Chapter 13
Will shows up unannounced, again, even though I gave him a phone for this exact reason. I open the door to a knock, and I don’t even have time to panic at the sight of him before he starts talking. “Do you have Disney+?”
“I— yes?”
“Good.” He steps past me into the house while I stand at the open door, looking at the empty porch, taking a brief moment to wonder how it got to this before I close it and follow him inside.
He’s already made himself comfortable on the couch, flipping through the channels until he finds the icon for the one he wants.
Addie comes from the kitchen with an ice cream bar, throwing herself down beside Will. “What are we watching?”
“Star Wars. I heard some nerds up at the library talking about a new movie. I didn’t even know there was one.”
“Ooh, you’re gonna love Kylo Ren. He’s so hot.”
“I’m a Han Solo guy myself,” he says, typing in the title of the movie slower than Frank would. He really has missed a lot these last seven years. Maybe even longer. I doubt he had access to a smart TV before.
Addie wrinkles her nose. “Ew. He’s so old.”
“He’s cool.”
“I guess,” she concedes, “but Kylo Ren is—”
“Isn’t he the villain?”
“Obviously, that’s why he’s hot. Keep up, Uncle Will.”
She picks up her phone to show him pictures, and Will shakes his head, but he’s smiling the way he does when he’s around the kids, all while I watch from the doorway, ignoring the urge to sit beside them.
He makes it harder when he turns to me, patting the cushion to his right. “You gonna sit or what, Doc? We’re about to watch Star Wars.”
“I— Um. I can’t. I’m leaving.”
He tilts his head in question, but Addie perks up to tell him before I can. “Dad’s going out with Karen,” she explains. “Again.”
“It’s just dinner and a movie.”
“It’s the third date.” She moves her eyebrows up and down, using a sing-song voice. “You know what they say about the third date.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell her, but she looks unconvinced.
When I look back at Will, he’s staring intently at the screen, reading the description. He doesn’t joke this time, or say anything about what I’m wearing. Entirely uninterested in me, the way he’s been this entire week. I guess he doesn’t want to give me the wrong idea.
I go upstairs to finish getting ready before it starts to hurt more than it already does.
The movie is a romantic comedy that Karen picked. It seems good enough, and I like a romance every now and again, although it’s the last thing I want to be thinking about right now.
Two people, falling in love against all odds—
Why couldn’t we have watched a horror movie?
Shortly after the commercials end and the movie begins, Karen reaches over and laces her fingers through mine. It’s nice. It’s been so long since someone has wanted to hold my hand. Since anyone has wanted to spend time with me in this way.
I’m focusing on her.
I’m not thinking about Will at home with my kids, watching Star Wars with them. I don’t care what he thinks of the movies or if they’re having more fun than I am—
I’m not thinking about that.
Karen shifts beside me, resting her head on my shoulder, and I move my arm to accommodate her, wrapping it around her shoulder. She looks up at me with a smile, and I smile back because I’m supposed to, but when her gaze returns to the movie, mine doesn’t.
I settle in, closing my eyes, my mind drifting.
To last night, stitching up Will’s hand. To his mouth on my lips and his uninjured hand on my ass through my scrubs. Why did he do that? I wasn’t doing anything. I was tidying up, exhausted, ready to go home, and then he kissed me.
This means nothing.
That’s what he said. But why did he do it then? Why would you kiss someone if it means nothing? If you’re going to mock them when they—
Karen laughs at something on screen, and I try to tune back in, but I have no idea what’s going on, so I go back to Will’s mouth and his groan against my lips and the way his hand felt.
It’s a good memory, regardless of his intentions. But it’s spoiled by what happened after. The way I couldn’t control my body. I’m a forty-five year old man, and I came in my pants from kissing a man who hates me.
The credits begin to roll, and Karen sits up beside me, stretching. I couldn’t tell you a single thing that happened in the movie.
“What’d you think?” she asks on the walk back to the car.
“It was good,” I say, hoping that’s the right answer.
Judging by her smile, it is.
When I pull into the driveway of the single-story brick house I picked her up at, she unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to me in the passenger seat, pausing with her lip between her teeth before she continues.
“Tyler’s at a sleepover tonight,” she says, her hand landing on my shoulder.
“I was going to open a bottle of wine if you wanted to come in.”
