Aced

  Another step. Questions shout. Sammy’s hands moving people back.

  “Colton, are you and Rylee thinking of making a porn soon?”

  One more step. A single thought: Rylee dealt with this on her own yesterday on the beach. Motherfucker.

  “Colton, how is Rylee handling all of this?”

  Another step. The car within reach. Flash in my eyes. Fury in my veins.

  Fuck Chase’s no comment advice. Fuck everyone. I’m done. Shoved way too far one way, and now I’m coming back swinging.

  “You want a comment?” I shout. Silence is almost automatic. “Well, I’ll give you one.” I glance over to where Becks is standing in the open car door, eyes full of pride, telling me I’m doing the right thing.

  “The question is, do you really want to know how we feel or are you just interested in twisting your story because sex sells so much better than the truth? I get it. I do. And if you take the selfless do-gooder who’s spent her life helping others and turn her into a whore who makes sex tapes in exchange for funding . . . well shit, that sells ten times more. But that’s not who Rylee Donavan is.” I take a breath. My body vibrates with anger. My thoughts slowly click together.

  That revenge I was looking for just found the most perfect stage of all.

  “How about I give you a better story? How about you focus on the sick bastard who released this video of a private moment between my wife and me? How about you go harass the bastard who did this rather than harass my wife? I’ll even give you a head start. Eddie Kimball,” I say, putting my plan in motion. “Focus on why he tried to blackmail us, because I assure you, he definitely had an agenda releasing this video. Sex sells. I get it . . . but uncovering the story behind his bullshit attack on my wife’s reputation would make much better copy.”

  Good luck hiding now, you fucking weasel.

  The night erupts in sound. But they give me a wide berth because I gave them something. I nod my head in goodbye.

  The cameras flash. Each one causes me to feel more and more sober. Makes me to realize what I just did. Slide into the car beside Becks and catch his nod of approval. Rest my head back on the seat with a sigh.

  Fuck. You. Eddie.

  You want to play hardball? I’ve got your number, you spineless son of a bitch. Right now some little nosey reporter is digging for the story. They’ll connect the dots with your early release from prison. They’ll use your name in the press and it’ll shine like a fucking neon sign, notifying the many you owe a shitload of money to.

  Oh, and how they’ll come. I have no doubt about that with the amount of money you owe people. Plus three years worth of interest. They’ll flush you out of hiding and right into karma’s long reaching arms.

  The best part is if I don’t want to, I won’t have to lift a single finger to give you what you deserve, because I just did.

  Social media can be a bitch when you have shit to hide. Good thing I don’t. Good thing you do.

  Revenge can be a mean, nasty fucker sometimes.

  “You good?” Sammy asks as he pulls out of the alleyway, leaving the flashing cameras behind.

  “Yup.” I sigh, long and loud as I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. It’s crazy how much I need Rylee, right now. “Home please. I miss my wife.”

  “DAMN IT,” I SHOUT IN frustration as the flour flies all over the kitchen because I forgot to put the guard around the mixer’s blade. Tears sting the backs of my eyes as I look around at the mess. Normally I’d find this amusing, laugh it off, but not right now. Not with how this week has gone. Nothing can seem to pull me from this funk I’m in.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and ignore the voices in my head telling me I’m going crazy because I fear that I am. The video’s ripple effect just continues to knock me on my ass. Gone are the things I normally use to center myself: my boys, my freedom outside this house, my work. Even Colton’s visit to Tawny derailed me momentarily. Yes, I felt validated Colton believed enough in my assumption that he went and talked to her, but at the same time, it still knocked me back a step seeing her again.

  Shake it off, Rylee. It’s temporary. Enjoy playing the domesticated role, take advantage of the quiet time now before the baby comes, and life is turned around with lack of sleep and two a.m. feedings.

