Nick Carter was a man.

He was a man who spent much of his time questioning his own masculinity. After raking over all of his daily activities he picked them apart, piece by piece. Would a man do that, did other men think this was “manly”... and so on, until he’d run out of every possible question one could ask about the validity of manhood.

He’d covered the basics of course. He liked women, he liked porn, he like sports, beer, and flatulence but he could not tell you the last time he’d really been in a room with a man his own age, a peer. He didn’t count doctors or salespeople; he was only really interested in counting friends.

Nick did not have a friend to his name. He could remember a time, back when things were different when he’d had many friends. His decisions though, his interest in the wrong woman had been what had undone the tight knit friendships and forged a barrier between them so uncomfortably wide he never really thought the gap could be closed.

He’d been in his third year of college when he met her. She wasn’t his type, not at all his type. He had been a bit of a popular kid in high school, and didn’t usually have any troubles getting girls. Now he was in college, and the girls were smarter, more beautiful, and on a rampant hunt for the best looking grad student they could find. They weren’t interested in him; with his baby faced 18 year old appearance (though his drivers licence proved he was 20), his scrawny arms, and lack of apparent fashion sense. Sure in senior year at Kennedy High School he’d been top dog, but now he was sitting at the bottom of the totem pole, had been for the past two years and he didn’t see anywhere to go but down.

He had been having the same problems ever since the day he set foot on campus for freshman year. He was on his own for the first time; a university man! He quickly found that being on his own was a huge adjustment (who will cook my food? Who will do my laundry? Who will tell me they love me when I’ve had a bad day?), and he quickly found he was homesick and depressed but that was all part of a far deeper story. He forced himself with the help of his roommates to get out, and have “fun”. He rarely actually made it out the door, and often found himself sleeping on Friday and Saturday nights.

He wasted those first two years though and he had to start making up for lost time. This time; this time he not only made it out the door but he made it to the party, and to the keg, through the crowd to the dance floor and by the end of the evening he was drunk as a skunk… and that was putting it lightly. She had been sitting quietly on one of the couches, waiting for her friends so she could drive them home. She was geeky, and awkward, but in her own way she was beautiful and Nick could have sworn she smelled of books the same way the library smelled when you first walked in.

“Do you work at the library?” his first words to her had been, at least that’s what he thought they were. For all he knew he could have been asking her the time, he was not currently commanding the brain-to-mouth ship.

He could never forget the look of surprise on her face. Not because he’d really asked her if she knew someone named Murphy but because to date he was the first boy who had ever spoken to her about something other than school work. She was a grad student, this was the first time that she had ever been let in the front door of a party, and now was the time someone decided to speak to her. In her mind he wasn’t hammered, he was perfectly sober and perfectly willing to spend the evening having intellectual conversation over a bottle of wine on a dark, snowy evening.

Everyone has dreams before they end up broken.

As strange as it had seemed to everyone, they dated. For longer than either of them had anticipated, or really wanted. He quickly discovered that she wasn’t what he wanted, and she quickly discovered he wasn’t what she needed but they were comfortable and by the time they realized they could in fact go separate ways forces beyond their control had sealed their lives together with some kind of celestial super glue.

A real man would have realized the volatility of their relationship long before it got to the point it was at now. He wondered if he was less intelligent than most men, but found it hard to believe that was possible because he’d witnessed many stupid things in his day. He wondered if other men sat just like he was now reminiscing about times past, and whether things in their lives could have gone differently. They probably did, he rationalized.

Now he wondered if men could appreciate the value of a silent moment as much as he could right now, despite the fact that someone had been calling his name.

“Is someone calling my name?” he yelled upstairs from the dimly lit basement, harshly broken from his personal narration.

“Dinner!” the voice called again and Nick shrugged.

“Who?” he asked more to himself then popped to his feet when he realized the real reason of the call, “I’ll be right up!”

~*~

“How was work?” he asked, practically following a set list of questions that got asked on a daily basis. He didn’t really care about the answer, but he sometimes liked to hear other people’s voices.

She sighed heavily as if to show how utterly stressful the day had been for her, “It was absolutely crazy! Sometimes I have to wonder how people get their jobs because they are definitely not skilled at what they do. I’m working on that new exhibit about…”

Suddenly her voice was gone and he could only see her lips moving. He knew there was an audio track to this portion of his life but he tuned it out. She worked at a museum; collecting, grading, and cataloguing before coming up with new displays and exhibits. It was her dream job, the one she had always wanted when she went into numismatics…

nu•mis•mat•ics [noo-miz-mat-iks]
–noun (used with a singular verb )
the study or collecting of coins, medals, paper money, etc

She collected coins. She was a coin collector. She did this for a living. It bored him to tears.

“So basically I’ll be out of town for that week, then I’ll probably end up there most nights when I’m back… are you even listening to me?” she asked, watching as his eyes suddenly flicked back over to her.

“Of course I’m listening!” he said, stuffing a piece of broccoli into his mouth.

“You didn’t look like it,” she accused.

Nick took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye as he lied, “Holly, I’m listening to you.”

The conversation was gone. Forks on plates, cups to mouths, the gentle scrape of a knife was all that could be heard across the table.

We have nothing in common, he found himself thinking for the hundredth time. I should leave, was the follow up statement. He knew why he stayed though, he knew why when they had absolutely nothing in common he had married a woman who was dull, and way beyond him in smarts, and was so detailed in the way she ran her life that she scheduled everything he did down to the times allotted for them to have sex. Not that they ever kept that meeting.

“Daddy?” a small voice asked and he turned his head, a smile immediately spreading from cheek to cheek.

“Yes baby?” he ran a hand over her delicate blonde hair, grateful that if there was any one thing that Holly had given him it was the perfect little girl in front of him.

“I’m all done,” she said, pointing to her empty plate, a flower pattern now visible beneath where the cut up cubes of chicken had once lain.

“Okay,” he couldn’t keep himself from smiling at her, it was infectious. He cleaned up the plate and got her off of her little stack of phone books (she was small for her age, and didn’t quite reach the table); expecting her to then crawl into his lap like she did after lunch.

She didn’t though. Things had changed since lunch time. At lunch time Daddy was the only warm lap around, and she knew she would get in good with him if she loved on him a little, but things had changed. Mommy was home now, and she only had eyes for the woman at the other end of the table.

So while Holly and Olivia discussed crayons and dolls he once again found he wasn’t needed. He looked at the woman across from him, the one wearing the pants in the family and he wondered if either of them would miss him if he were gone.

~*~

With a yawn and a stretch he turned the television off, heading upstairs for the night. Holly had gone up long before him (as was usual procedure) to read a book, her way of unwinding from a day of hard work.

Once he hit the top of the stairs he began to disrobe, tossing his t-shirt into the laundry hamper just inside the bedroom door.

Have to do the laundry, he told himself, wishing there was a way to get out of menial household tasks.

He pulled off his pants, leaving him in just his boxer-briefs and he put the jeans and socks in the same pile with the shirt before glancing at his wife of four years. She looked very pretty just then, with the bedside lamp reflecting off the spectrum of colours throughout her light brown hair. Her hair was one thing he loved about her. It was thick, luscious and a million different colours of brown all wrapped into one, and she had always kept it long just how he liked it. If it weren’t for her glasses, lack of makeup, and conservative clothing Nick was absolutely positive she could be a knock out.

She glanced up at him and smiled sweetly, and he thought for sure that something was going to happen that night. He didn’t care if it was an evening of high school style kissing and heavy petting he needed this, he needed to be touched, and groped, and loved.

He smiled back and quickly made his way toward the bed, about to ask if the schedule allowed for a little foreplay before noticing a familiar blonde head peeking from under the covers.

“I thought she was in bed,” he commented dryly.

Holly grinned again and put her book down and he realized then that the smile she had sent him had really been for Olivia but she was just too asleep to have seen it, “She asked if she could sleep in here with us.”

He sighed, “She slept in here with us last night, and the night before, and nearly every night for the past month. She needs to get used to sleeping in her own bed!”

“This is a new house; her room was closer to our room in the old house. She needs to get used to it,” Holly justified and Nick let out another heavy sigh. Sure the house was new but they began renting it over a month ago, and Olivia had never gotten used to her room because she was never given the chance to with the way Holly always hauled her out of bed to sleep with them. The big girl room further away from the master bedroom was as difficult for the little girl as it was for his wife.

“How can she get used to it?” Nick asked pulling back the covers to reveal his little girl decked out in Tinkerbelle pyjamas, clutching a stuffed cat, “She’s never in there!”

“Leave her!” Holly demanded, grabbing Nick’s arm as he bent to pick the little girl up.

“She needs to sleep in her own room!”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“She takes up all the room and I don’t like waking up with her feet in my face first thing in the morning!” he said in an angry stage whisper, not wanting to wake up the sleeping babe.

“Leave her,” Holly said again this time in a softer voice, “I’m not ready for her to be down the hall yet.”

The truth was revealed and Nick’s eyes were drawn to her hand on his forearm, “But… I thought maybe we could…” he trailed off, bringing his eyes back up to hers.

Her hand left his arm quickly and she settled Olivia back into the middle of the bed, “I have to get up early Nick, sorry. Good night.”

“Good night,” he repeated back to her, trying to get himself into the bed without crushing the little one who was immediately glued to his side, the whiskers of her toy cat tickling the back of his arm before he reached up to turn out the light, flooding the room with darkness and silence.

Nick opened his eyes, blinking hard a few times to adjust to the sunlight streaming in through the sheer curtains.

“Are you awake?” a little voice asked and he looked down to his chest to see his daughter staring up at him eagerly.

“I’m awake,” he muttered sleepily, wishing for the days when he could have just rolled over and gone back to sleep for another couple of hours.

She smiled and slid off of him, grabbing her cat before bouncing off Holly’s side of the bed, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” she cheered loudly, running around to his side of the bed.

“Breakfast first,” he instructed, sliding out from underneath the warm covers to a blast of cool air.

Every day it was the same. She followed him around like a shadow, not even leaving him alone for a moment. She stood by the bathroom door while he peed; she stood by the dresser while he grabbed some clothes and dressed, held his hand as he made his way down the stairs, stood behind him gripping his pant leg as he rummaged through cupboards for cereal and finally let him lift her onto her small stack of phonebooks for breakfast.

“You gotta sleep in your own bed tonight,” Nick said as he took a sip of his coffee, deciding to bring this subject up with her before he broke it to Holly.

Olivia looked up at him with her big blue eyes questioning his words, “But I like sleeping beside you Daddy.”

His heart broke, just a little, “I know you do baby, but you’re a big girl now. You need to sleep in your big girl bed. Next year you’ll be starting kindergarten and you don’t want to have to tell the other kids that you still sleep with your Mommy and Daddy.”

“Why?” she asked, not coming up with a single reason why that would be a bad thing. Anyone would be lucky to sleep in a nice warm bed snuggled between the three people they loved most in the world; Mommy, Daddy, and Mittens the kitty.

There was not a single word in the world Nick had come to despise as much as the dreaded why. He couldn’t do very much throughout the day without that question coming up. Why, why, why, it was a question that could never really be answered without him lying through his teeth and he hated it.

He searched his vast vocabulary for a reason, knowing that with 50,000 words to choose from as compared to her 1,500 he had to be able to come up with a perfectly sensible explanation as to why things were the way they were.

“Because I said so,” he announced, feeling less than satisfied with his choice of words.

Of course his rationale wasn’t without repercussions. The second the words hit the girl her mouth formed a pout and she glared at her father as if expecting him to immediately take them back.

“Keep looking at me like that and you won’t go to the park today,” he threatened, berating himself internally for his screwy sense of parenting skills.

With a sigh Olivia relented, returning her attention back to her bowl of cereal, “Is it buying food day?” the girl wondered, loving trips to the grocery store because they usually resulted in treats.

Groceries, he thought with a grimace. Holly always had an ongoing list and Fridays he went to the store to restock everything they needed. It was Thursday, laundry day. The week was scheduled, snack and nap times were built in around his expected activities, but he didn’t suppose it could hurt to switch things around just the one time, “Yeah we can do that today. We’ll go to the store on our way back from the park. How does that sound?”

“You’re my favourite Daddy,” she grinned, swinging her legs back and forth in that cute little girl fashion.

Nick chuckled, “I’m your only Daddy,” he pointed out in barely enough time before she had gone off telling him a story about a day in her life that had never happened, but seemed exciting to her none the less.

~*~

The park was busy when they got there. Women with strollers were spread around the grass, chatting amongst themselves as their children play nearby. Nick was envious of them for many reasons. They were happy, they had friends, they had fit into a social mould that was acceptable for them, but most of all their children would sit in a stroller.

Olivia was against strollers. A good shadow must always be close, always touching. Due to those reasons she couldn’t go in a stroller. She had to be touching her Daddy or she wouldn’t really be his shadow. So everywhere they went he carried her, and at twenty eight and a half pounds she was becoming progressively heavier to carry. He often tried to think of other things as his arm got tired, but usually his brain ended up torturing him with comparisons. Three sacks of potatoes, a large frozen turkey, a cinder block, the amount of cheese an average American consumes in a year, a small microwave, the brains of two sperm whales, or his daughter cradled up against his hip all relative in weight. He could count himself so lucky to be not only getting in his cardio chasing her around, but also his resistance training every time she leaped into his arms. It wasn’t that he was a weak man by any means, but he wasn’t a body builder and dead weight was heavy after a few blocks.

He could feel eyes on him as he set Olivia down on the ground as he usually did when they came to the park. It was one strange thing about the mothers; it was almost like they were threatened by him. Not that they thought he would harm them but they weren’t sure how to act around him. Normally when the park was full of other stay at home moms they were free to wear their grubby sweats, and go make up free. Maybe they would even abstain from brushing their hair in the morning. For the past month though they had been forced to dress up, wear makeup, and seem presentable because now there was a man in their territory and they couldn’t very well let him believe they didn’t spend every day looking marvellous.

Nick could not have cared less what the women in the park were wearing. He didn’t have eyes for them or for anyone really. He didn’t dress up; he was wearing a pair of old ratty jeans, flip flops and a blue button up shirt – his normal everyday wear. At first he didn’t realize they had been going out of their way for him but day by day the women seemed to look nicer, and he started to catch on. They never spoke to him though. They kept their distance and did not even provide him with a wave, or a hello, despite his friendly smiles in their direction. That’s how he knew they felt threatened.

“Do you want to go on the slide?” he asked her as she led him over to the playground by the hand, getting into the bizarre habit of always trying to pull him in various directions as if she were running the show.

“Yup, c’mon!” she instructed him and Nick sighed. He had been trying to break off this attachment she had to him. She treated him more as if he were her friend and playmate than if he were her father. She needed to play with children her own age but she had absolutely no interest in them. Everything she did she wanted to do with him.

“How about you go up on your own and I’ll catch you at the bottom?” he suggested, not wanting to deal with the always embarrassing task of getting his long body onto the small playground equipment without falling off or breaking anything.

The pout was distinctive, “No Daddy, come with me!”

He eyed the tall wooden play structure again, spotting a little boy running across the bridge gleefully, “That little boy up there is doing it all by himself and I think he’s younger than you! He’s all alone; maybe you can go play with him?”

Pout mutated into full on chin quiver, “I don’t like him Daddy he’s not my friend!”

“You’ve never met him,” Nick reasoned, knowing she probably wouldn’t see it quite the way he did.

“I hate him!” she screamed and Nick picked her up, turning his back to the playground mothers who were probably eyeing them wearily wondering what this man had done to send his daughter into a fit of tears.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked her quietly with a hint of a sigh, knowing that home meant a walk back to the car, a missed trip to the store, and less time to do laundry now that they were out.

She sniffled and rubbed her face against his shoulder (one of the prime reasons for his less than stunning attire), “No I wanna play with you,” she whined and Nick finally relented.

“Let’s go on the swings,” he suggested, carrying her over just as the little boy from the wooden castle reached them.

“Up,” the boy said to Nick, confidently reaching his arms in the air.

Nick couldn’t help but chuckle at the boy’s daringness. He got Olivia into the swing then helped the little boy into the other one, “What’s your name?” Nick asked.

“Benji,” the boy answered, obviously having no trouble talking to strangers.

“This is Olivia,” Nick tried to introduce and the little girl looked over shyly, muttering a tiny hello.

“Hi Olivia, I’m three!” Benji announced robustly in his own baby talk while Nick began to push both youngsters on the swings.

“Olivia is four,” Nick answered for her when it seemed like she wasn’t going to reply since Mittens was firmly pushed against her face.

“I am so sorry!” a feminine voice suddenly spoke and Nick’s head popped up, surprised to see a woman rushing towards them, “I didn’t realize he had come over here. I thought he was still at the slide. Thank you so much,” she breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her son, and then moved behind him and next to Nick to take over pushing the swing.

“It’s no problem,” Nick assured her, “I was a little surprised at how eager he was to talk to strangers though,” he admitted.

The woman nodded with a grimace, “Yeah he’s at this stage right now where he doesn’t care who he is talking to as long as they have ears. I’ve been trying to teach him stranger danger and all that but it’s just not sticking.”

“I’m kind of struggling with the opposite, she won’t talk to anyone that isn’t me,” Nick chuckled, finally taking a moment to look the woman over. She was the complete opposite of Holly. He could tell she was the type of person who was carefree and liberated, and only lived by her own rules of which there were probably few. She was a little taller than average, and her plain brown hair was definitely longer than average, pulled up into a tight ponytail to keep it away from her face. She wasn’t overly good looking (average again that department), but she had a nice smile, and pretty green eyes, and she was talking to him as if she actually cared what he had to say and that felt nice.

“I’m Alaina,” she introduced, boldly reaching across to shake his hand quickly.

“I’m Nick.”

~*~

After the usual struggle and the normal amount of sighing Nick finally clipped Olivia securely into the grocery cart and gave her the list to hold onto as if it were her one prized possession next to Mittens.

“We get food for Mittens?” Olivia asked as they walked past a display of cat treats and Nick shook his head.

“Nope, if it’s not on Mommy’s list we’re not allowed to get it,” he shrugged, knowing she would buy that answer for now.

“Can I have that?” she asked, beginning the usual grocery store trend of pointing to everything imaginable and demanding it be hers.

“Is it on the list?” he asked and Olivia’s attention immediately turned to the long slip of paper, skimming over it (despite the fact that it was upside down and she didn’t read).

“I think so Daddy,” she said confidently and Nick laughed, turning the paper back towards him.

Apples, oranges, bananas, all the things that Olivia liked for her snacks went into the cart and she watched with a keen interest. He continued through the produce section, checking things off the list as he went. A lot of these things he didn’t feel they really needed because there was some at the house but Holly always stressed that you could never be too sure. What if there was a huge power outage, or a storm, and then you ran out of these things that you needed? He of course thought that the obvious solution would be to eat something else; but she didn’t agree.

“I don’t like those,” Olivia announced as he put a container of raisins in the cart next to her.

“Yes you do,” Nick countered, once again referring to the list.

“No I don’t! Take them out now please!” she spoke as if the bright red tub was the most disgusting thing she’d ever laid her young eyes on.

“Olivia, you like raisins,” he stressed, not wanting to get into it with her in front of the jams and jellies.

She was doing it just to be difficult, he knew, but it still angered him slightly when she picked up the tub and dramatically threw it to the floor, crossing her arms tightly over her chest the second that it hit.

Rather than running to get it he stared her down, wondering what her next move would be and whether it would involve anymore embarrassment on his part.

“Oops, you dropped something,” he heard a laugh and was surprised to see Alaina standing next to him with her own cart and child holding out the offensive dried fruit, “Hello again Olivia!” she smiled and the girl leaned into her father to hide her from the strangers.

“Thank you,” Nick’s cheeks reddened with a blush and he quickly took the item from her, tossing it back into the cart, their father-daughter spat quickly forgotten “Funny seeing you here.”

“I know, I didn’t think anyone else ate food but us!” she teased and Benji laughed, obviously used to his mother’s sense of humour even if he didn’t entirely understand the joke.

“Ha ha,” Nick said dryly, the blush creeping into his neck.

Alaina smiled, “I’m a laugh a minute. So I meant to ask you earlier, I haven’t really seen you before. Are you new here?”

He nodded, “We are new to the neighbourhood but we’ve always lived here. Across town though.”

“Did you move for your job?” she asked curiously, having wanted to find out more about the mysterious father since she’d met him at the park. Many of the women had speculated about him for the weeks that he’d been coming, wondering if they were only there for the summer on vacation or if he was going to be a permanent fixture.

“My wife’s,” he replied with a strained smile, “She works for the same employer just out of a different office now, so we thought it would be more convenient if she didn’t have to spend most of her day travelling. This way she can get home and have dinner and spend time with Olivia before she’s in bed.”

“That is such a nice idea,” Alaina said with a smile that was far more genuine, “So what about you? What do you do?”

“I’m… a dad,” Nick spoke, saying the last two words quickly, as if he were trying to keep it a secret.

“That’s really great,” she told him, reaching out to touch his arm quickly, “Not a lot of men would be comfortable letting their wife work while they stayed home with the kids. I think it’s fantastic to see that.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose in surprise at her touch and he swore he could still feel her fingers burning into his skin. Clearing his throat his face relaxed, “Really?”

Alaina nodded, “Really, I think it’s one of the most difficult jobs anyone could have and being a man in a woman’s world just makes it that much harder for you, you’re brave.”

Brave, he thought, he tried to recall the last time anyone had told him he was brave; never, “What about you?” he asked.

“We have the same job just out of different offices,” Alaina joked, “But before I was a mother I was in politics, a campaign manager. As soon as Benji is in school I’ll be going back to it though.”

“I was…” he paused, thinking if that was the right term, “I am… a writer.”

“A writer?” her eyes glowed in a way he had never seen, “Anything I’ve read?”

The blush returned, “Um, I’ve never really been published. Mostly editorials in college newspapers and that, but I’m working on a novel.”

“Your life’s work?” she asked and he nodded.

“It’s been in the works for a few years,” he admitted and they slowly began moving down the aisle.

“Well, I’m about done,” she said and he swore he heard a tinge of sadness in her voice, “Will I see you at the park tomorrow?”

He paused, unsure of whether or not he should answer. He didn’t know why but he felt slightly guilty at making plans with this strange woman, “If you’re going at the same time as today… we’ll be there.”

“Come on, come on, let’s go, let’s go!” Nick tried to hurry things along by rushing his words but things never seemed to go how he wanted them to.

“We can’t go without Mittens!” Olivia declared dramatically, throwing her little hands up into the air. Her face was contorted with grief as she searched high and low (mostly low, she was only three feet tall after all) for her precious Mittens. She had only turned her back for a minute (or sixty) and he had managed to get away from her. She presumed he had run away, but Nick was sceptical of her theories.

Nick held back a growl, “Stupid stuffed cat,” he muttered, lifting things up to look for any sign of ole black, white, and beanie, “Where did you last have him?”

“He was at the tea party, then when I turned around he was gone!” the girl heaved herself onto the couch with flare, looking up at Nick with the most pitiful expression he was sure he’d ever seen.

“The tea party was during breakfast this morning Olivia,” her father reminded her, trying to stay patient and understanding even though the clock was ticking, “It’s been hours. Do you think he could still be in your bedroom?”

Olivia pouted, her fine blonde hair falling into her face, “I don’t know! He’s lost!”

“He’s not lost,” Nick assured her, “Stay here, I’m going to take a quick look.”

Jumping the stairs three at a time he searched every room, throwing pillows and blankets to the side as he hunted for Mittens. He could have cared less what happened to the dumb toy but it meant the world to Olivia, and represented a pet that her mother would probably never let her have. He was about to leave the girl’s bedroom when he spotted a flash of white artificial fur peeking out from under a Dora the Explorer lounge chair.

“Aha!” he exclaimed, moving the chair aside to uncover the elusive Mittens, “I found him!” he yelled as he bolted down the stairs, “We should get going…” his voice tailed off as he realized that Olivia was not where he left her.

He took a quick glance around the room before bolting through the house calling her name. With Mittens gripped tightly in one hand he checked all of the open doors, the living room, kitchen, and dining area before finally finding her in the laundry room digging through a pile of clothes.

“What are you doing in here?” he snapped, eyeing her angrily, “I told you to stay put!”

Olivia, surprised by her father’s outburst, recoiled and looked up at him with tears in her eyes, “I thought Mittens might be dirty.”

Nick grabbed her by the arm, pulled her out of the room full of soaps and chemicals and shut the door tightly behind them. It hadn’t been long ago that the baby proofing had actually worked. Now though she could open any door she wanted because she had figured out the ins and outs of every mechanism in the house.

“When I tell you to stay somewhere you have got to stay there!” Nick instructed, handing her the cat, “What if we hadn’t been in the house, and we had been outside and you ran off and someone snatched you up?”

“I don’t know…” Olivia whimpered in reply, not really following what he was saying.

Nick took a deep breath, counted backwards from ten and sighed, realizing there was no need to be angry, “I’m sorry,” he apologized and dropped to his knees to give her a tight hug. He ran his hand soothingly over her hair, hating how worked up he got when he couldn’t find her for any moment.  