I would normally say no. I need to get back to the kids. But Will seemed settled in for the evening, and the last thing I want to do is face him right now, so I nod. “Sure,” I say, turning off the car. “A glass of wine sounds good.”
You know what they say about the third date.
I pick up the glass of wine Karen poured for me before she said she was going to change out of her dress, and I think, I should have known.
I walked into a woman’s house at nine on a Saturday night and sat down on her couch like we were going to watch TV, or maybe talk.
I didn’t understand what was happening until right now, remembering my daughter’s teasing words.
Jess and I started dating in high school. I never had to date as an adult, never learned the proper etiquette for when it’s an appropriate time to sleep together.
I suppose that would be now.
Karen appears in the doorway wearing much less fabric than she was when she left, and I stand up because I have no idea what else to do. She crosses the room to stand in front of me, her manicured hands finding my chest. She tilts her face up toward mine, and I tilt mine down to meet her lips and—
It’s not that it’s a bad kiss.
My hands land on her waist, and she presses closer, and it’s fine. She makes a soft sound against my lips, and it’s good.
But it’s not Will.
It’s not in an exam room with his strong hands taking what he wants without mercy until my knees are weak and all I can do is—
Stop thinking about that. He’s not here right now.
Karen leads me back until my legs hit the couch. I sit, and she only breaks the kiss to climb into my lap with a confidence that says she knows what she wants and intends to get it. Her fingers run through my hair and her lips trail from mine to my jaw, to my ear where she nibbles and—
I’m trying to get into it.
She rolls her hips, putting pressure directly against my cock, and my body responds the way it should, blood rushing down, my heart rate picking up.
She reaches back and unclasps her bra, and she’s beautiful, with full breasts and nipples a shade darker than her tan skin. When I don’t move, she takes my hands and puts them on her chest, moaning when I massage her gently.
It does feel good.
By the time she gets my pants open and produces a condom from somewhere, I’m fully hard. When she sinks down, I close my eyes, and my head drops back against the couch with an exhale.
It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything but my hand.
But it’s not—
I don’t feel—
I feel Karen, warm and wet, clenching around me, but underneath all of that, I feel an emptiness that makes my stomach twist.
I hold onto her tighter, and I don’t open my eyes once as the pleasure builds.
When I start to get close, I think she is too because she’s gotten louder, and when she clenches around me one final time, I follow her over the edge, spilling into the condom.
After, she relaxes against me, and I hold her, and I try to feel something.
Karen lifts her head after a while, and I open my eyes to meet her satisfied expression. “Stay?” she asks, her hand moving back to my cheek.
I nod, closing my eyes again. “Okay.”
The house is quiet when I let myself in at six in the morning. I feel bad, leaving Karen without saying goodbye. But I texted her with an explanation that I had to get home before the kids woke up, and I had a nice time.
I was in a daze the entire drive home, mostly from the lack of coffee. But when I walk through my front door wearing last night’s clothes, the wrongness I feel buzzing through my body intensifies.
I’m doing the walk of shame. This is what my life has turned into.
I move through the living room, preparing to go up to my room and sleep for a long time, when I’m stopped in my tracks.
Will is asleep with his head tipped back against the cushion. Ollie is curled against his left side, his little arm thrown over him and Will’s hand resting on his back. Addie is on his other side, her pink hair fanned out, her legs tucked up, her head on his shoulder.
I look at the three of them, and I think I should be there too. That I might love him for how good he is with them.
But I’m sure I’m just tired.
And I feel sort of… raw after last night, my emotions all over the place as my heart tries to reason with what happened. I wasn’t ready for that step with her. I don’t feel for Karen the way she does for me, and I’ve had this guilt sitting in my chest since I let her climb into my lap.
Like I’ve betrayed myself.
I go upstairs, into my room where the king-size bed waits for me, too big for one person, and start undoing the buttons of my shirt, slowly because I’m exhausted even after sleeping a solid eight hours, a lot more than I usually get.
I’m distracted by trying to find the button I missed, but not so much that I don’t hear the door open and close.
In the reflection of the full-body mirror, I see Will step through it, locking the doorknob behind him. Clearing my throat, I pause on the button I’m currently working on. “How was Star Wars?”
He doesn’t say anything, stopping behind me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his breath at my neck.
His hands come up around me.