviously would in that situation, but I have such a strong feeling that all isn't as it seems. Lily had pretty much disappeared, we only knew she was safe from her sporadic texts to Sophie.
Maisie has been feeling that strain more than us all, Ace is her very best friend, they've been close for a long time. Some people may find it weird that their wife's best friend is a man, but not me. There is absolutely nothing in their relationship that would cause me to worry. They are siblings to each other, much longed for siblings. Ace has Jax of course and that man is just as loyal as his brother, but he has his own family, he can't spend every moment with Ace.
I don't know if it's just the Ace situation that's getting to Maisie or if there's something else she hasn't told me about but she's different. There is a worry, a pain in her eyes that I've not seen for a very long time. She's always been the happy one, the confident one always laughing and smiling. But she hasn't been that way in a while, I know she's trying to hide her pain from me but enough is enough, I'm finding out what's worrying my wife and I'm finding out today.
It's a Sunday afternoon and Maisie is currently laying with her head in my lap, she's wrapped in a thick blanket, the fireplace is roaring in front of us as I read to her.
This is our thing, only on a Sunday afternoon when we aren't rushing about with work or family and friends. We always spend an hour or two reading, I read her current romance novel out loud to her, sometimes she doses in my lap, the sound of my voice lulling her to sleep. Other times, the story is so damn spicy she jumps me before I've even had a chance to finish the scene, those days are my favourite.
Today though she's just lying still in my lap, fidgeting and tense. I stroke my fingers through her hair, like I always have. She's always found it to be calming, she knows my obsession with her hair is huge. It usually sends her to sleep, relaxing her into a state of pure bliss but today when I pull my short nails lightly across her scalp, she tenses. She actually physically recoils and it damn near breaks my heart.
"Maisie?"
"Hmm?"
"Can you sit up please?" I ask her solemnly, my heart is beating wildly in my chest as my brain frantically tries to piece together what I've done wrong. Have I pissed her off? Have I hurt her feelings?
Maisie gingerly moves to sit up, avoiding eye contact with me as she holds her breath and closes her eyes to pull her body up. What the bloody hell is going on?
"Maisie, what's wrong?"
"Nothing." She answers all too quickly, but I can hear the tremble in her voice. I scoot closer to her on the sofa and rest my arm around her body. She flinches …. and my heart shatters.
"Baby, what have I done?" I can't hold back the shake in my voice as I try to prepare myself for what she's about to say next. She hears that shake too, she turns her head to look up at me with her red rimmed eyes.
She reaches out a hand to hold my free one and tells me,
"Muscles, you've done nothing wrong. I'm so sorry …" My wife breaks, she lets out a series of heart breaking sobs as she brings her hands to her face and cries her heart out.
Meanwhile, I'm frozen. She's sorry, what's she sorry about? Oh no no no, there's no way …
"Baby," I swallowed the lump in my throat and try again, "Baby, did you … d-did you cheat on me?"
Her head whips around so fast I'm surprised it didn't hurt, her eyes are wide and she's shaking her head frantically, attempting to gulp down much needed air between her sobs. She stands slowly and moves to climb into my lap so that she's straddling me. She places her hands on both of my cheeks and raises my gaze to hers, tears are free falling down her cheeks and my eyes are burning so hard that I'm seconds from following her if she gives me the wrong answer.
"Mack … you are my entire world, there is absolutely nothing and nobody in this lifetime or the next that would ever take me away from you. You're not only my husband, you are my heart, my soul, everything I am is because I have you. I would never betray you, I would never leave you. I cannot and will not ever live without you by my side. I adore you baby."
The exhale of relief that leaves my body is huge, resting my hands on her cheeks to tell her,
"Maisie, I wasn't alive until I met you, you brought me back to life and filled my entire being with love and companionship. You're the other half of me baby, wherever you go, I go. We fix things together, always. Things that bring you pain, bring me pain. Baby, I need you to tell me what's going on. You're scaring me."
She blows out a breath, attempts to wipe the never ending tears from her cheeks before telling me, barely above a whisper,
"I don't think I'm very well."
I don't have a response for her straight away as I look her over, she looks like the same Maisie I've always known, she has colour in her cheeks, she's beautiful and vibrant. Apart from the pain in her eyes, she still looks like my Maisie.
"What do you mean?" I reach my hands up to rest on her upper arms and she flinches again.
"Baby, why the hell do you keep flinching away from me?" I don't mean to snap at her, but this is hurting me too.
