Fix You (2 page)

             
Jo wanted more kids, she knew. She wanted a big family like the one in which she’d grown up. She wanted Tam and her children and their cousins and this whole…life she was sketching in her mind. Vet school was growing dim in the distance, smiling sadly at her, but understanding.

             
“You ready to go to sleep?” she asked and earned another yawn.

             
Shuffled footfalls across the carpet in the hall announced Tam’s arrival as she settled Will in her crib with Zeke the Zebra and pulled the covers up.

             
“Night, little girl.” Jo smoothed Will’s black hair off her forehead as Tam joined her at the side of the crib. “Sleep tight.”

             
Tam folded his arms over the rail and Jo raked a hand through his freshly cut hair before she slipped out of the room. She missed his hair – maybe even more than he did – but it was still black and slippery through her fingers, and he was the same Tam under his new ‘do.

             
Almost the same. Enhanced, more like. Because now he was a guy who sang his little girl to sleep every night. As Jo stepped out into the hall, she heard him start “Ain’t Waistin’ Time No More,” soft and a cappella.

             
Tomorrow he graduated and the day after he had a job interview. Somehow, Jo had always thought growing up would feel like becoming a whole new person. But it didn’t. It felt like first day jitters and letting go of childhood hopes and the warm squeeze of her heart as she listened to the boy who’d taught her how to skateboard singing their daughter the Allman Brothers.

**

              The silk and satin, barely-there pajamas Ellie had worn their first two years together had given way, in the last six months, to a thin cotton nightgown that hung to her knees. It was heather gray, its thin straps always wanting to fall down her shoulders, shapeless save the places where it hugged her belly and breasts. She was still gorgeous, and he told her often enough so she wouldn’t ever start to think he thought any differently; but as Jordan watched her dab moisturizer beneath her eyes in front of the mirror on her dressing table, his daughters distorting her profile, he acknowledged, guiltily, that he missed his wife’s bombshell shape. Her tiny waist. He wasn’t stupid enough to say it, but watching her pregnancy progress was odd. It was a good kind of odd, but still…

             
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

             
“No.” She raked her fingers down through her thick, dark chocolate hair. She made a face at her reflection, nose scrunching up, little bow mouth tugging to the side. “If I can keep from whelping on stage, then I’ll be fine.”

             
“Should I have them put down newspaper just in case?”

             
Her hair tumbled over her shoulder as she turned to give him a pretend smile. “Oh, how sweet you are, Coach Walker.”

             
He shrugged. “It’s kind of my best trait.”

             
Then her smile became true and she shook her head, eyes rolling. “Well, you’re gonna need it tomorrow. Mom, Dad and Nikki are all coming.”

             
“That’s good,” he said, but groaned inwardly.

             
“Good?” she asked, brows lifting as she came to join him on the bed. She sat down on the edge beside him and picked her moisturizer up off her nightstand, squeezed a dollop into her palm.

             
His in-laws hadn’t taken to him the Thanksgiving they’d been introduced. When Ellie’s mother found out they’d married, she’d thrown herself into a fit that had required her anti-anxiety meds be adjusted. Two years later, Natalie and Stephen Grayson still referred to Jordan as
him
. Usually
oh…him
. The night they’d told them that Ellie was pregnant, Ellie had smiled in their shocked, dismayed faces. But that night, in the dark, under the covers, she’d cried against his shoulder because even if she told herself it would never happen, she wished her family would find some happiness for her. The next night he’d taken her to his parents so they could announce their news, and Ellie had cried again, this time as Beth snatched her into a hug and exclaimed over more grandchildren.

             
“They need to support you,” he said around a grimace. “You got through college in three years. The other one,” he said of Nikki, “can’t even get into cosmetology school.”

             
She smiled tiredly as she worked the lotion between her fingers. “I love that you can’t stand my sister. You know that?”

             
“Now look who’s ‘sweet.’”

             
“Oh,” she groaned and let her head fall to the side against his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

             
Jordan waited to see, wondering if she’d turn into him and kiss his neck and invite him down between the sheets with her. But she didn’t. She’d been hot-blooded during the first trimester and part of the second. But lately…the bigger she became, the more creative they had to be, and even if she didn’t push him away, she didn’t reach for him either.

             
He heard her take a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about names,” she said in a hesitant voice.

             
“Thinking?” he lifted his brows at the empty stretch of room in front of him, the velvet darkness of a May night beyond the window. “Or you named them?” he felt a smile tugging.

             
Her chuckle was sheepish. “Named them.”

             
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess they came out of a book.”

             
“
Pride and Prejudice
.”

             
“But of course.”

             
“Lizzy and Jane.”

             
“My mom’s name is Elizabeth.”

             
“I know. Will she mind?”

             
“She’ll love it.”

             
“And I know Jane is kind of overdone and boring.” A glance from the corner of his eye proved she was chewing at her lip. “But…”

             
“But those are their names,” he finished.

             
“Yeah.” She heaved a little sigh and straightened up, hooked her chin on his shoulder. “Those are their names. Unless, you know, you had your heart set on something else.”

             
Not so much as one baby name had crossed his mind; he’d known Ellie would want to figure it out, to find the perfect things to call her babies.

