Making It Last - A Novella (Camelot Series) (16 page)

Janet said he couldn’t know what it was like for Amber, but Janet was wrong.

He could know, if he asked her.

He could know, if Amber would tell him.

They had to get better at that part—asking and telling. He had to get better about being home, being
with
her the way he had been the past few days, instead of letting his mind wander off to his work or his worries.

He’d let himself forget his wife, left her behind and alone and told himself she’d be fine. But she wasn’t fine—not without him. They needed each other.

He’d screwed up, but now he had another chance. He had to remember what was important, because when he lost sight of Amber, he always ended up in the dark.

She came out of the bathroom in a towel with her hair damp and her glasses on. Faintly, he could hear the whining sound her contact lens case made. Hydrogen peroxide bubbles and escaping air. In the morning, there’d be a little puddle underneath it, and she’d wipe it up after she put the contacts back in her eyes and the case in the drawer.

She drew on her underwear, soft flannel pajama pants, heavy socks, and an old T-shirt. He flipped back the covers on her side of the bed. She crawled in next to him and turned her back so she could apply lip balm and rub lotion into her hands.

Leaving her glasses on the table, she scooted down the bed, rolling close to him to put her head in the nook between his shoulder and chest. Her arm over his torso.

She sighed, melting against his side, and he pushed up her shirt at the small of her back with his fingertips so he could brush them over her skin.

Too beautiful to live without
.

And it was. She was.

“Where do you see us in ten years?” he asked.

Amber nuzzled her head against his chest, pushing deeper into the nook where she liked to rest.

“Right here,” she said.

“In this house?”

“In this bed.”

He’d built the bed, too. The plan had been to order one, but Amber had a very specific idea of what she wanted, and it turned out that what she wanted—
Queen-size, but kind of low to the ground so the kids can climb in, and no shelves or anything in the headboard, because who wants to dust that? Not me. And I don’t care what color it is, but it has to be basically indestructible. And it would be nice if it matched the trim. Can you buy me one like that?

He’d bought his carpenter buddy a case of beer, paid for the lumber, and they’d spent a couple weekends in his garage making the exact bed Amber wanted. A bed that would last forever.

But it came apart. They could take it with them.

“What if we had to sell the house?”

It surprised him how easily the question emerged, considering how impossible it had seemed just a few days ago.

“We’d sell the house,” she said.

“You wouldn’t care?”

“We’d both care. It’s a beautiful house. You made it, and it’s amazing.” She stroked his chest. Patted him once, gently. “But if we had to sell it, we’d sell it. And we’d still have the bed.”

“It’s a good bed.”

She tightened her arm around him. “Very good. I have a lot of excellent memories that take place in this bed.”

“You’re thinking of that time with the wet towel, aren’t you?”

“What? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“When the kids got into that mud fight, and we had to give them all, like, six baths? And then we were gonna go to bed, but we kept finding flakes of mud in the sheets, so we took a shower …”

She rose a few inches, looking at him with dawning understanding. “And you
smacked me
. With a
wet towel
. I could have
killed
you.”

Tony smiled, remembering the red welt across the back of her legs and the fury in her eyes when she’d tackled him.

“We had sex after that?”

He groaned. “I can’t believe you don’t remember. It was the best sex of my whole entire life.”

“That must have been with your other wife.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve only got the one wife, bun.”

“Well, then I was probably asleep.”

“You weren’t asleep. You scratched my back up like crazy, and then I forgot all about it, and one of the guys saw it when I got something on my shirt at the office and had to change out of it. He still asks how my wildcat’s doing when I see him.”

“Who does?” She sounded scandalized.

“Nate Parker.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He has red hair.”

“With the beard?”

“Yeah.”

“God, that explains it. He gives me
looks
.”

“Sorry, babe. It’s not my fault. I was sex-stoned for, like, two days after that night. Couldn’t operate heavy equipment. You’re lucky I didn’t drive into a quarry somewhere and drown.”

