“Besides,” I said, as she came after me. “I’m having fun messing with you.”
“Fun, eh?” Freya stole the ball off of me too easily, pulled back, and cracked it so hard, straight at my face, she snapped my glasses clean in half.
As soon as I crumpled to the ground, she fell to her knees, brushing shards of the wreckage from my face.
“Shit!” Her hands shook, her finger tracing the bridge of my nose. “I’m so sorry. I have a short fuse, and it’s like you’re hardwired to push every button I have.”
I grinned up at her, my eyes watering. “I knew we had a connection.”
“I’m really sorry,” she whispered, ignoring my line.
“You can make it up to me,” I said, with as much Aiden MacCormack panty-melting charm as I could muster. Which was…challenging, given I’d just taken a point-blank shot to the face and looked like hell, but if there’s one thing I am, it’s determined.
Freya knew exactly what I meant. Dropping back on her heels she arched an eyebrow. “I’m not going on a date with you just to make up for accidentally busting your glasses.”
“Um, you intentionally pulverized my glasses. And quite possibly my nose.” I sat up slowly and leaned on my elbows as the breeze wafted her scent my way—fresh-cut grass and a tall, cool glass of lemonade. I wanted to breathe her in, to run my tongue over every drop of sweat beading her throat, then drag her soft bottom lip between my teeth—to taste her, sweet and tart.
“Just one small kiss.” I tapped the bridge of my nose, then winced at the pain, where a bruised cut stung from the impact of my glasses. “Right here.”
She palmed my forehead until I flopped back on the grass, then stepped right over me.
“I don’t give out kisses, four-eyes,” she said over her shoulder. “But I’ll buy you an apology beer after this, then we’ll see what I’m willing to part with.”
To this day, Freya swears she was trying for the goal which was, ya know, twenty yards to the right of my head, but we both know that’s not what happened. The truth is, we both learned a lesson that day:
Aiden can only push so far.
Freya can only take so much.
Before something breaks.
Badly.
Freya
Playlist: “I Go Crazy,” Orla Gartland
I used to sing all the time. In the shower. On road trips. Painting our house. Cooking with Aiden. Because I’m a feeler, and music is a language of emotion.
Then, one week ago, I crawled into bed alone again, curled up with my cats, Horseradish and Pickles, and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sung. And it just so happened to be when I realized that I was really fucking fed up with my husband. That I had been. For months.
So I kicked him out. And things may have devolved a bit since then.
Hiccupping, I stare at Aiden’s closet.
“You still there?” My best friend Mai’s voice echoes on speakerphone, where my cell rests on the bed.
“Yep.” Hiccup. “Still drunkish. Sorry.”
“Just no operating any heavy machinery, and you’re doing fine.”
I hiccup again. “I think there’s something wrong with me. I’m so pissed at him that I’ve fantasized about sticking chocolate pudding in his business shoes—”
“What?” she yells. “Why would you do that?”
“He’d think it’s cat shit. Pickles gets diarrhea when she eats my houseplants.”
A pause. “You’re disturbing sometimes.”
“This is true.” Coming from a family of seven children, I have some very creative ways to exact revenge. “I definitely have a few wires crossed. I’m thinking about resurrecting some of my most sinister pranks, and I’m so horny, I’m staring at his closet, huffing his scent.”
Mai sighs sympathetically from my phone. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You haven’t had a lay in…how long, again?”
I grab the bottle of wine sitting on my dresser and take a long swig. “Nine weeks. Four days—” I squint one-eyed at the clock. “Twenty-one hours.”
She whistles. “Yeah. So, too long. You’re sex starved. And just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you can’t still want him. Marriage is messier and much more complicated than anyone warned us. You can want to rip off his nuts and miss him so bad, it feels like you can’t breathe.”
Tears swim in my eyes. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“But you can,” Mai says gently. “One breath at a time.”
“Why don’t they warn us?”
“What?”
“Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard marriage is going to be?”