My body instantly relaxes as I soak all the way up to my neck.
With nothing to do, I flick at the bubbles on the top of the water and wonder—what the hell am I going to do with my life?
I’m not happy. Quite depressed, actually.
Before we moved to California, I had a job, a social life, and purpose. But here, I feel like I’m just . . . I’m just Ryot’s wife. And although I do take pride in marrying the man, I know I need more than this. I need him to listen to me and see me like he used to. I’ve told him how I feel, how sad I feel, how I need him to listen to me, but . . . he just hasn’t.
I hear a pair of shoes hit the floor as I look up toward the bathroom entrance to find Ryot undressing. His suit jacket is off, his vest is gaping, and he’s working on the last buttons of his dress shirt. His tan, carved skin peeks through, and even though I’m angry with him, I can’t help but stare at my husband.
Since he left baseball, he hasn’t given up on his routine, and sure, it might annoy me at times—why can’t the man just eat a donut—but he looks amazing. Sexy. Irresistible.
“Thank you for dinner, babe.”
“You ate that quick.”
“I was starving.” He sheds out of his dress shirt, and my eyes fall on his impeccable chest. He removes the watch I got him a few Christmases ago and sets it on the bathroom countertop next to his cologne that smells like absolute sin. When he turns back toward me, he says, “I’m sorry I let you down tonight. I know an apology means nothing, and my actions speak louder, but I need you to know I truly am sorry.”
I can’t look at him out of fear I might cry, so I play with the bubbles. “Thanks.”
“Want to tell me what you did today?” he asks as he takes a seat on the side of the tub.
Since he seems focused, I say, “Not much. Went for a long walk around the neighborhood. Went grocery shopping, did the laundry.” I shrug. “Worked on some mock designs of a hotel lobby for fun. I have this idea—”
“I saw one of those mammoth dogs on my run this morning,” he says, making me wonder if he actually listened all the way to the end of my answer or was already absorbed in his own day again.
He leans forward and lifts my chin so he can press a soft kiss to my lips.
And because I can’t seem to keep myself away from him, I sink into his mouth as he slips his hand behind my head and filters into my hair.
Our kiss grows heavier, stronger, and more intense with every breath. Before I know what’s happening, I’m rising from the water and undoing his pants.
He slips out of them and pulls me from the tub then lays me on the bath rug, where he spreads my legs and slips his delicious cock inside me.
I cling to him like he’s a lifesaver, helping me stay afloat, yet . . . he’s also the thing drowning me.
And with every pulse of his hips, I think to myself, why doesn’t he see me like he used to?
Why can’t he be the man I once knew and fell in love with?
Why can’t our life be like it used to be several months ago when we were the only things that mattered in each other’s lives?
Why can’t I see myself lasting here even when I once thought Ryot’s love was all I needed to feel complete?
RYOT
Four weeks later . . .
“What the hell is wrong with you, Myla?” I shout as I shut the garage door behind me and toss my keys on the kitchen counter.
“Wrong with me?” she asks, spinning around to face me. Her piercing blue eyes slice right through me. “If you don’t know the answer to that question, then I can’t help you.” She takes off toward the stairs.
I follow.
“I don’t know the fucking answer. I can’t read your goddamn mind.”
Fresh from my good friend JP’s engagement party, where I had to deal with her cold shoulder and tight-lipped attitude, followed by a magnificent display of the silent treatment in the car, I’ve just about had it.
Myla pauses at the top of the stairs and says, “Then I can’t help you.” She spins back around and heads into our bedroom.
I’m going to have a fucking coronary.
Charging up the rest of the stairs, I plow into the bedroom, where Myla is slipping off her dress. “Uh, excuse me, a little privacy, please?”
Through a clenched jaw, I say, “You’re my goddamn wife. There is no such thing as privacy.”
“What rulebook are you reading? Peeping Tom, Edition One?”
“Enough with the sarcasm, Myla.” I tug on my hair, my patience nonexistent at this point. “Just tell me what the fuck I did that has put you in this shit mood.”
“Like I said, if you don’t know—”
I grip her wrist and spin her toward me. Only in her bra and underwear, her body presses against mine. I wrap my arm around her waist.
“Now, Myla, we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”
She rolls her eyes. “What are you going to do, Ryot? Fuck it out of me? Pretty sure we’ve figured out that sex doesn’t get us anywhere in our arguments.”
Realizing this might be more serious than I first assumed, which was some way I’ve annoyed her again, I say, “Then tell me what I can do. Tell me what the hell is going on so I can fix it.”
“Why do you even care?” she asks as she presses her hand against my chest and attempts to get away.
“Why do I care? Uh, because you’re my goddamn wife, because I love you, and because I don’t want to live in this constant state of anger that we’ve been living in. Hell, Myla, it’s been a month of this cold shoulder bullshit.” Off and on. More angry days than not.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not. Ever since we moved out to California, you haven’t been yourself.”
“Oh, so this is my fault?” Her expression morphs into disbelief. “Are you really going to blame me?”
“No, Jesus. I’m just trying to have a conversation.”
She pushes away from me and steps toward the bathroom. “Yeah, well, communication has never been our strong suit, now, has it?”
“Because you won’t fucking talk to me,” I say. “You won’t communicate with me. You just shut down. And when I do try to have a conversation, you turn everything into sex.”
“Haven’t heard you complain about the orgasms,” she says as she strips out of her bra and underwear, leaving her completely naked.
Yeah, I’d never complain about the orgasms because our sex life has always been fucking incredible. So if she wants to fuck, I’m naked in seconds.
From the hook near her vanity, she grabs her short silk robe and slips it on.
While she starts her nighttime routine of putting her hair in a bun secured by a silk scrunchie and washing her face, I move toward the doorframe and lean on the wood, watching her.
In a soft, steady voice, I say, “Just tell me what I fucking did, Myla. I don’t want to fight with you.”
Her shoulders roll in, and she drops her hands to the counter as she uses the mirror to look at me. Her eyes are tired with bags resting under them. Her face is thinner than normal, and so is her body. Normally curvy, with delicious thighs that I love gripping on to, she seems more . . . fragile and, right now, there’s only intense animosity. Toward me. “Do I look happy, Ryot?”