Worth the Fight (Accidentally on Purpose) (14 page)

I didn’t feel like arguing.

“I’ll be back for him before dinner,” I said. I kissed L
ucas and left before my sister pulled me into the kitchen for a talk.

When I got back to the apartment I found Emmy in bed reading on the very kindle I had given her as a gift so long ago. She used to sit in bed trying to read and failing because I was always trying to get into her panties. Most of the time I su
cceeded, unless the book was particularly good, then she shut me down. I wasn’t going to try to get into her panties this time, but I did need something else from her.

“I have such a crazy headache,” I said as I took my shoes off at the foot of the bed. “I feel like my head is going to e
xplode.”

I climbed into the bed and put my head in her lap. I closed my eyes and waited. A moment later, I felt her hesitant fingers slide into my hair. When she began to stroke my aching head, I relaxed.

Later in the morning after we had a couple of hours of sleep, we sat on the bed with the laptop open looking at houses. I had ordered some food and we were having a perfectly normal conversation about where to buy and how many rooms we’d need. I thought it was going very well. We sounded more like a couple than a couple of roommates – until Emmy fucked that up with one question.

“What are we going to do if, you know, you get married or something? I mean, it's something to think about if we're buying a house together.”

I looked at her as if she had just said the dumbest shit ever. We’re sitting in bed together looking at houses to share our son and our lives in and she asks that question. Obviously, we were on two different pages.

“What happens if
you
get married?” I asked, trying to be casual.

She laughed at herself. “I think my current state is as good as it's gonna get for me. I'm so not on the market.”

“Why would you even say that?” I demanded. I didn’t want her on the damn market – she was mine – but did she really believe she had no chance at being in a relationship again while I was sitting right in front of her?

“No one buys broken items,” she sighed, and reached in front of me to scroll through the houses.

“People buy broken cars and fix them up all of the time,” I said, stupidly comparing her to a car.

“I'm not a broken hot rod,” she said, as she continued looking at houses. “I'm more like...a shattered vase. No one buys those.”

“Why are we talking about you like you're an inanimate object?” I scowled.

“What about this house?” she asked, trying to ignore the conversation.

I shoved her hand away and slammed the laptop shut. She looked taken aback, but sat there with her eyebrows raised.

“This is driving me crazy,” I growled and got out of bed. “Sometimes I see that woman I knew so well, but as soon as she starts to come out, you push her back down into the dark.”

“That's poetic,” she said sarcastically with a fucking smirk. She started folding laundry with trembling hands.

“Why?” I asked. “Why are you so afraid to be her?”

“Maybe you've forgotten, but that woman you knew so well screwed you over and broke your heart,” she said without looking at me. She was putting an unordinary amount of focus into folding the clothes.

I felt little bands of patience snapping one by one.

“You know what? Honestly?” I said angrily and snatched the clothes from her hands. “More often than you think, I do forget, and really, I may never forget entirely, but I have forgiven you. I forgive you entirely, no more animosity, but you can't forgive yourself.”

“Luke, really!” she yelled. “Why are you bombarding me with all of this serious shit lately?”

“Because in order for us to move forward, we need to deal with that shit, Em,” I said, almost yelling myself. “You need to deal with what Kyle did to you and you need to deal with your feelings about yourself.”

“I am dealing with it!” She yelled.

“Hiding behind your kid and your job will only hold up for so long,” I said tauntingly

She rolled her eyes and stormed out of the room. I fo
llowed her, yelling.

“Great idea! Run away! That's a great way of dealing with your problems.”

I watched her burn a path in the rug as she paced anxiously back and forth. I tried to rein in some of my anger and frustration before speaking again.

“So, you've made some mistakes,” I said. “We have all made some mistakes.”

“Yeah, your mistake was, how did you put it? Oh yeah. You had this inflated idea of who I was and it's not my fault that I didn't live up to your expectations.”

She stood in the middle of the room, staring at the floor. Her chest rose and fell heavily. I couldn’t miss the injury on her face and in her voice. I wished I could take back all of the awful things I had said to her, even if she half deserved some of them. Had I known what I knew now, I wouldn’t have made things any worse for her.

“I was hurting pretty bad,” I said softly. “I wanted you to feel my pain. I apologize, I didn't really mean it. Had I known then how deeply damaged you really were, I would have behaved differently, and I should have anyway. I didn't treat you the way I should treat the mother of my child. I've really been trying to make it up to you and be a better man.”

She looked up at me, surprised by my words. She didn’t understand that I had been trying hard to win her over. I guess I wasn’t trying hard enough.

“Em, I know you're broken, okay?” I said, desperately trying to make her understand. “But I need to know what broke you so I can fix you.”

She stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.
Clearly
I hadn’t tried hard enough or she wouldn’t again look so stupefied that I’d want to fix her.

Her expression changed in a matter of seconds. She looked worried and sad.

“Why would you want to bother?” she asked in a small voice. “Is it making me a bad mom?”

“You're an excellent mother,” I said honestly. “I want to because I love you, and it kills me to see you like this.”

I watched her face after my confession. Utter confusion and shock.

“Oh.”

Oh? Oh? I told her I loved her and she said Oh.

The buzzer went off. I think we were both glad for the i
nterruption. I went downstairs to get the food. On my way back up I decided not to continue the conversation. Honestly, my fucking feelings were a little hurt. I had waited a long time to tell her I loved her. Even more, I made it clear that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I wanted her and I wanted to fix her and she said Oh.

