9. Ellie
— ? —
Ellie
The bracelet was on my pillow Sunday morning with no note. His truck was in the drive with the windows fogged, so I know where he slept. I rode the gray at six anyway, the way I have every morning since he took a saddle, because the colt didn’t do anything wrong.
Sunday night I put it back on his.
Everybody knows. I can feel it the second I walk into the office Monday morning. The bell over the door sounds too loud and Mr. Bellinger looks up from his desk and his face does a thing I’ve never seen before, a softening around the eyes that makes me want to cry.
“Take your time this morning,” he says. “I’ll handle the filing.”
He’s never handled the filing.
Sue calls at nine to ask if I’m all right and she doesn’t say why.
I tell her I’m fine and she says “mmhmm” in that way she has and hangs up.
Mrs. Bellinger shows up at ten with a pie, cherry this time, and she doesn’t say why either.
She just sets it on my desk and pats my hand and leaves.
Mr. Bellinger comes out of his office at eleven and tells me to take a long lunch and when I ask why, he just shakes his head and goes back to his desk.
That’s the town, and I love it, and I could scream.
I sit at my desk and I type letters I won’t remember typing.
I answer the phone with a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
A woman calls about her mama’s will and I take notes I won’t be able to read later.
A man comes in to drop off an envelope and I put it in the wrong drawer and have to go back and fix it.
I stare at my computer screen and I don’t see the words and I keep thinking about Saturday night.
About the empty chair. About Daphne on my couch with my wine.
About Jacob with blood on his shirt saying “she probably fell asleep” like that made it okay.
At eleven-thirty, Zeke comes by with the AC part he forgot again.
He walks in the door and he looks at me and he doesn’t grin. He doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t say my hair looks like a sunrise or my eyes are the color of the ocean or any of the ridiculous things he’s been saying since we were kids. He just stands there with the part in his hand and looks at me.
And for the first time, I notice.
He’s not doing his thing. He’s not being Zeke, the charmer, the flirt, the guy who makes everyone laugh.
He’s just being quiet, and he’s looking at me, and there’s a look in his eyes that’s different from Saturday, when he told the punch story and made the room laugh.
Saturday he was doing it for me, performing, filling the silence so I wouldn’t have to. Today he’s just looking.
“I’ll be in the back,” he says, and he goes to the supply room.
I sit at my desk and I think about what I just saw and I don’t have time to think about it because Jacob fills the doorway.
He’s shaved and showered and he’s wearing a clean shirt, the blue one I bought him for Christmas, and he’s holding the bracelet in his hand, the same bracelet I put back on his pillow last night.
He looks like he hasn’t slept. Dark circles under his eyes, a tightness around his mouth, and he’s looking at me the way he used to look at me before Daphne came.
“Lunch,” he says.
“What?”
“I’m taking you to lunch.”
He hasn’t taken me to lunch since the winter.
He used to do it every couple of weeks, no warning, just his truck at the curb at noon and his hand on my neck.
He hasn’t done anything spontaneous or romantic or thoughtful since the creek.
And now he’s standing in my office with a bracelet and dark circles and an expression I can’t read.
From the back room, I hear Zeke stop whatever he’s doing. The banging stops. He’s listening.
I look at Jacob. I look at the bracelet. I should tell him no. I should tell him to go away and leave me alone and let me be angry in peace.
“Fine,” I say.
He holds the door for me and puts his hand on the back of my neck as we walk to his truck, right there on Main Street where anyone could see, and I feel Zeke’s eyes on us through the office window.
Jacob’s hand tightens on my neck, possessive, and I see his jaw clench when he catches me looking back at the office.
In the truck, he doesn’t start the engine.
“How long has Zeke been dropping by?” he asks.
“He brings AC parts. It’s a small town.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t want jewelry, Jacob.” I look at the bracelet in his hand. “I wanted you at the table.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you’re sitting here asking me about Zeke instead of asking me about Saturday.”
“I went to Daphne’s room Saturday night. Told her the apology better be real.”
“She never came.” I look at him. “All day Sunday, Jacob. She never came.”
He doesn’t answer. His hand is still on my neck, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, and I hate that I still want him.
I hate that even now, even after everything, I look at his hands and I think about what they feel like on my body.
I hate that he can make me wet with a look and a touch when I should be too angry to feel anything.
“I’m trying, Ellie.”
“You’re trying because Zeke was standing in my office.” I turn to face him. “You’re trying because another man looked at me and you didn’t like it. Not because you missed my birthday. Not because you broke your promise. Because Zeke.”
His jaw tightens. His fist closes at his side, the one not on my neck, and I can see the jealousy in every line of his body.
“I’m trying because I care about you,” he says. “Because you’re my wife. Because I fucked up and I know I fucked up and I’m trying to make it right.”