“Just because I scratched you?”

He rolled to his side so he could wrap his other arm around her and see her face. “Because you were hot, and you’re you, and because you couldn’t decide if you were mad at me or if you thought I was funny, so we did both—laughed and fought. And fucked. It was awesome.”

“That sounds kind of kinky. I’m glad I slept through it.”

He kissed her forehead. “We can do it again sometime in the next ten years. See if you like it.”

“Next time, I’ll smack
you
across the back of the legs with the towel.”

“It’s a deal.”

They laid there for a minute, looking into each other’s eyes, and the room seemed to expand, the walls falling away until there was nothing but them and the bed. Their bodies adrift in the open sea of the night, the soft sounds of their breathing.

This bed their boat.

He found her hand and held it, and when he inhaled the air went all the way down into the bottom of his lungs for the first time in so long, because he knew for certain that wherever they were going, they would get there.

They were safe and dry, and they had each other. They had the kids.

They had so much more than he’d ever thought he would be able to have.

“You know what I want to hear about?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“I want to hear what you’re doing in ten years.”

“Trying to keep the boys from getting anybody pregnant.”

He smiled. “Other than that, I mean. What are you doing for yourself?”

“I don’t know. I’m starting to have some ideas, though. In the shower I was thinking about sports jobs. There are a lot more options than there were when I was right out of college. It’s kind of exciting.”

“You think maybe you’re a trainer?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll be the kind of trainer who gives classes for people who want to run marathons. Though I’d have to run a marathon first.”

“You could do that. Or triathlons.”

“I’m a terrible swimmer.”

“You could get better.”

“Yeah.” She kissed his neck. “I was thinking maybe I could get a job. Part-time. Marc always said they’d hire me on as a receptionist in a minute at the gym.”

He thought about Marc. Let it go. Marc had never been the problem.

“Of course they would. They’d pay you minimum wage and you’d be running the place inside of a month.”

“It wouldn’t just be for the money. I mean, whatever I can do, sure. It would be great to feel like I was contributing something, but after so long without any job at all … and in this market.”

“But we’re talking about a decade from now, and that’s plenty of time to get back in. Maybe in ten years, you’ll be making good money.”

“That would be nice.”

He thought about it. It
would
be nice. Sure, there was part of him that felt like keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table was his sole responsibility. Amber had suggested once or twice, in a vague sort of way, that she might want to find a job after Jake started school, but he’d never wanted to think about it, because just the thought of it felt like a failure—an admission that he really
couldn’t
keep them afloat on his own. And if he couldn’t do this for them, what did they need him for?

Pride and fear. His weaknesses.

If Amber wanted to work again—if the work she did not only made her feel better but made life easier for both of them and for their sons—his pride and fear could go fuck themselves.

“It
would
be nice,” he said. And meant it.

He stroked her arm. Light strokes, back and forth. Light enough to give her goose bumps that made her arm hair all silky and interesting to touch.

“Tell me what your day looks like a year from now,” he said.

“A year from now?”

“Yeah. Your whole day, if you’re living the life that makes you happiest.”

“Well, I guess I get up early and go for a run. Because I’m training for a marathon. I’ll have already run a half-marathon in the fall, right?”

“Right.”

“And when I come home, you’re up with the kids, and they’re about ready for school, because I packed their lunches last night and you’ve gotten them to dress and put on their shoes.”

“I’m not at work?”

“No. You don’t go to work until they get on the bus. Because you’ve hired somebody to help you run the company, and
he
goes to work at five-thirty in the morning.” That made his breath catch, but he exhaled past it. Hypothetical.

Hypothetically, he could hire a guy.

“How did I afford him?”

“You gave up the idea that Patrick was coming back, and then you sold Mazzara Construction to Dale Prange.”

“Wow.”

A shark in the water. Glistening teeth.

Imaginary, though. The danger only had as much power as he gave it.

