Page 62 of The Wife
Jake
She was right. I hated that she was so damn right. There was no way we were going to keep this up for two years. No way I was going to keep my hands off her for two more years. Not when I knew what she felt like, what she sounded like when she came.
God, what she sounded like.
Except I had started kind of getting used to the idea that it wasn’t such a bad thing. Yes, we came into this marriage in the strangest of ways. Yes, it would be really hard to know if her feelings were legitimately about me and not about the situation. But would it be the worst thing to be married to your best friend?
Still, the idea of her going away… in some ways I hated it. In other ways I thought it was something she needed to do. We married when she was sixteen freaking years old. She’d never spent more than a week away from this ranch her whole life.
She said we needed space for us to become friends again. The truth was she needed time to explore the world if we were going to be something beyond friends. She had to have the opportunity for once in her life to make a choice.
The choice she’d lost the day Sam fell to his knees, clutching his chest.
“Say something,” she prompted. “Are you really mad?”
“I’m not mad, Ellie. I’m… stunned. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“But I’m not wrong. Am I?”
“You were wrong not to discuss this with me. We should have done this together.”
“It was my money and my decision.”
She lifted her chin then and I had this crazy urge to sit her on the kitchen island and show her exactly who she was messing with. Then I remembered all the reasons I kept myself from touching her.
The same reasons she gave for leaving.
What if I had just fucked her?
I let out a sigh. “Then when?”
“When what?”
“When do you want to do this? Divorce.”
Her lip wobbled and I could see she was telling the truth about this hurting. She wasn’t alone. It felt like I was asking her when she wanted to cut off my right hand.
“How about after Christmas? Right before I leave. That way no one is asking us a bunch of questions around the holidays.”
I nodded. “Okay. Tell Howard to do what he’s got to do.”
“Should I pop the cork?”
“No.” This wasn’t something to be happy about. “How about we save it for Christmas? Our last one.”
Geez, now I could feel my own damn lip beginning to wobble. Ellie was going to leave me. Ellie was going to go to college and learn new things and meet new people. Everything was going to change.
I hated it but I had to accept it.
“Good idea. Champagne doesn’t really go with beef stew anyway. Hey, speaking of Christmas, what do you want this year?”
Her. I wanted her.
“I need socks.”
She made a face. “Jake, I’m not getting you socks for Christmas. That’s lame.”
I turned back to the stove and ran a spoon the through the stew. “You asked. I answered.”
