Honeymoon Phase By Amy Daws Read Free Chapter 24

Luke

Cake tasting with your wife and mother sounds like a fairly innocent experience on the surface. Sitting in a cute little bakery in downtown Boulder. Light snow falling outside the picture window. Your mom prattling on and on about each cake’s consistency, frosting texture, and the “moistness.”

I always thought the word moist was disgusting, but hell if it isn’t eliciting some indecent thoughts in me today. Was my wife moist the night we kissed? Is there a chance she could be moist now? How many times has she been moist since we locked lips? Am I a fucked-up deviant for contemplating these thoughts with my mother seated right beside me?

The answer is yes.

But fucking hell, I can’t help it. Every time I watch Roe’s lips wrap around the metal tongs of the fork, her tongue darting out to lick a dollop of frosting off the edge of her mouth and the way her cheeks flush when we make eye contact . . . I realize that moist cake tasting might be the most erotic thing I’ve ever done.

The past two weeks have been a mind fuck. Kissing my wife was quite possibly the worst and best thing I could have ever done. Best because it was life-changing. It confirmed everything I thought to be true about my best friend. We fucking work. The chemistry is there. The physical oneness is next level. The desire is goddamn mind-blowing.

However, it’s the worst because we went from comfortable, fun-loving friends who have dinner together every night to two ships passing in the night.

Roe is avoiding me and I’m in hell.

And the most frustrating part is she’s not obviously avoiding me. She’s doing that annoying customer service thing she does where she speaks to me like I’m a client instead of her best friend.

Her husband.

She still shoots me a text before she goes for a run in the trails behind our cabins. She still makes dinner and does all the normal things she did our first week together, but now she chooses to eat in her room without giving me any reason why. Just mentions it like it’s totally normal for her to not eat with me, which fucking kills me. It feels like a form of rejection, like the kiss was bad or what I said to her afterward was too far.

Why did I have to call her a fucking good girl?

Because my penis had clearly taken over my fucking brain.

Roe isn’t a woman who can be told what to do. She isn’t a woman who takes orders. She’s a woman who gets things done. Like finding a guy to marry her for a year so she can take over the family business. That’s the kind of determined badass she is. And that’s why she’s here. That’s the only reason she’s here.

And I know Everly’s big mastermind plan was to get my wife to fall in love with me, but that’s going to be really hard when I can’t even figure out how to get my wife to spend time with me.

“Which one is your favorite, Addison?” my mom asks from her seat plunked right between the two of us. She’s got her binder spread out in front of her and has been taking notes through this entire tasting.

Addison yanks her eyes away from me and gives my mom her full attention. “I’m going to level with you, Jo. I love them all.”

My mom laughs and I notice Roe’s tense mood lightening just slightly. “You and me both. Gosh they don’t make it easy, do they?” She makes a note and then pulls her pen to her mouth. “What do we think about cupcakes? The baker said most of these cakes can be made into cupcakes so we can do a variety that way.”

“I love the cupcake idea.” Roe smiles warmly, her hazel eyes striking against her silky black hair that’s tied into a braid down one shoulder. My fingers itch to feel the nubs of that braid, to drag my coarse thumb over the strands, twist it around my fist and give it a little tug until she gasps in shock and submits to me. What I wouldn’t do to see my powerful, irritating wife on her knees, naked, panting, and taking orders from me for once.

“Luke!” My mom’s voice is loud, and I jerk my head to look at her, and the irritation on her face is obvious. “I asked what do you think of cupcakes?”

“Um . . . sure . . . whatever Roe wants.” I frown and stare down at the cake sitting on my fork, my face hot with shame over where my thoughts were going right in front of my mother.

When I look up, Roe’s eyes are tight on me, and I swear it’s like she can read my fucking mind.

I have to get control of this situation.

After saying goodbye to my mother outside the bakery, Roe turns to head to her car and I follow, my heart hammering in my chest as I approach her from behind. “Hey, can we talk for a second?” I ask, falling into stride with her as her boots crunch over the snow-packed sidewalk.

“Sure, what’s up?” she chirps in that irritating singsongy voice that she’s been using.