Olivia wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, happy that he wasn’t mad at her any longer, “Can we still go to the park?” she asked, practically forgetting what had happened just a moment ago in the laundry room.

“Oh my god, I forgot about the park!” Nick exclaimed, remembering why finding Mittens in a hurry had been an important task in the first place, “We’re late!”

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Olivia jumped into his arms, giving him a sense of déjà vu as she repeated his very words. He stood, holding her against his hip. He ran a mental checklist of everything they had done, and everything they had left to do as he made his way to the closest exit then grabbed her bag of necessities (water, snacks, and toys – the usual) and hurried out the front door for the short walk to the park.

~*~

A short wave hello and Nick was already feeling like an awkward teenager thrown into a testosterone fuelled, estrogen enriched fantasy. It was wrong, he knew, to feel the way he was feeling but for some reason Alaina had woken up a side of him that he hadn’t experience in a long time. For the first time in years he was feeling bashful, vulnerable, and young. It wasn’t that he was old by any means, but he had never imagined that at twenty-five he would be living like a forty year old, and just as, if not more, unhappy. When he was a teenager he envisioned this time of his life being full of friends, parties, drinking, and fun rather than fatherhood and a nearly loveless marriage. It wasn’t the fatherhood that he minded because Olivia meant more to him than anything in the world, but at times he wanted more. He wanted to be the breadwinner in the family, and be able to tell people that he did more than just stay home with his kid, and he wanted Holly to act like she appreciated him a little more, but he couldn’t wait forever. There were people out there who really did appreciate him and he was fairly certain he’d found one of them.

“We thought you wouldn’t make it!” Alaina said breathlessly, a smile strewn across her face as she jogged over from the sandbox where Benji continued to play happily.  She had her hair in a long braid and even with no makeup on her face and a hint of wrinkles her face light up his morning.

She’s married, Nick reminded himself as he too glued on a grin, “We almost didn’t, we had a toy emergency. Mittens decided to give himself a time out,” he joked, motioning to the cat that was gripped firmly in Olivia’s grasp.

“Daddy founded him,” Olivia suddenly piped up to Nick’s surprise and delight. Since she had very little interaction with anyone other than her parents in her first few years Nick had found she had become very shy, and unwilling to speak to anyone without knowing them first. With how fickle other children were they wouldn’t give her the time she needed to open up so they would have moved on to a different game with a different child before Olivia even got a chance to show them who she was.

Alaina’s warm smile went straight to Nick’s heart and he watched as the woman reached out and touched Olivia’s arm, speaking to her directly, “Good thing you have such a good Daddy!”

Olivia smiled a toothy grin and nodded, “The bestest one ever.”

Nick quickly found himself blushing again, this time from his daughter’s compliment. Clearing his throat he looked down to the youngster, “Do you want to go play with Benji?”

Olivia took a moment and stroked Mitten’s fuzzy ear (worn down from years of love) and contemplated his offer, “Will you push me on the swings later?”

“Of course,” Nick nodded, patiently awaiting her decision as he rubbed her back.

“Okay, I’ll go play,” Olivia smiled and Nick put her down on the ground, still in a state of amazement as she ran towards the sandbox where Benji was constructing a sand village.

“She’s a different person over night, she normally won’t let me out of her sight. She has to be with me all the time, and now she can’t wait to be somewhere else,” Nick chuckled, still completely surprised to see Olivia playing with Benji in the sandbox, playing being a relative term since it appeared she was just knocking over his village.

Alaina nodded, following Nick’s line of sight over to the sandbox, “You know, kids pick up on the smallest things. Maybe it wasn’t that she needed to be with only you all the time, maybe it was that she thought you needed to be with only her?”

Nick’s head snapped back over to Alaina, meeting her eyes for a brief moment before glancing down uncomfortably, “Why would she have any reason to think that?”

“Maybe she thought you were lonely?” Alaina shrugged then headed off down the grass to supervise the kids leaving Nick looking on in surprise that after only knowing him a day it seemed she could see right through the façade he had been hiding behind for years.

~*~

“So, your husband,” Nick prompted, getting into the groove of playtime gossip as he and Alaina sat on a bench adjacent to the playground, “What does he do?”

Alaina scoffed, obviously holding back what he wanted to truly say to that question while her bitterness momentarily got the best of her, “Not a whole lot,” she said initially before apologizing and trying the moment again, “He’s a lawyer,” she finally answered and a silence passed over them while they went about retrieving the kids snacks from their bags; goldfish crackers and a cookie for Benji, granola and apple slices for Olivia.

“You meet in college?” Nick suddenly asked, piercing through the quiet as he brought them back to the original topic.

Alaina shook her head, her long braid swaying with the moment, “No, we were both out of college at that point. We were working the same person down in Florida, a politician, fellow by the name of Jack Rollins, I’m sure you probably have heard of him?”

Nick raised an eyebrow, “Isn’t that the congressman who got on the news for killing that male prostitute?” he questioning, silently wondering in the back of his mine how old Alaina must be if she and her husband were well established in their careers when that had happened, and they had met.

Alaina laughed at his incredulous expression, it was more of a chuckle really, but it made Nick want to laugh right along with her, “That’s the one! At the time I was working in his office and Brian ended up being his criminal defence attorney and that’s eventually how we met! Needless to say we were no longer employed by the congressman shortly thereafter.”

“Yeah it’s tough to pay your employees from prison,” Nick joked, “So what brought you to New York suburbia?” he enquired, hoping he wasn’t being too nosey in his curiosity of her background.

“Work,” Alaina shrugged, “Brian got tired of the kinds of cases he was getting down south, especially after losing such a high profile case like Congressman Rollins’ so we decided to come up here for a change of scenery. Brian’s family is from here.”

There was that quiet again, looming over them both. Nick could have sworn that the hush was accompanied by a smidge of sexual tension, but he dismissed it as being his own twisted imagination, or perhaps wishful thinking.

“We should probably get these to the kids,” Nick suggested, motioning to the snacks that were still in their hands.

The woman agreed and Nick couldn’t help but notice all the differences in their parenting skills, and in the ways they did things. When Benji ran over Alaina simply brushed any visible dirt from his hands then handed him his store-bought, pre-packaged snacks and a juice box while Nick had to (as per Holly’s specific instructions) thoroughly clean Olivia’s hands with water from their bag and wipe them down with a small towel before allowing her to eat her home prepared, brown bagged snacks and small bottle of water. He would love to let Olivia indulge and buy her something sweet and deliciously unhealthy for her playground snacks but with how closely his spending was monitored by big sister (or wife) he could never get away with it. After all, if it wasn’t on the list, it didn’t get purchased.

She didn’t seem to mind though, he thought as he watched her munching on her apple slices beside him, swinging her legs back and forth happily. He supposed that if she grew up eating healthy food she wouldn’t find it so repulsive later on in life and that was definitely a good thing.

“Want one Daddy?” Olivia asked, holding out a sliver of green apple (the flesh still white and sweet thanks to a small amount of lemon juice in the plastic container).

Nick smiled, and shook his head, “No thank you baby, you eat your snack,” he patted her head then looked back over to Benji who was sitting on the ground eagerly stuffing small cheesy fishes into his mouth.

“Enough about me, let’s talk about you for a bit,” Alaina suggested, popping her face into Nick’s vision.

“What do you want to know?” he smiled.

“Well, what does your wife do?”

His smile fell a little and he looked down to his hands, “She uh, works in a museum.”

“She’s a scientist?” Alaina wondered inquisitively.

“Kind of,” Nick thought of how to explain without making his wife look like a complete nerd. It wasn’t that he cared how Holly would feel about being portrayed as a bore, he was more concerned about his own reputation; he had married her after all, “We met in college. She was taking museum studies and anthropology. She doesn’t deal so much in the science as much as she does in the history. Coins… she studies currencies, that different civilizations used and that kind of thing.”

Alaina looked genuinely impressed, “Wow! That sounds like really interesting work!”

Nick didn’t think his eyebrows could get any higher up his forehead than they already were, “Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically, “I’ve always loved that kind of thing, you know, china plates from the titanic, tools that the Native Americans used before white people came to the continent, it’s interesting to look at life as what it was.”

Nick suddenly couldn’t keep himself from laughing, “You know I think you might be the only person who didn’t outright tell me that Holly had the most boring job on the planet from the sounds of it.”

“Well I didn’t say I wouldn’t be bored if I was doing it myself,” Alaina chuckled, “I just said it was interesting. If you’re into that thing I imagine it’s a very fun job. Myself, I’d rather just go to the museum and look at everything than do any of the behind the scenes work, but I respect that.”

Nick was amazed by this woman; he was simply amazed. It was like she could find the good in anything. His eyes caught hers, blue into green, and there was an instant where he could have sworn he felt sparks deep in the pit of his stomach. 

Alaina though, didn’t seem as sure as he did about their shared moment and she pulled her eyes away from his, “Wow, time sure has flew! We should actually probably get going, lots to do at home,” she explained standing up from the bench.

“Will we see you tomorrow?” Nick immediately asked, shooting to his feet.

Alaina smiled at him sweetly, “Tomorrow is Saturday, the weekend.”

“The weekend,” Nick nodded, realizing that she was in fact correct. He dreaded the weekend and their daily excursions and he was already looking forward to Monday, “Next week then?”

She nodded and collected all of Benji’s things to shove into her bag, “It’s a date!” she said, intending for her words to be completely platonic, but Nick being easily wound up and addicted to the small amount of attention the woman provided found her words anything other than innocent.

Weekends were a dreaded thing.

While everyone out in the regular every day work force was dreaming of an entertaining Saturday and a relaxing Sunday from the moment the alarm went off on the first of the week Nick was trying to avoid it. The weekend meant a few very simple things in this world; Holly would be off work, and they would be going to her parent’s old beach house. It was kind of a summer custom, more so for Holly than for himself, heading to the beach house for a few days of sun and surf instead of smog and stress. It was something she had done ever since she was a child, and was making the trip to help break up hellacious weeks for her parents, so now that they had both passed, and the beach house had come to belong to Holly and her siblings they liked to take advantage of it as much as possible. He of course didn’t complain that he would rather just spend the weekend at home, sleeping in and watching Sports Centre, and he wouldn’t complain, because he wouldn’t deny Holly her break away from her life even though he never got one himself.

With an exaggerated sigh he shoved a small plastic pail and shovel into the back delicately balancing it on top of a box of supplies. He was hoping no one tried to open the hatchback or they may be lost forever under a pile of stuff. They didn’t need half of what was in there but Holly was never under prepared. They brought all of their own linens, pots and pans, utensils, food and even toilet paper. Since her family shared the small coastal bungalow they had agreed to just bring their own things rather than worry about who paid for what. So in order to do that every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn he packed half of their house into the back of their small Toyota Yaris.

Yawning he headed back into the house, his flip flops smacking against the linoleum flooring, dead set on getting in a cup of coffee before he was squeezed into a car with the house, the wife, and the daughter for a two hour road trip.

Holly was still bustling about the kitchen when he walked in, heading straight for the mugs to pour a hot cup of liquid splendour. He held it to his nose for a moment, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply the small wafts of steam billowing from the cup. It was a beautiful moment.

“Did you put the bag with the sunscreen in the car already?” Holly’s voice suddenly broke through the caffeine cloud.

It was a beautiful moment.

“I don’t know,” he answered in reply, not opening his eyes or moving the cup away from his face.

Hands to hips she looked up at him, “Well did you put the red and blue beach bag in there?”

Once again, “I don’t know,” was the answer and he knew her short huff of air was a signal that nerves were being grated.

“What do you know?” Holly questioned, trying not to sound condescending… unsuccessfully.

He finally opened his eyes, blue clashing against brown in a battle of wills, “Not a whole hell of a lot,” he shrugged, “I will let you in on the things I do know about though, for future reference. I know I’m cranky in the morning until I have my coffee, I also know that I have been up since four and have yet to have a spare moment to enjoy said coffee, but more than anything I know that right now I’m going to sit on my ass at this table and drink it without thinking about the location of sunscreen or anything else that might be crammed like sardines into the fucking car.”

They continued to stare each other down, and he fought back the urge to run and hide from her overwhelmingly evil stare (a female trade secret, he was sure of it). He held out though and finally it was Holly who turned away from him, snatching the car keys up off of the table.

“You’re a jackass,” she announced as she walked out the door and Nick didn’t bother to disagree with her because he couldn’t deny she was absolutely correct in her thinking.

Smiling he sat down at the table and brought the mug back up to his lips with a contented sigh.

~*~

Two whole hours of the most annoying road trip songs in the existence of music.

Holly always thought it was important for Olivia to listen to music as a part of her development, but with the questionable content in modern song she had opted instead for a strictly educational approach to music. He wasn’t quite sure how singing Christmas songs in Spanish in the middle of a one hundred-plus degree summer was educational but he went with it. What he just couldn’t handle was the singing along. If only the music could be played softly in the background, but no, both Holly and Olivia had to get in on the action and belted out classic kids tunes for the entire ride.

It was track 22 of 22, and he was counting down the seconds until the two bar fade out.

“Oh darn, the CD is over, I guess we’ll just have to sit quietly the rest of the way to the house,” Nick said dryly as the final song came to an end and he snatched the CD out of the player with cheetah-like speed.

“No Daddy!” Olivia whined from the back, kicking her feet against the back of his seat.

While Nick was expecting Holly to jump in and chastise their daughter for her behaviour she instead surprised him, “Yeah Daddy,” she agreed (shockingly), “Put the CD back in, I pretty much forgot what track one was so I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

“Yeah Daddy, track one again okay?” Olivia piped up from the back, still kicking his seat.

They were working against him. He wondered if there was a union that paid them extra for every time they drove a man to the brink of insanity.

“Oh I think I recall track one actually, I can recap it for you,” he offered sarcastically, still holding onto the CD for dear life in one hand as he drove with the other, his anger growing as he felt like he was being attacked by both females, “If memory serves me right from the thousand times I’ve heard it I believe it’s the hokey pokey.. en espangol, and if you don’t stop kicking my goddamn seat we’re turning around and going home right now!”

The kicking immediately died away.

Not because of the threat of returning home, but because Olivia had very little recollection in her short memory of any time where her father had gotten so angry with her that he used bad words and yelled at her out of pure rage. Sure he had been annoyed, and frustrated, and generally fed up but it was the first time she had ever feared him. She did the only thing in response that her emotions could think of, and that was burst into wild tears.

“Good job Nick,” Holly said with a roll of her eyes, trying to reach back and comfort the small girl as she threw her entire body into her sobs.

He could think of a dozen snotty comebacks and inappropriate replies but instead he chose to say nothing. He simply held both hands on the wheel, gripping it tightly as he navigated the roads. He felt bad but at the same time he just wished he had someone on his side. Alaina would told her to stop, he thought then immediately scolded himself for even bringing her into his mental reasoning.

The next thing he knew Olivia was suddenly moving over the centre console with Holly’s assistance and was now crying in her mother’s arms.

“Put her back in her car seat!” Nick said, glancing back and forth between the road ahead of them and his wife beside him.

“She’s crying… because of you!” Holly reminded him, rubbing her hand soothingly over Olivia’s back.

“She’s not buckled in! What if we get in an accident? Do you want to explain why she went flying out the windshield?”

Holly was fuming, fighting to keep it together, “We wouldn’t get in an accident if you would keep your eyes on the road instead of worrying about everything else that’s going on in the car!”

He scoffed, “Oh right, because no one has ever gotten in an accident while they were looking at the road! Newsflash, I don’t have to be the cause of the accident, someone could hit us!”

“What is your problem?!” she snapped, running a hand roughly through her hair, “You’ve been acting like a jerk all day!”

“I don’t have a problem!” I wish it was Monday,, “I just want her to be safely secured in the car!” I wish we were on our way to the park,, “If the roles were reversed here you would be ripping my head off… oh wait, you already are!”

“We’re here.” Holly said dryly as Nick stopped in front of the house, neither of them noticing how close they had been through all the arguing. Her tone was a mix of anger and relief, and she was out of the car with Olivia before he could even turn the ignition off. He knew he was absolutely screwed for any semblance of a good weekend.

Nick slammed his hand against the top of the wheel, pressing his head back into the head rest, “God, why do you hate me?” he asked quietly towards the roof of the vehicle, not expecting any kind of response.

~*~


If there was one thing Nick knew he could always rely on when he came to the beach house for the weekend was the ever constant blinking of his laptop.

It wasn’t the laptop itself that provided and unyielding amount of blink, but rather his word processor.

He always diligently brought his computer with him on the weekends to maybe get a moment alone to write. Holly spent the weekends catching up on work or enjoying a book out on the sand while Olivia was contractor on sandcastle construction, giving the impression to her mother that she was playing with some of the other children though she always played alone. He just sat and watched the steady blink, blink, blink of the cursor while no words came to him.

He kept what was already completed of his manuscript beside him, a pile of loose computer paper held down by a conch shell to keep the wind from taking it from him. He of course had the whole thing backed up on disc but the actual print out was valuable to him. It contained hundreds of notes, personal edits, and revisions that hadn’t quite made it to print and couldn’t be replicated. If he lost it, he would be pretty much starting over.

“How’s it going?” Holly asked cautiously, making her way up the stairs of the deck. She had switched her sunglasses for her own black plastic frames and her lean body was covered modestly by a one piece bathing suit; still though she grabbed a t-shirt from the railing to throw over her swimwear before making her way over to the small table where he was seated.

“It’s not,” Nick said, closing the lid to his laptop with a groan.

She sensed that he was over that morning’s initial anger so she sat down beside him, “Oh. Well, writer’s block can’t last forever right? I’m sure when it starts flowing again you won’t be able to stop it.”

“Can you recall the last time it ‘flowed’? I certainly can’t,” Nick ran his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes lightly now that they were tired from staring at the screen and being out in the sun.

Holly rubbed his arm quickly and he was almost surprised by the contact, “You’re a good writer Nick.”

“Good writers can actually finish their books,” he laughed at his own expense and leaned back in the seat.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Holly suggested, “Go down to that vegetable stand and get some lettuce, and tomatoes. We’ll have hamburgers for dinner.”

He nodded, not even wanting to think about why she was being nice to him after the way he’d been acting all day. He stood up out of his chair and stretched a bit, looking out at the water, “Yeah that sounds great.”

“Good,” she smiled, and went to her tip toes in order to quickly peck his lips with a kiss much to his surprise.

“What was that for?” Nick asked suspiciously, giving her a once over.

Holly chuckled nervously, wringing her long hair through her hand, “I didn’t think I needed a reason.”

“You don’t!” he corrected quickly, giving her a half smile, “Trust me, you don’t.”

“Good, now that we have that cleared up can you go get those veggies?”

Nick nodded his head, throwing a ball cap over his blonde hair to shield him from the sun before heading out to the local produce stand to get what they needed. He really did like this small beach town, and if he wasn’t such a grump most of the time he probably would enjoy the weekends away. He had always been a bit of a beach bum, and things hadn’t changed that much in the past four years.

“Hi,” he smiled at the owner of the stand, going through some of the vegetables to find the perfect ripeness. He took a short moment to ponder his new happy disposition, wondering if Holly’s unexpected intimacy had anything to do with his newfound cheerfulness. One innocent peck on the mouth and he was like a lion in heat, damn his libido for still being at peak running power.

Maybe that would be the night; the night that would make u p for all of the nights he had spent lonely, sexually frustrated, and desperate.

Upon short reflection, probably not; countless times he had believed similar statements and just as many times he had been shot down, so it was best not to get ones hopes up.

He spent a lot of time on auto-pilot, one of the traits of his chosen occupation. He thought of long complicated things in his head all the while going about his day to day functions as if they were the only thing on his mind. While thinking of how much he thought he paid for his produce and headed back to the car, and back to the beach house. Auto-pilot was not only good for multi tasking, but also for avoidance.

When he got back to the house Holly was in the kitchen turning ground beef into hamburger patties.

“Got the veggies,” he announced, setting the ad-less white plastic bag down on the counter, “Where’s Olivia?”

“In the other room playing,” Holly answered, carefully setting a patty down on the plate next to her to keep it from losing shape.

Nick just nodded and made his way over to the patio door to look out at the beach. There it was: water, sand, garbage, children, and people taking in the sunshine. Their patio was small but held everything they needed to enjoy the summer evenings. A small propane barbeque to the left, piles of toys and beach things strewn across the centre, and granite topped patio table to the right where his computer and conch shell still sat.

His eyes brought him back to the beach but it barely lasted a moment before they snapped back to the table. All that sat there was computer and conch shell; no big pile of paper to be found.

“Where’s my book?” he asked rhetorically, opening the door and heading out onto the patio. He immediately started searching underneath tables and chairs, and a quick glance down to the sand below, before he panicked. Panic was putting it lightly.

Back inside the house into the kitchen he stood next to Holly, heads over her, looming down, “Did you move my stuff?” he asked accusingly.

“What stuff?” she questioned back with a roll of her eyes, wondering what had crawled up his butt this time.

“My book, did you move my book?”

Holly now realized the seriousness of his question and moved away from the counter to take her own glance out to the table, “I didn’t touch it Nick. When you left it was still sitting there next to your computer.”

They both stood in thought for a moment, Nick taking the time to scratch his head in stereotypical contemplation, neither seeming in that moment like the intelligent adults they were.

“Olivia!” they both yelled out simultaneously, moving at lightning fast speed towards the closest available door.

Falling over each other, and into walls they scrambled into the bedroom where their daughter was playing and came to a screeching halt.

Strewn across the floor, some covered in brightly coloured markers, crayons, and non-toxic paints were dozens of pieces of paper. In the middle of the chaos was Olivia, still diligently colouring away, her small tongue just peeking slightly from the corner of her mouth.

With a glance upward she smiled a big toothy grin, “I’m making it pretty for you Daddy,” she stated then returned to her art.

His heart had stopped, he couldn’t breathe, his life flashed before his eyes and every other imaginable cliché that anyone could throw at him was happening at that very moment.

“My life is over,” Nick announced, not even having enough in him to be angry with his daughter. He dragged his body over to the bed and collapsed back on it, staring up at the white ceiling. The mattress dipped as Holly sat down next to him and he heard her sigh.

“Some of it is salvageable I’m sure, she couldn’t have coloured on hundreds of pieces of paper,” she tried to console him, “Besides, I’ve made due with things in worse shape than that. It’s just a little colour; I have to fight against hundreds of year’s worth of dirt.”

“Please…” he begged, rubbing his face with his hands, “No dirty coin comparisons, just this once?”

Holly sighed, “Sorry, I analogise what I know. Maybe it’s for the best?” she offered, but Nick found it difficult to find any comfort.

“Why’s that?” he asked, peeking out from between his fingers.

“To be honest…” She drawled, hesitant to go on, “It wasn’t really that good.”

“You told me you liked it!” Nick exclaimed, sitting up straight on the bed.

“I told you what you wanted to hear,” Holly shrugged, “It was dry, and I wasn’t really a fan of the plot. There was way too much sex and violence that seemed inappropriate for the movement of the story.”

His face first recognized shock, not able to believe that after all this time she had been lying to him about liking his book. His shock soon melted into a smile and he couldn’t hold back a chuckle, “You’re so right,” he laughed, “I can’t believe I spent all that time on such an awful novel! Even if I did finish it, no one would have bought it!”

“Don’t say that,” Holly scolded, surprised he had suddenly become giddy, “You’re a great writer like I said before, and that’s the truth. You would have found a way to sell it.”

“Maybe this was meant to be,” Nick finally agreed as he looked over to see Olivia still happily drawing pictures on his life’s work, “Maybe starting something new is what I needed. I’m a different person now than I was when I started that book.”

“You are?” Holly asked, intrigued to know the answer.

Nick nodded, “I am. I’m a husband, and a father now… not a single student. You basically said before that you speak what you know… maybe I need to start writing what I know?”

His words made Holly smile, and for the first time in a long time she felt a surge of warmth when she looked into his eyes, “I think if you wrote what you know as the person you are right now you’d have a best seller on your hands.”

Eye contact; it had been a long time since Nick had gotten the opportunity to stare into Holly’s pretty eyes and he was captivated by them. He smiled then cautiously leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers and they shared at unrealistically perfect kiss, no doubt soon to be featured in his first novel.

The rest of Saturday flew by without a single thought of the date at the park.

Sunday was a day of mixed feelings for Nick. First he would be ecstatic when Sunday came because the Sabbath was a signal of a weekend coming to an end, but at the same time he dreaded the long drive back home, putting everything back in the house as it once was, dealing with a tired and cranky Olivia, and making good of the mess they’d left for themselves to clean up on Friday evening. It was definitely not the ideal weekend that he would picture for himself; though this weekend had been slightly different than others past.

He had lost his manuscript to a rainbow of finger paints and Crayola inspired artistry, and he was somehow alright with it. He should have been furious and horrified at the loss of his hard work but instead he was finding himself with dozens of ideas brewing in his head, something that hadn’t happened to him in a long time. He was now free to think of something other than his original storylines and it was liberating.

The other small change had been his relationship with Holly. Sure, nothing had been really fixed and they weren’t back to the way they’d been before Olivia was born but Nick felt a tiny bit closer to her. The kiss they had shared on Saturday afternoon had lingered in his mind and he mentally kicked himself for not pushing things beyond just the kiss.

