The Perfect Life (32 page)

Taking full advantage of the few minutes we had alone, I shifted my inside hand to the pleather bench seat we shared and ‘accidentally’ brushed my fingers against hers. With a sharp, sudden intake of breath, her gaze fell to where our skin touched, and after a couple of seconds, a devious grin began to spread across her gorgeous face.

“It depends,” she smarted back as her hand inched toward my thigh, completely hidden by the table, “on whether or not you’re gonna hold and comfort me if I do.”

The instant her fingers made contact with my leg, even though it was through the rough denim of my jeans, my dick stirred to life and I groaned. I shot her a you’re-the-devil look and tried to shift away from her, but she tightened her hold to a death-grasp and shook her head.

“Unh-unh, no running away,” she laughed, the beautiful sound dancing in my ears. “Answer my question. Are you gonna take care of me afterward if I get all scared when I see a ghost?”

“You already know the answer,” I murmured, dropping my stare to the table, suddenly feeling shy. “I always take care of you.”

Relaxing her grip, Monroe patted my leg soothingly as she leaned in to whisper, “You’re right. You do. And I don’t ever want you to stop.”

My nostrils flared and my pulse spiked as I utilized every last ounce of willpower I had inside me to refrain from kissing her stupid right there and then, not giving a single fuck who saw us. I’d been captivated by her since the first time I met her, and the fast and furious ride from pipedream crush to practically living together in the span of three months had led me right to that very moment. Sitting in a corner booth at the local Lobster House, as dusk fell outside the window over her shoulder, with her hidden hand on my thigh and her warm breath floating across my neck, it was then I knew I didn’t ever want to stop taking care of her either. As in
never
ever.

I wanted to wake up to her morning breath and fall asleep to her faint snores. I wanted her to make fun of me when we had dance parties in the living room and laugh until she snorted like a pig as I tickled her relentlessly in bed. I wanted her to get mad at me when I forgot to take out the trash and I wanted to roll my eyes each time she forgot to put the chocolate milk back in the fridge. It was always easy to want the good with someone, but it was when I realized I wanted the bad with her even more than I wanted the best of anyone else, that my brain confirmed what my heart already knew.

I loved her.

Mind, body, and spirit, I hopelessly adored her and wanted nothing more than to keep her as mine forever.

“Monroe,” my breath hitched as our eyes locked, electricity crackling in the air between us, “promise me that you’ll tell him as soon as he gets back. I don’t ever want to stop taking care of you either. Please don’t ask me to.”

Pressing her soft, pink lips together, she nodded slightly. “I promise, Ollie.”

“If darkness

is really not

darkness at

all, but rather,

the absence of

light,

then my flaws

are not really

flaws at all,

but rather,

the absence

of you.”

–Christopher Poindexter

Monroe

“KEEP STIRRING UNTIL
all the liquid is absorbed. This may take anywhere from three to five minutes,” the gorgeous Italian chef instructed with a smile as she mixed the rice mixture with ease, exerting just enough effort to make her amazing boobs squeeze together and peek out of the designer V-neck blouse she wore.

“Oh, go blow on a tailpipe, Giada,” I growled at the iPad, irritated because I had been stirring the damn risotto for over ten minutes and all I had to show for it was a tired arm and a skillet full of chicken broth and flat rice.

Blowing out an exasperated breath, I dropped the wooden spoon and stepped away from the stove, ready to call for delivery. I knew better than to think I could cook Colin’s favorite dinner, even if his mom had walked me step-by-step over the phone through the recipes for the chicken Marsala and the garlic parmesan risotto that afternoon. Cooking just wasn’t my thing—never was, never would be. I could manage to prepare a few simple things without total destruction of myself, the house, or the food, but anything with more than like three or four ingredients just never turned out right. Not to mention, I was usually cooking for only myself, and that wasn’t very much fun.

However, that Sunday night, four weeks to the day since Colin had left for treatment in Florida, he was finally coming home and had promised to join me for dinner so we could catch up. Having flown into the city earlier in the day, he’d headed straight to the stadium to watch the team take on the Steelers for an early afternoon kick-off. Much to my chagrin, the Pats had lost . . .
again.

With Colin out due to his injury, the team had lost three of four, and suddenly, their playoff spot was in jeopardy. I was well aware that his mood wouldn’t be the best when he arrived home, so I’d called his mom for help when I stopped off at the market on my way home from Oliver’s, in hopes his favorite home-cooked meal would help him relax, as well as soften the blow when I told him about the whole boyfriend thing.

As luck would have it, Oliver returned to Boston from Thanksgiving with his family on the same day Colin came home, their flights landing within an hour of each other. And although I was ecstatic to see Colin after going a month with only text messages and a couple of Skype sessions, I wasn’t all that devastated when he told me he wouldn’t be home until later in the evening, once the game was over.

