I laughed at that. Fiona, having effectively broken the ice, moved to cut us both a piece of cake. She had two plates and forks, as well as a cake cutter in the bag that the cake had come in.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to share this with you or get the chance to say happy birthday today at all. I thought I’d just leave your present on your desk for you to discover whenever you came in next.”
“Thank you,” I offered. “Sorry my manners are lacking today but thank you for all of this. It means so much since…”
“Since what?” As Fiona asked, she placed her hand gently on top of mine, which was sitting on my knee.
“I just can’t shake the fact that no one has bothered to call or message me today. With everyone else, I might have brushed it away as them leading busy lives. Moreland never fails to send me a message and my wife… Well, it’s sort of her day, too, since it’s not just my birthday.”
“Oh?” Fiona made the one-word sound like more of a question.
“It’s our ninth wedding anniversary, tenth for us being together since we met on my birthday.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you met her on your birthday. Wait, you also got married the same day, too?”
I nodded and grinned as I remembered how Violet had teased me. “My wife always tells people that I wanted it like that, so I could never forget the date.” As I mentioned that, it sunk in that she must have forgotten. I never thought I’d live to see the day when my wife, the woman who is the other half of me, would forget our anniversary.
“Let’s open this bad boy up.” Fiona grabbed the bottle of bourbon, and I stood to go get glasses that I kept in the cabinet behind my desk. When I got back, I moved a little closer to Fiona, so that she wouldn’t spill the liquid on the carpet. The last thing I needed was for my office to smell like a distillery.
I didn’t go easy on my glass. I threw it back and barely tasted the bourbon as it went down. I held my glass out immediately for a refill. My eyes moved to the piece of cake that awaited me.
“Coconut is my favorite,” I told Fiona needlessly. Apparently, she already knew.
She chuckled. “You don’t say,” she teased. “Every time we order in for a client lunch, you want it from Alice’s so you can get her coconut cake.”
“Attention to detail,” I praised. “That’s what makes you the best damn assistant.” She winced a little but tried to cover it as she took a sip of her bourbon. It was clear that she didn’t enjoy it. Most people needed to acquire a taste for it. “How is it you’re here when everyone else is off again?”
“I told you already. I was going to leave this stuff.” She swooshed her hand around indicating everything she brought to celebrate my birthday with me.
I grunted my answer as I downed another glass of bourbon. “Thanks for being the only person in the world to celebrate with me.” Fiona reached over and patted my thigh a couple times before she pulled her hand back.
“I’m sure they all have a good reason,” she suggested, but that rang just as false as some of her other statements.
I picked up the bottle and poured myself another glass. I took one bite of the cake and decided it did not pair well with the drink, and the liquor seemed more important. It was official, at thirty-five-years-old, I was throwing myself my very first pity party. That wasn’t even true. My assistant was the one who supplied me with everything I needed for the party.
“I don’t understand why Violet, of all people, would have disappeared today and never said a word to me.”
“Do you think she’s happy at home?” Fiona shocked me with that question.
If someone had asked me that two months ago, my answer would have been a resounding ‘yes.’ If someone had asked me yesterday, it would have been less resounding than in previous years, but still a ‘yes.’
My wife loved me, of that I had no doubt. She had been hiding something, though, and the more I thought about it, the more I worried she didn’t want to have a baby with me. It was the only thing that had changed in our lives in the past year. Well, the past nine months, since we had to wait for the effectiveness of her birth control shot to wear off.
I wished it was my wife who sat beside me in my office. I’d have the courage to ask if it was what she really wanted, or if she wanted to wait a little longer. I didn’t want to push her into doing something she would regret, but neither of us were getting any younger. I was thirty-five and she was thirty-one. It had been a decade since we met, and I thought that was plenty of time to be selfish and enjoy one another without children. We lived our lives, traveled together, and had a great life. The only thing missing for me was children that my wife and I raised together. I would be disappointed if she didn’t want to start a family yet, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
I slammed back another drink, not thinking about the fact that I rarely drank more than a half shot at dinner parties anymore.
“You’ve said more than once that Violet has been unavailable a lot lately. Do you think she’s hiding something more than a party she’s planning for strangers?”
“Like what?” I snapped.
Of course, I thought that.
The devil on my shoulder nudged me when that thought escaped. I wondered if maybe she was hiding from being intimate with me because she didn’t want a baby, but that wasn’t right either, since we’d just had a major, unprotected fuck session the night before.
“I don’t know.”
“Is there any chance she’s stepping out with someone else?” Did I hear a hopeful lilt to Fiona’s question? No, that was just the bourbon making her words feel fuzzy.