With a sigh he finished trying the dishes, and placed the final plate securely in the cupboard. He checked his watch, surprised by how tired he was when it was only ten. He could remember not too long ago when staying up until four in the morning was a regular occurrence. Now he was ready to pass out at the stroke of ten, but usually pushed himself to at least stay up to watch the news, and keep up with his favourite sports. Tonight though, he could barely keep his eyes open. No doubt Olivia and Holly were fast asleep, and he was soon to join them.

Up the stairs and into the bedroom he slunk, dragging his socked feet against the vinyl floors. With a yawn he opened his bedroom door, but the prospect on the other side had suddenly sobered him from his fatigue. He checked, and double checked, and was now absolutely certain that Olivia was nowhere to be found in the bed. This was unheard of, she always slept with them. He had never been sure if it was because Holly wanted to keep him away from her, or if she truly just missed her daughter’s company but for the first time in as long as he could remember there was no little blond head hogging his pillow. His side was in fact; HIS side.

He quickly walked back out of the room and crossed the hall, opening Olivia’s door. There she was sleeping like an angel with her hair fanned out across the pillow, her cute little face highlighted by a Disney Princess nightlight.

He quietly shut the door again and made his way back into his bedroom with a smile on his face. He could actually get a good night’s sleep now that Olivia was in her own bed. He couldn’t help but wonder though what had changed to make Holly put the girl in her room when she normally fought Nick on it every time. He thought about it as he pulled off his jeans and shirt, throwing them in the hamper.

As Nick turned back to the bed he suddenly had a Eureka moment, and his eyebrow shot up as if to question it, “Hol’?” he asked aloud, waiting for the woman to stir in bed.

No response.

He crawled into their queen sized bed, lifting the duvet slightly to see what Holly had worn to bed; if anything. Could she have been waiting for him to come to bed? He wondered silently, making note of her tank top and panties.

He practically pumped his fist in the air as he came to the absolute conclusion that Olivia wasn’t there because they were going to have sex. It was just what he needed, just what he had been craving, for weeks.

Sliding over in the bed he snuggled up behind her, slipping his leg between hers. She stirred slightly as Nick began kissing the back of her neck and behind her ear as his fingertips lightly brushed down her arm.

“Nick?” Holly asked sleepily, her confusion being mistaken for arousal to his ears.

“I was wondering when you were going to wake up,” he smiled, letting his hand under her tank top. He slid his palm across her smooth stomach before cupping her breast lightly.

“What are you doing?” Holly demanded, now completely awake and wondering why she was being groped during her slumber.

Holly turned her head towards him and he was shocked by the anger he found in her eyes. He had obviously made a mistake, “You put Olivia in her room… so that we could be alone?”

“I put Olivia in her room because I felt like I might be coming down with something and didn’t want her to catch it,” Holly explained.

Nick blushed though it was difficult to see in the dim light, “Oh.”

“Yeah, “Oh”, I don’t know what you were expecting but copping a feel while I’m asleep is pretty strange even for you.”

He wasn’t sure whether or not to be insulted by her words, but he chose not to be, “I’m sorry, it was wishful thinking I guess. I thought we had a good weekend.”

Holly’s expression softened slightly, “We did have a good weekend, but I have to go to work tomorrow and like I said, I think I’m coming down with something, so I’d like to get some rest.”

Nick nodded, “Alright. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Holly assured him, still feeling slightly awkward about the whole situation, “You can do one thing for me though.”

“Anything,” Nick’s head popped back up beside hers, wondering what she needed.

“You can take your hand back,” she smiled and motioned down to her chest where his hand had been frozen against her breast ever since they’d started talking.

“Wow, I’m embarrassed,” he chuckled as he slid his hand back out of her shirt, turning redder than he already was if it were at all possible. He slid back down in the bed, kicking the comforter away from him to stay cool in the humidity.

They lay quietly for a while, Nick on his back and Holly on her side facing away from him.

Suddenly out of the darkness he spoke, “Don’t you miss it?”

“What?” she asked sleepily.

“Sex…”

She sighed and Nick waited anxiously for her answer, “To be honest… I don’t really think about it that much. So no, I guess I don’t miss it.”

“Is it me? Do you just not want to have sex with me?”

“No Nick, you’re fine,” she replied but he felt like he was getting the brush off. Did she think he was lacking in the bedroom?

“I miss it a lot.”

Again she sighed and Nick was pretty sure she was getting annoyed, having been nearly asleep again, “Isn’t that why a bunch of men invented the internet?”

Nick turned to look at the back of her head, “Most women wouldn’t encourage their husbands to watch porn.”

“Most women are idealistic, vapid, idiots.”

Not all were; Alaina wasn’t, but he wouldn’t tell Holly that.

~*~

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Nick asked as he popped the top off of a small container of carrot sticks meant to be Olivia’s afternoon snack.

Alaina looked up from her tote bag and smiled, “Of course,” she nodded then returned to searching through everything for Benji’s fruit snacks.

“What would you think if you caught your husband watching porn?”

She couldn’t help but laugh, wondering where on earth this line of questioning had come from, “Did something happen this weekend?”

“No!” Nick immediately protested, “I shouldn’t have even have asked that because now I’m going to have to explain and it’s… embarrassing.”

“I don’t embarrass easily,” Alaina assured him, reaching up to quickly tighten her ponytail after having been bent over her bag, “There’s not much you could say that would change the way I feel about you.”

She feels things about me, Nick’s inner voices announced in surprise and he lingered on the thought for a moment before continuing with a clear of his throat, “Well Holly, that’s my wife, I’ve told you that haven’t I? Anyway… she appears to think that maybe I won’t be so focused on having sex in our relationship if I were to watch more porn. I don’t know… I shouldn’t be telling you this. I feel like a gossiping old biddy.”

“No, no, it’s interesting,” Alaina dismissed his apprehension with a wave of her hand, “You might think it’s an alternative way of thinking, that she is trying to free you of the boundaries of conventional marriage but I think it would have the opposite effect.”

“…the opposite effect?” Nick questioned with a raised eyebrow, “What do you mean? Like I would want more sex if I watched porn?”

Alaina did a quick look around to make sure no children or uppity parents were within listening range of their racy conversation, “Do you watch any now?”

Nick blushed and gave a short nod, “Not all the time, but I can’t say I’ve never watched it. I watched a lot more of it in college, but now… if it’s on at night or something… ok, yeah.”

“No need to be embarrassed,” the woman laughed at his self-consciousness, “You’re not alone! Anyway, you watch a little bit now and you still have a healthy sexual appetite but say you increase the amount by 100% and suddenly you’re watching it every other night, if not every night. So you sit around and watch a bunch of men have raunchy sex with girls who you only wish you could have. Then what do you do? You’re horny and frustrated and you have two options, take care of business yourself or head on upstairs where you have your very own real live woman to pleasure and prove you’re just as man as the wannabe actor with the twelve inch cock.”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Nick admitted, scratching his head lightly, “Though who is to say that I don’t already have a twelve inch cock and feel no need to prove anything?”

“No offence, but unless you’re a statistical anomaly and a bit of a freak I really doubt that,” Alaina laughed and Nick wished he had some kind of recording device nearby so he could get that perfect laugh on tape and listen to it whenever he needed to be uplifted.

He smiled at the thought and shrugged, “So you’re saying I should stop watching it all together so I won’t want to have sex?”

The older woman laughed again and shook her head, her long hair swinging behind her, “No! I’m saying you’re not wrong in wanting to have sex. When you have someone you shouldn’t have to be alone in the sexual aspect of your relationship.”

“So you wouldn’t be pissed if you caught your husband watching porn because it would make him want you more?” Nick wondered, bringing back his original line of questioning.

Alaina’s smile softened slightly and she shrugged, “No, but there’s always exceptions to every rule… some men prefer to be alone.”

“Where does that leave you?” Nick asked boldly, trying to read the variety of expressions on her face.

“Oh look! I found them!” Alaina’s smile was back as she brushed off Nick’s question completely and victoriously held up a bag of fruit snacks, “Snack time!” she called to Benji and Olivia and they came running. As she glanced back away from the kids her eyes caught with Nick’s and they shared a moment when they realized they were exactly the same, stuck in never ending disappointment.

~*~

“Would you like a piece of bread?” Nick asked, having just popped a loaf of garlic bread out of the oven. He sliced it quickly on a cutting board then put the pieces in a basket to place on the table.

Holly shook her head shortly, “No thank you there’s plenty of carbohydrates on my plate as it is.”

Nick sat down and eyed her wearily, not entirely sure how to take what she had said. She was often difficult to read, and this was definitely one of those times. He watched her swirl spaghetti around her fork with disinterest, “What’s wrong with dinner?” he asked defensively as he reached over with his fork and knife to cut up Olivia’s spaghetti.

“Nothing,” his wife replied earnestly, “Don’t you think we eat a little too much pasta though?”

He was confused, “I thought you liked my pasta?”

“I do!” Holly assured him with a frustrated groan, “You’re taking this personally and it’s not. I’m just saying we eat a lot of pasta.”

“So do Italians,” Nick shrugged, turning back to his own plate of spaghetti and sauce.

“You’re right, they do, and it goes right to their hips too!” she said, making sure to avoid any eye contact as she stared down at the bottle of parmesan cheese.

Nick rolled his eyes at her apparent insecurities, fully prepared to play the ‘tell me I’m not fat’ game that women often played, “You weigh like a hundred and five pounds, I think if anything you need to be eating more pasta to get some meat on your bones.”

Holly held back a chuckle and glanced up, “Thank you, I appreciate that, but I wasn’t necessarily referring to myself.”

“Then who were you… oh!” his confusion was short lived as he realized exactly who his darling wife had been referring to, “You mean me?”

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” Holly immediately began, “It’s just… I’ve noticed in the past little while that you’ve been putting on weight. Maybe this would be a good time to watch what you’re eating before it gets to be a problem.”

“How could I not take that the wrong way? You’re saying I’m fat! How is that not personal?” he asked point blank, suddenly feeling strangely uncomfortable as she gave him a once over. No wonder she didn’t want to have sex with him, she thought he was fat and disgusting.

“You’re not fat Nick,” Holly reiterated and he felt as though she were saying it merely for his benefit.

“Maybe I should go to the gym or something…” Nick muttered but Holly quickly shot him down.

“Gyms are expensive, we can’t afford that. Anything you can do in a gym you can do outside or in the house. You used to be really active just in your everyday life, you went for runs every day, and played ball, and just exercised more and now you’re a little more sedentary and it’s bound to happen but we’re both still young we have to nip it in the bud before we get older and our metabolisms start to slow down.”

“I am not sedentary,” he aggressively replied, “I spend all day chasing Olivia around, walking to the park, playing.”

“We play with Benji!” Olivia announced and Holly seemed quite relieved for the sudden break in the serious conversation.

“Who is Benji?” she asked, not having heard about a new playmate.

“He’s my best friend!” the young girl replied matter-of-factly, her blond hair bouncing as she swayed in her seat.

Holly’s eyebrows rose curiously and she sent a glance to Nick before looking back to her daughter, “Your best friend? How come this is the first I’ve heard of him?”

“He plays with us and Alaina plays with us too!” Olivia informed her mother.

“And just who is Alaina?” Holly chuckled, wondering why these people had not been previously brought up.

“She’s Daddy’s friend!” Olivia was now swinging her legs as she chewed on the corner of a piece of bread, oblivious to the blush that had suddenly formed on her father’s fair cheeks.

Holly laughed, “Daddy’s friend? Funny Daddy hasn’t mentioned having any new friends,” her words were laced with a sarcasm that would go by unnoticed to the pre-schooler but were undeniably clear to Nick. She was suspicious, and he didn’t blame her. He hadn’t mentioned Alaina at all and he wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t as if he was trying to hide his relationship…no, friendship with the older woman because there was (maybe) nothing going on between them but he had somewhere along the line decided to keep Alaina to himself.

He chose to shrug idly and brush it off, “She’s just a woman from the park, not a friend really. When the kids are all playing it’s nice to chat with the adults, and it just so happens that 99% of them are female. I’m kind of in the minority. Nothing’s going on.”

“I never said there was anything going on, no need to get defensive,” Holly said but she was giving him a look as if she was trying to read his soul and he felt suddenly warm, “Why are you blushing?”

“It’s hot in here?” he suggested, “It’s the middle of summer.”

“You seem nervous,” Holly was suddenly intrigued in what had her husband’s panties in a bunch.

“I’m not at all nervous!” I don’t want you to know I think about Alaina naked and sprawled out on our bed. I don’t want you to know I dream of licking every inch of her.

Holly relented, her face breaking into a grin, “Daddy’s silly,” she said to Olivia and the little girl agreed, changing the subject to something else but for the rest of dinner Nick could feel Holly’s eyes on him, waiting for him to reveal his secrets.

Summer was in full swing and not holding anything back resulting in it being hot, humid and unbelievably uncomfortable outside. People were taking advantage of pools, sprinklers, and the beach during the days but Nick still diligently made the trip to the park like he had been doing for weeks (where there was not a pool, sprinkler, or even water fountain to be found) for Olivia’s playtime, giving himself over to the sweltering heat.

“Hot enough for you?” Alaina asked with a laugh as she approached the familiar park picnic tables where Nick was sitting, staring up at the blazing sun, fanning his body with his t-shirt.

“It’s scorching,” he whined, not having wanted to come to the park in the first place. He had contemplated for a long time over coming, but it was routine for Olivia and she didn’t seem to be bothered by the weather in the least.

Alaina pulled up Benji’s stroller next to the table and released him from his seat, letting him run off to the sandbox in the shade where Olivia was already playing, “Well at least they seem happy.”

“I think children have some sort of internal temperature regulator. As long as they’re playing they don’t get hot or cold, they just stay the perfect body temperature,” Nick theorized, finally opening his eyes to look over at Alaina. He had to shield his hand from the so he could actually make her out but when he did he was not disappointed. She was dressed in a bright red halter top and a knee length jean skirt with matching red flip flops, something a little more feminine compared to her usually conservative linen pants and button up shirt, “You look nice.”

“Thank you,” she smiled and he could have sworn she intentionally flashed him her cleavage as she bent down to fold up the stroller and rest it against the picnic table.

When she came back up she was holding a camera in one hand and Nick looked at her curiously.

“I’m trying to make a scrapbook,” she explained, “And I’m going to do pages about Benji and his friends. So I thought I should have some pictures of you and Olivia since it seems he’s quite smitten with you.”

“You’re making a scrapbook?” Nick asked with a chuckle since she didn’t really seem the type.

“I hear all the stay-at-home moms are doing it! It’s all the rage!” Alaina said with a toothy grin, “Maybe you should start one?”

Nick raised an eyebrow and let out a hearty laugh at the thought of him becoming obsessed with paper punches and designer scissors, “I can’t really see myself being much of a scrapbook person. Plus from what I’ve seen on the home shopping channel it’s a pretty expensive hobby.”

Alaina agreed with a nod, “That it is. I went to a party last week you see, a scrapbooking party,” she clarified, “and there were all sorts of rubber stamps, stickers, and papers that you can get all themed to what you want to make… oh, and we made cards for the Fourth of July!”

This too had him laughing, “Who did you give a card to for the Fourth of July?”

She too seemed confounded by this, “No one. I’m not really sure who you would send it to...I suppose you could send it away to someone who you didn’t get to spend the fourth with.”

“And did you?” he wondered.

Alaina shook her head, “No, we had our friends over for a barbeque, so there was no one who missed it…you?”

“We went to the beach,” Nick answered, “The fireworks were good.”

“That’s good,” Alaina smiled and the conversation began to run dry.

“I suppose they would make that card because there’s not really any card worthy holidays coming up,” Nick suddenly reasoned as he brought up the old dialogue, still trying to understand the purpose of the card.

“I guess not. Anyway,” Alaina steered the topic back in the direction she had originally been taking it all the while taking a seat next to Nick on the picnic bench, “at the party we looked at the different types of scrapbooks you could do and at that point I was completely disinterested and had no intention of dropping hundreds of dollars on tacky little die-cuts of back to school slogans but there was one thing the hostess showed us that was really quite striking so I decided to go with it. The whole book is going to be in black and white with really earthy tones for the paper and that. It was quite tasteful, more like a photo album that is lovely to look at rather than a traditional scrapbook. I thought Benji might appreciate having something like that. I don’t have too many pictures of him.”

“We don’t really have many pictures of Olivia either. We’re not really camera people,” Nick admitted, watching Alaina as she snapped a picture of the two youngsters from afar.

“Well I’ll be sure to give you copies of any of the ones she is in,” Alaina told him then turned the camera on the blonde, “Say cheese!”

Nick forced a smile, not the type to be entirely photogenic on the best of days but especially not today when he felt grubby and overheated, “Cheese?”

“Do you ever wonder why people say that?” Alaina questioned as a pensive look crossed her face allowing frown lines to form, “What does say cheese mean anyway?”

“Photographers use it to get people to smile in one of two ways. Linguistically the word cheese forms your mouth into a half circle forcing a smile, the other way is fairly juvenile but cheese is a funny word and people smile when they say it.”

Alaina stopped dead from taking another picture and turned back to the man with a laugh, “I really wasn’t expecting such a text book answer to that question.”

“I really only remember useless facts,” he chuckled, squinting as he looked over at her since the sun had now moved into his view.

Lightning fast Alaina snapped a picture of his sun-forced smile then went about collecting photos of the kids playing on the playground equipment. She spent a little time taking photos but when she was snapping shots of the two children out in the sunshine on the teeter-totter something strange caught her eye.

“Olivia?” Alaina called out, immediately getting Nick’s attention too as the woman said his daughter’s name.

“What is it?” Nick asked, following her gaze to the girl who seemed to be slumping slightly in the metal seat.

The two adults dashed from the picnic tables over to the teeter-totter, Alaina making it just in time to catch Olivia before she slipped off her seat.

“She said she didn’t feel good,” Benji explained, getting out of his own seat to be at his mother’s side.

“She’s burning up,” Nick said in a concerned voice as he ran his hand over his daughter’s red face.

“We should get her out of the sun, maybe she’s got heat stroke or something,” Alaina instructed, looking around for some shade.

“Maybe I should take her home,” Nick reckoned as he picked up the little girl who moaned in response and laid her head on her father’s soft shoulder.

“You walked!” Alaina pointed out, “I live closer, come to my place. We’ll get her cooled off and get some water in her then if she’s not feeling any better we’ll call the doctor. If you pop her in the stroller and carry Benji we can be there in no time.”

Nick was reluctant to say the least. He wasn’t sure if it was the best idea to go to her house, after all they still had things to do at home but another moan from Olivia told him that he really didn’t have any choice. Alaina was completely right in saying she lived closer, and it would be much better to be able to get Olivia out of the sun and under the shade of the stroller so he agreed.

He put Olivia in the stroller then turned to her little friend, “Is it okay if I carry you?” he asked Benji, not really comfortable with just going around scooping up other people’s children. Benji didn’t even take time to think about it and just stuck his hands up in the air using the international symbol for ‘up, please!’ until Nick had him up on his shoulders and they were on their way home.

~*~

“Is she feeling any better?” Alaina asked as she watched Nick come out of the spare bedroom and close the door softly behind him.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “She’s fast asleep now but her fever is nearly gone. Thank god we got her out of the sun quickly.”

“Benji’s out like a light,” Alaina informed him as the two made their way back down to the main floor, “He’ll be out for two or three hours easily.”

“We’ll get out of your hair as soon as we can,” Nick said, feeling bad that they had imposed on Alaina and Benji’s time.

Alaina smiled warmly and shook her head, “Don’t worry about it. Make yourself at home, I’ll go grab us a glass of lemonade.”

“That sounds great, thanks,” Nick said, watching the woman walk away through the expansive foyer.

The house was nothing he could have expected. He knew that given their lucrative professions that between the two adults there had to be a fair amount of money but when they arrived at Alaina’s house he was blown away. It was absolutely stunning; a very large four storey, five bedroom colonial house with an even larger backyard, garden and swimming pool. The house was like something out of a magazine with its pristine walls and expensive furniture.

There was no way he could make himself at home in this house because it was so far away from his real life Alaina would not even believe it. He had lived humbly since he was a child, and now he and Holly were lucky to have snagged the house they were in because the rent was about par with the overpriced apartment they’d moved from. They struggled from month to month living on Holly’s pay check alone and he would bet that Alaina didn’t even know what to do with all of her money.

“The house is in Brian’s family,” Alaina announced, practically reading his mind as she came back with their refreshments, “For a hundred years or so I believe.”

“It’s a nice house,” Nick forced.

“Don’t patronize me. It’s a museum. I hate it. It’s way too big for my taste!” Alaina smiled then lead him out to the patio to sit.

“I’m not being patronizing,” Nick defended, “It really is a nice house.”

“For an eighty year old,” Alaina laughed and motioned to a seat for him to sit in. The patio overlooked their lagoon-shaped swimming pool and hot tub as well as at least half an acre of manicured lawn and gardens.

“It’s a little dated inside,” he finally admitted, “but the outside is perfect,” he added as he moved to put his glass on the granite bistro table that separated their chairs. Alaina’s hand brushed against his as she also set down her glass and they both pulled away, avoiding the skin to skin contact. He had now known Alaina for seven weeks but Nick still couldn’t shake the raw attraction he had to her. He had hoped initially that the excitement of a woman showing an interest in him would wear off but if anything it intensified. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was about her that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand, and a fire burn in the pit of his belly but it happened every time he was close enough to her to accidentally brush her skin, catch a whiff of her sweet shampoo on the breeze or even smell the combination of her grapefruit scented body misty mixed with the sweat and dirt of a day playing outside with the kids.

“The phone is ringing!” Alaina suddenly announced, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “excuse me for just a second!” she requested as she jumped out of her seat and headed into the house.

“Sure,” Nick’s voice drifted out softly and he watched her walk into the house before getting out of the chair and following his own route inside. He paused in the hall where her digital camera sat and he glanced from the piece of photography equipment up to where Alaina had disappeared. What was the harm in taking a peek at her photos? After all, there may have been some good shots of Olivia, and he definitely did want her to give him copies.

Nick picked up the camera and turned it on, watching the display spring to life with a flash of a brand name across the screen. It took him a moment to figure out how to display the photos she had taken but once he did a smile came to his face. There were a few very cute pictures of the kids playing; the pictures of him that he had remembered her taking as well as some of the park itself; following those though there were pictures that Nick had been oblivious of and they were all photos of him; pictures of him looking sweaty, staring up to the sky, fanning his body with his shirt, and looking generally overheated. There were a lot of pictures of him, secretive, stolen pictures. Nick was confused and he looked up to check and make sure that Alaina wasn’t headed back in his direction. Why would she take all these photos of him? He thought that she was scrapbooking the children not him.

He heard the floor creak and he immediately shut the camera off and placed it back on the small hall table in a flash. Alaina appeared around the corner and he smiled.

“Do you need anything?” Alaina asked, wondering why Nick was inside instead of outside on the patio furniture where she’d left him.

“Um…” Nick paused, trying to think of a reason why he was looming in the hall, “Where’s your bathroom?”

Alaina smiled sweetly and pointed to her left, “Just down there, first door on the right.”

“Thank you,” Nick smiled and followed her arm down the hall to the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and took a deep breath, wondering what on earth he was even doing in this house in the first place. He had thought that his attraction to Alaina was merely one-sided but now he was beginning to think that she might feel the same way too. It was a dangerous game, being attracted to someone who was not only married but held a connection to you through your children.

He ran the tap, splashed some cold water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror, “Nothing can happen,” he told his reflection in all seriousness. No matter how badly he craved it, he had to leave Alaina alone.

~*~


“Did you fall in?” Alaina asked with a bright smile as Nick appeared through the window of the patio door.

He returned her smile, albeit more tentatively than it was given to him, and walked back out into the summer sunshine, “No I managed to keep myself ashore,” he joked with a chuckle.

“Do you read much?” Alaina suddenly asked; changing the tempo of the conversation as Nick moved to sit back down in the chair he’d just recently occupied.

“Of course,” he nodded, “I love to read. I don’t find as much time to do it as I would like, but I used to be able to read a novel a day. I was a literature major in college so reading and deconstructing classics was practically second nature to me by senior year.”

She seemed pleased by his answer and popped up out of her chair, “Wait here, I want to share something with you.”

“Okay,” Nick looked at her curiously as she quickly walked into the house and came back only moments later with a worn down hardcover in her hands.

“Look,” Alaina said with a smile, taking a seat on the arm of Nick’s chair as she handed him the book.

“The Great Gatsby?” Nick wondered, surprised that she had handed him that particular title, “This… is this… a first edition?” he gasped as he took in the tattered binding and old style print and carefully opened the cover to check the page inside for the printing date.

Alaina smiled and leaned over to point out the publishing stamp, “1925,” she told him; glad he found the book as interesting as she had, “You won’t believe where I found it.”

“You’re probably right,” Nick laughed, looking up to her with a broad grin.

