When I walk in the door Sunday night, I’m greeted with something I never expected.
Fresh flowers sit in a vase on the kitchen table. The table is set, wine has been poured, and it smells like spaghetti sauce.
William is doing everything he can to win me back, but after the revelations I learned about Carson over the weekend, he really doesn’t have to try too hard anymore. I may not be happy with William at the moment, but I’m not running into Carson’s arms. It was a silly crush, and his own sister-in-law’s words about him play in my mind on repeat. He’s not the one for me.
The man who bought me flowers, poured me wine, and cooked my favorite dinner is.
“How was your weekend?” William asks as I walk in and set down my suitcase.
“It was fine,” I say. “What’s all this?”
“Just a little surprise for my lady.”
“That’s nice, William.” I don’t have the heart to say I can’t even look at wine right now after all I drank yesterday. I’m still feeling the effects with a lingering headache and a weak stomach, and I’m not sure I can even eat a meatball right now. I try to look at the positive side: maybe a rally is just what I need to knock out the hangover.
I let myself go yesterday. I let myself have fun. I let myself get drunker than I’ve been in a really long time. What did I have to lose?
Today, obviously, I’m paying for my lack of discretion, but it’ll pass—just like every other time I’ve proclaimed I’m never drinking again.
He walks over to me. “May I?” he asks as he leans in toward me, and I nod. He presses a soft kiss to my lips. I don’t get butterflies when he does it, but those fade over time anyway.
His eyes dart to my suitcase as he backs away. I can tell what he’s thinking before he even says a word. I’ve been in the door for less than sixty seconds, but he doesn’t like the suitcase sitting in the middle of the hallway. “Why don’t you get unpacked, and I’ll have dinner ready in about fifteen minutes?”
I want to put up a fight, but I don’t. I’m too tired, and frankly, I don’t particularly want the argument. So, like a good little girlfriend, I lug my suitcase up the stairs all by myself. Jerk didn’t even offer to carry it up for me.
I have to remind myself that it’s because he’s busy cooking me dinner. It was an oversight. He’s focused on doing something nice for me, so he forgot to offer to do another nice thing for me. I actually read a study that proves that men aren’t like women, that they can’t multitask the same way. They can only focus on one major thing at a time, and for William tonight, that was dinner.
I shouldn’t let it excuse the fact that he didn’t help me with my luggage, but I do. Come to think of it, I tend to forgive a lot of little things—far more than I should.
I shake off those thoughts. I came home tonight with the intention of patching things up with William, of moving forward with him again instead of living in the same house and avoiding him.
If I can let the big thing go—the thing where he kept truths from me that I deserved to know—if I can get past that, I can get past the suitcase thing, too.
I unpack my bag and return to the kitchen. He’s stirring the sauce, and I slip my arms around his waist from behind. I lean up and press a soft kiss to his neck. “Thanks for dinner. It’s really sweet of you.”
He turns around and pulls me against him. “You’re talking to me.” He sounds surprised.
“I am.” I lean my head back and he gives me a soft peck on the lips.
“Is this… Are you…” He doesn’t know how to form the question he really wants to ask: Are you over it yet?
“I’m still mad at you, William, but I don’t want to be. Can we just move forward with no secrets, please? Can we try to put this behind us?”
He nods. “Yes, of course, but you know I don’t keep secrets from you.”
“You did.”
He shakes his head. “I told you, that was attorney-client privilege.”
I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath before I explode. Clearly forgiveness over this situation just isn’t in my DNA, but I force myself to overcome it. I love William.
And if I keep reminding myself of that, maybe I’ll start to remember why—and, more importantly, maybe I’ll start to believe it again.
I clear my throat. “Let’s eat.”
“Go sit,” he says, like he’s taking care of the world when he’s actually doing a simple task that I do for him pretty much every night of the week.
I sit, and he proceeds to serve me dinner. A loaf of my favorite crusty bread sits on the table—he thought of everything.
He sits and starts eating while I twirl noodles around my fork. I take a bite, and it’s not half bad. Maybe William and I should start splitting the cooking duties.
Even as I think it, I know it’ll never happen. This is a special and rare occasion.
“So what did you do all weekend?” I ask.
“I worked yesterday, and then today I went to the store to buy everything to make dinner, and then I made dinner.”
My snarky and mean brain wants to ask, So preparing one meal was an all-day task?
I refrain.
“What’s going on at work?”
He shrugs. “The takeover is set to happen within the next month.” He lowers his voice as if that’ll soften the blow.
“How do you know?”
“The board has already been selling off shares. It won’t be long.”
“Have you?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Why not?”
I want him to say it’s because he can’t do it to my father, to my family. I want him to throw up a defense that’s worthy of my forgiveness. I want with everything I have to get us back to normal.
But he doesn’t answer, and that’s my answer.
He must be holding out for more money. He’s always been money-driven, but it was never an issue before. We both worked hard for our money. Baker Media is a fairly big company and my parents have always done all right for themselves, but they’ve instilled a work ethic in me. They didn’t hand anything to me; they made me work for it, even if it was working for their company in a position I might not have gotten without my last name. They have a trust set up for me, and I know they’ll always take care of me, but I haven’t touched any of it. I’ve always wanted to earn my own way, pay for my own car and my own house and my own things, even if I’m paying for it with the money I earn from my family’s company. It still feels untaintedly mine.
“Why not, William?”
“Can we talk about something else? It seems like you always get so angry when we talk about work, and I just want to have a nice dinner with you tonight.”
I nod. “Fine.” I rip a piece of crusty bread in half. The poor bread never even saw my frustration coming.
William even offers to do the dishes after we eat, so I relax on the couch and scroll through my work email.
There’s one from Carson. The subject line says “Business Dinner”.
I delete it without reading it. I don’t need any more complications.