“Are we okay?” I ask, pulling my hat off and facing it forward.

“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?” She laughs and it grates on my nerves.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” she chimes back, picking up pace.

“You know what.” I stop walking and she keeps going until she realizes I’m not beside her and pivots to turn around and look at me.

We’re silent for a few seconds before I lift my hands up. “I miss you, Roe.”

Her brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“I just . . .” I exhale heavily and grip the back of my neck. “I miss you. Things have been weird since I kissed you and I hate to think I fucked this all up for us.”

“Things haven’t been weird. I’ve just been busy! Things at the yard are crazy and my dad is coming back next week and has some meetings set up that I don’t know anything about. It’s just a lot. It’s not you.”

The polite smile on her face gives me a pit in my stomach. She has this fucking wall up that I hate. She usually never has this with me. I see her have it with her dad, with the guys at the yard, with my mother.

Never me.

I narrow my eyes and eliminate the space between us. “If we’re good, then can we hang tonight?”

She shrugs her shoulders and says, “What do you mean, Luke? We live together.”

“I know but can we just not do the thing where we both come home, eat by ourselves, and then hide out in our bedrooms?”

“That’s not what—”

“Cut the shit, Roe. I miss my best friend.”

Her cheeks flush and finally I see a glimpse of my old friend poking through the hard outer shell. Her throat contracts before she says with a sigh, “I miss you too.”

“So let’s hang out tonight. Watch a movie,” I state firmly, tilting my head down to catch her downcast eyes. “I promise I won’t kiss you.”

Her cheeks flush and when she looks up at me, I swear I see disappointment flicker across her face. But she nods and says, “Okay, sure. Let’s hang tonight.”

“Good.” I exhale a sigh of relief. “I’ll bring home takeout. Any requests?”

She shakes her head. “Surprise me.”

“You got it, babe.” I make a move to brush her cheeks with my lips, but then think better of it. So, I step back and offer her a sideways smile instead. “See you tonight.”

I turn on my heel as her voice calls back, “See you later, husband.”

And that one word sends a flutter of need through my entire fucking body. Either she really is clueless about how I feel about her, or she knows exactly what she’s doing.

“Ew, I can’t handle the feel of his beak!” Roe squeals, dropping the walnuts out of her hand and back into a small glass bowl.

“I know,” I reply with a laugh as I rejoin her on the sofa. “It’s why I never hand-feed him. That sensation freaks me out too much.”

“Like tiny little pinches,” Roe confirms as she slides her hand down Rufus’s back. He’s standing on her lap as she sits on the couch. Our leftover sushi is on the coffee table, and we’ve been barely watching Yellowstone for almost two hours because we can’t seem to stop talking long enough to listen.

It’s been nice. Like the old days. The awkwardness from before seems well and truly gone, and I feel like I got my best friend back.

Roe yawns and stretches, the hem of her shirt riding up to reveal her soft stomach, which I would really like to touch like I did when we were kissing two weeks ago. She looks so good tonight in her baggy T-shirt and tiny shorts, her muscular legs hidden under the blanket that Rufus is now nuzzled into. If it were up to me, I would put that damn bird outside and get under that blanket with her.

But that’s not what tonight is. We’re not kissing. We’re not touching. We’re just . . . being friends.

Rufus jumps down off Addison’s lap, which usually means he needs to go to the bathroom, so I pick him up and set him out front for the night.

When I walk back into the living room, I glance at the clock, surprised how late it is already. “I didn’t realize what time it was. Do you want to go to bed yet?”

I pause when I realize how that sounded. It sounded like a husband asking his wife if she’s ready for bed. It sounded like we’d go to the same room and sleep together. God, would I love that. I’d even love to just stay on this couch all night with her if it meant I got to remain near her, breathing in her sweet familiar scent.

She shrugs. “You can crash if you want. I’m good here.”

I drop down on the sofa next to her again. “I’ve noticed your late-night bread baking is next level these past couple weeks.”

She glances at the fresh loaves sitting on the counter all bagged and ready to go. “Well, since I got the new bread pan from the yard guys, I’ve been trying to get a fresh loaf to all of them as a thank-you for the gift. I’m just about done.”