He hadn’t noticed until just then how close they’d gotten while looking at the book and his smile dropped a touch as nerves set in. It wasn’t her that made him nervous; it was his own temptations that made him nervous and he didn’t understand why. What was it about this woman that was sending his libido into overdrive? He took a quick second to look her over as she leaned over him, pointing out something on the first page of the book. He should have been listening, he wanted to hear what she had to say but he was distracted by just the smell of her. The light flowery perfume she was wearing was like pheromones to him, he wanted to get as close as he could; the red tank top she was still wearing from earlier was cut low enough that he had an ample view of her cleavage, catching just a hint of the lacy bra she was wearing underneath; her slender legs running down the arm of his chaise were catching the sunlight and he could have sworn her skin sparkled.

“Are you okay?” he suddenly heard her ask but it sounded as if she were far away, speaking to him through a crowd.

He looked up into her eyes, eyes that showed nothing but concern. The worry she had was for him and he couldn’t remember the last time someone cared about him enough to ask about his wellbeing. Well, someone over 4 years old anyway.

“Nick?” she asked, her brows furrowing as she skimmed across his glazed expression.

Nick felt her hand run across the top of his shoulders, rubbing quickly between the blades as if to get his attention but his attention was lost in her. His heart pumped faster at the feeling of her fingers sliding across his t-shirt covered back.

As if acting on some primal instinct Nick caught Alaina’s eyes, letting his hand slid up into her hair before crushing his lips against hers. In the back of his mind he was waiting for her to push him away, waiting for her to slap him or yell and tell him what he was doing was wrong but that moment never came. Instead Alaina kissed him back, opening her mouth to let their tongues dance together. In an instant what was a chaste kiss to the lips became a frenzy of lips, and tongues and hands groping and searching.

Though it was an exceptionally awkward make-out session they didn’t seem to mind. Nick pulled Alaina into his lap in the deck chair, his hands running through her hair as he sucked on her bottom lip sensually.

Her hands were under his shirt, scraping her nails down his chest as he moaned into her mouth.

“This is wrong,” Nick moaned into the kiss, feeling shame but not letting it stop his fingers from sliding underneath the red halter top.

“Let’s go inside,” Alaina breathed in reply, rubbing her hand roughly over the bulge of his erection apparent through his khaki shorts.

When Nick should have been thinking of his child asleep upstairs and his wife expecting them home for dinner he was instead thinking of himself, for the first time in a very long time. The only things going through his mind were how fast could he get in the door, how long was it going to take before he could be rid of their clothes and how long could he make this last since it had been so long since his last orgasm.

“Okay,” he agreed breathily without any further deliberation. He hoisted Alaina into his arms wrapped her legs around his waist and in the heat of another passionate kiss clumsily walked them into the house.

“In there,” Alaina instructed against his lips, letting go of his shoulders for one second to point him in the direction of her personal study.

The second the door was closed behind them Nick had her pressed up against the wood and hiked her skirt up around her waist, his hips unconsciously pushing up against her cotton covered centre. She moaned as he rubbed against her and while his tongue explored her mouth and hands held her up against his body she took the time to reach down and undo his shorts, pushing both garment and undergarment down over his rear, freeing his once captive erection.

“Wait,” Alaina moaned as Nick sucked on her neck.

His eyes popped up to hers with a questioning look, “What?” he asked; worried beyond all else that she was going to end things right there.

“Put me down,” she instructed and Nick’s worry increased. He did as she asked and watched as all she did was reach down to slip off her skirt and panties and his smile grew again. He took advantage of the moment to push his shorts off the rest of the way and pull his t-shirt over his head. The very moment that Alaina’s shirt was clear of her head and on its way to the floor he pounced, pulling her back up into his arms, securing her legs firmly around his waist. Her back hit the door again with a smack and without time for any further foreplay Nick thrust himself inside of her, both of them moaning loudly at the sensation they hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever.

They were still for a moment, clutching each other up against the door before Nick slowly began to move, rocking his hips against hers.

“Faster,” Alaina moaned, tipping her head back against the door.

He did as she commanded, picking up the pace. Nick leaned forward and nipped at her neck, his teeth lightly scraping the skin – not enough to leave a mark but just enough that he drove her wild. One of Alaina’s hands moved from his shoulder to the bookcase to her left, bracing herself so that she could mimic Nick’s movements increasing the friction against him.

She moaned loudly as he filled her, muttering his name each time she felt his skin touch hers, barely able to take one breath before she needed a second. She was close, he knew, to her impending orgasm and he tried to hold out as long as he could to ensure she was completely satisfied but his peak came much sooner and with a growl from his throat he came, his face pressed against her shoulder as he slowly came from his high.

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered against her cheek, wishing he had been able to at least make sure she had hers before him.

“It’s okay… but you better make it up to me,” Alaina teased with a smile on her face, quickly using her free hand to wipe the sweat from her brow as Nick put her back down on the floor.

The second her feet were back on the lush carpet he kissed her lips quickly and began trailing small pecks down her body, stopping momentarily to spend some time to remove her bra which had managed to stay on up until that point. He continued his kisses down her stomach, having to brace himself against the wall and the bookcase in order to get down onto his knees. Hearing Alaina chuckle at his inabilities he glared up at her mischievously.

“I’ll stop if you’re gonna make fun of me,” he threatened playfully, drawing his hands from her hip to her ankle before pulling one of her legs over his shoulder.

“Don’t stop,” Alaina requested breathily before Nick’s lips and tongue took over the duties that he been previously working on. She ran her hands into his hair, tugging on the locks as he eyes rolled back into her head, “Don’t ever stop.”

 

 

A smile spread across his face as he dropped another kiss at the base of her neck, letting his lips guide him downward, along each vertebra, his tongue lightly grazing her sweat dampened skin.

He let his lips trail down over her hip, his hands helping the cause by rolling her over. He spread her legs wide, exposing her to him. Her hips rolled out of instinct, as if begging him to be inside of her.

The room was engulfed in complete silence, only the sounds of lips and tongues, and sweaty skin-on-skin could be heard. Her knees drew up and he pulled her to him, feeling her grip his ribcage with her legs before watching himself slip easily inside of her. It was one of the most erotic things he’d ever seen; he had never had this view before.

He picked up the pace, pounding into her; the sound of his balls hitting her ass took over the room.

She moaned arching her back and biting her lip, “Daddy,” she called to him.

He was confused, but didn’t slow down. What did she call him?

“Daddy,” she said again, her body writhing underneath of him but this time she sounded less like herself and more like...

“Daddy!” Olivia’s voice finally penetrated through his sleep and Nick’s eyes bolted open with a flash.

“I’m up! I’m up!” he mumbled, trying to get his bearings.

“Certainly seems that way,” Holly’s suddenly entered the room and he managed to look up at her quizzically.

“What?” he asked.

“Good dream?” she fired back at him and he continued to look at her funny.

Holly laughed sarcastically then motioned downward and as Nick’s eyes followed the path he suddenly noticed the huge tent in the sheets that had been created by his brain’s recollection of the previous afternoon. It had been happening a lot since his little trysts with Alaina had begun. It seemed like every night he would dream of the kinky, erotic, things they’d done that day, and he would keep thinking about them until he was able to either re-create or one up the situation.

“Fuck,” he muttered, ignoring Olivia’s disapproval of his choice of words. He sat up in bed to try and take the focus away from his apparent erection; not exactly wanting to show it off to his four-year-old daughter.

“Well, was it?” Holly queried, one hand on hip, the other holding a mug of coffee.

“Was what-what?” Nick replied, still drowsy. He pushed his blonde hair out of his face, knowing that it was all over the place from rolling his head on the pillow.

“I asked if it was a good dream,” she said again, setting the mug down on the nightstand for him.

Since when did she make him coffee? Did she even know what he took in it? Shaking his head he got back to the question he was asked, “I don’t remember it,” he lied.

“Really...” Holly said, and he could feel the scepticism in her voice, “You were moaning.”

“Then I guess you didn’t really have to ask if it was a good dream, did you?” he shrugged, reaching for the cup of coffee.

“I came to tell you we’re going for a swim... you might want to take care of that before you join us,” Holly said frostily, and Nick wondered why on earth she would be pissed off about him having an erection, for all she knew he’d had a dream about her.

“The dream was about you,” he threw out.

“I thought you said you didn’t remember it?” she reminded him.

“Who else would it be about?” he asked, watching as she got Olivia’s toys together in a bag.

“You tell me,” Holly shrugged, slinging the bag over her shoulder. She took Olivia by the hand and led her out the patio doors.

“Bye Daddy!” Olivia called over, waving her little hand at him as she followed her mother’s lead.

As soon as they were gone Nick let out a huge breath and threw himself back against the pillows. He ran his hands through his hair, almost having forgotten that it was the weekend and they were at the beach. They would be there for a few extra days because Holly had taken a long weekend.

It was strange for her to take any time off except for stat holidays, but lately she had been keen on going out to the beach and taking an extra day here and there, he thought it was a little strange but didn’t want to look to far into it. If he let himself do that he might start to think she suspected something about his little affair. She had no reason to suspect after all, except for the fact that the last time he’d had explicit sexual dreams like this, and woke up as worked up as he was now, was when he and Holly were dating... back when having sex with her was a normal thing. Even then the dreams were never as vivid, never as erotic. He knew that was because he’d never done half of the things he’d been doing with Alaina, and they wouldn’t leave his mind from day to day. He didn’t think they’d used the same position more than once. That wasn’t something that happened to him; he wasn’t the guy who got to use the kama sutra as a play book... until now.

After the first afternoon at Alaina’s things had only escalated from there. Every afternoon they put the kids down for a nap then screwed each other’s brains out in her study. There wasn’t a surface in the room that they hadn’t violated. Nick felt like he was 19 years old again; full of energy, and a love for life.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t love life now, by any means, but he didn’t have the same jaded look on the world as he did when he was younger. He spent years being pessimistic that now that there was a little optimism in his world it felt completely unusual, and new.

Nick felt himself drifting back to sleep and forced himself to swing his legs over the side of the bed and take a sip of the now room temperature coffee that awaited him on the nightstand. Another thing that had been changing in his life was his need for sleep. It had been a long time since he’d actually been able to sleep in but now that he was exhausting himself physically on a nearly daily basis he’d found it harder and harder to wake himself up. He was normally up and active well before seven but checking the clock he saw that it was well after nine.

With a yawn he pulled himself to his feet, stretching his arms above his head. The remnant of his dream was still apparent as he lumbered over to the bathroom so he could complete his morning rituals and slip on his swim trunks that were hanging over the towel rack; to dry.

He shuffled back out of the bathroom, now dressed to go join wife and child for a swim. He quickly chugged back the last few mouthfuls of his now cold coffee and followed the path they had taken not long ago out the patio door.

If anything was going to get rid of what was left of his hard on it was going to be the cold waters of Lake Ontario that were spread out before him. The beach was surprisingly quiet for a sunny Sunday despite the fact that people filled the rows of beach houses that lined the shore every weekend during the summer and well into the fall.

The sand stung against the bottoms of his bare feet and he squinted against the blazing sun as he headed down towards the water.

Should’ve grabbed my sunglasses, he thought to himself, should have brought a hat, he added, torn between heading back to the house and keeping on his path.

A pair of arms wrapping tightly around his waist was the deciding factor. Olivia’s face was pressed into his pelvis and she stood atop his feet as he continued to walk down towards the lake.

“Carry me high up, Daddy,” Olivia requested once Nick had finally stopped walking, both of their feet settling into the wet sand.

Nick nodded and wordlessly scooped her up, dropping a kiss to her cheek before hoisting her up onto his shoulders.

“Look how tall I am, Mommy!” the little girl called out with a giggle, waving to her mother who was now only a few feet away from them.

Nick turned towards Holly, donned in her usual one piece bathing suit, the high cut bottom showing off her lean legs. He still found himself undeniably attracted towards her; long brown hair, pretty eyes, great body, and the whole package. It was as if Alaina’s theory about porn was correct, except she represented the porn. He was experiencing the crazy, risqué portion of sex that he never got during college, or his young adult years (not that he wasn’t still a young adult by any means) and now he was horny all the time and spent every night lying next to a woman he once thought was the only person who would ever want him. Fooling around with Alaina was supposed to satiate him; instead it was making it worse. He was getting greedy, wanting more than he was entitled to.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Holly said sarcastically, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“You can talk to me without being a b-word,” Nick said defensively, censoring himself for the sake of their daughter who was looking on with keen eyes and ears.

“I’m just confused,” she shrugged her slender shoulders, and Nick was surprised that she wasn’t trying to get into a fight with him, “You’ve been strange lately.”

“I’m always strange,” he chuckled and Olivia laughed along in agreement.

“No,” Holly corrected, her face breaking into a slight smile, “You’re always weird... now you’re strange.”

Nick sighed and looked back towards the water, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about but I really would rather not have this conversation right now.”

Holly disregarded his request, “What was with earlier?”

“What are you talking about?” he grunted, exasperated.

“Well,” she started, putting a hand to her chin in thought, “Either you’re starting a campground in our bedroom, or you got lost in a Viagra factory last night judging from the tent you were pitching this morning.”

Nick laughed, shaking his head, “Are you really criticising me because I had a hard on? I wake up with morning wood on a fairly regular basis, I know you haven’t noticed but it’s true.”

“I do notice, I’m not blind,” Holly crossed her arms across her chest; “I’ve never seen you get that into a dream before is all. This has been a few nights in a row now. You wake me up at night you’re moaning so loud. You’ve never done that before. I just want to know what’s going through your head.”

Nick was slightly panicked now and he could feel a blush rising into his cheeks. He hadn’t realized he was being so vocal during his dreams about Alaina. Now he was worried that he might say the other woman’s name, or give away some kind of clue that he was having an affair, “I’m horny,” he used as an excuse, “You can’t blame me for that. I was telling the truth when I said I was dreaming about you.”

“You’re full of shit,” Holly deadpanned and Nick’s breath caught in his throat as he waited for the hammer to fall, “You were dreaming about Paris Hilton or something,” she laughed and Nick let out a whoosh of breath, as if he’d just avoided being hit by a train.

“God no,” he laughed nervously, “I’d get dream herpes.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Holly joked and finally let the subject drop so they could head into the water.

~*~

Nick panted heavily and wiped sweat from his brow, his muscles feeling the fatigue of all his hard work.

He thought a run might help release some of his frustrations, and he ran for miles until feeling like he might get through the rest of the day without any thoughts of sex.

As the small blue beach house came back into view Nick noticed a strangely familiar car sitting out in front on the dirt road and his brows furrowed.

“What the fuck...” he muttered, slowing to a walk as he took a moment to take a second glance at the car, making sure it was who he thought it was.

His eyes widened as he saw Alaina step out of the vehicle and give him a little wave. He jogged up towards her, taking her firmly by the arm, “What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded, taking a quick look around to make sure there was no one watching them.

“I had to see you,” Alaina replied in a breathy voice, running her hand down his sweaty arm, “You should go for runs more often, you look sexy all sweaty.”

Nick pulled back and anxiously ran his hands through his hair, “Don’t do shit like that in public. What are you doing here? How do you even know where my place is?”

Alaina smiled nervously and brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, “Well... last weekend...”

“I knew I saw your car! I asked you if you followed me and you said I was crazy!” Nick snapped, shaking his head quickly. The previous weekend he had thought he’d seen Alaina’s familiar red Jetta parked down the street from his house, and again he thought he’d seen it behind them on their drive to the shore but when he’d asked her about it she denied it, making it seem as if he was delusional, and just plain paranoid that someone was going to find out about them.

“I’m sorry!” she gushed, “I was curious.”

“About what?” he snapped, “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Get back in your car and go home right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Alaina apologized again with her green eyes wide with shock over how Nick was reacting to her presence, “I just wanted to see you.”

Nick let out a huff, “Well you saw me. My wife and daughter are just down the beach and there’s no real way I can explain you being here, so now you need to go.”

“Alright, alright,” she surrendered, holding her hands up in defeat, “I’ll see you when you get back right?”

“Tuesday,” he confirmed, using his hand to push her down into the front seat of the car, “Never come here again,” he added before quickly walking away from the car and towards the house.

His heart was pounding in his chest and he didn’t dare look back to see if she had actually gone. Nick couldn’t believe Alaina would show up at his house like that – a house that she shouldn’t know the location of! He’d never brought her here, nor would he ever, so her showing up in this little cottage town was enough to make people wonder.

As he entered the house he couldn’t tell if he was sweating more because of the altercation outside, or because of all the exercise.

“Good run?” Holly’s voice nearly made him jump out of his skin and he whipped around to see her standing in the kitchen just off to his left.

“Yeah,” he nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat, “hot one out there today though.”

Holly smiled then walked the short distance toward him, “Go get cleaned up, we’ll have a late lunch,” she said in a near whisper before reaching up and pulling him towards her to press her lips to his.

“Okay,” Nick forced a smile and watched as Holly walked back into the kitchen, “Holy shit,” he muttered and made his way toward the bathroom, “Could my life get any weirder?” he questioned himself rhetorically tugging at the ends of his hair in frustration.

He wasn’t sure who was acting stranger; his wife or his lover, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find out.

 

 

The morning sun; it was that great big yellow orb in the sky keeping all life on earth fully functioning. It was an important part of every day but Nick couldn’t help but resent it sometimes. In both houses he slept on the side of the bed closest to the window, and again in both houses the morning sunshine managed to make its way through the curtains directly into his face.

He groaned and tried to shut out the brightness behind his eyelids. He’d dreamt again that night; about Alaina. His mind just wouldn’t stop racing with images. It was one of the hazards of having a creative mind. The only way he could avoid slipping back into the dreams was to stay awake, so it was far too early to be disrupted from his already upset slumber.

With a grunt Nick rolled over towards Holly’s side of the bed and away from the offensive light. He couldn’t see her features through the curtain of hair that had fallen in front of them so he reached out to push it back; away from her face and behind her ear.

He nearly jumped when her eyes opened suddenly and they were face to face.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked in a sleep heavy voice.

“Looking at you,” he answered honestly, letting the ends of her hair slip through his fingers.

“Why?” she croaked, her eyes drooping from open to closed.

Nick chuckled, “I’m weird, remember?”

The edges of Holly’s lips lifted slightly, “Don’t I know it.”

It seemed like she had every intention of going back to sleep and Nick running his fingers lightly through her hair didn’t appear to help keep her awake. He sighed, running the back of his knuckle over her sleep reddened cheek. Last night had been awkward to say the least. He couldn’t stop thinking about Alaina’s appearance outside the house, and he was worried that she would make another appearance. That had left him jumpy for the majority of the evening. At the same time Holly was acting really bizarre; as if she was flirting with him, which had been very uncommon in recent months. She was acting almost like her old self, which Nick found completely suspicious.

“Stop it,” Holly’s chuckled jovially.

“Stop what?” Nick asked in return, playing dumb though he knew exactly what she meant.

“You know what,” she stated confidently.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he flirted, wondering how long she would let it go before she cut off his playfulness.

Brown eyes met blue and he didn’t see that flirty, mischievous, expression that he wore returned to him.

“You’re really annoying sometimes you know that?” Holly asked flat out and Nick couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“To love me you must love me at my most annoying,” Nick informed her, curious as to what her response would be. He couldn’t really remember he and Holly sharing anything as personal as an “I love you.” Sure they’d said it before, to other people, but it didn’t mean very much at the time. The only time they really heard each other speak the words was when they were directed towards their daughter.

“Ha! That’s highly improbable,” she said, and although he was certain she was joking he couldn’t help but take it personally.

“Of course,” he nodded, “That wouldn’t happen because you don’t love me.”

Holly suddenly turned serious, and despite her intentions to continue her sleep she sat up in the bed quickly. She pushed her messy hair back and turned to glare at Nick who was still lying back against the pillows, “What are you going on about?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugged, playing with the top of the sheet that covered them, “It would be improbable for you to love me for my idiosyncrasies because you don’t love me at all.”

“Where do you get off saying something like that?” she questioned.

“I don’t get off, not with you, not ever with you,” he stated, “I just don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Stay married to someone you don’t love.”

Holly looked away and was quiet for a moment. Nick had been holding these feelings inside for a while and he wasn’t entirely sure why they decided to rear their ugly head now. He wondered what was going through her mind and was surprised when she turned back to him with tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.

“Sometimes I hate you,” Holly told him, taking a ragged breath as her chin quivered, “But I’ve always loved you. I think that’s what makes me hate you more sometimes... how much I care about you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nick snapped, sitting up next to her. He looked her straight in the eye, feeling a sudden surge of anger pump through his veins, “I don’t believe you love me. How terrible is that? I feel like the only reason you’re here right now is to keep up appearances to Olivia and I hate that. I don’t want to be here...”

“Then leave!” she near-yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Let me finish!” Nick growled, leaning in towards her, “I don’t want to be here if I’m just playing husband for you so that you can feel like we’re normal. I want to be your husband in all senses of the word not just for show, not just for Olivia.”

“You are!” Holly cried defensively.

“No, I’m not!” Nick ran his hands through his hair roughly, shaking his head at her, “I’m just here for your convenience! You tell me what to do, when to do it, you rule my life down to the millisecond and I don’t get anything in return...”

“Why does it always come back to sex with you?”

He grunted out of frustration, “I didn’t mean sex, I meant credit! I never get credit for anything! While we’re on the subject though sex is kind of important in relationships! It’s really not just the sex, or lack thereof, it’s everything! You never touch me, or kiss me, or compliment me, or talk to me like I’m a real person!”

Holly’s eyes were wide hearing his revelations and she nearly laughed with amazement, “You’re some woman aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Nick was shocked.

“I never compliment you? I don’t talk to you like you’re a real person? What the hell Nick? That sounds like complaints some ‘50’s housewife has!”

“It’s true,” he said, crossing his arms firmly across his bare chest, “You try to control me. You think you’re better than me.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Nick,” Holly said and for the first time Nick felt she was being genuine, “All I’ve ever wanted to do is help you. I didn’t want you to be overwhelmed trying to take care of Olivia during the day on your own. You know better than anyone how anal I am, and how I like things done my way so I figured I would spare us any arguments down the road by giving you an itinerary. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say here,” she sighed, leaning her head in her hand, “I think this is the first time I’ve ever been speechless.”

“You make me feel like I’m the child,” Nick said in a small voice, “You talk down to me like I’m not as good as you, not as smart as you... I am as smart! I went to college too, remember? I just don’t feel like we’re in a relationship. I feel like we’re roommates that just happen to sleep in the same bed. You keep thinking that I’m only concerned with how much sex we’re having but it’s not about the sex, it’s about intimacy, it’s about, well, romance, as clichéd as that sounds.”

“It’s impossible to deny that you have a way with words,” Holly chuckled lightly, turning her face up to catch his eye.

“It’s just a little something I do,” Nick picked at the sheet in front of him before meeting her gaze.

Holly sighed, “Can I be honest with you?”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he told her, turning so they were actually facing one another.

“It’s not that I’m not attracted to you,” she swallowed hard; “I’ve been so stressed out with this job. They put so much on me, and then they’re telling me I’ve got to do all this travelling, and I just wasn’t prepared for all of this. This has been the first time in my life since grad school, since we first got together that I’ve felt like a fish out of water. I love what I do, don’t get me wrong, but I’m finding this really hard. It’s kind of left me... without much of a sex drive. I don’t know if it’s the stress but sex is the last thing on my mind. It really isn’t you.”

“I understand, I just wish you had told me all of that before,” Nick reached out and once again tucked her hair back, “Don’t feel stressed about work though, you’re great at what you do. I’ve never met anyone as passionate about their career as you are. I know you’re sort of just starting out compared to everyone else but you’re amazing at it.”

“I love it,” Holly nodded, “but I’ve got it easy. I could never do what you do.”

“Sit in front of a computer and have writer’s block?” he joked.

“No, that may be your career but it’s not your job. You amaze me every day Nick because I could never be as good, or as attentive a parent as you are.”

“You are,” he said instantly, “Where would we be without you organising the house?”

“Being anal and overanalysing everything is just what I do, you do the hard stuff, and I will never be able to tell you how much I appreciate you.”

Nick was stunned now; he never saw this conversation coming. Just when he had convinced himself that he didn’t need Holly she did a complete flip and was now telling him things he wished she would have said years ago.

“What do we do now?” he asked, surprised when Holly took his hand and ran her thumb across his knuckles.

Just as she opened her mouth to speak Olivia’s call for her parents rang out through the room and they shared a silent smile before getting out of bed to start the day, his question left unanswered.

~*~

“Let’s stay an extra day!” Holly’s voice broke through the night and Nick turned his head from the scenic sunset before him.

“What?” he asked blankly, wondering what had inspired her to think aloud.

“Let’s stay,” she repeated, “We can head home Tuesday afternoon instead of tomorrow morning.”

“Why?” Nick kept his questions to one word, not wanting to let on that he was secretly disappointed at the thought since he was supposed to see Alaina at the park on Tuesday.

Holly shrugged and gave him a once over. He seemed so relaxed sitting out on the deck, feet up on the railing with a beer in his hands, she thought he would appreciate a little more of a break from reality back at home, “Because it’s beautiful, and it’s supposed to be nice for another couple of days. I figured we could take advantage of the weather.”

“Isn’t it kind of late for you to be asking for vacation?” he wondered, trying to think of reasons why they should go home.