  I pick up the carton of eggs on the counter and blow the flour off them so I can put them away and start to clean up this disaster. Mind focused on the mess at hand, I don’t notice Baxter on the floor behind me. When I step on his paw, he skitters up and away from me with a yip causing me to lose my balance. I catch myself from falling by grabbing the edge of the counter, but all nine eggs in the carton fly across the kitchen making a distinct symphony of splats as they land on the tile floor, counter, and against the refrigerator door.

  “Fuck!” Adrenaline begins to rush through my body, and just as quickly as it hits me, it morphs and changes into a rush of so many emotions that I’m suddenly fighting back huge, gulping sobs. And it’s no use to fight them because they already own my body, so I carefully lower my pregnant body to the flour-ridden floor beneath me. Leaning against the cabinet behind me, I let them come.

  Wave after wave. Tear by tear. Sob by sob.

  So many feelings—anger, humiliation, despair—come forth before being replaced by the next in line that have been waiting all week to get out. And I just don’t have the wherewithal to fight them anymore.

  “Rylee?” Colton’s voice calls from the front door, and I just close my eyes and try to wipe the tears away but there’s no way I’ll be able to hide them from him. “What the . . .? Ry, are you okay?” he asks as he rushes to my side where I just shake my head, tears still falling, the agony all-consuming.

  He drops to his knees beside me, and the concern etched in his face as he looks me over, ignites my irrational temper.

  “Leave me alone,” I say between sobs.

  “What’s wrong?” he pleads, reaching out to wipe flour from my cheek, causing me to cry harder.

  “Don’t,” I tell him as I shake my head away from his hands, making him lean back on his haunches. And I can feel his eyes on me, assessing me, trying to figure me out, and for some reason that thought sets me off. I’ve had enough eyes on my body judging me this week—scrutinizing me—and the notion causes the distress to come to a head. “You want to know what’s wrong with me?” I yell unexpectedly, startling him.

  “Please,” he says ever so calmly.

  “That!” I yell, pointing at him. “You walking around this house like everything is all right when it’s not. You treating me with kid gloves and avoiding me every time I get emotional because you feel guilty about the video when it’s not your fault. I’m sick of trying to pick a fight with you because I’m going stir crazy in this goddamn house and you won’t take the bait. You just nod your head and tell me to calm down and walk away. Fight me, damn it! Yell at me! Tell me to snap the fuck out of it!” My chest is heaving and my body is trembling again. I know I’m being irrational, know I’m letting the hormones within me take charge, but I don’t care because it feels so good to get it all out.

  “What do you want to fight about?”

  “Anything. Nothing. I don’t know,” I say completely frustrated that now he’s giving me the option to fight with him, I don’t know what to fight about. “I’m mad at you because I’m worried about you racing next week. I’m freaked out that all of this is going to distract you and you’re not going to be careful and . . . and—”

  “Calm down, Rylee. I’m going to be fine.” He reaches out to take my hand, and I yank it back.

  “DON’T tell me to calm down,” I scream when he does exactly what I told him I hated. Visions of the crash in St. Petersburg flash through my mind and cause my breath to hitch. I shove it away, but the hysteria starts to take over. “I miss the boys. I’m worried about Auggie and how he’s doing. I miss my normal. Nothing is normal! Everything is up in the air and I can’t handle up in the air, Colton. You know I can’t.” I ramble, and he no
doubt tries to follow my schizophrenic train of thought.

  “Let’s make our own normal then. Why don’t we start by getting the baby’s room set up? That’s one thing we can do, right?” he asks, eyes wide, face panicked. But his words cause fear to choke in my throat.

  “Look at me,” he says. “Putting BIRT’s room together is not going to make something happen to him, okay? I know that’s why you haven’t done it yet . . . but it’s time. Okay?”

  With those words, the fight leaves me. Those body-wracking sobs I had moments ago are now quiet. Tears well in my eyes but I refuse to look up at him and acknowledge what he’s saying is true. The nursery is incomplete because I’m frozen with fear that if I actually finish it, I’m jinxing it. That fate’s cruel hand will tell me I’m taking the baby for granted, and reach out and take him or her away from me again.