Oliver, on the other hand, I was dying to get a piece of the minute he stepped off the plane, though I was smart enough to wait for him at his apartment and not at the airport. With the key he’d given me before he left, I’d let myself in that morning and waited in his bed until he joined me shortly thereafter—both of us eager to show the other how much they were missed. Even though it sucked not being able to spend the night with him while Callie was staying at his apartment, we at least had a blast roaming around the city for those three days, goofing off like carefree teenagers and sneaking kisses and touches anytime we got a chance. But the four nights he was in Illinois, when I couldn’t sleep soundly or snap out of my overall funk, were absolutely abysmal and seemed to drag on for an eternity. My Thanksgiving dinner with the kids was the only time I didn’t think about how much I missed him and enjoyed myself.

I was neither too stubborn nor blind to recognize the impact his absence had on me and what it ultimately meant, but before I could drop that three-word-bomb on him, I needed to talk to Colin first. If I deserved more, he at least deserved that. For everything that we were. For the love and respect we had for each other.

Which brought me to the epic failure of a dinner that I was scraping into the trash receptacle, burying all of my hopes to butter him up under the heap of inedible food.
If this talk doesn’t go well, it’s all Giada’s fault.

A half an hour later, Chinese food was delivered to the front door, and not ten minutes after that, I heard Colin pull up and the engine turn off. My stomach rolled with nerves as I waited for him to come in, but the second I saw my husband’s red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks as he came through the back door, all of the things I planned to say to him were pushed aside and replaced with his need for me to comfort him in whatever way necessary. I had only witnessed Colin cry a couple of times in all the years we’d been together, so I knew something or someone had seriously upset him.

“Colin, babe,” I gasped, throwing the kitchen towel I was carrying down on the counter and rushing to him. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”

We converged in the middle of the living room and immediately wrapped each other up in a tight embrace, my face smashed against his chest. After taking a little bit to soak in the therapeutic qualities of the hug, he pulled back far enough that we could look into each other’s eyes.

“I don’t know what happened,” he finally replied, wiping the wetness away with the back of his hands. “I was fine one minute while driving home, and then the next, I was crying uncontrollably. It was like I’d suppressed all this sadness and disappointment I felt after everything that happened with Seth, and then it felt like you were trying to pull away when you told me that you felt a special connection with Oliver, and I got scared.”
Oh God, please don’t say it.
“It seemed like everyone I love was just trying to leave me.”
Yep, he said it.

“Then that stupid, freak accident at the lock-in . . .” He paused to shake his head in disbelief. “You, Seth, and football—that’s all I want in life. It’s all I need to be happy. And this last month has been hell without any of the three. The game today was just the tipping point. It nearly killed me watching my teammates out there, knowing I couldn’t do anything to help them win. And I guess all the emotions finally just got the best of me . . . I snapped in the car.” Ruffling my hair, his offered me a small smile. “But now that I’m home, here with you, I surprisingly feel a million times better. And I know that starting tomorrow morning, my life will be nothing but New England Patriots football for the rest of the season. I’ve got four weeks to lead this team back to the top of the division, and I don’t care if I have to move in to the practice facility. I will make sure I’m mentally and physically prepared each and every week to do just that.”

My muscles tensed with the guilt coursing through my body while apprehension held my tongue quiet; there was no way in Hell I could tell him about me and Oliver right then, not unless I wanted to further trample on his already bruised and battered heart. And I loved him too much for that.

I encouraged him with an affectionate pat on the arm, ignoring my own inner turmoil. “Whatever you need, babe, I’m here for you. Until the very end.”

“Until the very end, baby girl,” he repeated, his small smile widening into a full-out grin as he stared down at me from his massive height. “Now what’s the big surprise you mentioned for dinner? I’m starving.”

With a sheepish grin, a nervous chuckle escaped from me as I glanced over my shoulder to the kitchen. “Well, uh, you see,” I hee-hawed around for a minute before blurting it all out in a single breath. “I tried to make your mom’s chicken Marsala and risotto for you, because I knew you were going to be in a not-so-great mood, but that ended up a total disaster, so we’re now having Chinese takeout.”

He howled with laughter at my confession and demanded I tell him the full cooking fiasco as we sat on our stools at the kitchen island, stuffing our faces with Mongolian beef, fried rice, and eggrolls. We didn’t talk about Seth. We didn’t talk about Oliver. And for a little while, we were just Colin and Monroe like back in college. Best friends until the very end.

Only the end was coming faster than either of us knew.

“I’ve narrowed it down to these—Elephant’s Breath, Skipping Rocks, and London Fog. What do you think?” I asked Oliver as he joined me in the upstairs bedroom, carrying the ladder I’d asked him to bring up.

As I backed away from the wall, my eyes bounced back and forth between the paint swatches I’d been staring at for over an hour. It was Wednesday, our second full day of working in the MH house after we’d signed the mountain of closing paperwork on Monday afternoon, and I’d been working on the kids’ bedrooms, choosing paint, furniture, and décor. Well, it was almost noon, and I hadn’t made it past the paint part yet.