“I’ll call in sick,” Holly answered easily, leaning her head against the back of the chair.

“You’re not sick though, that would be unethical.”

“Unethical?” she laughed, “I’ve never called in sick a day in my life yet I watch all these other people call in for hangovers, or just because they don’t feel like coming in, I didn’t even have time off after I gave birth for crying out loud. I deserve to have a day where I just don’t give a shit and call in “sick”. Since when are you the ethics police? As I seem to recall the last time you had a job you got fired for not showing up.”

“I was in the middle of writing a crucial chapter,” Nick defended, remembering the day he was so lost in himself he didn’t even realize he hadn’t showed up for his last menial job at a waffle house, “I couldn’t just leave, it would have destroyed my train of thought and I would have never been able to pick back up again.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Holly teased, shaking her head at him. It was getting difficult to see him in the fading light but she continued to look in his direction, his features lit only by the lanterns they had up on the deck’s awning, “Let’s stay.”

He knew he couldn’t argue the point against her, she would inevitably win, but he figured he could at least keep trying, “Olivia probably wants to get home.”

“Is Mittens here?” Holly asked dryly and Nick couldn’t deny the fact that the beanie cat was currently squished between the mattress and the wall at that current time, “Then Olivia doesn’t care where she is. I’d really like to stay Nick. It’s my vacation, my sick day, and I want to spend some time with you and with Olivia. I don’t know why you’re fighting me on this you’d think you were anxious to get home for something.”

“I’m not,” Nick answered, borderline defensively.

“Is there a baseball game on or something that you’re missing?” she asked honestly, not knowing of any other reason why he would want to get home.

“No, I just worry about leaving the house for this long with no one checking in on things. Maybe I should go back tomorrow and pick you guys up on Tuesday?”

Holly let out a heavy sigh and ran her fingers through her hair which had just been pulled down out of its bun, “I’d really like it if you didn’t do that,” she said and reached out to put her hand on his propped up thigh, “I want you to stay with us until Tuesday afternoon. The house will be fine for an extra day. I want you to be here.”

Nick sighed and put his hand on top of hers, looking up at the sky where the stars, free of the smog they normally saw covering them, were shining bright, “Alright, you win, we’ll stay until Tuesday.”

In the most unexpected move of the summer Holly squealed with delight as she hopped out of her chair and wrapped her arms around her flabbergasted husband. It took him a few moments to realize what was going on before he hugged her back and wondered how he was going to get a message to Alaina that he wouldn’t be there to meet her when he said he would. He only hoped she didn’t come looking for him.

 

 

The walk to the park seemed to go by way too fast. He was nervous; the sweat stains on his bright yellow polo shirt had nothing to do with the humidity sitting heavy in the air.

He was worried about what he would find at the park apart from the usual playground equipment and overdressed moms. He couldn't help but wonder if Alaina would be pissed that he missed their date, if you could call it that. At the same time he didn't think she had any right to be upset that he stayed on vacation an extra day but he felt the need to explain himself nonetheless.

"It's hot today Daddy," Olivia said, resting her head on her father's shoulder.

"It's beautiful," Nick nodded, looking down at the little girl who was completely decked out in Disney Princess pink from the top of her ball cap to the tips of her sneakers, "You just remember to tell me if you start to feel too hot okay?" he reminded her for the second time that day, giving her a pat on the bottom. He certainly didn't want a repeat of the little bought of heatstroke she'd had before, no matter what the outcome of that day had been.

Olivia nodded her head and wrapped her hands tighter around her father's neck as if she barely noticed the increase in temperature as she did so.

"One of these days I'm gonna make you carry me," Nick threatened playfully as they walked through the wrought iron gate into the sprawling green of the park, the playground set towards the back behind walking trails.

"Daddy, don't be silly," Olivia deadpanned and Nick had to hold back his laughter at her boldness, "Is Benji here?" she asked, finally lifting her head off her father's shoulder to have a look around the playground.

Nick followed her stare, taking his own look around the park. He didn't see them anywhere and he wasn't sure if he she be worried or scared. From the way he'd seen Alaina act over the past few days he was wondering if she was at his house right now trying to figure out where they were. As far as he knew she didn't know where he lived but stranger things had happened; after all he didn't think she knew where their beach house was either.

"Well?" the impatient little girl requested, patting her father's shoulder eagerly.

"I don't think he's here baby," Nick said sadly, lowering his little pink companion to the gravel path, "I'll play with you though."

Olivia looked up to her dad, over to the playground and back up to her dad while she contemplated her decision, "No thank you. Let's go to Benji's house and get him so he knows it's time to play."

Nick sighed heavily and eyed his little girl. He had a feeling that she was going to give him that kind of response, "What if Benji is sick?" he asked, "We can't just go over and disrupt him."

"Well if he's sick we need to bring him soup," Olivia had an answer ready for whatever her father was prepared to throw out at her.

Another sigh from the blonde man and he continued to look down at the equally as blonde girl, "Maybe he doesn't want soup? Maybe he's at the mall?"

Olivia huffed and shook her head, he obviously didn't understand the severity of the situation, "C'mon Daddy, let's go," she said and grabbed a hold of his hand. She yanked him back in the direction of the entrance on a mission to find out why Benji would be absent from the park.

Nick had no other option but to give in. There was nothing he could do when she got like this; if he said yes she knew she could get away with it next time she wanted something but had he said no she would have made him feel like the worst father in the world, pure scum of the earth. So as per usual he gave in, and let her lead him back out of the park and up half a block before she reached up to be carried, and he picked her up to lug her the rest of the way to Alaina's less-than-humble abode.

The sweating got worse as the neighbourhood got ritzier and he was worried that he'd be a hot, stinky, sweaty mess when they got to the door but he was going to have to face Alaina eventually. It wasn't as if they'd had a fight, and it wasn't as if they were really in a relationship but the way she had reacted on the weekend had him on high alert. He didn't think he was as nervous about seeing her as he was about their secret getting out.

"Here we are," he said, not as much to Olivia as for his own reassurance as they stood in front of the large wooden door. Nick firmly grabbed onto the door knocker with his free hand and smacked it against the supporting brass, hearing the thump resonate throughout the house.

It didn't take long before the door swung open and a dishevelled looking Alaina stood in front of them.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, not expecting company.

"Olivia wanted to play with Benji... you weren't at the park..." Nick stuttered, not quite as bold and confident facing her as he had anticipated he would be.

Alaina wiped stray hair that had fallen out of her ponytail away from her eyes and took a deep breath, "We were planning on going later, and I'm doing some housework. We didn't think you would be there, at the park, since you didn't show yesterday."

Nick scoffed and hiked Olivia a little higher on his hip, "We decided to stay an extra day. I don't have to check in with you, you know!"

"I know! I know!" Alaina dismissed him, not wanting to get into an argument out on her front porch where all of her neighbours could see. With a sigh she moved to open the door wider, motioning the two of them into the house.

"Thank you," he muttered as they passed by her and into the foyer, "I'm surprised you don't have a maid."

"I do," Alaina replied curtly, firmly closing the door and not providing any further details, "Benji is upstairs playing in his room," she told Olivia before instructing the girl to head on up.

Nick watched his pink angel make her way up the sprawling staircase before turning back to Alaina, "So what's the deal?"

"What do you mean?" Alaina questioned, letting him follow her into her study where she had left a glass of iced tea sitting on the desk.

"What was with showing up like that? On the weekend, I mean."

"I told you," Alaina shrugged, "I had to see you. I missed you."

"You can't follow me around like that! What if my wife had seen you?" he asked, putting his hands firmly on his hips as he watched her pensively sip on her drink.

Again she shrugged, "You could always tell her the truth!"

"The truth?!" he laughed, "Oh honey this is my good friend Alaina... how do we know each other? Oh, well we're fucking you see!"

"Don't be so crass," she shook her head in disgust.

"Well what do you expect?" he demanded, "I saw your car outside my beach house so my wife will notice eventually. Have you been at my house?"

Alaina's sudden blush answered his question but he waited to hear the words, "I wanted to see how you lived."

"I live in a small three bedroom house. We pay $1800 a month in rent... plus utilities. Our car payment is about $350 a month, but to be honest we splurged on it a little... I wanted cruise control, and she wanted the iPod jack. You want a list of prescriptions? How about magazine subscriptions? I can break down the number of extra channels we added to our cable if it would make you happy!"

Alaina put her hands over her ears, "Ok! Enough, already! I get the point!"

"Don't follow me around," he finished softly.

"I get it," the woman repeated, letting her hands slide down her jaw, "I was just... curious."

"What were you curious about?" Nick questioned, running a hand quickly through his hair, "I don't understand what would have been so interesting."

Alaina inhaled deeply, pressing her fingertips to her lips for a moment before locking her eyes with Nick's, "Your wife mostly, to be perfectly honest."

"What did you want to know?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, "I wondered about what she looked like, and how she acted... what you see in her."

Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing. He never imagined that he would have his barely attractive mistress wondering about the attributes of his moderately attractive wife, "Are you satisfied now that you know?"

"I never saw her," Alaina admitted, "That's why I went to your beach house. I didn't think you would see me."

"Why does it matter what she looks like?" he asked point blank, eyeing her uncertainly.

"It doesn't matter," Alaina clarified, visibly embarrassed with the line of questioning, "I just had these questions in the back of my mind. I wondered if she were prettier than I was..."

"I'm here," Nick interrupted, "It doesn't matter if she looks like Heidi Klum... I'm here!"

"I know," Alaina's hands pulled on the ends of her hair and she didn't think she'd said those two words as many times in her life as she had in the span of their conversation, "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I just had to know what was so terrible about her that led you to this... to me."

"Nothing is terrible about her," he said, moving to sit beside her on the leather loveseat she'd perched herself on, "She's just... not in love with me."

"Do you love her?"

Nick paused, having to think long and hard about the question, "I love her," he nodded, "She gave me the greatest gift I've ever received... but I'm not sure that I was ever really in love with her."

"Are you in love with me?"

He'd dreaded this question as if it were a plague. He didn't think he could answer it without hurting her so he had to be honest, "No."

Alaina let out a woosh of air and looked up to the ceiling, "Thank God," she muttered.

Now Nick was definitely confused, "Sorry?"

"I was so worried you were going to say yes," she explained, eyes wide.

"That would be bad... if I were in love with you?"

She laughed, and nodded her head, "Well yeah it's not as if we can be in a relationship. I don't have to be in love with you to be a little jealous of your wife. After all... she's wasting your talents when they could be put to better use... on me."

Nick laughed sarcastically and pulled at his hair, "That makes no sense to me. You stress the fact that we can't be in a relationship but then turn around and tell me I should be using my so called ‘talents' on you, instead of my wife, who I am in a relationship with. You want me to be single so I can just be your secret boyfriend or something?"

"No, it just came out wrong," Alaina defended, "Can we please not fight about this? If I wanted to stand around arguing all the time I would just call my husband and get him to come home since Lord knows we're prize fighters."

Nick pursed his lips to keep from demanding an answer to his question and instead sighed, "You're absolutely right. I just need you to tell me that we'll do our best to keep this under wraps. No more coming to my house or the beach house, and following me around. I refuse to have to talk my way out of that disaster waiting to happen."

"You won't have to do that," she said but the answer gave Nick a strange feeling, "So... are you sticking around for a while?" she asked, reaching out to brush his hair behind his ear.

"I have to go," Nick told her bluntly, "There are things I need to take care of today, and Olivia still needs her nap."

"She's napped here every other day, what's different about today?" Alaina asked, wondering why Nick was suddenly cold and distant.

"I just... need to be alone this afternoon. Can you understand that?"

She nodded and Nick leaned over to kiss her temple quickly before getting up to collect his daughter and head home without another word spoken between them.

~*~

"You're quiet tonight."

Nick glanced up at the sound of Holly's soft voice, "I just don't have anything to say."

Holly pursed her lips and looked at him questionably, "That's very unlike you."

Nick shrugged and went back to the food that lay on the plate in front of him. He cut his meatloaf with the side of his fork, thinking about what was happening to his life. He would have never pictured himself in a situation where he had two women in his love life. Sure it wasn't as if things were perfect with Holly but they seemed to be making a turn for the better, and at the same time he had Alaina who seemed to have become more attached to him than he anticipated she would. She seemed at first as if the casual aspect of their "relationship" was going to be easy for her but more and more he felt her taking claim on him. It was like something out of a soap opera; his life.

Suddenly his head popped up and he dropped his fork to the table.

"Is there something wrong?" Holly wondered aloud, her voice laden with concern.

"I, uh, am going to go down into the basement for a bit," he said and without a second thought about his abandoned food moved quickly toward the door and down the stairs.

Once he was out of sight Holly sat back and smiled. She could picture him now, putting on his favourite hat (his "thinking cap") and putting himself down in front of his computer in the silence of his own subterranean vault. It had been a long time since she'd seen him act that way, since he'd been so desperate, so full of ideas. She only wondered what he was down there writing about.

 

This feeling was what he'd been missing for so long. Anyone with any creative outlet knows that when you're deep, deep, down into the depths of your very soul pulling at the fibres of your being it's as if nothing else exists. It is the single greatest and most fulfilling feeling in the world and in Nick's world, it was better than sex. No orgasm could possibly top that feeling.

He didn't know how long he'd been in the basement, but words were pouring out of his fingertips at a speed he'd rarely seen since his university days. He could barely remember the last time having the drive and fervour that he had on that night.

He'd also never considered himself a romantic, but his words were full of a gentle passion he'd never personally experienced even with all the recent developments in his life.

Page after page rolled by on the screen and he had to open his eyes wider just to be sure he could focus on the monitor in front of him.

He didn't glance up from his own words until he felt eyes on him - Holly's eyes. Glancing up he took her in through the lenses of his reading glasses. She was wearing pyjama pants and a tank top with a comfortable sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Her hand was firmly on her hip and he recognized the list in her stance.

"What did I do?" he asked and awaited the complaints that were sure to follow.

Holly laughed, which only increased his nervousness, "What did you do?" she repeated.

"Yes, what did I do? You're going to have to spell it out for me because I don't know what I've done, or haven't done, and I don't feel like guessing... Did I forget to take the garbage out? Was it my turn to do the dishes? Did you find my porn stash?"

"Whoa!" Holly interrupted with her eyes wide, "You haven't done anything! - wait, porn? Nevermind, I don't think I want to know. I just came down to see if you wanted something to eat."

Nick looked at her with confusion written across his face, "Something to eat? We just had dinner."

"Boy you really are into it, huh?" Holly teased, "First I'll point out that you didn't even eat your dinner. You mashed it up on your plate then rocketed down here... which is where you've been all night. I came down to see if you wanted your coffee and maybe some breakfast. You've been down here writing all night Nick."

"What?" he questioned sceptically before quickly taking a look to his watch. Sure enough it was just after 6 - in the morning, "Wow, you aren't joking."

Holly laughed and shook her head, "No I'm not joking," she was still smiling as she reached over to pull the ball cap off of her husband's head, sending his hair up in a million dishevelled directions.

The mood turned slightly darker as Nick, with cat-like reflexes, snatched the hat back from her hands and securely placed it atop his head, "Don't just take things off my head," he quipped defensively, "You're breaking my concentration! I was doing really well."

Holly's smile dropped and she crossed her arms self-consciously, "My apologies your highness," she replied sarcastically beginning to make her way back out of his domain in the basement.

Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning back to her, "I'm just tired - maybe I do need that coffee?"

His wife nearly laughed at his brazen request, "Maybe you need a nap? You always say Olivia needs one when she's cranky so I would suggest taking your own advice," she instructed as she headed up the stairs towards the kitchen.

"So does that mean no coffee?" he still asked, watching her carefully.

Holly let out a petulant huff, and turned at the top of the stairs with the door firmly in hand, "Get it yourself! Some people have to get ready for work!" and with that the door slammed shut and Nick was once again alone in the basement.

He immediately hopped back into his trance, into the alternate universe he was creating on the page. It was pulling him deeper and deeper, fingers now back up to the pace he'd previously achieved.

"Here!" Holly was back, and now a mug was slammed down onto his desk, liquid sloshing over the sides.

"Jesus! Just pour coffee all over my shit why don't you? You told me to get it myself; I made no move to get it so why did you think I wanted it that badly?"

Just as quickly she reached out to take back the mug but he clamped his hand down over it before she could.

"You asked for some!" her voice was low, and soft but clearly annoyed.

He wasn't in the mood for another fight, he was in the mood to write, so he went against the "Man Code" and seceded, " You're right, I'm wrong, thank you for the coffee, I appreciate that you went through so much trouble for me."

Holly eyed him carefully, not entirely sure herself how they'd gotten to this point, "Don't let the people in your book talk like that," she told him, "You're the only person on the planet who thinks it's believable."

"Well," he chuckled lightly, "You're not yelling and you're not dumping hot liquid on me or my desk so I would consider it to be fairly successful."

 At first he thought he'd gotten to her, recognized that familiar twitch at the corner of her mouth as it lifted into a grin, but as she turned on her heel and headed towards the stairs her lingering words assured him that he was wrong.

"You're an asshole."

~*~

"So when do I get to read it?" Alaina asked, drawing circles with her nail on Nick's bare chest later that afternoon.

"When it's done," he replied simply, putting an arm behind his head to cradle his neck.

He'd still been in a bad mood when they'd gotten to the park, because of his earlier altercation with his wife, so the decision to cut playtime short and head to Alaina's so the kids could nap was not a difficult one. He was still annoyed after his strained moment with Holly earlier in the day and used Alaina as an outlet to relieve his frustrations physically.

Alaina swung a leg over Nick's, pulling herself up to straddle his waist, "When it's done? Don't you need, I don't know... a proof reader or something?"

"No," Nick answered simply, not planning on letting her get a look at the book until it was done. She couldn't read it; it would just be too uncomfortable. "That's why I will have an editor. They're paid to proof read."

Alaina's hands travelled from his stomach up to his collar bone and he sighed at the sensation, "Does she get to read it?"

"Who?" he asked, eyes closed as he accepted her light massage.

"Your wife."

Nick's eyes popped open and he grabbed Alaina's hands, holding them against his chest, "No one gets to read it. All people do when they read works in progress is lie about liking it. I don't need people to lie to me about what they think. I'll finish it, and I'll send it away for someone who couldn't give a shit about me to read it and tell me how horrible it is, or how horrible it's not. No one reads it before hand."

"Okay," Alaina said, yanking her hands out of his vice-like grip, "Obviously she's never liked anything you've written in the past."

"We're not talking about that," he groaned, leaning his head back against the couch pillow.

"Ooh," she giggled, "I think I hit a sore spot."

"Why do you always bring her up?"

"Why does her reading your writing bother you so much?" she countered.

Nick let out a frustrated sigh, "It doesn't bother me. She's read everything I've ever written... except what I'm working on now. I just want it to be finished before I go looking for praise from other people."

"Whatever you say... so, what's it about?" she followed up, returning to the gentle touch up and down his torso, "Am I allowed to know what the plot is or will that ruin everything?"

Nick sighed heavily, trying to find a way to word the concept behind his latest masterpiece, "It's about a man who has reached the end of his rope. Everything in his life is drain, and he just doesn't know who he is anymore. He's got these labels that have replaced everything he used to be and he's desperate to remember what it used to be like."

Alaina's hands continued along their path as she thought about his words, "Autobiographical?"

"No!" Nick was quick to defend, making it painfully obvious that he was trying not to reveal the truth behind his words.

They were quiet for a moment, just touching each other idly before coming together for round three. Nick tried not to think about his book, and whether or not anyone else would pick up on just how true to life it really was, as Alaina's hips ground against his.

"You're distracted," she commented, not stopping her movements.

"No," was all he could compose, hands sliding from her hips to her waist.

"Let's go away together."

All stop.

"What?"

"Away. Us. Together. For a weekend or something. Brian is going on a business trip for a couple of weeks, and my sister can absolutely watch Benji, she loves getting the chance to spend time with him..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry I shouldn't spring questions on you when your blood is running to the wrong head."

Nick took a deep breath, thinking for a moment about what she'd just asked of him, "What would I tell my wife? I can't just take off for a weekend."

"Why not?" Alaina wondered, "You could say you're going looking for an editor, or whatever it is you need."

"You need a publisher before you have an editor, and you can't do that until the book is finished. My book isn't finished," he deflected.

Alaina's face lit, "There you go! Say you need some time to write! Say you want to really have some time to yourself to concentrate on finishing the book!"

Nick was sceptical of her ideas at best, "Where would we go?"

"To the city, or something," Alaina suggested, resuming the movements of her hips against his as if nothing had transpired over the last minute.

~*~

"So, where did you say you were staying?" Holly asked for the hundredth time, holding Olivia firmly on her knee.

"Uh, the Hyatt on the Hudson, it's in Jersey City," Nick explained as he packed another shirt into a duffel bag.

Holly took a few deep breaths, then setting Olivia down on the floor stood from the bed to face her husband, "I'm sorry I keep coming back to this but I just don't understand why you have to go all the way to New Jersey just to write! You have your room downstairs, and no one bothers you!"

"No one bothers me?" Nick scoffed, and quickly ushered Olivia out of their room and into her own before returning to his conversation because he knew that things were going to end up heated and didn't want to leave on a sour note with his daughter too, "Everyone bothers me! You're coming down asking me if I want food, or a drink, or to ask what I'm doing. Olivia is coming down asking me to play, family calls on the phone wanting to talk to me, things come up! I probably would have gotten a lot further on the last book if I had been given an opportunity to really concentrate on my writing."

"And who exactly is paying for your concentration time?" Holly questioned, "The last I checked you don't have a JOB. I wish I could afford to stay at the Hyatt but I certainly can't! How are you paying for it?"

Nick didn't really have an answer. He certainly couldn't tell her that his rich mistress was fronting the bill for the ritzy hotel room in New York, not Jersey City, "I put it on a credit card. I'll pay it off later."

"Oh, that's responsible spending. I'm glad you feel that our income is so expendable."

At this point he could cry, or at least rip his hair out, "Would you STOP!?" Nick exploded, his hands tightly gripping the fabric of the duffle, "I can't take this anymore! Our income is not expendable to me! I understand that things are tight but I'm trying to make a career for myself, why can't you understand that? All I want is for someday Olivia to be proud of me for what I've achieved and I will never see that day if I'm never able to finish a book! I just need this weekend to myself to put my thoughts together and collect myself! I just can't do it with the two of you breathing down my fucking neck, okay?!"

Holly's hands gripped her hips as she looked down to the floor, "Okay," she breathed with a deep exhale, "See you Sunday night."

"That's it? That's all you have to say? See you Sunday? After all of that you're just going to leave it at that?"

She shrugged and nodded, "I'm tired of fighting with you Nick. If this weekend is that important to you then go. I hope that you can come back rested, and relaxed. I figure we might as well get used to you being away now before your book tours."

"You're getting a little ahead of yourself," he scoffed.

"Maybe I am," another shrug of her lean shoulders, "but I really hope that you accomplish what you need to this weekend. Maybe by the time you come back you'll have written enough to start pitching your book to some publishers."

Nick knew that would never happen. He wouldn't get a single word written over the weekend, "Yeah, thanks."

"You'd better hurry up then or you'll miss the train."

"Yup," he finished putting the last of his things into the bag, zipped it up and slung it over his shoulder. A kiss goodbye to Olivia and he was outside hopping into a cab and on his way to the train station where he would be meeting up with Alaina.

Holly watched him go through the window, Olivia propped up on her hip. She couldn't quite understand what was going on inside of his head, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to.

"Mommy, can you get my crayons?" Olivia questioned, looking at her Mother quizzically.

Holly put a fake smile on her face and nodded, "Sure, where are they?"

"On Daddy's desk," the little girl explained.

Holly left Olivia upstairs before jogging lightly down into Nick's dungeon. She glanced quickly around the room for the crayons and found them sitting on top of a stack of colouring books. As she reached for them something unusual caught her eye. Well, not unusual in the tradition sense but anyone who knew Nick, knew how he operated, and knew how he wrote would find it incredibly unusual. Sitting next to the stack of colouring books, and the crayons, and a box of red pens, and a mug full of stale coffee was an incomplete manuscript. It was the manuscript of the book that he was writing; full of his quick notes and ideas for the upcoming chapters. She normally felt like reading it would be invading his privacy, but she had a feeling deep down that Nick didn't forget it. She was beginning to think he never intended to bring it. Her breath coming short she picked it up, her hands nearly shaking, but just as quickly she put it down. She couldn't read it. He'd simply forgotten it. He had his laptop after all. There was no way he was hiding anything.

 

With a feather-light touch his finger glided over the crest of her breast, stopping to circle the nipple and watch it harden at his caress.

Alaina breathed deep, her chest rising to press against his hand with every inhale. Neither could recall the last moment any words had been spoken; it must have been hours. When they’d awoken in the early hours of the morning, not long after having fallen asleep, they simply didn’t need to exchange words. Instead they explored each other’s bodies with hands, mouths, and eyes.