  When I can finally swallow over the lump in my throat, I look up to meet the crystalline green of his eyes and nod, just as the first silent tear slips over and slides slowly down my cheek.

  “It’s all going to be okay, baby,” he says softly. I don’t deserve his tenderness after how I just yelled at him. And then of course that sets me off even further and another tear falls over.

  “You’re absolutely beautiful,” he murmurs reaching forward to move hair off of my cheek, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I’m the husband, I make the rules,” he says with a soft laugh.

  “How can you say that? I’m covered in flour because I tried to make you cookies, which is normally simple, and I failed so epically at that including dropping nearly a whole carton of eggs. And my belly is so big I can’t reach my toes to paint them and they look horrible and I hate when my toes look horrible. I tried to shave today and I can’t even see between my legs to do that and I’m going to go into labor and have all this hair and look like I don’t take care of myself and . . . and . . . we’re having a baby and what if I’m a horrible mother?” I confess all of this as we sit on a flour-covered floor with a dog licking up broken eggs, but the way Colton looks at me? He only sees me.

  I take comfort in the thought. That even amid all this chaos swirling around us, my husband only sees me. That I can still stop the blur for him. That I’m still his spark.

  Be my spark, Ry.

  We sit in silence for a moment, the memory of that night in St. Petersburg clear in my mind, his hand on my cheek, our eyes locked, and it hits me. With him by my side, everything is going to turn out how it’s meant to be. It always has. He knows how to calm my crazy even amidst the wildest of storms.

  Colton leans forward and presses a kiss to my belly before placing a soft one on my lips. “C’mon,” he says, grabbing my hands and starting to pull me up when I’d rather just stay right where I am, wallowing in my own self-pity.

  “Why?” I ask as I look up at him beneath my lashes, lips pouting.

  “We’re going to go make our own kind of normal.” Between the comment and grin he flashes me, I can’t resist him. I never can. He gently pulls me up and before I can process it, he has me cradled in his arms and is walking toward the stairs. “Colton!” I laugh.

  “That, right there . . . I’ve missed the sound of that laugh,” he murmurs into the top of my head when we clear the landing.

  He carries me into the bedroom and sets me down on the edge of the bed, fluffs a bunch of pillows against the headboard, and then helps me lean back against them. Our eyes hold momentarily—violet to green—and I can tell he’s trying to figure something out. My curiosity is definitely piqued.

  “Red or pink?” he asks. I look at him like he’s crazy.

  “What?”

  “Pick one.”

  “Red,” I say with a definitive nod.

  “Good choice,” he says as he turns around and disappears into the bathroom. I hear a drawer open, the clank of glass against glass, and then the drawer shut again. Carrying a bath towel in one hand, what appears to be a bottle of nail polish in the other, and a huge grin on his face, he climbs up on the bed and sits at my feet. “At your service, madam.”

  I just stare—a little shocked, a lot in like—and absolutely head over heels in love with him and the completely lost look on his face over what in the hell he should do next. And while the Type A in me wants to tell him the answers, I don’t. My husband is trying to take care of me regardless of how awkward he feels and that’s a very special thing.

  He lays the towel out over the comforter and then gently lifts my legs so my feet are positioned atop of it. And I stifle a laugh as Colton holds the bottle up of fire-engine red nail polish and reads the instructions on the back, his eyebrows furrowed and teeth biting his bottom lip as he concentrates. He chuckles and shakes his head as he grabs my foot.

  “I must really love you because I’ve never done this for anyone before.” His cheeks flush with pink and his dimple deepens. All I can do is lean back, smile wide, and appreciate him all the more.

  “Not even for Quin when you were kids?” I ask, thinking back to how sometimes Tanner would help me with girly stuff as long as I’d help him with icky boy stuff first.

  “Nope,” he says as he concentrates on painting my big toe. He grimaces as I feel him wipe at the sides of my nail. I fight the grin pulling at my lips because I have a feeling I am going to have more polish on my skin than on my nails. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. He’s trying and that’s what matters most.

