You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(11)

“Love, come here.” His own emotions close to the surface, he gathered her onto his lap and cradled her while she wept, her face burrowed into his neck.

For so long, she’d held everything together. Their family, their marriage, her positivity that somehow, she’d find a way back for them. While he’d been blind to his selfishness. Rocking her in his arms, murmuring words of comfort, he silently cursed himself for pushing so hard for reconnection. For making this about his need for reassurance. Tell me it’s not too late.

“Oh…b—boy.” She pulled it together and pushed away from him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “There’s a box of tissues in the glove compartment. Can you…?”

He released her to retrieve them while she wriggled out of her shapewear and pulled down her dress. Accepting a couple of tissues, she blew her nose hard. “Well,” she said, managing a shaky smile. “It was good for me.”

“Then Bob’s job is done.” Re-buttoning her coat, he sat beside her. Tentative now, afraid. Of saying the wrong thing. Of causing her more pain. Of not knowing how to fix this.

With a sigh, she rested her head on his shoulder. “Some night, huh?”

He smoothed her hair. “Some night.”

For a few minutes, they sat quietly, neither in a hurry to move, watching the occasional wraith pass by the fogged windows.

“What do you want for Christmas?” he asked, resting his cheek on her hair. “If I could give you anything, what would it be?”

“The sweet, shy guy I married would be nice. At least he was all mine.” There was a wistfulness in the joke that bothered him.

“You’re romanticizing him,” he said. “That guy didn’t take near enough responsibility and he was too dependent on you financially and emotionally.” He shuddered, thinking of returning to that life, of being that loser.

She chuckled.

“What?”

“We can’t even agree what kind of guy you were.”

“I think we can both agree I’ve been a selfish ass these past months.”

“What do you want me to say, Jared?” The wariness had returned to her tone, the cold kiss of distance.

He couldn’t live like this anymore. “Your marriage isn’t working for you now, is it, Betty?”

She hesitated.

“I want my wife back. I want us to stop avoiding the tough conversations.” He cupped her hands between his to warm them. “My wife and kids did the last tour leg with me. It was hell on our marriage for reasons that were all my fault. She took the kids home early and since I’ve returned we’ve been play-acting happy. I think we’re both scared as f*ck we’ve screwed things up for good.”

She turned her hands and threaded her fingers tightly through his. “My husband changed when he went on tour and became famous. I didn’t. That’s the risk when you marry young. You do your growing up together or you start growing apart.”

“There’s a third way of looking at it,” he said. “One of you regresses to adolescence, realizes he’s been a jackass, and takes on the responsibility of making it right.” He felt an overwhelming need to spend time alone with her, to uncover and kiss every hurt. “We need to carve time for ourselves. Just us. Set up regular dates.”

He would make her fall in love with him again. “We could even drop the kids with my folks in Bridgeton and run away for a couple of days.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”





Chapter Five





Jared woke with a groan when a small foot kicked him in the kidneys and nearly sent him over the mattress edge, where he’d clung most of the night. Reaching behind him, he moved the foot and turned over. Kayla wasn’t on the other side of their bed, probably driven out by the never-still, four-year-old, bed-hogging dominatrix. How the hell could someone three feet tall take over a king-size bed?

The babysitter had greeted their arrival with the cheery news that Madison had insisted she always slept in their bed when they were out.

Lately, she’d been sleeping in their bed when they were in, too. His fault. He’d toured so much last year that on the weeks he’d managed to get home there’d been nothing cuter than his baby girl standing at the end of the bed with a trembling lower lip saying, “I was scared, Daddy.” And that’s how bad habits start.

People thought he’d been some kind of wonder dad for staying home with the kids and working nights, but Kayla had made it simple. All he had to do was follow the schedule she’d left for getting the kids to appointments and heating meals she’d prepared on the weekends. His housework had been the make-do, wipe up spills kind. It amazed him that she missed that guy, the lazy f*ck.

When your toughest competition for your wife’s affection was the old self you would die before returning to, you had a problem.

She’d seen them as partners, but they’d been unequal ones, their workloads no more balanced than they were…now?

His daughter woke like all little kids did, instantly alert and instantly demanding. “How many sleeps till Santa?”

“Where’s your calendar, Maddie?”

She tumbled out of bed and ran to her room, returning a minute later.

“Are Mommy and Rocco up?”