“Then make it right. Not with jewelry. Not with lunch. With actions. With being there when you say you’ll be there. With believing me when I tell you she’s doing it on purpose.”
He looks at me. Then he puts the bracelet on the dashboard and pulls me across the bench seat and kisses me.
His mouth is hard on mine, tongue pushing deep, and he’s trying to erase the fight with it.
I kiss him back just as rough, teeth catching his bottom lip, because I’m furious and I still want him so bad my thighs press together.
He drives one-handed, the other fisted in my hair, steering us the three blocks without looking away from me for more than a second at a time.
The truck crunches over gravel when he pulls around back.
He parks between the dumpsters and the pallet stack and kills the engine.
He drags me the rest of the way into his lap, one big hand sliding straight under my skirt. His fingers push my panties aside and sink into me without warning. Two thick fingers, curling right where I’m already aching.
“You’re soaked,” he says against my mouth. “You’re angry at me and you’re still this wet for me.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I grab his wrist and yank his hand out of me. I don’t let him argue. I take both of his wrists and plant his hands on the steering wheel.
“Keep them there,” I tell him. My voice is low and mean. “You don’t get to touch. Not after the shit you pulled.”
He breathes hard through his nose, knuckles going white on the wheel, but he doesn’t move his hands.
I kiss him again, slower this time, licking into his mouth while my fingers work his belt open.
The clink of the buckle is loud in the cab.
I shove his jeans and boxers down just far enough and wrap my hand around his cock.
He’s already thick and hot and leaking at the tip.
I stroke him once, root to head, and he jerks in my fist.
“Fuck, Ellie.”
“Quiet.” I kiss the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, then down the side of his throat while I keep working his cock in long, steady pulls.
My thumb smears the slick over the head every time I reach the top.
He keeps his hands on the wheel the way I told him, but his hips twitch up into my fist anyway.
I squeeze harder on the next stroke and bite the tendon in his neck.
“You’re so fucking hard for me,” I say right against his skin. “Even when I’m pissed at you. Even when I want to slap you.”
I kiss him again, deep and messy, while I jerk him faster.
His cock pulses in my hand. I can feel how close he already is and I don’t let up.
I lean down, push his shirt up with my free hand, and take the head of his cock into my mouth.
I suck hard, tongue flat underneath, and slide down as far as I can while my hand keeps stroking the rest.
He groans, low and rough. One of his hands leaves the wheel and lands on the back of my head. I pull off immediately.
“Hands on the wheel, Jacob.”
He curses but puts it back. I go down on him again, slower this time, letting him feel every inch of my mouth. I suck him with wet, filthy sounds, spit sliding down his shaft onto my fingers. Every time he tries to thrust up I press my free hand to his stomach and pin him to the seat.
“You don’t get to fuck my throat,” I tell him when I come up for air, lips shiny. “You get to sit there and let me use you.”
I go back down. I work him with my mouth and hand together, twisting on every upstroke, sucking hard on the head.
His thighs shake under me. I can hear him breathing hard and ragged.
I don’t stop. I don’t let him touch. I just keep taking his cock deeper until my eyes water and my jaw aches and he’s swearing under his breath.
“Ellie. Fuck. I’m gonna come.”
I don’t pull off. I suck harder, stroke faster, and he comes with a broken sound, hot and thick across my tongue. I swallow what I can and keep sucking until he’s twitching and oversensitive, then I sit up.
He’s still gripping the steering wheel, and it’s the only thing keeping him together.
His cock is softening against his stomach, shiny from my mouth.
I wipe my lips with the back of my hand and reach into the glove compartment for the napkin.
I clean my fingers and my mouth while he watches, breathing hard.
I flip down the visor. My lipstick is completely gone. My hair is a wreck. I look exactly like what I am, a woman who just sucked her husband off in a parking lot because she was too angry and too turned on to stop herself.
The bracelet is still sitting on the dashboard.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I say.
“Ellie.”
“I mean it. This doesn’t fix Saturday. This doesn’t fix any of it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He’s quiet for a long second. Then, “No. I don’t. I don’t know what fixes it. But I’m trying. I’m going to keep trying.”
I don’t answer. I look out the window at the weeds pushing through the asphalt and the back of the feed store and I think about how I just had my mouth full of my husband’s cock in a parking lot and I still don’t know if he loves me.
“Take me home,” I say.
“The office.”
“Home.”
He starts the truck and drives us back to the ranch. We pull up to the house and Daphne is on the front steps with her phone in her hand, and my stomach drops.
“There you are!” She waves at us, smiling that smile. “I just got off the phone with Daddy’s doctor. He wants me to stay through the fall. Isn’t that great, Jake?”
I look at Jacob.
Jacob looks at the ground.