"I don't mean to Mack, I love your touch, I just want it not to hurt …"
"What do you mean, not to hurt? Baby are you in pain?" She responds to me with a nod.
"Tell me baby, please."
She wraps her arms around herself, still in my lap as she opens up and finally tells me what's wrong.
"My entire body hurts Mack, when it first started I thought maybe I'd pulled a muscle or I was coming down with the flu or something, but it's not going away. It's like a pulsing pain flowing through my body. My shoulders and neck ache, I have shooting pains up and down my forearms and wrists. My hair actually hurts, how insane is that. I'm exhausted all the time, I can barely remember what I did yesterday and all I want to do is curl up and sleep."
"When did this start?" I asked her, determined to get to the bottom of it.
"A while ago, it started off really mild. Some days I feel no pain at all, some days I feel like I can barely move." Her breathing changes as the panic starts to hit, "Mack, what if I'm seriously ill? Like Grace? Mack, I don't want to die, please don't let me die."
She becomes frantic, her breath coming in thick and hard as she struggled to regain control of herself. I knew it would cause her pain but I couldn't not hold her. I pulled her further in to me, she rested her head against my chest as I exaggerated my own breaths. She tried to imitate me .
"Just breathe with me baby, copy me okay? I've got you, I'm not letting you go anywhere. I think we should go to the doctors though. What do you think?" Inside I was just as terrified as she was, just the thought of her being in pain made me want to peel the skin from my body just so that I could feel it worse than her. I'd never show her that though, she had been the pillar of strength for me every single day since I first met her. It was my turn now, this could be anything.
"Little flame, this could be anything okay? You're not Grace …. you're not Grace." She sobbed into my chest, repeating over and over again how she didn't want to die, until she finally quietened down and relaxed against my body.
After a while, Maisie finally managed to calm herself enough to sit up in my lap and tell me what I'd been waiting years for her to tell me.
"Under our bed, there is a box, inside the box is a file I was left by my parents. I've never opened it, always been too terrified with what I might find. I've carried that file around unopened for almost fifteen years. When I was eighteen I was given it by the social worker, she wanted to read through it with me but I refused. I don't know what could be in that file, but what if it's bad news? What is there's a genetic illness? What if there's something wrong with me that I've been too stupid to ignore all these years?"
I knew about the box, she knew I knew about the box, I'd written it on the bottom of our list.
"You want to open it together baby?"
"I-I don't know."
"We can do it together, I'm right here baby, I'm not going anywhere."
"I know Mack but – I'm so scared, I've put off reading that file my entire adult life. It's as if once I've read it then they're really gone you know? I know that sounds ridiculous considering they've been gone for over twenty years but it just makes it so final you know? What if there's something bad in there that changes my opinion of them? I'm scared Mack." She breathed out a sigh and moved to scrub her hands down her face before she paused and dropped them back down again. Truth be told I was just as scared as she was, but that didn 't mean we should shy away from something just because it's scary, I'd spent enough of my life doing that and I refused to live like that anymore.
"I know you're scared, I am too baby but what if there's something amazing in there instead, you could be a god damn millionaire and don't even know it." I attempted the joke to try to bring levity to the situation.
"I just don't know if I can look, will you look for me?"
"I'd do anything for you, you know that. When do you want me to look?" I asked, already knowing what she was going to say.
"When I'm not here. I don't want to know when you're opening it, I'll only drive myself silly worrying about it."
"I can do that, if you promise to do something for me in return?"
"Anything," she replied.
"Tomorrow, I'd like for you to make a doctors appointment, I can come with you or you can go alone, even ask Ace to go with you if that's what you need. But I need you to do it okay?"
"I promise, I'll call them first thing tomorrow – and I want you, of course I want you there."
I sat forward and pressed my lips softly against hers, she hummed into my mouth and attempted to pull herself closer. I stood swiftly, taking her with me in my arms and began walking with her towards our bedroom.
"Mack-," she began.
"Hush now baby, this isn't want you think. Let me take care of you okay?" I placed her gently on the bottom of our bed and moved towards our en suite bathroom, flicking on the tap to fill our giant clawfoot tub with water. I added all sorts of lotions and potions, Maisie always had so much stuff she liked in her bath, I didn't know what half of it was or if it even went together, but in it went. I also lit her favourite french vanilla candles and turned off the big light.
I attached her bath pillow and made sure the water was the perfect temperature. Before moving back into the bedroom to retrieve my wife who was still perched on the edge of our bed, massaging at her forearms .
