Foundations - Kate Canterbary Page 0,1

for the things I wanted. To be fair, I'd known how to ask since the very first night but that was a different story. I knew and I'd never held back before. But our lives were different now.

Everything, it was upside down. All new.

New house, new baby, new roles. We weren't the same Matthew and Lauren anymore. We were husband and wife, mom and dad. The roles we'd known for the past six years were transforming and nothing we did during my pregnancy actually prepared us for this.

For the time and patience necessary to recover from childbirth.

For the losing battle of breastfeeding.

For sleep schedules and growth spurts and the endless piles of laundry. So much laundry.

For the seismic shift in the ways we met each other's needs.

This was a new era for our relationship and I wasn't the only one stumbling through it.

I didn't know how to ask for the things I needed right now and Matthew didn't know how to touch me anymore. He treated me like the most fragile glass in the world, a Fabergé egg of a wife. He hesitated when I reached for him. He stayed on his side of the bed unless I dragged him over to mine. He restricted his kisses to my tummy and kept his growls from turning into filthy demands.

Despite the sting of this shift, we loved each other more than I thought possible. It was more intense than ever but it was an intensity founded in distance. We gazed at each other from across the room in awe, as if to say, Look what we made. Look what we have. Look what we are. Look at where we are now.

We had a good thing going here. We had a healthy, mostly happy baby and a roof over our heads and enough family to keep us fed and supported through the toughest of times. And yet it would be great if we could teach each other what we needed and how to give it. How to find ourselves again.

"Have I told Judy how much I appreciate her taking the dawn shift? Because I do," he replied. "I'm going to miss that when your parents leave at the end of the month."

Not capitalizing on the empty house, are you?

Sigh.

"I believe you've mentioned it," I said. "I'm sure Ellie will be great in the mornings too. She's not my mom but I'm really excited she's going to spend the band's hiatus year with us."

"And Tiel," he added, still speaking to my belly.

If only he'd scoot a little lower.

"And Tiel," I agreed. "She's going to love having her best friend in town again." I brought my hands to his shoulders, pressing deep into his muscles. Massaging but also directing him toward an area of common interest. "My dad went with my mom and Maddie. On the walk. We have the place to ourselves."

"That's why it's so quiet." Matthew pushed up on one arm, staring at me with drowsy eyes. "Do you want to shower first? Or should I get in there?"

I slapped my hands against the sheets. The man I married never would've asked that. He would've tossed me over his shoulder and marched into the bathroom because we were showering together. My husband, the caveman and water conservationist. "No. I need—I mean, no," I replied. There was no hiding the irritation in my voice. "No. That's not what I'm saying. Why aren't you—what do I have to do?"

Matthew blinked at me, stifled a yawn. "What's wrong, sweetness?"

You're suddenly immune to my charms and I'm going crazy without you.

I didn't say that. I wanted to but—but what if it was different for him too? What if he still loved me but after seeing six different people stick their hands in my vagina, he wasn't especially excited about visiting there himself? Maybe his attraction was waning after watching lactation consultants tugging at my nipples like competing dairymaids. If any part of that was true, I wasn't ready to hear it.

I gathered my hair in my hands, twisted it into a messy bun. "I don't know. Nothing."

He shifted closer. "No," he said, drawing the word out. "Tell me." I reached for my hair again but he caught my hand in his, lacing our fingers together. "Tell me."

I started to ask for all the things I needed, the things I wanted to feel with him again. But I stopped myself. This conversation wasn't a quick one and we had to talk before we got back in the