I should deny it, but I’m already rising, already ripping off my belt. I can’t undress fast enough, as if she’s an apparition that will vanish if I close my eyes. She reaches for me, smiling as her mouth lowers, moaning as I hit the back of her throat.
I wake. I’m so close to coming that for a second I wonder if it’s going to happen entirely on its own.
I slide my hand into my boxers and grip myself tight, just the way I’d want her to do it before she took me into her mouth.
I spent the entire past week thinking about her and I’ll spend next week doing the same. This isn’t sustainable. Harrison was right.
I’m going to slip.
17
LUCIE
On Saturday, Jeremy comes to pick up the kids for their first overnight.
He’s only watched them for twenty-four consecutive hours once before, and though I try to assure myself they’ll be fine, I can’t quite take a full breath as he swerves into the driveway.
This time, he doesn’t get out of the car. He just lays on the horn while staring right through me as if I’m now invisible to him. I doubt that I am, given he was texting only yesterday to tell me how selfish I am for ‘destroying our family.’
I walk the twins to the car, my hand gently resting atop each little head, dropping to my knees when we reach it and pulling them to me. Small lips are pressed to my cheeks and Henry clings, briefly, which makes it so much harder.
Jeremy deigns to climb from the car at last. “Let’s go, guys.” His voice is hard, edged with threat.
They release me and climb into the back. By the time I rise, he’s already walking away.
“Sophie’s allergy meds are in her bag,” I begin. “I wrote the instructions on a—”
“I know about her allergies,” he says, swinging the door open.
He doesn’t. I can’t think of a time he ever reminded her to take her meds or came to her appointments. I barrel on anyway. “Henry will need the night-light—”
He turns, smirking. “Parenting isn’t rocket science, Lucie. If you’d ever done anything significant with your life, you’d understand that.”
My stomach sinks as they drive away, knowing he won’t remind Henry to pee before he goes to bed or move his milk away when it’s too close to the edge of the table. Knowing he’ll be enraged when it goes wrong—when the milk spills or Henry has an accident or Sophie’s eyelids swell after they’ve just arrived at the park because he didn’t remind her to take her meds.
I’ve done this to my children, by leaving. How many days and nights of their lives will they spend under his thumb, suffering him because I couldn’t stand to keep doing so myself? Will there ever come a day when I’m certain it was the right decision?
I work on the plans for the seventh floor all night. Even once I’m in bed, I work, trying to distance myself from the loneliness of this empty house and the fear that it’s always going to be this way.
I’m woken in the middle of the night by the ringing phone. The lights are on, the laptop still open beside me, and I nearly fall out of bed trying to grab my cell before it wakes the kids, until I remember that they’re not here to be woken.
It’s Jeremy. My hands shake as I swipe over the screen to answer.
“Open the door,” he demands.
I’m still too panicked and sleep-dazed to ask why. Blearily, I rush downstairs and fling the door open to find him standing on the porch with Henry sound asleep in his arms.
“What happened?” I ask.
Jeremy’s gaze goes to my tank top and boy shorts. I guess I should have put on a robe, but it’s certainly nothing he hasn’t seen before. He was barely interested even when I wore less.
“Take him upstairs,” he says, thrusting Henry at me. I stand frozen, open-mouthed as he returns to the car to get Sophie. Whitney is sitting in the passenger seat, her face lit by her phone screen, as if none of this is happening around her.
“What are you doing?” I demand when he returns with Sophie. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Yes, Lucie,” he says, “I’m aware of the time. I have to head out of town, so I'm bringing the kids back.”
My eyes are still barely open, but I feel rage rushing through my bloodstream and it’s a thousand times more effective than caffeine.
“You what?”
He glares at me. “Unless you want them to wake up, keep it down.”
Grinding my teeth, I head up the stairs with him at my heels. I tuck Henry in while he deals with Sophie, and then I follow him back outside, the grass damp and sticky against my bare feet. "What could possibly have come up this late at night?"