             
“I dunno,” he schooled his features and turned his head so he could see part of her face, his nose overlapping hers. “I figured you’d want to use a name from literature. You don’t want to name them after teen vampires?”

             
“Oh my God.” She sat back with a start, gray eyes going goggle wide. “I
will not
name my child anything even
remotely
related. If there were ever females who were not role models – ”

             
He grinned.

             
“You jerk.” She slugged him in the arm – or at least tried to; it was a pathetic excuse for a punch. But she grinned. “Seriously though.”

             
“Seriously, I like Lizzy and Jane.”

             
“You do?”

             
“How many times have I watched
Pride and Prejudice
with you?”

             
Her smile widened. “You do put up with a lot.”

             
“I’m a saint.”

             
“
Some
of the time.” Ellie took a deep breath that sounded excited, eyes dancing. “Lizzy and Jane, then.”

             
Jordan had no idea what they were going to do with two infants at once. Two girls, even worse. He wasn’t prepared for double fatherhood – not in the least. But he smiled anyway. “Lizzy and Jane.”

**

              The key slid into the lock fourteen minutes after one a.m. In a house silent save for the soft, unconscious sounds of sleep – the hum of the fridge downstairs, the muffled thump of Tyler shifting in his bed down the hall, the settling of floorboards – Jess had become a shadow: a darker shape in a dark house, just another useless object that meant nothing, immobile in the leather chair in the corner of her bedroom. Every sound slid over the ridges and curves of her ears, loud as gunshots. The back door opening was an explosion.

             
Dylan was home.

             
Adrenaline surged through her: a sudden, hot blast of energy that rippled across her skin the likes of which she had never experienced. She waited, straining, for heartbreak to descend, and all she felt was white, hot, sure-and-swift fury. And certainty. Her little brother Jordan had told her once – with a certainty as strong and sweet as sugar – that he’d known he would win every race he’d ever run.
“I just know,”
was all he’d ever been able to say.
“Don’t ask me how, but I do.”
Maybe his certainty was a genetic trait all of the Walker children shared. Walt was certain Jo was an idiot. Mike was certain of his worth. Jordan was certain of his talent and Jo had been seventeen and certain as hell that she loved her Tam in a way that wouldn’t fade or come unglued, no matter what, no matter how vicious his father had been. And Jess, as the backdoor closed and keys landed with a rattle on the kitchen counter, was certain beyond all doubt that the man coming up the stairs to her was not the man she’d kissed on her wedding day.

             
He was some stray animal who didn’t belong in her head, her heart, her home. He didn’t belong in her life.

             
He’d had drinks with his “client.” With his mistress. His footfalls were unsteady on the steps. He paused a long moment at the top of the landing; Jess heard the soft brush of his palm against the wall as he steadied himself. He cursed softly and she could envision him pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger like he had countless nights over the past two years. The soles of his shoes scuffed over the oatmeal carpet. He crossed the threshold of the bedroom; the adrenaline circulating through her shot up her arm, through her fingers, and she clicked on the standing lamp beside her chair.

             
Incandescent light splashed across the room. Everything was as it had been – their bed and its thick cream duvet; the black nightstands and his and her dressers; the black and white framed photos of Tyler along the far wall – but there were three suitcases stacked one on top of the other on the floor at the foot of the bed.

             
Dylan’s tie was loose – a limp red snake threaded through the open collar of his white oxford. His suit jacket was draped over one arm and with the other, he shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of light, grimacing. In her mind, Jess saw phantom lipstick prints against his neck, the red half-moons where fingernails had scored his skin. That morning, as he’d dropped a fast, chaste kiss against her temple before he left for work, she’d felt a pang of regret to realize that it had been over a month since their physical contact had been anything beyond straightening his collar or brushing lint off his jacket; nudging him awake when he overslept the alarm. It had been over a month and he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t initiated anything. It had been over six months since he’d joined her in the shower. Over a year since she’d greeted a new dawn with his arm around her. Romance faded, the urgency lessened; she knew that, she accepted that…

             
But she should have known. All those near silent dinners in which they’d only talked to Tyler and not to each other. All those evasive mentions of clients and dinners and out of town trips. All the times he’d begged off on Saturday brunch with her family. The complete lack of renewed fizzle in Ireland when they’d been surrounded by centuries-old stone and all the whiskey they could drink.

             
She should have known.

             
Jess felt like a fool, and her own stupidity was even more offensive than the sight of her lying, son of a bitch, rape-fetish husband.

             
“Jess.” He pulled his arm away, still blinking, face screwed up. “What the hell are you doing?”

             
The perfumed letters were bundled neatly between her thigh and the arm of the chair. She put her hand on them, the paper rustling. “Waiting for you,” she said in a flat monotone, “
my idol
.”

             
Dylan froze. His hand went limp and fell to his side; his face slackened. His mistress’s pet name rendered him stupid, and his eyes went to her hand, to the letters she withdrew from their hiding place.

             
“I just thought I’d do a little light reading till you got home,” Jess said, and flung her hand wide, the letters flying loose with wild, weightless swoops.