“That was really cool of them to give that to you,” I reply, stretching my denim-clad legs out, and stare at the crackling fire. “They all must love you.”

“Yeah, I guess, but I’m glad we got your mom to put ‘no gifts please’ on our wedding invitations. I feel super guilty accepting that pan from them considering this is all temporary.”

I wince and look away, trying to hide the sting from that sentence and then go back to what she mentioned earlier. “Have you ever seen a doctor for your insomnia?” I ask, noting that some days the dark circles under her eyes are more obvious than others.

“Yes,” she groans back and turns on her side to lay her head on the back of the sofa. “And I have meds that can help me sleep, but they make me feel awful the next day, so I try to only take them when I’m desperate.”

“What happens exactly when you try to go to sleep?” I stretch my arm out behind her, my fingers itching to push the loose strand of hair off her cheek.

“My mind won’t shut off.” She turns to face me, crossing her legs under the blanket. “My body is tired but my head races with things I need to do or conversations I’ve had with people that embarrass me. I worry about the future and the past . . . especially the past.”

“Like stuff about your brother?” I ask, my brows furrowed as I watch her body for cues that I’m going too far.

She nods woodenly. “It happened so many years ago, but I still can’t stop remembering that jarring feeling of being woken up by my dad to say we have to go to the hospital because Mom and Aaron were in a car accident. It’s like my body is constantly on edge, waiting for an emergency, which makes it impossible for me to fall sleep.”

My jaw tightens as a similar memory floods my mind. “After my dad died, I couldn’t stop counting the chest compressions I did on him every time I tried to go to sleep. One, two, three, four . . .”

Addison’s head snaps to meet my eyes, her face full of shock and horror.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” I pull my arm out from behind her, shaking my head with irritation for even saying that out loud. She literally can’t sleep because of her past trauma, and I just dumped my own on top of hers.

“No, please,” she says, scooting closer to me and placing her hand on my leg. Her eyes are grave on mine. “I want to hear about this, Luke. I’ve wanted to ask about your dad for a long time but never felt like I had the right to after . . .”

After you barely responded to my texts when I told you he died.

After you didn’t even show up for the funeral.

After your name wasn’t even signed on a bouquet of flowers from the lumberyard that your dad’s office assistant probably ordered.

Her not being there for me was cold and detached and hurt more than I’ve ever told her. And I never told her because I’m weak . . . and . . .

I love her.

You can forgive a lot when you love someone.

She swallows nervously, her entire body tense as she sits crisscross, giving me her full attention. “What happened exactly? Can you tell me about it?”

I inhale a deep breath. I haven’t spoken about this in the three years since we lost him. It’s not exactly a fond memory to relive and I find that talking about it just resets my grief.

But looking at Addison, my best friend, my wife . . . I feel like I need her to know this part of me. I need the woman I’m in love with to know the hurt that I’ve endured in order for her to see me. All of me. And even then, she still may not want me or love me back.

I swallow the knot in my throat and close my eyes. “We were here on Fletcher Mountain . . . just me and Dad. He was helping me adjust my cabin’s solar panels because a storm had screwed up their alignment. I ran to go get a tool from his truck, only to come back and find him collapsed—his lips already blue.”

Addison inhales sharply, pressing her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Luke.”

I wrinkle my nose and avoid eye contact with her. The look on her face too much for me to manage with all of the emotions swirling in me. “Being a volunteer firefighter for Jamestown prepared me medically for that situation. I knew CPR, so I got to work on him.

“But nothing prepared me for the emotional mind fuck that played through my head when I had to . . .” my voice cracks as the sensation roils through my body “. . . feel my own father’s sternum break under my hands.” I hold my hands up, looking at them like they’re fucking monsters. Breaking a sternum during CPR is normal, but breaking my own father’s? I am a fucking monster.

“And the part I’ve never told anyone because I’m so ashamed and disappointed in myself, is the unexpected gag reflex that happened to me when I had to blow air into his mouth. It’s so fucked . . .”

I drop my elbows to my knees and bow my head, feeling the horror of that day all over me again. Like it was yesterday. CPR is not something anyone should have to do to their own father. It’s why hospitals don’t let doctors operate on family. It’s not right to see a family member like that. It’s fucking haunting.

