Page 86 of Doing It for Love

“I can’t tonight, okay? I need…I don’t know, a break.”

“We just spent two nights away from each other. You really want a third?”

I get a hold of the pillow and pull it up against my chest. “Those two nights were your choice. This one is mine.”

Then I leave him to the bed, wondering if this is what our marriage will be like and if there is any chocolate in the cupboard.

Chapter 27

The Hurdles ofGetting MarriedSurviving Engagement

1.Don’t get cold feet over one argument.

2.Don’t get cold feet over ten thousand arguments.

I slam my face into the throw pillow and roar. My poor laptop is in danger of being thrown across the room. These Hurdles are impossible. I think I’m more suited for the thirty-yard sprint.

I could’ve won. We could be cuddling in the bedroom, naked and warm, after the greatest sex of all—make-up sex—but how can it be make-up sex when I don’t know if we’re going to make up? He doesn’t know how incredibly wrong it was to have left like that. And he is wrong. Totally wrong. I’m right, damn it.

Groaning into the pillow again, I twist and turn, buck naked on the couch. The only thing we’ve discovered with the no-sex experiment is that we’re both incredibly unbearable without it. What will happen when I’m pregnant and I don’t want him touching me for fear that I’ll puke all over him? Or say one of us gets paralyzed from the waist down? Or what happens when we have kids and there’s no time? Or when I go through menopause? Will what we have outside our physical relationship be enough to sustain a marriage? Will we even be able to stand one another? Will life become…boring?

My fingers tighten in the pillow, and I press farther into the feathers, wanting to chase those ridiculous thoughts from my brain. But I can’t. We are forever peas and carrots.

I grab at the throw blanket on the back of the couch, knocking down a picture from the collage wall. It’s too dark to search behind the couch for it, and I’m too mad to care, so I slump into the cushions, wrap the blanket tight around my shoulders, and burrow my feet into the cracks.

I miss Landon’s warm legs, and I hate myself for it.

—

I’m completely splayed out on the couch when I wake up, legs wide open and arms high over my head. A beautiful trail of drool drips on my shoulder, and I lazily wipe it away. A pang in my back makes me wince when I sit up. My laptop is open on the coffee table, with a steaming mug next to it.

My Hurdles List has been tampered with.

I slide closer, wrapping the blanket around my buck-ass naked body, and squint to read the typing.

The Hurdles ofGetting Married Surviving EngagementSleeping Alone

1.Try not to miss Liz when you turn off the light.

2.Try not to miss Liz when you pull the sheets up.

3.Try not to miss Liz’s cold feet. (Her literal cold feet.)

4.Try not to think about Liz getting metaphorical cold feet.

5.Try not to miss Liz at midnight.

6.Try not to miss Liz at one o’clock.

7.Try not to miss Liz at two o’clock.

8.Forget sleeping, just look at her naked body while you still have the chance.

9.Try not to wake her up as you lie on the floor next to her.

10.Hold her hand. Squeeze it twice.

I just finish reading the last Hurdle when I smell Landon’s aftershave waft from the bathroom.

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