Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(126)

“I think so.”

She rolled over and looked at me, all business. “I like it.”

“I know.”

“I want this,” she said in exasperation, falling back against the blanket looking up again. “I want this!” She screamed into the night.

What it must be like in her shoes. I'd spent the better part of the past year, or more, trying to figure that out. Listening to her cry out for what she really wanted, lying there beside me, and hearing it was that. There. With me. It breathed life into my person.

“Then take it,” I said.

“I'm trying. I want a divorce. I don't love him like—” and she paused, but I heard the full sentence. She’d never told me she loved me. And I’d only told her in a fight.

She asked, “Can you give me a little more time?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“I can try, if you mean that.”

“I mean it.”

“How long is a little time?”

“I don't know. I just got married. My parents—” she paused again, leaving another dangling sentence in the damp night air.

“Just say it, honeybee. We passed polite a long time ago.”

“I don't want my parents to hate you. I don't want them to hate me, either. I just married Grant. They've known him a long time and they’re so close. They won't understand all of this.” She rolled in my direction. “I need to start talking to them. I can talk to my dad. I just can't spring it on them. I need to give it time. Maybe a year.”

Another year? Fucking hell. But what was one more at that point? It would take me more than that to get over her, which was fact.

I thought about what she was offering. She wanted me to wait. More. A year. A year wouldn’t be so bad as long as we still had communication. Without that, I’d smother in my head. She asked me for time to ease out of a marriage that looked great on paper, but shitty on the wall.

We could at least count on Reggie to be on our side. He never liked Grant to begin with, according to Blake.

But could I patiently wait while she went back to him?

I answered the best I could, the only answer I ever had for her. “You know I can't say no. That's what this is all about. I can't say no to anything you ask of me, and you can never say yes to me in return.”

“I say yes to you more than you know.” Blake sat up and hugged her knees. “I say yes to you on the inside.”

That made sense. It was f*cked up and nobody else could possibly get what she meant, but to me, that was real.

“Don't make me wait too long. Please, Blake. Not a year,” I pleaded.



She didn't go to work on Monday. I showed her how I made my first homebrews in the basement and we decided that someday she'd make one of her own.

We talked about things we'd never discussed before. Things that were listed under the category of Future. Each moment felt almost fictional.

She worked on Tuesday and the rest of the week. Things moved. The cogs of life started to turn.

We even had Cory, Micah and Foster over on the weekend.

If I was going to win a life like the one I was pretending was real, then the wait would be worth it.

It was perfect. I felt relief like I'd never known. Having Blake around morning and night, being able to touch or kiss her on cue of any whim I had to do so, was f*cking life changing. It was like that time she let me sample the cheesecake, giving me just a taste so that I knew what I was fighting for.

This life. This was what I was fighting for.

The only difference was this time she was the one who had to do all the fighting. Maybe she was reminding herself how much she loved the cheesecake, too.

In those two weeks, we thrived. I hadn't seen her bite at her nails once. She was my Blake, and it suited her so well.





Thursday, November 5, 2009


THE NEW SLEEPING ARRANGEMENT with Casey suited me fine.

Waking up with his arms around me felt like the way waking up should be. The most horrific part was realizing that all along he was right. It would be too hard to wake up with him not there.

I had promised Grant I would come home for a weekend and it seemed that Casey’s and my time was on fast forward right to that day. Both Casey and I knew it was coming. I'd told him the night before over dinner, that even though I didn't want to leave, I had to.

He got quiet for a while, but he didn't fight me. Maybe we were all fought-out by then.