Page 5 of The Wife
“Just so long as it’s not practical,” I reminded him. Wire cutters for Christmas. What had he been thinking?
“Yep.”
Kathy came back with our tuna melts, and luckily we were back on to the basics of the ranch and the myriad of things that still needed to be done to clean up from the storm. There we sat. The two of us at Frank’s, where it was now officially concluded we would remain married for the next three years.
Yep. Me and my husband (not really), Jake. In our booth at Frank’s.
Two
Jake
April
Here’s something that sucks. Once the attraction switch goes on, you can’t turn it off. The desire, the want, it’s always there. You can use your brain to control your dick, but you can’t stop your dick from wanting what it wants.
In some ways, Janet had been right. I’d been pretty smug about the whole living with Ellie thing. I felt sure that as a good man—and I thought of myself as that, influenced more so by Ellie’s father than my own useless one—that I wouldn’t have any impure or lustful thoughts about a girl who was both young and vulnerable.
And I didn’t.
Until I did.
Now, I can control my actions. I can tell myself not to think about her in that way. I can work myself until I’m so bone-weary tired every night that sex is the last thing on my mind. That had been working pretty well so far.
Except tonight was Ellie’s eighteenth birthday. Her real present was still waiting for her at home—I faked her out with the no-present thing this morning and told her I was taking her out tonight instead as her gift. And it was a gift. Tonight was Under Twenty-One Night at the country line dance bar I had brought Janet to a year ago. And tonight I was here with Ellie.
She and Chrissy were dressed up in their tightest jeans and cutest western shirts, shaking, kicking, and stomping their asses all over the place. Meanwhile I stoically stood in the corner, sipping on a beer and letting them have their fun.
I watched her. She was beautiful. Graceful and smooth on the dance floor. With a smile so wide any guy would turn his head to see it. She’d suffered so much tragedy in her short life, but Ellie was filled with this bright light.
It made her glow.
But of course I could do nothing. And say nothing. I had managed to avoid ourneedstalk, but now I was seeing maybe it had to happen. Maybe there needed to be rules.
Because as I was standing here stoically in my corner, I watched as other guys her age asked her to dance. I watched as guys my age asked her to dance. I stayed in my corner. I didn’t say a thing—mostly because I knew who she was going home with tonight. But I burned inside.
When the one guy’s hand moved down her back toward her ass. When the other guy had her pressed up against his chest as he moved her around the dance floor. When that last guy bent to say something in her ear and she tipped her head in a way that made me think he was going to kiss her neck.
All of it was gut-wrenching. It sucked because I couldn’t control it.
Nope. Once the switch was on, it stayed on. There was no going back.
That kiss had changed things. That day had changed things, too.
Now I was stuck in this marriage, platonic of my own choosing, lusting after my wife, who was dancing with other guys.
I should ask Ellie where she would put that on the scale of one to ten of suckiness, because I was going with a solid nine.
The last dance ended and the girls peeled away from the crowd. Ellie searched the bar for me, and it felt good when her eyes landed on me. Like it was important to her to know I had her back.
She bounced over, tipped her cowgirl hat back on her head, and tried again.
“Come dance with me.”
“I don’t dance,” I replied. Just like I had every other time she asked.
“I’ll show you the moves. It’s so easy, and you’re in a line of people so it’s not like you stand out or anything.”
I turned to her friend. “Chrissy, what one particular thing do you know about me?”