“Oh, Luke,” Addison croaks and I look up to see her eyes filled with tears, streams falling down her cheeks with every blink. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” I grind out, my own eyes welling as the pain on her face matches the pain in my soul. “Especially because it was all for nothing. I tried to resuscitate him for eleven minutes and when he showed no signs of improvement, I made the decision to carry him to my truck and rush him to the hospital in Boulder. In my mind, I thought an ambulance would have taken way too long to get up the mountain and this was the smarter choice.”

A flash of him slumped in my back seat hits me all over again. The man weighed more than me by at least twenty pounds, but I don’t remember him feeling heavy. I was consumed with adrenaline. Panicked to be on this mountain alone with my dad, who was literally dying right in front of me.

“He was pronounced dead soon after they admitted him. Just like that.”

Addison huffs out a noise of discontent. Her whole body curled up into a ball as she watches me through the tears in her eyes. “You did everything you could.”

“I guess,” I huff, yanking my hat off and tossing it on the coffee table. I run a hand through my hair, ruffling it off my head a bit. “But it took months for me to stop questioning every decision I made. Months for me to stop counting myself to sleep. It crushed my whole family obviously, but no one bore the burden of the memories I had. I was alone in that.”

And I couldn’t talk about it with any of them. With anyone.

Everyone was in shock.

Everyone was grieving.

Everyone was rallying around Mom, trying to comfort her in any way she needed. And I was so fucking alone.

Day after day.

Night after night.

And my best friend was nowhere to be seen.

I inhale deeply, staring at the embers sizzling in the hearth, hating that I have the memory of my dad’s face in death. Slackened jaw, discolored lips. I don’t want that memory. I want to remember him alive and well and yelling at me and my brothers to get our shit together.

“I always thought a heart attack would be the way to go. Quick and painless. But nothing about seeing my dad like that looked painless. I feel like I just hurt him for no goddamn reason.”

“You were performing lifesaving measures, Luke,” Addison says, her voice hoarse as she reaches out to grab my hand, her fingers trembling as she squeezes mine. “You would have had regrets if you did nothing too. And if you got a firefighter call and showed up to someone else’s house, you would have done the same exact thing. Fact or fiction?”

I struggle to look into her eyes.

“Look at me,” she states firmly, grabbing my chin and turning me to face her.

I blink slowly, my eyes hurting over the fact that the woman I love knows this darkness in me now. I liked being the light in Addison’s life. I can tell she needs it. Craves it. Bringing this to her could have just set me back for all I know.

I breathe deeply and reply, “Fact.”

“Then that’s all you need to know.” She wraps her hands around my arm and lays her head on my shoulder, the smell of her floral shampoo invading my nose and unexpectedly comforting me. “You should sleep well at night knowing you did everything you could.”

“I just wish I could quiet the what-if questions. What if I’d called 911 to get an ambulance up there instead? What if I’d done CPR longer? What if my dad was showing symptoms earlier that day and helping me just made him worse?”

Addison’s head moves on my arm as she nods her understanding. “What if my mom wouldn’t have driven drunk? What if she would have opened up about not being sober and tried to get help? What if she would have attempted to have a relationship with me after jail? What if Aaron was still alive? It’s fucking exhausting to live with the what-ifs.”

“I know.” I exhale heavily and wrap my arm around her, comforted by the feel of her weight on me. This is everything I wanted back then. “I just miss him. I miss his voice. He had this gruff sound to him that just . . . felt like home.”

“Oh, I remember,” Addison says, leaning back to smile up at me. “I took most of the orders at the building center back then and he was a talker on the phone.”

I smile at that. I like that my dad knew Addison before he passed. It’s comforting to me to know that he knew my wife.

Her brows knit together, and she chews her lip before reaching to the coffee table to retrieve her phone. “I have something for you actually.”

I frown as she unlocks her phone to pull something up.

“I’ve been saving this, not sure what to do with it.” She pulls up the voicemail app on her phone and I frown when she scrolls down and clicks Play, turning it on speaker as she does.

