SIX MONTHS EARLIER
Jace Bennett
TO THE UNTRAINED ear, every Ramones song sounded exactly the same.
They were all fast, short, wickedly funny and deceptively simple. But the hardcores like me knew the truth: no two songs are the same. “Wart Hog” sounded nothing like “Judy Is a Punk,” and “I Remember You” was about as far away from “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” as one could imagine.
“Pet Cemetery” was playing as I stared at the picture of Tricia and me with Scarlett in our front yard the day we brought Scarlett home from the hospital. It was exactly one hundred and thirty-three days after the one-year anniversary of Tricia’s death. I counted the days that way. I wasn’t sure why.
I was feeling restless, unable to concentrate. My eyes bounced from the striped wallpaper, distressed wooden floors, fabric chairs, and finally down at the large onyx desk where my laptop was perched. Everything mixed and matched in such a way it was undeniable that they were selected with coordination in mind.
The entire house was the exact same way. Every room decorated with care and understanding. Comfort and logic. Luxury and frills.
No expense was spared.
I was glad I could give her that.
Tricia and I had purchased the brownstone right before we married. The place was old and needed a shit ton of work. I wanted to pass on the house, but Tricia saw potential she couldn’t pass up. I imagined it was how she felt about me when we first met. A little broken, but with some tender-loving care she knew she could put it back together, just as she had me.
At first we were both too busy with our careers to bother with redoing it. Flirt was just making great strides, and her interior design job brought her so much satisfaction, she couldn’t let it go.
But as soon as we found out she was pregnant, she decided it was time to quit. During those nine months before Scarlett was born, she coordinated the complete renovation of our home and was certain to include every modern convenience. She knew what I liked and never cut corners.
I focused on working, or wanted to be. I started to tap on my keyboard, but stroke after stroke no coherent words would form. My mind was trapped in the days of the construction and the nuance of coming home to her every night.
The knock on the door was light.
A quick glance out the window from my office told me it was Ethan. His car was parked in the drive. The visit was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
I looked at the clock. It was ten. I was up. I was always up—working. He knew that.
As soon as he walked in, I could tell he was twitchy and nervous. It wasn’t so much unlike him, and I honestly paid little attention. Scarlett was fast asleep, so I turned the speakers in the living room on, allowing the Ramones to play quietly through them, and then grabbed us both a beer before taking a seat.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
With a beer in his hand, Ethan stood. “I have something I want to discuss with you.”
I raised a brow. “Sounds serious. What is it?”
Ethan took a few steps toward the window, and then turned back to me. “Remember that girl from MSU?”
I tensed. By saying that girl, I knew exactly whom he was referring to. She was my first love, but she belonged to Ethan first. Although technically I had met her before him, I had lost her, literally. “Yeah, of course I do.”
He was pacing now. “She was smoking hot, right?”
I nodded. She was so much more than that, but Ethan wasn’t aware of just how much, and the past was better left in the past.
He stopped pacing and looked right at me. “And Fiona is smoking hot too, don’t you think?”
Setting my beer down, I let out a forced laugh. “Yeah, of course I do, but she’s your wife, man. I really don’t think about her that way.”
A shaky palm ran through his blonde hair. “What if I told you I wanted to do with Fiona what we did with her?”
“You want me to fuck your wife?”
Ethan hesitated and seemed to ponder this. “Well, maybe not exactly the same thing as we did back then. No intercourse, but other things.”
Lost for words, I got to my feet and strode past him to look out the window. The threesome had gotten out of control. She and I were spending more and more time together, and Ethan less. It was fucked up and messy, but I knew he had never seen it that way. The guilt had stayed with me, though.
I looked over my shoulder. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
His response was immediate. There was no hesitation that time. “Fiona wants to know what it is like, and I want to give her that. I want to make her happy. Make us both happy.”
Christ. Was he for real? Here I thought he had changed so much since college, but it didn’t look like he had. I shot him a glance. “No fucking way.”
Ethan strode over and stood beside me, arms crossed. “Why not?”
I turned toward him. “Because Fiona is your wife.”
Those eyes of his narrowed. “And she was my girlfriend. That didn’t stop you back then.”
Chaos swarmed me. I gulped for air. We hadn’t talked about her since everything ended. “Ethan, come on, man, you know this is different.”
“Yeah, I do. This time it’s all on me. And this time there won’t be any going behind my back.”
I stared at him. The son of bitch knew. He actually knew. That same old guilt hit me hard. And yet I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I shook my head, no.
His gaze narrowed. “You owe me this, man,” he said quietly.
I stopped shaking my head.
“And besides,” he went on, “it’s not like you won’t be getting something out of it, your wrist must be getting tired.” That last part he said with a snicker.
“Fuck you,” I spat back.
That was the same as saying yes about Fiona.