"Stand up sweetheart," I told her and began gently removing her clothes, dropping them into the laundry basket on our way to the bathroom. I scooped Maisie up with one arm under her shoulders and the other under her legs. She held on to me around my neck and rested her head against my chest.
"I love you," she muttered seconds before I lowered her into the warmth of the water.
She settled into the warm water with a long sigh, as if it instantly soothed her tired body. I knelt down next to the bath and retrieved a soft sponge, soaping it up and beginning to lightly wash her skin.
"Feel okay?" I asked, I didn't want to hurt her, only help her.
"That feels amazing baby, thank you."
I worked my way down her body, starting at her shoulders and arms, across her chest and down her tummy. There was absolutely nothing sexual about my touches, that didn't stop my dick from thinking it was play time though. This woman always got me going, even when she didn't mean to.
Once I'd finished washing her body, I moved on to her hair, using the shower head to wet her and lather her up. She continued to flinch slightly but I washed her as gently as I could, hoping that my love would help her to feel just a little better. I rinsed her off, threading my fingers through her soft strands and massaging her scalp.
Her hair was always so long when it was wet, straightening out all the way down to her arse.
Next, I retrieved a soft flannel from the bathroom drawer, wet it and gently washed her face and neck, she was looking up at me with huge blue eyes, filled with unshed tears.
"I really love you, you know that?" she whispered, I knew how she felt. Sometimes the love I felt for her was overwhelming, no words could ever really convey the depth of my feelings. 'I love you' just wasn't enough.
"I love you too little flame, no matter what we go through, whatever battles are ahead of us, we do it together … we won't let it dim your spark okay?"
She took a deep shuddery breath and her breathing began to become more erratic,
"But Mack, what if I'm seriously ill? I'm not ready yet, we didn't get to make babies and have a huge family. We didn't get to take them on road trips and family holidays, we didn't get to make your parents grandparents, you know how much they want that … I'm not finished with you yet baby, we all saw how quickly Grace went down hill after she got her diagnosis, hers started out with pain too you know …"
She was waffling, spiralling further and further out of control, I tried to interrupt, but she didn't hear me so I did the only thing I could think of to ground her. I grabbed her, both of my hands on either side of her head and slammed my lips to hers. The kiss was instantly full of passion as we clung to each other, our tongues fighting for dominance as she grabbed on to the collar of my t-shirt and dragged me closer.
"Get in here."
She didn't have to ask me twice as I quickly stood, removing my t-shirt and joggers in record time before climbing into the tub. Maisie had shifted forward, allowing me to fold my big body into the bath. This was why we had bought such a large bath, so that we could be in here together. As I settled back against the side, taking Maisie's place against her bath pillow, she gingerly crawled into my lap and resumed our kisses.
Long forgotten were her worries and anxiety, in this moment I'd managed to silence her brain, even if it only lasted a few minutes.
As she straddled my lap, her wet body glistening in the candle light, I couldn't help but pause just to take her in. Her soft pale skin, her taut breasts with dusty pink nipples, her smooth stomach and hips. Her thick hair was plastered against her back, her big blue eyes focused on me, her cheeks dotted with freckles which continued all the way down to her chest. My wife was stunningly beautiful, I'd do anything to keep her forever. It hurt my heart to know that she was in pain, if I could take it away from her and live with it myself then I would, in a heartbeat.
I placed my hands on her hips, just taking my time admiring her beauty, she had different ideas though as she wrapped her hands around my thick erection and began to pump me slowly.
"Mais – you don't have to do that." I barely got the sentence out as my body unleashed an involuntary groan when she swept her thumb across my tip and brought it to her lips, wrapping them around her digit and letting out a sexy hum of approval. My dick was standing tall and proud out of the water. But I was determined to ignore it, this was the Maisie from years ago, using her body to forget about her feelings.
"Just let me hold you."
Maisie settled down onto my chest with a nod, her breathing evening out as she began to relax. We stayed there until the water grew cold and our fingers and toes grew wrinkled.
She sat back, looking into my eyes with such love, before moving to stand. I held her in place for just one second longer, to tell her …
"No matter what happens baby, in this life or the next, we'll always be together. You'll never have to fight a single thing alone. I've got you little flame … I've got you."
I spent the next hour or so drying my wife off, gently massaging her skin with lotion and dressing her in her comfy pyjamas. I combed out her hair, pulling curl cream through each strand and helping to dry it enough for her to sleep.
I then tucked her into our bed, climbing in beside her to hold her tight, whispering positive words into her ear as she fell asleep in my arms.
Showing her with my words and actions that she would never be alone.