My heart lurches. “No.”
“Okay.” Her voice softens again. “That’s important for you to know. You’re allowed to be furious and still want him. It doesn’t make you weak or stupid. It makes you human.”
“How is it that you’re giving me relationship advice?”
She laughs. “You mean because I haven’t been in a relationship longer than six months?”
“Yeah, and that your most intimate relationship is with your vibrator,” I tease.
“True. But then, I think it’s easier to see inside someone else’s relationship from the outside, with fewer emotions clouding the facts. And as you said, I have known you both for a long time, and I knowyouverywell.”
“And who am I, Iris?” She’s right about emotions clouding reality, but they’ve also blurred me out of my own picture.
“Babe, that you’re going to have to discover for yourself.”
After we end the call, I’m tempted to go into the guest room and sleep with Rhys. I hate being here without him, now that the heat of anger and hurt has cooled some.
Butthere is one truth that remains scorching hot.
I’m not happy.
I want to be more thanhiswife andtheirmother.
I want to bejustJayne. Working gives that to me.
Why can’t he understand it?
My job was good enough when it was paying our bills and putting him through medical school, but now it’s an inconvenience?
Well, not to me.
I hear Iris’s voice in my head, “Then explain that to him, calmly, without fighting, and most importantly, without hiding yourself.”
CHAPTER 12
Rhys
The next morning, we have coffee together, and she makes me breakfast as she always does, even when I have an early day.
“Jayne—”
“Can we talk tonight?” she says with a wan smile. “Please.”
I’m relieved that she’s postponing whatever is coming. I didn’t sleep well. How could I? I was in the fucking guest room, missing my wife, wondering how long I’ll be missing her, wondering if I’d fucked my marriage up by talking about it with Tory.
Talk about the universe shitting on you—I forget my bandana, and Jayne, the good wife, comes to drop it off, only to hear me tell another woman that she’s a nag.
I understand her anger. I understand that she’s hurt. I’m just not sure what to do about either.
“Will you be home for dinner?” she asks as I’mleaving, and I have to actively stop myself from getting defensive. She’s not criticizing me; she’s not saying you’re never home; she’s just asking a simple question that couples ask each other all the time.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’ll be home by dinner. I don’t have any late consults.”
She nods. “Okay.”
She studies me for a second, eyes soft but distant, like she’s looking through me instead of at me.
“Takeout?” I offer, searching for neutral ground. “Ekiben?”
