chapter twenty-four
Emme
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will adapt to evolving situations.
If this firstweek was any indication, I wasn’t especially good at being married.
It started with the small coma I fell into after mixing my allergy meds with Jamie’s death brew moonshine margaritas. I woke up the nextafternoonwith hair drool-plastered to my face and sinuses swollen enough to see from space. Ryan, my husband dearest, had already jogged a half marathon and picked up lunch from a cute little café nearby. They’d stopped serving breakfast hours ago, I was told.
He was polite enough to not mention my extra-strength meltdown in his bed the night before or the other night we’d spent in that bed, that one with less clothing and more wild sex. I returned the favor by asking zero questions about the very thick, very hard dick I’d felt rubbing up against me as I fell asleep. That was none of my business.
And then there was the issue of me waiting around for him to come back to the condo on Monday night, my calls and texts going unanswered for hours, only to discover he was filming acommercial outside of Vancouver. Somehow, I’d misplaced the knowledge that my husband left the country.
I’d wanted to talk to him about everything that night. I assigned my class a long, involved independent project that gave me enough time to sit at my desk and blankly stare at my computer while I decided what I was going to do about Ryan—and all the lines we’d crossed.
The responsible answer was to define some boundaries and ground rules. It was the only smart thing to do now that our relationship had taken one helluva left turn. We should’ve done it from the start, way back when we first floated the idea of this arrangement, but we didn’t and we were paying for it now.
It was possible that I was paying for it much more than Ryan was. Or it seemed that way. I was the one who’d escaped his bed and flown intoeverything is finemode the next day when we could’ve sat down and talked about what this meant for us.
I didn’t think I possessed the skills to have a conversation like that but it was really fun to pretend I could. It was like saying I could water ski because I’d heard of both water and skis.
Still, I’d needed to say something on Monday. Needed an idea of how we continued existing together in this marriage with our new history crowding around us. Most of all, I needed to hear from Ryan. Aside from the massive erection he’d nestled between my butt cheeks like it belonged there, I didn’t know what he was thinking. He was being ridiculously polite and giving me all the space in the world since he’d flown off to Vancouver but none of it did me any good because it wasn’t all about me anymore.
But if it was, ifIhad to write the rules for us, I’d have a really hard time convincing myself that our friendship would survive another night like that one. It was the absolute best of my entire life but if that became an everyday occurrence for us, I didn’t seehow we’d ever find our way out of this marriage when the time came to end it. And it would end. That was the whole plan.
I just didn’t want to make it hurt any worse than I already knew it would. It wasn’t an easy conclusion to reach but I knew I needed my friend more than I needed life-altering sex.
I mean, it couldn’t always be life-altering. Right? That was a one-time situation. Highly unusual circumstances. A perfect storm of drunk and lusty and kinda married. No one was having that kind of sex on a regular basis. It wasn’t possible. Not even golden-armed football gods like Ryan.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
The next morning, when I’d decided I needed to stay home from school but didn’t think to notify anyone other than my principal before going back to sleep, I ended up with forty-two missed calls from my husband and Bowen banging on my bedroom door. Apparently the combo of not answering my phone and not showing up for the drive to school meant everyone agreed I was dead. Or something equally dire.
Poor Bowen though, he’d never be the same after getting the full effect of me screaming my lungs out at him when I opened the door plus, all the side boob my oversized tank top had to offer. He deserved a lot of credit for putting up with me. He waited at the condo while Ryan sent some doctor he casually had on speed dial over for a house call and then went out to pick up lemon-lime soda and bagel crackers for me.
I was a little less spacy once I had some antibiotics for the allergies that’d turned into a sinus infection but not before missing a dress fitting appointment with Wren. The bigger problem was that, in my snotty-throbby-bleary state, I’d also forgotten about this weekend’s event. The team’s Super Bowl ring party was Saturday on Nantucket and my dress still needed to be tailored.
Of all the events to forget, this one wasnotit.
When Friday afternoon rolled around, I was doing better. I was packed and prepped and could breathe through my nose again. Breathing was so underrated. I’d girded myself for two solid days of football talk and shored my defenses against the inevitable comments about my father.
Though as I headed to the airport where I was due to meet Ryan, it took three rounds of Bowen trying to get my attention for me to realizeIwas Mrs. Ralston.
“Mrs. Ralston,” he said once again, impatience touching on each carefully articulated syllable, “Mr. Ralston is on the line for you.”
Terrible at marriage. Just terrible.
“Oh. What?” I glanced down at the phone in my hand. I hadn’t missed any calls this time. I leaned forward, toward the front seat. “What’s going on?”
“Em, we had to land outside Philly.” Ryan’s voice boomed through the car speakers. “Some kind of mechanical issue.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Is that the princess?” McKerry’s deep voice came over the line. Ryan had him and a few other offensive linemen with him today for a magazine photoshoot in Dallas. “Lemme talk to her. Princess! How you doin’, girl?”
“Go the hell away. My wife doesn’t need you bothering her,” Ryan said.
