“How about I make you a deal? Wear some other color that isn’t black just once, and I’ll wear any color you’d like.”
“Any color?” he asks, amused, actually considering my proposal.
“Any color. The sky’s the limit.”
“Very well. I’ll indulge you in this little game of yours. What color does my wife want to see me in?”
I don’t even hesitate.
“Midnight blue. Like the color your eyes darken to sometimes. Or at least like one of them does.”
“Hmm. I’m surprised you even noticed such things about me.”
I notice everything about you, husband.
I just wish I didn’t.
“How could I not? It’s not every day you meet someone with a non-matching set.”
“But you prefer my blue to my green, otherwise you would have asked me to wear that color.”
“Your Irish blood is green enough for me. It’s the indigo blue that intrigues me.”
“So I intrigue you?” he muses, catching my slip of the tongue.
“Yes. Very much so,” I confess, unsure if I should be this candid with him.
His blue eye goes pitch black as it always does when an unnamed emotion hits him.
“You intrigue me too, acushla. More than you know.”
I bite my lower lip and bow my head, unable to keep eye contact when he’s looking at me like that. Like I would be a better meal than anything I could have prepared for him tonight.
“You really can’t help it, can you?” he announces, gaining my attention back on him.
“Can’t help what?”
“Fucking with my head.”
My forehead wrinkles at that statement, but I don’t dare touch it with a stick.
“Red,” he finally says after a long pregnant pause. “I want to see you in red. Do you think you can accommodate your husband’s request on this?”
“Yes,” I breathe out.
We both stare into each other’s eyes, and for a split second the world disappears, and all there is is him and me. But just as I’m starting to enjoy this unexpected moment of truce, I feel something isn’t right.
“No… No. No!” I shout, pushing my chair back and running to the ensuite in my bedroom.
I slip off my pants and sit on the toilet, grabbing toilet paper to wipe myself with. When I bring it back up and see droplets of blood on it, hot tears begin to blur my vision. It’s only when I catch movement in my peripheral, that I see Tiernan is standing at my bathroom’s door, watching me.
“You got your red, husband. Happy?”
He frowns.
I let my tears fall as I slump onto the bathroom tile floor, uncaring that I’m letting him see me like this.
Logical thought tells me that not getting pregnant the first month that I’m actively trying to is to be expected. That sometimes it can even take years for a woman to conceive and that I should just brush this off and not take it as my own personal failure. But even as I try to gain some perspective that this is normal, and that I should expect such disappointment in the future, my heart still weeps for the love that is just outside my grasp.
I’m so consumed with my suffering that I don’t even pay attention to Tiernan’s actions until he’s kneeled down right beside me, brushing away the strands of my hair that are glued to my cheeks from my tears.
“Shh, acushla. Shh,” he whispers, placing gentle kisses to my wet cheeks and eyelids.
My shoulders tremble with each sob that comes out, unable to control the wave of sadness gutting me. I don’t even complain when Tiernan begins to undress me, peeling off my shirt, pants, and the stained panties that mock me for my failings. He then picks me off the floor and walks me over to the bathtub. Sometime during my grief, he must have managed to fill the tub with warm water. He gently lays me in it, and once I’m fully submerged, he kneels down beside me, folding his sleeves just above his elbow. He then picks up a bottle of liquid soap, fills his palms with it, and begins to wash my trembling form.
Misery has made me too exhausted to fight him off, and a part of me actually yearns for his soft caress, as if it could solve all my problems. I blink my tears away, biting my bottom lip to control the sobs that refuse to stop, as he ever so gently lavishes my every limb and soft curve with the floral-smelling soap.
We don’t say anything as Tiernan thoroughly lavishes my body with white suds and then rinses me off. With the same care and attention, he washes my breasts and in between my legs without uttering a salacious or mean word. None of this is sexual, which not only surprises me, but also has my heart shattering that my husband is even capable of such selfless care. Once he’s satisfied that my body is clean, he then begins to wash my hair with the same devoted attention.