We were both dysfunctional people. For the rest of the day we avoided serious conversation even though we were si
tting on a mountain of serious conversations. We both pretended as if our intense conversations had not happened. We watched television, ate food, joked around, talked about work, and acted as if we were both at ease when we each knew that the other was not. We even slept in the same bed, but I stayed to one side of the bed and she stayed to the other. We may as well have been sleeping in two separate universes.

I woke up early, before Emmy and before Lucas. I stood in the kitchen for a long time thinking over a cup of coffee with the radio playing softly in the background. I wasn’t ready to give up on Emmy, but I didn’t know if we were really getting anywhere. I needed to change my approach. Forcing her to talk about her pain was only leaving both of us frustrated and poss
ibly a little more fractured than before.

By the time Lucas woke up, I had formed a plan. By the time Emmy got up, I was downright giddy about my plan. It was so simple that I felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

“Are you playing hooky again?” Emmy asked me.

“Impossible. I am co-owner of the firm. I can do whate
ver I want,” I insisted.

“Humble,” she smirked.

“I want to take Lucas to the zoo today and tonight you and I are having a date night.”

“Date night?” she asked doubtfully.

So simple. We didn’t need to have any uncomfortable conversations. We didn’t need to talk about how damaged we were. No confrontations or yelling or frustration. I was going to take her out, like I used to, just the two of us. A night on the town with some dinner, drinks, and whatever else the city had in store for us. Emmy had not had one of these nights in a very long time, probably since before Lucas was born. She needed this. I needed this.
We
needed this – together.

“Yep. I already asked Diane to babysit,” I said. “I know I'm not Brad Pit, but I think I make a pretty good date,” I said when she remained silent.

A small smile appeared on her face. “I guess.”

“Oh my god, Lucas! Did you see that?” I exclaimed.

“Smartass,” she muttered before walking away.

“And don’t think you’re cute ass is getting out of this,” I called after her.

“Stop cursing!” she shouted from the kitchen.

“You need to get out. You never do anything. You’re a hermit. You’re hermit lady. All you need are cats.”

“Okay, I get it,” she said from the kitchen doorway. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I’ll go.”

“No backing out,” I said firmly.

“No backing out,” she confirmed.

“Because I will pick you up and carry you out of here if I have to.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she snorted and went back into the kitchen.

*~~~*

When Emmy stepped out of the bedroom just before my cousin Diane arrived, Lucas and I both stopped what we were doing and stared.

“Ohhhhhh,” Lucas said, staring at his mom.

“Wow,” I said and was unable to close my mouth.

Emmy rolled her eyes, like she couldn’t believe that she was as hot as she looked. She had on a black tank top with thin straps that was snug at her breasts and loose and swingy at her hips. The blue jean capris she had on were skin tight and she had on a pair of fire engine red sandals with high heels and straps around her ankles. Her hair was loose and wavy and whatever makeup she had on made the green in her eyes look like shiny specks of glitter.

“Where are we going?” she asked soon after we left the building.

“Let's just see where our feet take us,” I said and took her hand.

“You mean you didn't plan anything?” she asked incredulously.

“Nope.”

“You suck a little at this dating thing.”

“Was that a joke?”

“Nope.”

We chatted about nothing of importance as we strolled through the city. Conversation came easily and Emmy smiled and laughed often. I should have been satisfied with that, but when she didn’t think I was looking, I saw the tension lines around her mouth and could sometimes glimpse something in her eyes that looked like anxiety.

“This is a hot date,” Emmy said a little while later in a Barnes and Noble.

“I know you think so,” I said nonchalantly. “The only thing missing are your sexy pink rubber gloves.”

“Maybe we should go buy some,” she suggested. “I mean if that's what rocks your boat.”

She
was what rocked my boat. I had a visual in my mind of her answering the door at her house in Jersey, wearing a pair of short shorts with bleach stains, a holey t-shirt and those pink, rubber gloves. Catching her in such a casual state really had been a turn on. I was so glad that she had to go upstairs that day and change so I could get my erection under control.

“Only if you promise to wear the gloves and nothing else.”

She snickered and said “Yeah, because my body is so rockin' after having a baby.”

“I think your body is even more rockin' than before you had a baby,” I said seriously and openly looked her over.

She looked at me with some doubt. “I haven't lost any weight since the day Lucas was born.”

“You're hot, I'm telling you,” I tried to assure her.

“You think so now,” she said. “You haven't seen the stretch marks on my belly.”

“I don't care about your stretch marks.” I’d kiss every line on her belly if she gave me the chance.

Emmy took a breath and changed gears.

“Are you flying to Jersey with me and Lucas for Labor Day?”

Though I had personally been invited, I wanted to know if Emmy wanted me there.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “Sure.”

“Don't be so excited about it,” I frowned. It was like the Oh thing all over again.

“I don't get excited about anything these days. Don't take it personally.”

I was well aware that nothing seemed to excite her, but a little bit of enthusiasm would have been nice.

“I would love for you to come,” she said with a little more feeling.

“Right here in the book store?” I gave her a scandalous look. “I knew my bad ass girl was in there somewhere. I haven't done it in a public place since that one time in the bathroom at the diner.”

“Walking away now,” she said and left me alone with the two old women that appeared out of nowhere. I grinned and followed Emmy out of the store.