His lips replaced his fingertips, and he kissed down the slope of her breast, to the dip of her abdomen, along the faint scar left by what he imagined was the result of a caesarean, and then to the dip between her thighs. Two fingers dipped inside of her as his tongue hit her clit and her back arched up off the bed, not having expected his sudden invasion. Alaina’s knees pressed to his ears quickly and she moaned, reaching back to grasp the headboard of the luxury goose down bed.

If there was anything he had been missing from his life sexually it was this. To him it felt like pure power. All he needed was his lips, his tongue, his fingers, to drive her crazy and bring her to the brink of ecstasy and back as many times as he wanted because why would she ever want to stop him from worshipping her body. With his free hand he pushed her knee down, relieving his temples from her vice-like grip, while caressing the inside of her thigh. Alaina writhed, moaned his name, and he heard it, right there, the power, he could hear it in her throaty call and it was all his. Holly had never been comfortable during oral sex, back when they were intimate he would have to talk her into letting him go ‘down under’, and god forbid he ever get her to blow him.

With Alaina though, it was completely different. She not only liked to receive, but she loved to give. It wasn’t a task, or something she only did because he wanted it. She wanted it too, and it was one of the things that he loved about her.

Love.

Now, that was another issue. He could deal with the parts of their sexual relationship that he loved about her; how much she enjoyed sucking cock, or the occasional dabble into anal play, but most of all the fact that it was no holds barred. He could do whatever he wanted and she would never complain because she loved it.

He wondered, did she love the sex or was she beginning to love him?

He was having a difficult time differentiating between the two over the past few weeks; especially now that they were taking weekend getaways.

As soon as he’d gotten to the train station and into the car with Alaina to make the trek to the ‘big city’ he’d noticed a change in her. At first he thought it was because it was really the first time they’d been together with no kids. Even in her house, locked away in the study, the kids were still just upstairs within earshot. Slowly though he noticed more and more that was, as far as he knew, out of character for her. She’d grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers intimately as she drove and when they made a pit stop for dinner she didn’t let go. She suddenly became flirty, and girly like she’d never been before. She kissed him as he paid for dinner (it was the least he could do since she was fronting the bill for the hotel) and it there was a very awkward moment, while Alaina petted him very publicly, and the waitress smiled over at them sweetly, as she handed Nick his change and said, “Newlyweds?”

His heart had stopped but Alaina never missed a beat, “How could you tell?” she had played it up as if it were nothing. He knew how it would have been easily mistaken after all they were both wearing wedding rings and falling all over each other (mostly her over him) but it didn’t make it feel any less wrong.

When they’d gotten back into the car, before Alaina could steal his left hand away from him again, he’d taken off his wedding ring and tucked it into his pocket so he wouldn’t have to feel the shame he’d felt back in the restaurant. Alaina didn’t seem to mind, it made him more hers.

That left hand was now the one gently caressing her skin as she came down from yet another mind shattering orgasm. That same hand, with the white un-tanned skin showing the tell tale sign that he was missing something familiar, lead him back up her body where it tangled in her hair while his lips crushed against hers.

He looked into her eyes as they parted, and he was sure he saw it, just a ways back and a little to the right, just behind lust. It was love, or at least adoration he saw. Nick pushed aside his apprehensions and just smiled.

“Good morning.”

“It is.”

~*~

“What are you thinking about?” Alaina asked. They had just gotten out of the shower and she was watching Nick in the mirror, sitting on the end of the bed, just staring off into space. She’d noticed he’d gotten quiet, and while she dried her hair with a towel she watched his mind work.

Nick’s attention snapped to the room’s lavish vanity where Alaina was sitting on a small stool, “Oh... I was just thinking about Olivia to be honest,” he admitted, a small smile curing the edge of his lips.

“Let’s go out!” Alaina suddenly announced, starting to put together some clothes.

“What?” Nick wondered what had prompted her sudden, random, outburst.

“Let’s go out,” she repeated, grabbing his hands to pull him into a standing position, “You know, where there are people, living their lives all around us, just outside of this room?”

This felt an awful lot like a date to him, “What would we do?”

“God you’re difficult,” Alaina laughed but somewhere deep down Nick knew she wasn’t really joking, “How about dinner? Can we go for dinner or will that be too weird for you?”

“Sorry,” he apologized, “I just thought we came here to... you know... whatever it is we came here for. I don’t think I was expecting a night on the town.”

She laughed and pushed him in the direction of his suitcase, “Well I don’t know about you but I came here to get away from reality for a few days which does include doing things like eating fancy meals!”

‘Fancy,’ he thought as he looked through his clothes, ‘I guess that means dress pants’. The only other thing that made him feel a little better was the fact that no one he knew really had any money so the chances of him being seen in some hoity-toity restaurant was slim. He threw on a pair of khakis and a baby blue dress shirt (the most he could do with what he’d brought) and watched as Alaina slipped into a red halter dress that didn’t leave very much to the imagination.

“You look nice,” he commented before slipping his sock covered feet into his shoes.

“Thank you,” Alaina smiled. The dress had been purchased specifically for this occasion. She had been planning the dinner out since before they left, and had gone shopping to make sure she had something that would be acceptable both in the dining room and the bedroom. When he’d started getting morose, having thoughts about his daughter who was at home (with his wife) she knew it was time to get out of the room for a change of pace, and scenery, and the longer they were out – the better.

~*~

“How’s the steak?” Alaina asked, grinning at Nick over the lip of her wine glass before taking a long swallow.

Nick took a moment to drink from his own glass, nodding in her direction, “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten, though I wouldn’t expect any less for seventy dollars a plate to be honest.”

“Every now and then you have to treat yourself,” she shrugged him off and turned her attention back to the seafood on her plate.

“Right,” Nick agreed then leaned back in his chair. This whole dinner experience had been awkward for him, at best. They’d gone to the bar for a few drinks while they waited for their table and he found himself even struggling with small talk. At the park, and in her study, he always felt free to open up to her about whatever was on his mind but now he was so paranoid that he couldn’t concentrate on one thing. He was sure at one point that he saw someone he recognized walking to the men’s room, but with the way his imagination was running wild on him he couldn’t be certain.

“What am I doing here...” Nick whispered under his breath, staring down at the grilled meat on his perfectly decorated plate.

Despite his efforts Alaina caught his words and looked at him curiously. He’d been acting strange all weekend, and she didn’t know why. He had no problems when they were locked up in her house, or anywhere else so his sudden distance was unusual. He had agreed to come on this trip, after all.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

Nick let out a deep breath and eyed her carefully. He should consider himself lucky to be sitting here with a woman who went out of her way to look beautiful for him, spend her (husband’s) money on him, and want to be with him but instead he was being ungrateful.

“Are you in love with me?” he asked bluntly.

Alaina’s eyes widened and she shook her head quickly, “No! We agreed from the start that our relationship wasn’t going to go there. Are you in love with me?”

“I’m...” he let out another deep breath, “I’m worried that this was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here with you. Everything that has happened at your house is one thing, but this is so much bigger. It’s just kind of hit me all of a sudden what I’m doing to my family.”

“Put yourself first for once!”

“You can’t expect me to be so selfish!”

“Nick Carter?”

Both their heads snapped around to the new voice that had entered the conversation. This had been Nick’s worst fear, but he never thought he would actually run into someone he knew in such an expensive restaurant. It wasn’t the man he thought he saw on the way to the restroom, the exact opposite in fact. It wasn’t a fellow diner at all, it was a waiter.

“Yeah?” he answered wearily. He found the guy familiar but he couldn’t put a name to the face.

“Howie,” the guy reintroduced with a big grin, “Dorough,” he added with a wink.

“Oh hi,” Nick said, obviously not recognizing him.

Howie laughed and brushed a curl off his forehead, “From Stony Brook,” he prompted, “We bunked together first year.”

“Oh!” Nick’s eyes lit up with acknowledgement, “Of course! I’m sorry that seems like it was so long ago.”

“No worries,” the friendly voice replied, “I haven’t seen you in so long, so I don’t blame you! So what are you up these days? You must be a big shot writer by now! Should I be looking for your best seller in Borders or something?” he laughed, “I heard you were married but I never thought your wife would be so beautiful.”

“Oh,” Nick’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment; barely able to process all of the questions he’d been asked.

Alaina took Nick’s uncomfortable silence as a cue and stuck her hand out for a friendly shake, “I’m Alaina, and it shouldn’t be long before you can find something he’s worked on in the stores. It’s going to be a best seller, for sure,” she gave the man a pleasant smile.

“Nice to meet you,” Howie replied before turning back to Nick, “To be honest, when I first saw you over here I was glad to see that you weren’t with that Holly chick anymore. I never really understood the two of you together, such a mismatch. To be honest we all thought she was a bit of a bore,” he chuckled, “Sorry, I know you were really into her at the time. Anyway, I gotta get back to work. I’m so glad to have seen you! You must be doing really well for yourself if you’re eating in this place so congratulations. I’ll keep an eye out for your books!”

Nick couldn’t even muster a goodbye and left it to Alaina to give salutations to his former friend. He was embarrassed, and ashamed, and had never felt dirtier. He had always known that none of his friends liked Holly; always known they didn’t think he should be with her but to hear the words as if Holly were no longer in his life was hard. The fact of the matter was that she was in his life, she’d given him a daughter, and she had kept a roof over his head since the day he finished college because she wanted to not because she had to. Holly and Olivia were the only things he had in his life. He didn’t have money, or a job, and he only had half a book but still they stood by him and supported him and he was throwing that in their faces.

“Well that was a little awkward,” Alaina laughed uncomfortable but Nick just sat stone cold across the table from her.

“I’m so sorry but I have to go home,” he said and suddenly stood without another word, throwing his napkin down on the table before heading for the door, for their room, for the train station, for his house where he should have been all along.

 

 

 

 

 

“Can you drop me off right here?” Nick asked while handing a few bills over to the cab driver as the car came to a stop.

When he’d hailed a taxi outside of the train station he’d considered giving the guy his address like a normal person would, but he didn’t know what he would do if the cab dropped him off in the driveway off his house and Holly was there. It was sad, to be afraid of your own house. It wasn’t as if he was coming home all that early; he’d left early Friday morning and it was now late Saturday, a mere 24 hours premature.

He slung his laptop bag higher up on his shoulder, and couldn’t keep himself from thinking how he wished he’d been writing for the past two days instead of what he was really doing. He couldn’t blame Alaina for his guilt, no matter how heavy it weighed on him. As they always seemed to say, it did take two to tango, and he was part of that. He’d always had a lingering guilt in the back of his mind but there was something about how personal it was to share an intimate weekend that amplified everything in his mind. His worries didn’t seem to lighten any as he thought about the confrontation he was bound to have with Alaina, the explanation he was going to have to give her that would lead to their “breakup”. Breakdown was more like it.

Nick sighed deeply as his front door came into view and as he continued down the sidewalk his attention was drawn to a car sitting in the driveway. They parked in the garage normally, and that certainly wasn’t their car. His irrational side immediately wondered why Holly would have anyone over to the house that late, and what she was doing, but she was her own person and he couldn’t jump to conclusions. After all, if she was in there with a guy it’s not like he could be angry without being a hypocrite.

“She wouldn’t be in there with a guy,” he laughed to himself nervously, his pace picking up slightly as if he was going to catch his wife in some kind of lewd act if he just walked that little bit faster.

Once he hit end of the driveway, his shoulders were tired from the weight of his duffle bag and his laptop. He took note of the fact that the car (a red midsized sedan) was a rental, the company’s name and logo emblazoned on the rear bumper.  

As soon as he opened the front door Nick’s gaze went to the floor. He was checking for shoes, anything that might give him some indication of who might be over, but all he could see were his own, those of his daughter, and his wife. Of course, they could have come in through the kitchen door.

He could hear laughter coming from that direction after all, and he dropped his bags and made his way towards the kitchen full of curiosity. There was more giggling as he drew nearer, and he was sure it was the sound of two women not of his wife and her mystery lover. His cheeks flushed red with embarrassment that he’d even let himself get that worked up over it; after all, it was he who was the cheater not Holly.

Carefully he swung the kitchen door open, first seeing Holly as she raised a glass of wine to her lips then as the door opened further he saw someone he hadn’t seen in a long time. The last time he’d seen her they’d argued, he’d kicked her out of the house. He couldn’t see this going very well at all. Holly’s sister Gina after all, was a real bitch.

“Nick!” Gina’s voice sounded genuinely surprised as she eyed him above her glass, giving him a very obvious once-over.

“Gina,” he replied, his voice far less excited, “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

Gina scoffed and after taking a look at Holly’s flabbergasted expression cocked a questioning eyebrow, “I could ask you the same thing.”

~*~

Nick wrapped a towel firmly around his waist, reaching out with one hand to wipe steam off of the mirror in front of him.

He stared at himself for a few moments, wondering if he was the same person now as he was years ago, if he was the same person as the waiter in the restaurant knew. It seemed like he was in the same place in his life, he hadn’t done anything particularly special, but he didn’t feel like he believed the same things. As if being a father had made him a cynic, if that was at all possible. Maybe it was being a loner that made the change, not parenting.

With a sigh he ran his hands through his hair before resting them on the lip of the sink. Staring down to the drain he wondered what waited for him on the other side of the door.

He hadn’t really talked to Holly or her sister since he’d come in. He had immediately excused himself for a shower in order to avoid having to explain to both of them why he was home early. After all, they’d both been drinking and Gina was a ball-buster at the best of times. She was everything Holly wasn’t as far as personality went: strong, independent, quick-tempered, and not afraid to speak her mind. He often theorized that was how the younger of the two sisters ended up the way she did. The rest of their siblings were male, and Gina had taken up the job of being Holly’s defender. In the end Holly had ended up the meek, nerdy sister and Gina the more assertive of the two. He still believed he’d gotten the better end of the deal because just like their personalities Holly and Gina were like night and day when it came to looks not in a sense of skin pigment but just that Holly was pretty and Gina was a dog... in his personal opinion.

Nick continued to stare down at his hands, chuckling to himself over how obvious a tan line he had on his left ring finger.

“Oh my god,” he muttered deadpan as he realized what was missing from his hand. Repeating his mantra to the lord he grabbed for his clothes from atop the toilet lid and began frantically going through the pockets. He turned them all inside out, checked and double checked but there was no ring.

“I know I put it in my pocket,” he told himself trying to retrace the moment in which he’d taken it off. He was wearing the same jeans as he had been when he’d removed it, but who knew what could have happened, “It must have fallen out when I put the pants in my bag,” he reasoned to himself figuring it was probably lying at the bottom of his duffle bag.

Abandoning his clothing on the floor Nick swung the bathroom door open, headed for his bag. He did a quick scan of the hallway to make sure he was alone before barrelling through; past Olivia’s room and into the master bedroom, for a moment not even realizing that Holly had been sitting on the bed waiting for him, wine glass still in her hand.

“Hey,” he said softly, his hand going to hold his towel up while he watched her play with the stem of the glass.

He knew he had to wait it out and get through a potentially uncomfortable conversation before he could check the bag because it was currently sitting next to his wife on the bed. She continued to stare down and he wondered how long and painful she was going to make this. It wasn’t until she sniffled that he realized she wasn’t really preparing a long winded speech like he’d thought.

Nick took a moment to close the bedroom door to keep out wandering sisters and tilted his head to the side for a better view, “Are you... crying?”

Another sniffle and she lifted her head and with red, tearstained eyes downed the rest of the wine from the glass. She set it on the bedside table then turned to him, giving him a once over as he stood there in just a towel, “What’s going on Nick?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, playing dumb, “What has your sister implanted in your head?”

With a roll of her eyes she shook her head at him, “Nothing! She hasn’t planted anything in my head. I am legitimately confused here. You say you need to go away to write and that you’ll be back Sunday night yet here we are on Saturday and you’re back already. Do you have any explanation at all or are you going to beg off to have another shower?”

Nick sighed and moved to sit next to her on the bed, “That doesn’t really explain why you’re crying but if you must know I came home early because I missed you guys.”

“You missed us?” she repeated, clearly not believing that excuse.

“Yes,” he replied defensively, “The whole time I was wondering what you and Olivia were up to. I guess I kinda missed all the disruption rather than having all that time to actually write.”

“So you missed Olivia?” she asked, trying to clarify.

“I missed both of you,” he said, taking the moment to grab his bag. He rummaged through, looking for his ring briefly before coming out with a pair of underwear.

“And you wrote all weekend?”

Before he could move to put his boxers on Holly grabbed them from his hands, her fingers playing with the waistband, “Yes!”

“I need you to be honest with me Nick,” she said in a soft voice.

“Now I’m lying when I say I missed you and that I wrote while I was gone? Give me a break,” he scoffed.

“I didn’t mean that,” Holly interrupted to explain, “I just... I have this sick feeling that this is all falling apart.”

“You’re also drunk and your sister Negative Nancy is here so I wouldn’t be surprised if you were thinking that,” Nick replied sarcastically, eyeing her as she continued to play with his underwear, “Speaking of which... why the hell is she here?”

“Please don’t change the subject I’m trying to be serious here and I’m not drunk!”

“Not drunk?” he laughed, “How many bottles of wine did the two of you breeze through?”

“Please!” she pleaded, finally looking up into his eyes now that the tears had started again, “Why does everything have to be a fight with you?”

For a split second Nick wished he hadn’t stormed out of the hotel, that he was back with Alaina and away from the urge to battle he always got during his conversations with Holly, “I’m sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath, “It doesn’t have to be a fight.”

“I feel like all we do is fight anymore.”

“That’s all we’ve ever done, that’s just how we work,” he reminded her.

“It doesn’t work, Nick!”  

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he admitted, “What do you want me to do here?”

“Do you want a divorce?” she asked and his heart stopped for a split second. Surely this wasn’t going to be the day the rug got pulled out from under him, was it?

His voice was shaky but he managed to speak, “No. Do you?”

She didn’t even hesitate before answering, “No!”

Instantly he was relieved. He reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear, taking a moment to let her recover from her crying, “Then what’s the problem? I love you, you love me... we’re a happy family?” he tried to lighten the mood with a good old-fashioned Barney reference.

“Lately...” she began softly, wiping her eyes with a tissue, “I just don’t feel like I know you anymore; like you’re becoming a different person.”

Because I am, he thought but couldn’t tell her that truth, or tell her that he’d been struggling with the same thoughts just moments before, “I’m the same person.”

“Are you happy?” she asked him point blank, turning her attention back to the fabric in her hands.

“Yeah, sure,” he shrugged but was met with her annoyed gaze.

“The truth Nick, tell the truth.”

“The truth?” he asked rhetorically, “No. Most of the time... I’m not happy. Are you?”

She took a moment to breathe deeply before answering, finally looking up into his expectant gaze, “No.”

~*~

He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened between then and now. First they were admitting their unhappiness in their marriage, talking about how things weren’t working quite the way they should; as if the dreaded break-up really was on the horizon but now they were feverishly tearing each other’s clothes off, only stopping to connect in passionate kisses.

Had Nick known all he needed to do to get Holly in the mood was fill her full of wine, he’d have done it long ago.

In no time he had Holly writhing underneath him, but despite her pleas for his touch he pulled away taking a moment just to look at her. Clearly different than Alaina, her body, but it was something he knew intimately. He knew exactly what she liked and didn’t like, and didn’t have to worry about keeping up to any kind of expectation since he was the only person Holly had to compare against. Sure it didn’t make for much opportunity for improvement but it was comfortable, and familiar, the only problem being that it never happened.

As his gaze moved up her body so did his hands, caressing her soft skin over lean legs, her taut stomach, and small breasts that barely filled the palms of his hands. That’s where her hands joined his, lacing their fingers together.

He was kissing the same path his hands had just taken when he heard her sniffle and looked up to see tears silently falling down her cheeks one after another.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked with his voice full of concern.

“It’s just...” Holly started but the words got caught in her throat. She wiped at her eyes and Nick’s hands cupped her cheeks, catching the strays with a thumb, “It suddenly hit me that you’ve been nothing short of perfect this whole time and I’ve been treating you like dirt.”

“No,” he sighed, leaning in for a quick kiss, “You haven’t been. I haven’t appreciated what you really do around here. I depend on you a lot more than I thought I did. You make sure there’s a roof over our head, and food on the table so who am I to complain? Despite what I may say sometimes, I really do need you. We’ll find a way to make this work, I promise you.”

No more words were necessary for Holly. She yanked him down against her, crushing her lips against hers with a renewed sense of passion. As if instinctually her legs wrapped around his sides and she urged him closer with her heels and they fell into a routine that had been second nature to them at one time.

Nick couldn’t help but do up the comparison in his head between the woman below him now and the one that had been just a day earlier and there was one thing he couldn’t deny; what he had with Alaina wasn’t worth costing him Holly. He knew then that he had to do two very important things. He had to break things off for good with his mistress, and he had to find that ring.

 

It was the soft repetitive feeling of fingers brushing through his hair that finally woke him. Nick let out a heavy sigh and snuggled deeper into his comfortable spot, not wanting to open his eyes to the sunlight he knew would be beyond his eyelids.

A soft giggle and the fingers moved to the short hair at the top of his neck, gently moving back and forth, “I know you’re not asleep,” Holly whispered.

“I am asleep,” he mumbled against her skin, his face pressed tightly against her breast.

“This reminds me of college,” she continued to speak and he could hear the smile in her voice as she reflected back.

They both lived in dorms during their college careers so regardless of whose room they’d end up in at the end of the night (though usually hers) they would cram into the single bed for everything; sleeping, talking, sex; anything they did together usually ended in that most uncomfortable yet strangely relaxing location.

Unconsciously they’d taken turns holding each other just depending on the mood. Sometimes when Nick needed to feel masculine he would take over the role of pillow, occasionally they couldn’t decide on who needed it more so as equals they’d spoon, but more often than not it was he that wanted to feel warm, and secure so he’d let her wrap her arms around him while he lay his head on her chest and neither ever slept better than in those moments.

“Except this room smells much better than mine did,” Nick replied, smiling with his eyes still closed trying to capture the last few moments of a near perfect sleep. He had slept better than he had in months, and one of the best things about the whole night was that it was dreamless. Alaina had stayed out of his head for a full night’s sleep, which was something he hadn’t been able to escape from recently.

Holly’s fingers moved from his hair, down his back and up his arm before repeating the same path watching him sigh with satisfaction while at the same time feeling the rest of his body awaken to the sensations, “Dirty socks smell better than your room did,” she teased watching as he finally opened his eyes and glared at her playfully before crawling up her body, his hands supporting his weight above her.

His erection pressed against her stomach as he leaned against her and instinctually he moved his hips, letting his body speak for him. He looked at her hair messily strewn about the pillow, no doubt knotted from the night before and smiled before leaning down to kiss her.

It was a hand he got instead of lips though and he backpedalled to eye her curiously.

“Morning breath,” she sheepishly replied and he nearly laughed.

“And?”

“You have it.”

“So do you.”

“I know.”

Nick laughed and shook his head, “You want me to go brush my teeth? I will. I’ll march right out into the hallway, maybe I’ll run into your sister you never know, and I’ll explain to her that I’m walking around naked in my house with a huge hard-on, the emphasis of course being on huge, because although she’s alright with the rest of my body fluids, dirty saliva is a huge turn-off for her little sister.”

Holly couldn’t hold back her giggles at the visual she got from that statement, her hands gripping his sides as she laughed, “As funny as that would be I wouldn’t want Gina getting jealous.”

“Jealous?” Nick smirked, “You make it seem as if I’m something worth fighting over.”

She suddenly turned serious, her brown eyes meeting his as she reached up to cup his cheeks in her hands, “You really are worth fighting over. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you to someone else.”

That was enough to hit close to home for Nick and despite her complaints of the status of his breath he crushed his lips against hers, feeling her respond immediately, morning breath forgotten. Her hands went to his hair while his went to her hips, lifting her slightly as he entered her.

Both gasped at the sensation but immediately fell into a rhythm, holding each other tightly. Only laboured breaths were exchanged between kisses before he, with his lips still against hers muttered words that meant more to him than they would to her, but spoke volumes about how things had turned for him in the last 24 hours.

“I’m yours.”

~*~

“Babe, can you grab me a plate?” Nick asked through the open kitchen window as he threw some burgers onto the grill. ‘Babe’ he mouthed, immediately feeling awkward for the pet name since it was something he and Holly had never done. He was nearly embarrassed to have said it more so because he knew it was something he’d picked up from Alaina.

A few seconds later Holly appeared in the doorway with a plate held tightly in her hands, “You can have this under one condition...”

“What’s that?”

“That you never, ever, call me that again,” she laughed and Nick was more than relieved to hear her joke about it.

“I swear I won’t, that was all kinds of weird,” he smiled, taking the plate out of her hands.

They both looked over at the sound of the back gate and Holly smiled, “Look who’s back!”

Gina waved to her sister, and scowled at her brother-in-law as she and her niece made their way into the backyard. It didn’t go unnoticed by Nick but he was soon distracted by a little bundle of playful attitude making her way towards him.

“Hello my Daddy,” Olivia jutted out a hip, her hand firmly planted on the other as she posed in front of her father. Her blonde hair was done up in a messy ponytail high atop her head, the yellow sundress she was wearing slightly stained with grass but as she looked at him through a pair of tiny sunglasses, her head was held high.