Suddenly, my dad is in the room with us.

“Hey, Addison, this is Steve Fletcher . . . say listen . . . we need to revise an order that my son placed with you for the Hope House before I gave him the go-ahead.”

“Hey! You told me to do it!” Calder’s voice shouts from somewhere in the distance.

“I didn’t tell you to do it,” my dad argues.

“Someone told me to do it. I bet it was Luke.”

“Don’t pin this on me,” my voice says with a laugh.

“Then it was Wyatt. Ouch!” Calder yells. “Dad! Wyatt just decked me. That’s an HR violation. I want to file a report.”

The phone muffles and my dad’s voice is loud and clear in the line again. “Sorry you had to hear that, Addison. If you ever have sons who work for you at the lumberyard, I hope like hell you can manage them better than me, ’cause I’m fit to be tied with these knuckleheads. Anyways . . . call me back so we can get that order changed if it’s not too late. Thanks.”

I frown at the phone, too stunned to speak and then hear a scuffle into the line. It’s my dad’s voice again.

“For the record though . . . I wouldn’t change working with my sons for anything in this world. You would be lucky to have this life in your future. Talk to you later, kiddo.”

Addison lowers the phone and turns to see that my eyes are flooded with tears. It was like I could close my eyes and none of the bad stuff happened. Suddenly, he was back on this earth, living with my mom. He was my boss and my dad again, giving me a pat on the back and I could pick up the phone to talk to him right fucking now. It’s equal parts wonderful and dreadful and I’d listen to that message all over to feel this beautiful pain again.

“Why did you keep this?” I ask, staring at my best friend in wonder.

She blinks and errant tears fall down her face as well. “I didn’t realize it was still on my phone until last year and I was too scared to share it with you then. It felt too personal. Like I didn’t have a right to give it to you, especially after I was so awful when he died. I hope it’s okay I played it for you now.”

“It is. Good God, babe, it is more than okay.” My chest swells with a pain that feels so bad and so good all at the same time as I pull my best friend into me and hug her with everything I have. “I think I needed that more than I realized.”

She pulls back, her chin trembling wildly as her face fills with urgency. “Luke, when Steve died . . . you called me and said a lot of stuff about everything and I’m not proud, but it triggered me, and I shut down on you. I was suddenly twelve years old again and watching my dad bury my brother. I don’t know when funerals will ever feel okay for me again. But I hate that I wasn’t there for you. You have to know I was thinking of you constantly on that day and many days after. I still think of you constantly. You’re on my mind like . . . all the time. When I can’t sleep at night, I’m thinking about you as well.” Her face flushes red as she shudders out a garbled breath and wipes aggressively at the tears on her face.

“I’m on your mind all the time?” My brain swims with confusion, wondering what I care more about. Her words or my dad’s. Honestly, they’re both giving me more than my heart can handle.

“Yes. Jesus,” she croaks and sniffs loudly. “This is embarrassing. I don’t know why I’m saying any of this.”

“Hey, Roe. It’s okay.” I tip my hand under her chin, so she looks up at me.

“No, it’s not,” she snaps, pulling away. “I’m being weird. You just shared so much with me and I’m turning this into a me thing and it’s not.” She inhales deeply through her nose, her chin trembling slightly.

“Hey, Roe?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re on my mind all the time too.” My voice is deep and steady as I stare into the depths of her eyes, seeing glimmers of hope that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.

“I am?” She licks her lips and stares back at me with so much emotion, I want to kiss her pain away. She looks like she wants me to kiss the pain away.

I swallow the knot in my throat. “I like thinking about my wife.”

She inhales a shaky breath and closes her eyes. “Is that fact or fiction?”

My lips thin as I gaze back at her. The woman who I would forgive for much worse because I guess that’s what love is. Loving someone through their imperfect moments. “Fact.”

But as she looks up at me all open and vulnerable and admitting how much I’m on her mind, I stop myself from kissing her. Because the next time I kiss her, I need it to be for forever. No more games. No more bullshit. I won’t kiss Addison Monroe until I know she loves me back, because if she doesn’t, there’s no amount of CPR that will be able to heal my broken heart.