“Shh. Keep your voice down. And yes.”
Piper tosses a frustrated hand through her hair to make sense of a situation that is already fucked. I stare at her with the same yearning in my heart from all of those years ago, except this time it tears apart the organ even more than before.
“You had a…?” She swallows thickly and tilts her head back up to the ceiling to gather thoughts that will probably be all over the place for quite some time.
I can guess the rest of that question. “No, Holly’s mother and I were separated at the time.”
Piper’s eyes are full of both tears and amusement. “And you just…forgot to tell me about your daughter?”
Speechless, I keep my lips firmly pressed together and look her dead in the eye for an explanation Icouldgive her, but won’t. It’s better this way. Less complicated. Opening up emotionally to Piper is the worst thing I could do.
I can almost imagine her face as I tell her the real reason I left—softened.“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions,”she would say, after the initial blowup for me not telling her the truth sooner.
It’s better for both of us if she hates me. It creates distance, which is what the pair of us need right now seeing as we’re living under one roof.
Luckily, the house is big enough for us to keep our distance, and my work will further contribute to that distance since we have very different schedules.
But as I watch her now, leaning over my countertop to deal with the bomb I’ve just dropped, I feel that unrequited yearning again as she plays out the fantasy I always had in my head.
Soft, brunette curls fall lazy over her shoulders as she walks around the kitchen—our kitchen—in domestic clothes, worn only in front of me. These are the kind of clothes you only show to the people you live with.
And living in the same house creates intimacy…
I stare once again at the naked skin of her shoulder—enticing in a nonsexual way. My arms want to snake around her waist, and my nose craves that refreshing, floral scent unique only to her.
I’ve been without it for far too long.
Desire suddenly awakens in my pants as I imagine the taste of her nectar. It’s a very inconvenient time to get hard, since she’s over in the corner trying to mask her tears. But I can’t help that my cock is desperate to slip back into her warmth.
I could heal the both of us…
I really need to get fucking laid.
Sadness washes over me as she retrieves the glass and raises it to her lips. Small moments like this are going to cut the most, because this is what I always wanted for us. I had it all mapped out in my head before, the way we’d exist together under one roof. We were meant to go through the trials and tribulations of life together.
Not separately.
“I should get started with dinner,” I say, clearing my throat to hopefully extinguish all other feelings. A hearty tomato dish is needed tonight. I need comfort food to numb everything else for a while.
She says, “Let me help you. We both have children to feed. And ourselves.”
I open the refrigerator and sense her haunting presence behind me. Once upon a time, it used to comfort me knowing that she was near.
But now her presence is starting to have the opposite effect.
And we’ve only been reacquainted a day.
“No,” I say, clipping my speech. “That won’t be necessary. Head upstairs and get some rest. I’ll take care of everything.”
Before she goes, I turn back around and blurt out the question that’s been on my lips ever since I ran into her and Sonny yesterday. “How old is he?”
She pauses halfway up the staircase, jaw tensed, and answers, “Seven. But it’s best not to mention that to Sonny. He gets sensitive about his age. Wishes he was older.”
And here I am wishing I was younger.
Piper disappears upstairs, leaving me alone with passata and a sphere of mozzarella cheese. I get started on the boiling water and channel my built-up energy into making some delicious food.
I picked up cooking a few years back as a hobby. It gave me something to do on my rotated four days off work. Ellie being my only source of entertainment, I was left to my own devices when she was at school, so I bought myself a cast-iron pan and decided to cook.