Amber had taught him that, a long time ago.

“I know.” She smoothed her thumb over his forehead. “It was a big step for you. You had to talk it over with your wife for months before you made up your mind.”

“I can see that I’d have to.”

“Oh, and also you shouldn’t be picturing our kitchen, because we’re not in this house. We put it on the market, and we’re renting Caleb’s place from him.”

“Katie lives in Caleb’s place.”

“Not in a year. In a year, she lives with Sean.”

“That happened fast.”

“Yeah, it’s going to.”

“There are only three bedrooms in Caleb’s house.”

“I know. Clark and Ant are sharing, and Jake’s got the little one, and you and I have the big one at the end of the hall.”

Tony thought about that. Tried to imagine how it would work. How it would feel to pay rent to his brother-in-law.

Not fantastic.

On the other hand, what would a house like that rent for? A third of what he was paying
now? Less, maybe.

Knowing Caleb, a lot less.

“Don’t forget that we’ve still got our bed,” she said.

He mentally placed it in the master bedroom, and that helped.

It helped even more when Amber slung a leg over his hip and kissed him on the mouth.

He worked his hand farther up under her shirt, her skin smooth and warm beneath his palm.

“So the kids get on the bus,” she said to his chin, “and you head to work, and you’re whistling because you like building houses. The economy’s not quite so bad a year from now—”

“Housing starts were up again last quarter.”

“Exactly. Things are looking better now—imagine how great they’ll be in a year. And I have a cup of tea in my little kitchen, and then I shower and get dressed and go to work at the gym, where they pay me minimum wage to more or less run the place.”

“But you like it.”

“I love it.”

“Because it’s got excellent boundaries.”

She kissed next to his ear, her voice an audible murmur, humming with satisfaction. “That’s right. And at about two, I go home, and I get changed and start dinner, and then I meet the boys at the bus and drive them to their judo or whatever it is they’re doing in a year. We come home, I finish dinner while the kids do homework, and you walk in at five-thirty sharp and we all eat.”

“Look at me, working forty-hour weeks.”

“Maybe fifty sometimes when it’s busy.”

“Fifty would be sweet.”

She hooked her leg a little higher and kissed his neck. Her damp hair brushed his chin and caught in his stubble.

He was getting hard, which might be affecting his mental calculus, but none of it sounded impossible. None of it
felt
impossible, either. Back before he built this place, he and Amber and Clark and Ant had all crowded together in that little bungalow on Sunnybrook, and they’d been happy there.

He hadn’t always worked eighty-hour weeks. He didn’t always have to.

Amber got her hand up inside his shirtsleeve and stroked his biceps. She was starting to rock against him. She got squirmy when she was turned on.

Squirmy and distracted.

“What next, bunny?”

“Then TV and more homework and some chaos, because the boys are good at chaos. Then they go to bed. Then we go to bed.”

“Do you get lucky?”

“No.” She whispered it against his neck. “I don’t get lucky.”

He found the tie at the front of her pajama pants and pulled it open. “You sure? It would be a nice way to end your day.”

“I don’t
get
lucky,” she said, “because I’m already lucky, see? I’m lucky all day long.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth, and he ran his hand over the softest skin of her stomach. Back and forth. He kissed her carefully, wanting to feel the way she moved her mouth against his, to appreciate everything known and unknown about her.

Amber. This familiar stranger who’d put on his ring and worn it every day for more than ten years.

He rolled her over and gazed down at her. As beautiful as ever, with those big eyes and the smile that had always been able to bring him light when he most needed it.

“I’d do it all over again, you know,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Meet you. Marry you. Clark and Ant and Jake. Even the hard parts. All of it. I’d do all of it over again, if you would do it with me.”

“Let’s not do the hard parts over. There were some really hard parts. Like this part, now. Just because we can see where we want to go, that doesn’t mean it’s going to magically be easy.”

“I know. I’m just saying.”