  I stare at my husband—gorgeous, inside and out. He listened to my rant, and picked the thing he could do something about to try and help me. I’ve always known I’m a lucky woman to have found him, but never realized just how fortunate until right now.

  I watch him concentrate as I try to let go of the chaos of the last week.

  Angered shock: What I felt when I found out my picture was on the cover of People magazine. Inside, a blow-by-blow story about the video and a million other lies about my purported sexual preferences. Psychologists giving their two cents about the heightened arousal that some people get when they have sex in public with the risk of being caught. I wanted to scream—to rage—and tell them to stop telling lies. To explain it was a moment of heated passion that got carried away. Two people loving each other.

  Two people who still love each other.

  Confinement: How I felt when Dr. Steele made a house call—something she normally doesn’t do—because I couldn’t leave the house without paparazzi following me to her office. A doctor, whose clientele includes a high ratio of celebrities, is not too fond of photos being taken of her office as other patients come and go.

  Exposed: Not being able to turn on the television, open my email, go onto Google without knowing there was a chance of seeing an image of myself.

  Lonely: How I feel without seeing my boys daily. I miss their laughter, their bickering, and their smiles.

  Validation: Watching Tawny come into view over Colton’s shoulder. Knowing he’d considered my feelings, confronting her in my presence when he’d promised he’d never see her again.

  Hurt and hope: Colton’s unexpected speech last week as he left Sully’s Pub. Using my name and whore in the same sentence stabbed deeply into my resolve and stung enough that I’d picked a fight over it. But at the same time, I appreciated the fact he was saying something, doing something, to try and expose Eddie.

  So many things, all unexpected, have caused my head to be in a constant whirl and our lives in upheaval even though I’ve never left the confines of our property.

  “I wonder if your little speech the other night caused reporters to start digging up info on Eddie?” I murmur as I watch the top of his head.

  He looks up and meets my eyes. “Not now, Ry. I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I want to spend time with my wife, paint her toes, talk to her, and not let the outside world in, okay?” He nods his head to reinforce what he’s saying. “It’s just you and me and—”

  “Nothing but sheets,” I finish for him, ca
using a huge grin to spread on those lips of his.

  “I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time,” he says with a reflective laugh as he screws the cap onto the nail polish. I notice how much red is on his fingers from trying to fix his overage. He looks back down and shakes his head. “Not as good as when you do it, but—”

  “It’s perfect,” I tell him without even looking at my toes. The overage of paint on my skin is almost like an added badge reflecting how much he loves me. “Besides, the part on my skin will come off in the shower.”

  “It will?” he asks as he spreads his fingers out and looks at his own speckled with nail polish. My bad boy marked by the deeds of a good husband. “Thank Christ, because I was worried how I was going to get it off. I thought I was going to have to use carb cleaner.”

  A giggle falls from my mouth and it feels so good. All of this does: his effort, his softer side, seeing him look so out of place, and simply spending time together.

  He blows gently on my toenails to help them dry, and I find so much comfort in the silence. I lean my head back on the pillow and close my eyes as he moves from one foot to the other.

  “I know you’ll do good at the race next week,” I murmur eventually, not wanting him to think from my whirlwind of emotions earlier that I’m as worried as I let on.

  “I promise I’ll come home to you and the baby safe and whole,” he says, eyes intense and heart on his sleeve like the tattoos on his flank. And I know that’s a promise he really can’t make. After all these years together I know he can’t control what others do or don’t do on the track, but I hold dearly to the fact he’s cognizant of it because that’s all I can ask. “And with apple pie a la mode.”

  The laughter comes again because that’s my go-to craving right now. Well, besides sex with him. “You know a way to a woman’s heart.”

  “Nope. Just my woman’s.” His eyes light up as he shifts off the bed, and I immediately become saddened because I fear our time together seems over. I know he has a lot of work to do since he’s so behind staying home with me, so I won’t ask him to keep me company any longer. Besides he’s been more than sweet enough to me after how I acted in the kitchen.