Drumstick’s excited shouting can be heard all the way up the stairs as his dad walks into the house, and I listen while they have a brief conversation with each other about their days, like they always do.
In the mirror, I give my strapless bra a quick lift to offer a lift to my breasts, then I give myself a twirl to make sure that I’m happy with how everything came together.
I have to make this work. I have to fix this.
When Connor gets back from his sister’s house, we’ll talk. I’ll tell him that as much as it hurts, I can’t do this anymore, and that I have to try to save my marriage.
I don’t know if I’ll tell Tripp. Part of me thinks that he would be better off never knowing the truth. Another part of me knows that the guilt of keeping this from him will tear me apart.
The only thing I know for sure is that losing my husband is not an option.
I bound down the stairs to meet him, and his eyes are on me as soon as I reach the landing. When I reach him, I wrap my arms around his neck and press a kiss to his cheek, feeling his chest rise against mine as he pulls in a breath of my perfume.
When we part, he scans me again, head to toe and back up once more. It brings warmth crawling across my skin.
“I haven’t seen that in a while,” he says, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
His eyes are on my breasts, and my mind tells me that they’re what he’s referring to. It takes a minute for me to realize that he’s talking about the top that I’ve owned for years and have only worn out one other time.
“Go get dressed,” I tell him with a giggle, pushing him toward the stairs. “I’m hungry.”
It takes him considerably less time to get himself cleaned up and changed than it did me, but my heart still skips when he trots down the stairs, fixing the collar on his sleek black button-up.
The tattoos that cover his neck and the line of his jaw spill out of his shirt, and I smile at them as I push my fingers through his hair.
“Can I slick it back?” I beg, throwing on my best puppy dog eyes. “Please?”
“You really like the mobster hair that much?” He teases.
“I love the mobster hair.”
Rushing past him, I hurry up the stairs before he can argue, and I come back down with a fine tooth comb and a jar of pomade in my hands. As I put the product into his hair and carefully comb back each strand, placing it perfectly so he won’t fuss with it later, I can feel him.
His eyes are on me, watching my every movement, and the corner of his mouth is pulled up just enough to make my cheeks warm.
I’m in high school all over again, hoping that the cute boy standing in front of me might want to kiss me.
“So, I keep this in my pocket and just give it a quick—”
“No!” I shout through a laugh as he takes the comb from me and moves to swipe it through his hair. We struggle against each other for a moment before his wrists are firmly held in my grasp, the two of us laughing together. “Your head is off-limits to you tonight. Leave my work alone.”
And all of the sudden, that cute boy that I’ve been crushing on presses his lips to mine. It’s a soft kiss, so gentle that the metal of his jewelry tickles at first before he adds more pressure.
When his hand cups my face, I melt against him. My arms wrap around his neck as his hands find my waist, and we’re not in our thirties anymore. We’re sixteen and seventeen years old, kissing each other behind a concrete beam in the school’s parking lot and hoping that one of the Sisters won’t catch us in the act.
When we part, he presses a soft kiss to the tip of my nose, brushing his thumb across my cheekbone.
“You’re okay, aren’t you?” He asks, and I offer him a smile as I brush a smudge of my lipstick away from the edge of his lip.
“Absolutely,” I nod. “Never better.”
I kiss him again before we pack ourselves into the car and leave for the restaurant.
It’s a small, intimate place, and unassuming from the outside, but inside, it’s beautiful. The main rooms are dimly lit only by small overhead lights, with the accent of a few words spelled out with red neon lights on the windows. Music plays softly enough that I can almost never make out what it is that we’re listening to.
Conversation at every table is held at a respectful volume and the centerpieces add even more romance to complement the lighting.
Tripp already knows what he wants when we sit down; he probably looked up their new menu as soon as we made plans. I take a few extra minutes while he orders us glasses of wine and a few appetizers.