“Hello my princess,” he replied, “Don’t you look pretty.”

In a flash she had gone from confident to shy and she sheepishly grinned up at him, “Up, please?” she asked, holding out her arms and Nick shook his head.

“Sorry, Daddy’s making dinner. I don’t want you to get burned,” he explained while Holly asked her sister about what they’d spent the day doing.

“Oh we did all kinds of things,” Gina explained, “We went to the mall; we went to the park...”

“I saw Benji!” Olivia suddenly interrupted, pulling at the leg of Nick’s shorts excitedly.

Nick tried not to panic at the announcement, and fought to keep his cool despite the lump growing in his throat, “You saw Benji?” he laughed nervously. Alaina never went to the park on a Sunday, and if he had known he would have made sure Gina avoided it.

“Yeah, him and his auntie were there with me and my auntie,” Olivia explained, staring up at her father, “His mommy went away for the end of the week just like you did!”

“Isn’t that funny?” Nick laughed nervously. Quickly he shut the lid to the barbeque then reached down to lift Olivia up, hoping to distract her from revealing anything else she may have over heard at the park, “Those have to cook for a little while anyway.”

The little girl immediately snuggled in with a smile and Nick used rubbing her back as a diversion from anyone seeing that his hands were shaking slightly.

“What are we eating?” Olivia asked.

“Hamburgers,” he replied, watching Holly and Gina carefully out of the corner of his eye. Holly in particular was making him feel uneasy because she seemed to be staring at Olivia’s back fixedly.

“I want hot dogs,” the girl stated.

“We’re having hamburgers,” Nick replied and the fight was on. It was nothing out of the ordinary for Olivia to decide randomly that she hated a particular type of food. Nick wasn’t sure who she got her elitist attitude from but he’d always taken a very firm stance in not letting her get what she wanted. Unfortunately his firm stances were usually destroyed by a sad little face, or crying so he’d give in. It was Holly who usually stayed the course and wouldn’t give in to her whims.

They were bickering back and forth, Nick stooping more towards the four-year-old’s level of argument before Holly put an end to it “I’ll go get the hot dogs.”

“What?” Nick asked, genuinely surprised, “No. We’re having hamburgers.”

At this point Olivia was screaming, throwing herself against him dramatically as if eating a ground beef patty would be the very end of her life, “Can you please join me in the kitchen?” Holly asked, seemingly oblivious to their daughter’s hysterics.

Nick sighed, amazed at what hot dogs could do. He’d thought that a lot of things with Holly were fixed but now it seemed like he was about to get shit for whatever reason, “Alright,” he agreed then laid Olivia down on the grass, “Okay Olivia, we’re getting your hot dogs, you can stop,” he said and watched with amazement as she sniffled a few times, wiped at her cheeks then got back up as if nothing had occurred.

He followed Holly into the kitchen, shutting the screen door behind him as he watched her lean against the counter, “Whatever it is, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it was right to give into her over something as stupid as a hot dog. We don’t even have hot dog buns!”

“Nick, stop,” Holly turned towards him and held up her hand to stop him, “I don’t care about the hot dogs.”

“Then why did you ask me to come in here?” he questioned.

Holly looked uneasy as she took the few steps towards him then grabbed his left hand, the same one that had been against Olivia’s back just moments ago, “Where is your ring?”

He’d thought he was in the clear when she hadn’t noticed yet, even through hours of lovemaking she never clued in to his bare finger, “Oh... um... I lost it.”

“You what?” Holly asked, her voice dark but surprised. By the complete shock on her face Nick knew that was not the answer she had expected.

“It’s getting loose,” he lied a little, “And when I was at the hotel I took it off to shower and I put it on the sink and forgot, I mean, I guess I forgot,” he lied a lot.

Holly was in shock, he could tell and in a flash her face turned to anger, “You LOST your wedding ring and didn’t tell me about it? Are you kidding me? There’s no way it was getting loose unless the damn thing got stretched out because you’ve gained at least 30 pounds since I put it on your finger.”

Nick gaped at her, “Hey, no need to get mean. I fucked up, I know. I should have told you. There’s nothing I can do about it now though. I’ll just have to get a new one.”

“So last night... this morning... that was all you feeling guilty?” she questioned and Nick immediately shook his head.

“No! It had nothing to do with that! That was exactly how it seemed; I meant everything I said, I wasn’t even thinking about the ring. Regardless of whether I have a ring on my finger I’m still married to you. On paper, in here,” he pointed to his chest, “I’m still married to you. It’s just a symbol.”

“How can you say it’s just a symbol? Just because we’re married on paper... having that ring doesn’t just remind me that we’re married, I know we’re married. That ring let’s everyone else know it too.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” he sighed, “That other people won’t know I’m married?”

“Not other people,” she clarified, “Other women.”

“Other women don’t need to know whether I’m married because I’m not interested in them,” he told her. A strange feeling washed over him as he realized it was the second time Holly had alluded to being nervous about competition from other women since that morning, “If it would make you feel better you can sew a big red ‘M’ into all of my shirts so they’ll know I’m spoken for.”

Holly rolled her eyes, “Why do you always turn everything into a big joke?”

Nick sighed and grabbed her hands, holding them tightly, “I don’t think it’s a big joke, I’m sorry. I’ll get a new one.”

She pulled her hands free of his with a heavy sigh. With two quick wipes to her eyes that reminded him very much of the little girl outside, she went to the fridge to grab a package of hot dogs that had been intended for later in the week, “You don’t get it,” she said while handing them to him, “I don’t want a new one... I want the old one back.”

Nick had a feeling she was talking about a lot more than just a piece of gold.

~*~

Nick pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge, twisting off the top before taking a long swallow. It was a hot, humid night and he held the bottle to his sweaty forehead as he walked towards the patio door.

The sun had just started to make its way down in the distance and he could see Olivia in the yard cleaning up her toys as he took a step out onto the deck.

Immediately the hushed chatter from the patio table ended and he looked towards Holly and Gina, catching them looking at him.

“So Gina, sorry I didn’t get to see you much while you were here. Next time I guess right? When do you leave tomorrow?” he asked, taking another long drink from the bottle.

Gina laughed and shook her head at him, “I’m not leaving tomorrow.”

Nick’s smug smile suddenly dropped, “What? Are you going to visit friends in the city or something?”

“Nope,” now it was Gina’s turn to wear the smile, “I’m staying right here, with you guys, for at least a week or two.”

This was not good news to Nick. That meant that he would have to share his days with Gina, his chores, and everything else including trips to the store, and to the park. If he ran into Alaina at all with Gina he could be in a tough spot. Gina was a professor with an Ivy league university, and normally spent the summer teaching graduate classes but she was taking the summer off, and unlucky for him, had decided to spend some of it with her sister. In the back of Nick’s mind he felt like Gina was there to spy on him during the day, but there was no reason in his opinion for Holly to need that. Maybe, he thought, she just felt that if Gina was there to help out he’d have more time to write.

“I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun,” Nick said with a fake smile, looking down into the yard at Olivia who had just finished piling her toys into a deck box and was making her way up the stairs, “Ready for your bath?” he asked as she walked over and wrapped herself around his leg.

“No Daddy,” she whined, rubbing her sleepy eyes with one hand while her cheek rubbed against the leg of his shorts.

Nick smiled and polished off the last of his beer, setting the bottle on the railing before scooping Olivia into his arms, “Sorry, there’s no option here. Dirty girls need to have baths or they don’t get to go to the park tomorrow.”

Olivia’s face contorted with concern, “But I want to go to the park and play with Benji!”

“Then you need to have a bath...” Nick began but was interrupted when Holly suddenly spoke.

“You know, I keep hearing about this Benji boy,” she observed, brushing her hair behind her ears, “Hell even Gina has met him...”

“He was a cute kid,” the other woman commented.

“So?” Nick wondered where she was going with this train of thought, “You’re not really at the park much during the week and we’re normally away on the weekends.”

“Well that’s my point; we should make time so I can meet him, a playdate or something?” Holly suggested, looking up at her husband despite the fact that she was still incredibly angry with him.

“You should have his parents over for dinner, and then you can meet him and his parents,” Gina piped up and Nick’s arms suddenly weakened, nearly dropping Olivia.

“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea,” Nick spoke quickly, “His parents are really busy.”

“Well we can ask, the worst they can say is no,” Holly shrugged, “I’d really like to meet the boy that my daughter plays with every day Nick, is that so much to ask?”

With a heavy sigh Nick shook his head, not wanting to upset her any more than he already had that day, “No, you’re right.”

“Great!” Holly grinned, “We’ll invite Benji and his parents over for dinner next week!”

As Nick carried Olivia into the house for her bath he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of disaster was going to come of that dinner party.

 

 

Nick was avoiding the park. He’d managed to come up with a lengthy to do list for himself that had to be completed before he could go anywhere.

Olivia hadn’t seemed to notice yet. She had her aunt there to play with, which had her distracted with tea parties and movies. It was tea party time just then, he noticed as he walked into the little girl’s bedroom to see the two of them sitting on the floor around a small plastic table.

“So is this what you do all day?” Gina asked him. Her question seemed innocent but he knew it was loaded with sarcastic undertones.

“Clothes don’t clean themselves,” he shot back, setting a laundry basket down on the dresser. He carefully watched his rival from the corner of his eye as he opened up drawers to start filling them with Olivia’s clean clothes.

Gina just chuckled and continued to watch him fold the laundry and put it away in the appropriate drawer, “When I first met you I just never pictured you as someone quite so domesticated.”

Nick tossed a t-shirt back into the basket and turned to his sister-in-law, “What exactly do you want me to say? I’m just rolling with the punches here. I never thought I would be a stay at home dad but that is just how it has ended up. What is so wrong about that?”

Gina stood then joined him at the basket, helping with the folding, “I just don’t really get why you’re okay with sitting at home babysitting when you could actually be contributing to your family.”

Nick looked at her in complete shock, “I’m not contributing? Do you expect Olivia to take care of herself? It’s not like we can afford daycare.”

“And why is that?” Gina wondered, looking over at Olivia who was feeding Mittens a cookie happily, “Why is it that my sister works her ass off, works her fingers to the bone every day to support Olivia, and support you, while you sit around here? Don’t you think you might have the cash to pay for child care if you got a job?”

He couldn’t believe she was attacking him as if she knew what was best for them, “Who do you think you are? Did Holly say something to you?”

“She didn’t need to,” Gina scoffed, “She told me about your financial situation, and how you’re taking off to expensive hotels for the weekend like you don’t even care what the repercussions of that are. I don’t like that my sister makes herself sick trying to get the nerve to ask me for money.”

This was news to him. He wasn’t under the impression that they were well off, but he didn’t know they were in a situation where Holly would need to borrow money from her sister. He’d thought they were comfortable, “I don’t have anything to say to you. I don’t need to justify myself, or the decisions I’ve made with my wife. You don’t know me.”

“I know you well enough,” Gina boasted, raising a thin brown eyebrow in his direction, “and I know my sister. For some reason she won’t take my advice when I tell her to dump your ass. You’re just a bum, pure and simple. Your life is so simple. Someone else pays the bills while you follow your grand dreams. The day I see you finish something you start... I’ll eat my shirt.”

Nick gave her a once over then laughed curtly, “Lucky for you half the things you wear are clearly too small, so you won’t have too much to scarf down. Olivia, it’s time to put the toys away, let’s go to the park!”

~*~

“Benji!” Olivia yelled excitedly, squirming out of her father’s arms so she could run towards the playground.

Nick tried to grab at her as she took off, “No running!” he huffed but she ignored him and continued on her way to the sandboxes.

“Way to get a handle on things, Dad,” Gina laughed sarcastically and Nick turned and glared at her.

“If you’re going to follow me around all day the least you can do is shut the fuck up.”

Hissing at him like an angry cat Gina just kept walking, picking up the pace to make it to the playground ahead of him.

“Bitch,” Nick muttered, watching her go. He nearly stopped in his tracks when he noticed Alaina. He knew she was there because Benji obviously wasn’t at the park by himself, but seeing her was difficult. He knew she was going to want an explanation for him just up and leaving their weekend away, but she wasn’t going to get one. With Gina there it was going to be impossible for them to have an open and honest discussion, and they certainly wouldn’t be going back to her place for nap time.

“Hey,” Alaina said as Nick finally reached the group.

“Hi,” he replied awkwardly, sticking his hands in his pockets, “How are you?”

“Good,” she replied, arms crossed across her chest, “You?”

“Wonderful.”

Gina looked between the two of them, sensing a fair amount of tension, “Hi, I’m Gina. Nick’s sister-in-law,” she introduced herself to the other woman, taking a moment to take a good look at her.

Alaina could feel the other woman’s eyes on her so she stepped away uncomfortably, “Nice to meet you. I’m Alaina, Benji’s mother.”

“I got to meet Benji yesterday actually when he was here. Olivia seems to be very fond of him,” Gina said with a false smile, “My sister and I were just talking about you guys last night, actually.”

“Oh, you were?” Alaina asked curiously, wondering what they could have been saying.

Gina turned to look up at Nick, opening up the opportunity for him to invite them over but he stayed silent. He was still just looking at Alaina, “Nick?” she prompted, “Weren’t we just talking about them last night?”

Looking back and forth between the two women Nick cleared his throat, “Um, right, we were,” he nodded, “My wife, um, Holly, was wondering if you and Brian would like to join us for dinner sometime soon?”

Alaina raised her eyebrow and Nick knew it was because she was royally pissed. First he had taken off without a word, and now he was passing along his wife’s invitation for dinner.

“Sure,” Alaina nodded, turning back quickly to take a look at the children, “that would be lovely. Name a time and it’s a date.”

‘It’s a date’ reminded him so much of when he’d first met the woman; earlier in the summer when he was absolutely obsessed with her and those words had sent him into frenzy. Now the end of summer was within sight and he was trying to figure out how he really felt about her. Having her and her husband over to his house probably wasn’t going to help that.

“How does Friday night sound to you?” Gina piped up, having already talked to Holly about when they should have the mystery parents over for dinner, “I’ll take both the kids out for a little while to a movie or something so they aren’t in your hair.”

Alaina was clearly put on the spot and she shifted from foot to foot quickly as if trying to stall for an answer.

“She probably needs to check with her husband first,” Nick tried to alleviate but Alaina stopped him by holding up her hand.

“I don’t need his permission. I’m sure he’s probably free and if he’s not then I’ll make sure to change his plans. Friday sounds wonderful!”

~*~

With a glance around the empty kitchen Nick sat down and started lacing up his sneakers. He’d been doing a lot of running as a way to not only spend some time alone and get in shape but also to just be able to think for a while without any distractions.

Considering how the day had gone there was never a time he needed to be alone and think than right then. All evening he had been overwhelmed with the thought that he was going to meet Alaina’s husband, and she was going to meet his wife. He had never really been overly keen on meeting the other man. He just wasn’t sure what to expect of the guy. He wanted to hate him because Alaina made him seem like such an asshole but was worried that, given their similar marital situations, he might actually like the guy. Then he would feel like the asshole in the whole thing.

“Where are you going?” Holly asked as she came into the kitchen from the backyard. She had Gina had been chatting out on the deck for the better part of the evening.

Nick was surprised that she even addressed him since she’d barely said two words to him the whole day, still obviously mad over him losing his wedding ring.

“For a run,” he answered shortly, his fingers now working on the laces of the other sneaker.

He didn’t hear any response but before he could get up out of his chair a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind.

“Don’t,” he heard Holly whisper against his ear, “Stay.”

“You been drinking again?” he asked, knowing what the answer was considering how many bottles of wine were missing from the fridge.

Holly sighed, “I’m not drunk. I feel bad for being upset about the ring. I know you wouldn’t have lost it intentionally and I should be the first to know that sometimes people lose things. I’ve made a career out of finding lost stuff.”

“Look for my ring then, would you?” he joked, relieved when she laughed in return and hugged him tighter.

Holly moved around his body and sat in the chair opposite his, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. I’m sorry too, you know,” he said honestly, squeezing her hands quickly, “I’m still going for that run though. I need to get rid of all the energy that would be better spent on killing your sister.”

“I don’t know if you’ll want to do that,” Holly warned him teasingly, “because I think she’s got plenty of that energy when it comes to you and I’d hate for you to be at a disadvantage.”

Nick smiled slightly then decided to take advantage of his wife’s good mood and probably ruin it, “Why did you ask her for money?”

Holly’s smile immediately turned into a frown but she didn’t pull her hands out of his, “Did she tell you that?”

He nodded, “She told me you made yourself sick trying to get up the nerve to ask her for money. What do we need money for?”

With a shrug she looked down at their hands and Nick thought she almost looked ashamed, “Nothing really. I was just hoping we could get a little bit ahead. It’s so difficult to put money away because we’re living paycheque to paycheque and it’s so tight right now. I thought if I could get ahead of the bills then maybe we could put some money into savings. Like, for a trip or something.”

“We’ve discussed this. It’s pointless to bring Olivia on trips at this point in her life. She’s not going to remember going away somewhere. She’d be more than happy to go to the beach house and hang out with her friends. Going to Disney World or something isn’t going to change that,” Nick said, remembering all the times that he had suggested they go somewhere as a family but it had been Holly that shot the idea down.

“Not for the three of us,” she corrected, “for you and I.”

“Why do we need to go on a trip that we can’t afford?” he asked her point blank.

With a sigh Holly shrugged again, watching Nick’s thumbs run over the backs of her hands, “Because... I feel like I’m losing you.”

“Is a trip really going to change that?”

Looking up into his eyes she shook her head, “I don’t know, you tell me! What was this weekend if not an opportunity for you to get away? Why can’t I get away too? Why can’t we get away together?”

‘It’s official,’ he thought, ‘I’m a terrible husband.’ He was suddenly feeling incredibly selfish. All along he had thought that Holly was putting him on the backburner but he never thought about being in her situation. She was, after all, the sole breadwinner in their family and worked her butt off to do so. And he had ignored everything she’d done for the sake of his own unhappiness.

“This weekend would have been a thousand times better if you had been with me,” he told her honestly, “So... let’s go away. Together. Just you and me. I promise you, you’re not losing me.”

Holly smiled and Nick swore he saw tears welling up into her eyes. She stood quickly and leaned over, kissing his forehead, “Enjoy your run.”

Nick watched her walk out the door and let out a heavy breath. He had thought that Holly was impenetrable, a force that couldn’t be shaken and he had been proven wrong. She was suffering as much as he was except he had taken the coward’s way out. He had to make it up to her. But first, he had to make it through Friday night alive.

 

 

As Nick hit the kitchen he started to think that maybe he was underdressed for this dinner party. Holly was bent over, head in the oven, checking on dinner and he took a moment to look at her attire. She was dressed up, wearing a dark blue, backless party dress; fitted at the top with a full skirt to her knees.

“You look beautiful,” he told her, touching her bare back quickly as she stepped away from the oven. One thing he had always loved about her was that all of the dresses she wore were backless, and she had an absolutely beautiful back. She hadn’t needed to wear a bra a day in her life given that she wasn’t very well endowed in the bust department, which was disappointing for Holly, but for Nick it meant more backless dresses so he’d take it.

“So do...” Holly’s voice trailed off as she got a good look at his jeans and yellow polo shirt, “Are you really wearing that?”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” he asked, honestly unsure why his outfit was bad. He didn’t realize that this impromptu dinner party was a formal event, and certainly hadn’t relayed any kind of dress code to Alaina when he’d invited her.

Things through the rest of the week with Alaina had been tense, to say the very least, so there hadn’t been much discussion about the upcoming dinner party. Everywhere he went Gina accompanied him so he knew that she was clearly still dying to know about what had happened the previous weekend but his sister-in-law was watching him like a hawk. He never had a single moment alone with the other woman. If he wasn’t sure of it before, Nick was now absolutely convinced that Gina was there to keep an eye on him and see what he did all day, and he didn’t exactly approve of being spied on by his wife and her partner in crime.

“Your shirt is wrinkled,” Holly pointed out, tugging on the bottom of his t-shirt, “And those jeans don’t fit you very well. They’re way too big in the ass.”

“So I’ll iron the shirt and put my other jeans on,” he shrugged, finding that to be a simple solution but Holly’s groan told him he may have been slightly ahead of himself.

“Nick, can you please just put on a pair of trousers and a dress shirt? Would it kill you to not look like you’ve been schlepping around the house all day? I’m not asking for a tie and jacket but there must be a way to dress up beyond a pair of jeans and a golf shirt.”

‘Trousers and a dress shirt?’ he thought to himself with an agonizing groan. That seemed like a lot more work. He would have to pick something out and then put effort into ironing them. He was starting to think that Holly had invited the President over for dinner instead of the parents of their daughter’s play mate.

“Really?” Nick whined, “How do you even know they’re going to be this dressed up? What if I look like an idiot when they walk in the door all casual?”

Holly rolled her eyes, “These people have money and people with money go to dinner parties all the time and there’s a protocol for this kind of thing. I guarantee you that they will be dressed up. You said this Brian guy is a lawyer, he wears suits every day so why wouldn’t he wear one to dinner?”

Her logic seemed sound but he still doubted whether or not it was likely that Brian and Alaina would show up dressed to the nines. Looking at her pleading face he finally gave in, “Fine! I’ll go change but I swear if they’re not dressed up you owe me big time!”

~*~

As Nick swung the front door open a smile instantly graced his face. Not because he was happy to see the couple standing on the other side of the screen door but because he couldn’t wait to cash in on the favours Holly now owed him.

After being sent upstairs to change he had found a pair of grey slacks and a white dress shirt, pressed them to make sure they were to her standards of wrinkle-free, and dressed as though he were headed out for the night. Without a tie he kept the first couple of buttons on the dress shirt open, a relief from the humidity of the evening.

Brian, on the other hand, obviously wasn’t keen to spend an entire evening wearing the suits that he wore all day. He was in a pair of khakis and a short sleeved button up shirt emblazoned with the name of a country club on the breast pocket. He almost looked as if he hadn’t stepped out of an office that afternoon but rather stepped off of the golf course. Nick was definitely surprised by the other man’s appearance; it was not what he had been expecting at all. He was short; Nick definitely had been picturing someone much taller. Brian was barely a hair taller than Alaina. He felt like a giant compared to the two of them. Clearly in good shape, the other man was fit and tan, his hair bleached ever so slightly by the sun; probably from long hours spent schmoozing clients out on a fancy golf course somewhere. Over all though, he looked normal and friendly. Definitely not what Nick had been expecting of him.

Alaina, on the other hand, seemed to have the same idea as Holly when it came to dressing for the occasion. He nearly threw up when he realized she was wearing the same red halter dress that she’d been wearing when he’d stormed out of the restaurant in New York. She had to have worn it just to bother him, which made him worry how the evening was going to unfold.

“Nick?” Holly snapped her fingers to get his attention, “Are you going to let them in?”

“Yes!” he smiled and shrugged off his rudeness, “Sorry about that. I guess all that humidity when I opened the door went right to my head.”

Opening the screen door he let the two adults and Benji into the house. They exchanged introductions and pleasantries but were quickly interrupted by the youngest of the group.

“This is Olivia’s house?” Benji asked, wide eyed, “Is there toys?”

Holly laughed and crouched down to Benji’s level, “There’s lots of toys but you and Olivia are going to go and see a movie. How does that sound?”

The boy seemed to consider it momentarily, clearly weighing his options much to the chagrin of the parents in the room.

“I like movies,” he finally said with a nod of his head, “Once when Olivia came to my house we watched a movie. Can I see Olivia’s room?”

Suddenly Nick felt a brick in the pit of his stomach as he heard Benji’s words and judging from the look of confusion on Holly’s face, she had picked up on the same thing. With an unsure expression Holly pushed a smile through and nodded, pointing Benji in the direction of the stairs where he would find Gina and Olivia awaiting his arrival.

“He’s been going on and on about Olivia’s room,” Brian laughed as they watched Benji toddle off up the stairs, “Just dying to see if it’s as exciting as his.”

“I imagine it’s probably a lot pinker,” Nick laughed but noticed that Holly didn’t return the sentiment; instead she was just staring at her husband.

“You’re probably right,” Brian chuckled and the four of them made their way into the living room.

“Your dress is lovely,” Alaina commented on Holly’s attire.

Nick could tell that Holly’s smile was fake, “Thank you so much. So is yours. It’s very... flattering.”

“Thank you. I bought it for a special occasion but haven’t had the chance to wear it for one yet.”

Nick could have swallowed his tongue at that moment as he tried not to react to Alaina’s words. As soon as Holly made a move to go check on dinner he popped to his feet and looked between everyone, “What is everyone drinking?” he asked politely, hoping the other man wouldn’t request anything too complicated since his liquor cabinet was not exactly extensive.

“Vodka, rocks,” Brian replied, “and she’ll have a glass of wine - red.”

“White,” Alaina corrected with a smile over at Nick, “I hate red wine.”

“You’re in luck,” Nick grinned, trying to shrug off the tension in the room, “That’s what Holly drinks too! I’ll be right back.”

He made his way quickly into the kitchen to grab the drinks, surprised to see Holly downing a full glass of wine while standing in front of the stove stirring what appeared to be gravy.

“You seem upset,” he commented, grabbing a wine glass and a lowball glass from a high cabinet.

Holly watched him carefully as he fixed the drinks and then grabbed a beer from the fridge, “Please don’t drink out of the bottle. Put it in a glass?”

“I was going to,” Nick assured her and their eyes met for a quick moment before he headed back into the living room.

He knew that she was pissed because of what Benji had said. Holly had their days planned out and constructed down to the minute so it wasn’t possible that she wouldn’t have known about Olivia being in Alaina and Brian’s house. A play date had never been penciled in, and Nick hadn’t mentioned ever having been there.

Brian on the other hand, seemed to know all about their visits (probably minus all the fucking in the study) so he wasn’t fazed by the comment. In fact, he seemed to know quite a bit about their visits, much to Nick’s annoyance.

“So Olivia is feeling better?” he asked as Holly finally made her way into the room.

Holly gave him a curious glance and perched herself on the arm of the overstuffed chair Nick was sitting in, looking between the two men from behind the rims of her glasses, “Was she sick?”

“Well from what I understood she had a spot of bother at the park?”

“What he means is,” Alaina interrupted, clearly having realized that Nick hadn’t been as open with Holly as she had with Brian. She had told her husband about the visits to avoid a situation like this because now it looked as if Nick had been hiding something, “that day at the park when Olivia had the heat stroke. I think that’s the last time I had mentioned anything about her.”

“Oh, of course,” Holly nodded as if she knew exactly what they were talking about, “She’s fine now.”

The conversation swept into another lull and Nick cleared his throat to try and break the silence, “So Brian, you’re a lawyer?”

The other man nodded his head, “Yeah, I am. You’re a writer?”

“Yup.”

“Anything I may have read?”

Startling all of them Holly suddenly laughed loudly, “No,” she answered for Nick, then excused herself to go check on dinner.

~*~

To say that sitting at the table was awkward was an understatement. Nick wasn’t sure if it was just him feeling that way but being in the room with two women who probably wanted to cut his balls off wasn’t giving him the warm fuzzies.

Luckily dinner was delicious so everyone seemed to be preoccupied with cutting their chicken and enjoying the roasted vegetables.

He had barely gotten a piece of potato into his mouth when he felt it. The leg of his pants moved suddenly and he felt a very feminine foot against his ankle. Considering that Holly was sitting at the other end of the table, he quickly deduced who the foot belonged to.

He quickly glanced over to Alaina, seeing her take a long drink from her wine glass. She didn’t appear to be paying him any mind, but her foot continued to move against his leg, getting higher and higher. He wasn’t even sure how she was managing to move her leg without anyone noticing but figured she must have them crossed.

“So Nick,” Brian suddenly spoke into the quiet of the dining room, “Do you golf?”

Nick opened his mouth to answer but toes were suddenly pushing against the inside of his thigh and his breath caught in his throat. Coughing he shook his head then turned back to Brian all the while trying to hold his composure as Alaina’s foot rubbed rhythmically against his groin.

“Um, to be honest, not really, I haven’t had much chance to get out and golf. I don’t have a set of clubs or anything. I’d probably be awful!”

“You’ll have to come out with me some time,” Brian invited and Nick forced a smile on his face.

Nick took a deep breath in and out then picked up his beer and polished off the rest of the glass, “That would be great.”

“Nick, I was telling Brian that you used to play basketball in College,” Alaina suddenly piped up and Holly looked quizzically between the two of them, “So did he.”

“Oh, really?” Nick asked, his voice becoming somewhat shrill as he fought to ignore the foot job he was essentially getting at the dinner table.

Brian laughed, “You probably sound so surprised because of my height. I assure you, I might be small but I’m quick.”

Holly was clearly intoxicated as she leaned forward to the table, “That’s why I could never figure out why Nick didn’t play football. He’s already big and stupid.”

“She’s joking,” Nick said nervously, “Such a kidder you are, Darling,” he added sarcastically, and the room got uncomfortable again. Dropping his napkin as a decoy Nick gave a firm push to Alaina’s foot, successfully removing it from his leg while trying not to be too obvious about what he was doing.

“Who wants dessert?” Holly asked, loudly pushing her chair against the linoleum floor, “I know I could go for some. I made cherries jubilee, with extra brandy!”

With a groan Nick rubbed his forehead, not knowing if the evening could possibly get any worse.

 

In every situation, no matter how bad it is, there is always the potential for it to get worse, Nick realized. Waiting for Gina to get back with the kids so that Alaina and Brian could leave was one of the longest waits of his adult life. Holly had gone from being intoxicated to completely belligerent by the end of dessert and he was mortified.

He was half tempted to ask if he could crash at their place because he really didn’t want to be in his own house right then.

“Thanks for inviting us over,” Brian said once the kids and Gina were back and they were getting their things together.

Nick could hear how fake the sentiment was, as if it were part of his corporate nicety training, “Thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed dinner.”

Brian gave him a cheesy grin and nodded, “It was great. Thanks again. And thank Holly when she’s uh... feeling better.”

“I’ll do that,” Nick reached out the shook the other man’s hand quickly. He tried as hard as he could to avoid Alaina’s gaze as the three made their way to the door. He was more embarrassed for her to have seen the situation than her husband. Now he looked like a great big fool. He’d told Alaina that Holly was a boring, stuffy, science type and she’d turned out to be a lush. He wasn’t so much worried about her opinion as he was her judgement of the situation. Why would he have left their weekend away for this drunk woman who was currently passed out on the couch?

At least, that's what he imagined she was thinking given the smirk on her face as she gave him a once over. 

"I guess I'll be seeing you at the park?" she asked, hiking a sleepy Benji onto her hip as they stood near the door. Brian had already gone out to start the car, no doubt anxious to leave the crazy poor people's house. 

Nick nodded and forced a smile, "We'll be there."

"With or without your tail?" Alaina asked and Nick sent her a curious look before realizing she meant Gina.

"Hopefully without," he replied despite his reservations about what would be expected if he were once again alone with Alaina. Would she expect him to come over to her house, would she expect them to pick their relationship back from where it left off, or would she tear him apart for the way he'd acted in New York?

"Hopefully," Alaina concurred. She sent some pity my way with a sad smile then was out the door.

~*~

With a heavy sigh he shut and locked the front door then turned to look towards the living room. Gina had gone upstairs to put Olivia to bed once they'd come home, so he wasn't even sure she knew about Holly's condition.

Cautiously he walked towards the figure slumped over on the couch and gave her a once over. She was laying on her stomach, dress hiked up to the top of her thighs from how she'd fallen onto the couch, with one arm was bent behind her awkwardly. He'd be worried it was broken if he didn't know she just wasn't feeling the discomfort because of all the wine. 

"Holly?" he called out carefully, putting his hand on the center of her back, just to make sure she was still breathing. She groaned in response. "Do you think you can walk upstairs?" he asked and again she groaned, which he took as a no. "Do you think you can roll over?"

"Nick," Holly whined, the frustration evident in her voice.

Nick knew that she wouldn't want to sleep on the couch and have Olivia discover her hung over and disheveled the next morning, but it didn't look like she was going to move. With a sigh Nick grabbed an arm and a leg and pulled gently, trying to get Holly onto her back. She looked worse once he got her rolled over, her hair splayed out in every direction, the dress hiked even higher up her legs.

"Okay... let's try to get you upstairs..." 

He crouched down next to the couch, his long legs creating a seemingly endless distance between him and the furniture. One leg hooked under her knees, the other slid under her shoulders and he braced himself against the floor before heaving Holly up and into his arms. She wasn't heavy by any means given that she was quite a slender woman and he was in decent shape but being half passed out had turned her usually light frame into dead weight.

Nick's arms shook slightly as Holly struggled against him. As he made his way up the stairs her arms went up and around his neck, fingers spreading into his hair.

"I can't see," he complained as he arm cut into his line of vision, wishing he had a free hand to shoo hers away from his head. 

Holly was mumbling something and Nick tried to move his ear closer to her mouth to make out what she was saying, "You're a liar," she finally said clearly and Nick stopped short just inside their bedroom door.

"What?" he asked, not sure if she was really talking to him or about him.

Holly struggled to get out of Nick's arms so he took her the rest of the way over to the bed, practically dropping her once she was close enough to the mattress, "I said you're a liar," she repeated, her voice slurring.

"And what did I lie about?" he wondered, watching as she reached below her arm to unzip the dress, struggling out of it.

She pulled the garment over her head and fired it at him, watching as it hit him square in the chest, "About Alaina," the way that she spat out the other woman's name made Nick shiver, it was so full of disgust and contempt.

Nick felt the bottom of his stomach drop out and he held back the nervous butterflies. He carried her dress over to the hamper, giving himself a moment to think about what he was going to say, "I don't understand what I lied about," he confessed, shutting their bedroom door before he made his way back to the bed, not wanting Gina to get an earful of their personal life. He was sure she knew everything but he didn't need her interrupting with her rhetoric.

Wearing only her panties Holly pulled herself into a sitting position in the bed, oblivious to her nakedness, lolling over to one side from her lack of balance, "First," she held up a finger to accentuate her point, "You never told me about her, or Benji. You waited until Olivia mentioned him. Then you acted as if you hadn't really spent much time with her, as if you could barely remember her name. But in reality you've been to her house. Her house, Nick. You were there with our daughter, and her son, in the middle of the day... sneaking off to play house with your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Nick snapped, sitting down on the edge of the mattress so he wouldn't have to meet his wife's intense gaze, "And I wasn't hiding anything. I just didn't think it was important to mention."

"It wasn't important?" now Holly was yelling, "You're 'hanging out' with some woman who I don't know in the middle of the day at her empty house and it's not even important enough to mention that you MET her? It's not important enough to mention that my daughter got heat stroke at the park? That's not IMPORTANT enough to mention?"

"Our daughter... who you are probably going to wake up with all the yelling," Nick corrected, keeping his voice calm, "You're drunk and I can't talk to you like this. You're hysterical."

"Why do you think I'm drunk, Nick?" Holly asked. Her voice was quieter but full of sadness.

Nick sighed heavily and shrugged, finally turning to look at her, "Because you can't handle your liquor?"

She rolled her eyes, "It has nothing to do with that. It's because I've been full of this annoying paranoia and anger over this damn woman ever since I found out about her. I just wanted to stop thinking about it. I've never felt as insecure as I have in the past couple of weeks."

"Why would you feel insecure?" Nick threw his arms out as he asked, seeming less than understanding of the situation, "That's ridiculous."

Holly laughed, running her hands through her messy hair, "You know... I thought the same thing at first too, that I was being ridiculous, that I was overreacting. But then... you left your manuscript."

"What?" Nick asked, the heavy feeling returning to his stomach.

"You claim that you went to the city to write your book. I know I wasn't all that thrilled about it at first but I eventually came around and I was happy that you were going to get ahead on writing. But never, in all the years I've known you, have you taken your computer but not the manuscript with all your notes. Why would you have left it in the basement?" Holly asked and Nick nearly threw up realizing that she was right. He hadn't even realized he'd forgotten it, "I was already concerned about that come to find out after my sister and Olivia take a trip to the park that Alaina was away for the weekend too. How convenient for you."

"This is absurd," Nick said defensively with a roll of his eyes, "I don't appreciate being interrogated like this. Nor do I appreciate you having your sister follow me around in the hopes of tripping me up or something. Don't think I didn't figure that one out! Besides your logic being all wrong, you may want to take a look at your calendar because I came back before she did."

"How do you know when she came back?" Holly fired back and Nick shook his head, getting up off the bed. She watched him move around to his side of the bed, grabbing his pillow and the small blanket off the end of the bed, "How do you know?"

"I'm not having this conversation anymore," Nick said sternly, heading towards the door, "Sleep off all the booze and then maybe when you're sane and rational in the morning, and willing to have an intelligent conversation that doesn't involve accusations... we can talk."

"Nick..." Holly's voice was a whisper and he turned away from the door reluctantly.

"What?" he questioned monotonously, gripping the pillow tightly in his hand. 

Holly was taking deep, even breaths, leaning forward slightly as she braced herself against the mattress, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Fuck," Nick muttered, abandoning the pillow and blanket on the floor before dashing to grab the wastebasket off the floor. He barely got it in front of Holly in time before she was heaving. Her hands gripped his forearms as he held the bin for her, and he cringed each time he heard her gag, "Come on..." he encouraged her once the initial round had subsided, "Let's go sit in the bathroom for a while."

~*~

He had vomit down the arm of his shirt from a near miss in the bathroom. With a grimace Nick carefully undid the buttons and pulled the offensive material away from his skin. He threw the soiled shirt in the hamper, not caring that everything else, and probably the room, would smell because of it.

He didn’t have time to put it in the laundry, he’d left Holly leaned up against the tub just long enough to grab her robe and change into something more suitable for being barfed on.

He exchanged his dress pants for a pair of basketball shorts, tossed off his socks and threw on a t-shirt before grabbing Holly’s robe off the back of the door. Quickly but quietly he made his way down the hallway but was interrupted by the creaking sound of a door.

“Daddy?” a tiny voice called out and Nick reluctantly bypassed the bathroom door, going further down to where Olivia’s room was.

She was standing in the doorway, peeking out, her blonde hair mussed. She was wearing a pair of pink Tinkerbelle pyjamas, likely from the second hand store, and was clutching Mittens tightly against the side of her face.

“Why are you up, baby?”

“A monster tried to steal Mittens,” she said softly and Nick sighed, not prepared to deal with a crisis in the lives of both his women.

He heard coughing from down the hall and knew that Holly was getting sick again.

“Okay,” he said quickly, scooping her up and into his arms, “Where was the monster?”

“Be careful Daddy, the monster is still here,” Olivia explained as Nick carried her back into her bedroom.

“Where is the monst...”

Nick couldn’t get the rest of the word out because he was interrupted by a loud squeal directly into his ear. He didn’t think given the volume and pitch that a human could have produced the noise, let alone his daughter. She was cowering against his shoulder and holding her hand out, finger pointed accusingly towards the window where a spider was diligently building herself a home.

“Olivia,” Nick groaned, “That’s not a monster, it’s a spider. It doesn’t want your cat.”

“Daddy,” she was crying now, big alligator tears that were falling against his neck, “Make the monster go away.”

“It’s a spider,” he repeated, setting her down long enough to grab a tissue off the dresser. He would have rather done a catch and release to show Olivia how not-scary the spider was but he didn’t have that kind of time, unfortunately for the insect. He used the tissue to snatch up the spider and crushed it before sticking it in his pocket. He knew there was no way Olivia would go back to sleep if it was still in the same room as her.

Olivia was sniffling so with yet another tissue he wiped her eyes and her nose.

“Can you go back to bed now? It’s really late.”

The girl nodded and climbed back into her bed, “Thank you Daddy.”

“You’re welcome,” Nick tucked her in and after a quick kiss to her forehead dashed back down the hallway to the bathroom, Holly’s robe in hand.

As soon as he opened the door he was greeted by the smell of rancid wine, and the sound of his wife heaving into the toilet.

“I’m back,” he greeted, picking up the wet washcloth he’d discarded on his way out. He rinsed it with cold water and rung out the excess, “I brought your robe.”

Holly just groaned in response, her head pressed to her arms over the bowl of the toilet. Nick sat down against the tub, rubbing her back lightly as he handed her the cloth. Holly sighed and wiped her mouth with the cloth before moving to curl up against Nick’s side.

“Do you want to put your robe on?” he asked, still holding the terrycloth tightly in his hand.

“I want this,” Holly replied, rubbing her hand over the front of his shirt, “It’s really soft.”

“I got your robe,” he reminded her but she shook her head.

“Too heavy, I want this.”

With a roll of his eyes he yanked his shirt over his head and helped her into it. Immediately she curled back up against him and he rubbed her back soothingly.

“I’m sorry Nick,” Holly spoke suddenly into the quiet of the room, the only sound having been the two of them breathing, “I’m sorry I’ve been... jealous, I guess.”

I’m sorry too, for lying, he wanted to say to her and let her know that her worries weren’t fabricated, they were legitimate.

“It’s okay,” were the words that actually spilled from his mouth and he closed his eyes tightly, feeling a wave of guilt rush over his body.

Nick reached up to grab a bottle of Advil and a tall glass out of the cabinet. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he got a pitcher full of water out of the fridge and filled the glass, taking a long sip out of it before topping it up again.

They were supposed to have gone to the beach house that morning, as per the usual tradition but judging from the condition Holly had been in when he’d tucked her into bed just a few hours earlier, he doubted that would be happening.

“Good morning,” Gina greeted, already dressed for the day and heading straight for the coffee pot.

“Hey,” Nick grunted and watched her for a moment while she made her coffee, “I don’t think we’re going to the beach today.”

Gina chuckled and nodded her head while bringing the cup to her lips, “I assumed as much, especially after I woke up to the sound of my sister hurling down the hall at four in the morning.”

“Sorry,” he grimaced, knowing firsthand how terrible it was to listen to someone throw up, “she may have gotten a little drunk last night.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me for that,” Gina waved him off, “You look like shit by the way. You get hammered too?”

For a second Nick had thought she was going to be somewhat civil to him, but her comments quickly assured him otherwise, “No, I didn’t. I’ve been up all night rubbing Holly’s back and cleaning up puke when she missed the bowl so excuse me if I don’t happen to look my best right now.”

Gina cocked her head to one side, taking him in for a moment. He had a five o’clock shadow, no shirt, he smelled like a combination of vomit and sweat, and his hair was matted down against his head.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, putting the mug down on the counter, “I’ll get Olivia’s things all packed up and the two of us will go to the beach house for the weekend.”

“There’s no need, she’s not going to be too much to take care of today,” Nick waved her off but the woman interjected.

“Not because she’d be too much,” she assured him, “I just think that you and Holly both need a day off. Get some sleep and keep my sister away from the liquor cabinet.”

He was going to fight her on it only because he didn’t want her to win. Although he would miss Olivia for the weekend, it really was only two days and he rarely had an opportunity to be away from her. The last time he did he’d come running back early. It was finally a chance for him and Holly to just lie in bed, sleep, and in Holly’s case be hung over.

He didn’t plan on ever being quite so agreeable again but for the sake of getting a day off from being a Dad, Nick nodded, “Alright. I think that we could really use the time to catch up on sleep.”

“And maybe when you’re done that you can talk about what happened last night?” Gina suggested, going back for her mug.

“What happened last night?” Nick asked, playing dumb.

She rolled her eyes at him over the top of the cup, “Give me a break. Holly rarely drinks, that’s why she’s such a lightweight. She was so nervous about having those two over; I can’t see her getting that drunk for no reason.”

“You need to stay out of it,” he told her sternly, taking a step in her direction, “You’re making things worse here, not better. You’re filling her with doubt and with insecurities and it’s not fair to Holly to always have you whispering in her ear that she settled, that I’m not good enough for her.”

“You aren’t.”

Nick bit back his anger, running a hand quickly through his hair, “She chose me,” he told Gina, locking eyes with her, “she chose me,” he repeated, “and you need to get over your own jealousy issues.”

“Jealousy?” Gina laughed, looking up at Nick wide eyed, “What on earth do I have to be jealous of? You?!”

“That your younger sister is the one with the husband, and the child, and the stability while you sit at home in your condo with your cats?” he suggested with a shrug of his shoulders, “Could that have something to do with it?”

Gina gave him a sad look, the same pitiful smile that Alaina had given him the night before on her way out the door, “You’re no prize Nick, sorry. I would rather be alone with my cats than in this situation because I can afford to go on vacation when I want to, and I can afford the luxuries I want, and I don’t have some deadbeat leeching the life out of me. Would I love to have a little girl as sweet as Olivia? Sure. Am I happy enough to have her as my niece? Absolutely, but as for you...I’m not jealous of my sister having you. Garbage men contribute more to society than you.”

She had won; there was no doubt about it. There was no way he could come back from those comments because although they were incredibly hurtful they were also very true.

“Have fun at the beach, the keys are hanging in the hallway,” he muttered, keeping his eyes away from Gina’s as he brushed past her and headed for the stairs.

~*~

Carefully he set the glass and the bottle of Advil down on the bedside table, taking a cautious peek over the top of the blankets to see if Holly was still breathing.

He pulled back the blankets slowly, not wanting to jar her awake, but he knew that she needed to get some water into her or she would feel a whole lot worse when she had finally slept.

The t-shirt that he had given Holly in the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning had joined his dress shirt in the hamper after they’d assumed too quickly that the alcohol was out of her system. He was definitely going to have to throw that trash bin out, after everything it had been through.

She was back to wearing just her panties, lying on her stomach on the bed gripping a pillow to the side of her face. Nick rubbed his hand up and down her back, feeling the rise and fall of her breathes.

“Holly?” he whispered, hating that he had to wake her up but knowing it was for the best.

She groaned in response and stretched slightly, her toes reaching towards the end of the bed.

“You have to drink some water and take something so you don’t get a headache,” he explained, one hand still rubbing her shoulder.

“No,” Holly whined, sounding amazingly like Olivia during her tantrums.

“Yes,” Nick countered and watched as his wife reluctantly rolled over and reached her hand out for the glass, “You need to sit up,” he told her and she complied, her eyes heavy and skin pale as she sat waiting for the glass.

“You drank out of this,” Holly accused, turning the glass so that the mark his lips had left on the rim were facing away from her.

“You puked on me last night... twice,” Nick countered, picking at the pilling on the comforter.

Holly took the pain killers and polished off the glass of water, resting it back down on the bedside table, “I’m really sorry about that. I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick after drinking before. I didn’t think I’d had that much.”

“Oh you had more than enough,” Nick assured her with a chuckle, “but you’re right, I’ve never seen you get that sick. I thought for a while you had alcohol poisoning, I was getting ready to take you to the hospital at one point.”

“Well I’m glad it didn’t come to that,” Holly let out a big rush of air then took in her surroundings, “Why am I naked?”

“You were either throwing your clothes off or throwing up on them so it seemed safer to just settle on naked,” he explained then got up to grab a nightshirt for her from the dresser.

“Can you get me some more water?” Holly asked and Nick exchanged the shirt for the glass. He headed down to the bathroom to refill her water and wondered what the first thing they would talk about would be. Would she want to know about how big of an ass she made out of herself in front of their company, or would she want to know about her accusations of infidelity?

~*~

“Thanks again, for last night,” Holly said, her head resting against his shoulder as they lounged in bed.

“I’m surprised that you let me help you... after how mad you were,” Nick hesitantly brought the subject up, knowing that they were eventually going to have to talk about it.

“About that...” Holly sighed, picking up Nick’s hands to play with his fingers, “I’m still really upset, to be honest, but I’m sorry that I went about things like that. I never meant to attack you. I wanted to sit down and talk to you about it. I didn’t want to look like a crazy person though.”

“You wouldn’t have looked crazy,” Nick assured her, “I want you to feel like you can talk to me about anything but Hol... you went after me last night like nothing I have ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that upset. You were being so irrational. Last night you really did look crazy.”

“I just went about it the wrong way,” she reiterated, taking a moment took take a deep breath before she spoke again, “but I need for you to tell me the truth Nick because all signs are pointing to something shifty going on here. Why were you so secretive about Alaina?”

“It wasn’t intentional,” he lied, “I’ve met other people at the park that I didn’t tell you about because I didn’t think you would be interested. I know you don’t tell me about every single person you work with and why would you? It doesn’t affect me.”

“Do you have a crush on her? Is that why you’re so weird about her?” Holly asked point blank, turning in his arms so she could see his eyes when he replied.

Nick had to fight back a blush, and he felt especially awkward with Holly peering into his eyes as if she would be able to tell if he was lying, “I won’t deny that she is an attractive woman, but she’s married and I’m married. I don’t have a crush on her, she’s not my girlfriend, and I haven’t been sneaking around behind your back or trying to hide anything. Don’t you think Olivia would have mentioned if something weird was going on?”

Holly continued the uncomfortable eye contact, but she didn’t see anything that told her Nick wasn’t being honest. Letting out a heavy sigh she dropped her forehead to his shoulder, “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe what a jerk I am for acting this way. I’ve never been jealous before! I should have known when I saw her with her husband that they’re clearly very happy together.”

It seemed to Nick that he, Alaina, and Brian were all much better actors that Holly was. He felt incredibly bad for the fact that she was apologizing for being right while he lied to her face over and over again but he was in too deep now to turn back. He had to keep up the facade lest he lose everything.

“I get jealous too sometimes,” Nick told her, “Maybe not of people but of your job. I sometimes worry that you love it more than you love me. And if for some reason some attractive guy moved into your department I would probably worry that he would try and hit on you. Those are normal feelings though.”

Holly rolled her eyes as she pulled back to face him again, “No one would hit on me.”

“Sure they would,” Nick assured her with a smile, brushing her hair back with his fingers, “I did. You’re beautiful.”

“You were drunk,” she reminded him, unable to hold back her smile from his compliment.

“You’re right, I was,” he laughed, pulling her back down to rest against his chest, “You weren’t though... did you take advantage of me that night? I was younger than you and drunk and you took me home.”

“You were so sloppy drunk it’s not like you were going to get anybody else,” she teased.

Nick kissed the top of her head then rested his cheek against her hair, “I was waiting for you.”