Sitting at our table, watching her pick at her food, while everyone—Maureen and the little girl—ate and carried on like nothing was wrong made me want to flip the table over. I’d found peace through chaos before, knew the meaning of it, and I was ready to claim mine again.
I needed fucking sleep like a heart needs an artery.
As if she could hear me, my wife’s eyes rose to meet mine. She dropped the vegetable she’d just picked up from her full plate a second later.
The tension in my jaw was tight, sending shocking lines of heat up to my temples. She wasn’t playing games, not on this, and that unsettled me even more. The heart I stole from her was doing a wicked thing to seek its revenge—it had gone on strike and refused to beat. And that beat was what calmed every noise that was causing chaos in the emptiness for me.
I picked up my drink, putting it to my lips, wondering if the glass was going to shatter in my hand. Something soft tapped against my skin before the liquid touched my tongue. I looked down and saw Connolly, who had her hand on mine. She smiled and then inclined her head behind her. I turned to look. Maureen had set out a pie.
“You want dessert?” The sound of my voice echoed inside of the glass. I put the fucking thing down; I hadn’t even taken a drink out of it. I glanced at her plate. “You ate all of your food.” My eyes met my wife’s again, but this time she rolled them at me.
Connolly giggled and shook her head, moving her warm hand on my arm and pulling herself up closer to my ear. “Ha-ppy,” she whispered in a scratchy, low voice.
I narrowed my eyes at her and she narrowed hers back. She was getting plenty of practice in for later—her man wasn’t going to know what to do with her someday, either. All female talk was in fucking code.
Instead of waiting for me to understand, she jumped up, going for the pie on the counter. Keely followed her, going to help. It was the only time she smiled, when she was doing something with one of the kids.
Books. Movies. Broadway. Archery. Even painting. Nothing compared to when she looked at those kids.
Connolly’s smile was even bigger when she set the plate in front of me and then patted me on the head. Maybe she thought I was a big fucking cat.
“Ha-ppy,” she repeated, staring at me.
She kept staring at me.
I looked around. Everyone was staring at me. Maureen was trying to hide her grin. Keely was scowling, as if I better do something then and there or she was going to fling the pie in my fucking face. I opened my mouth to speak, but I was met with a mouthful of whipped cream before I could.
I’d never heard a kid laugh so hard. Connolly doubled over, the spoon still in her hand, laughing so loud that the entire table started to do the same.
Except for me.
She’d just spoon-fed me like she tried to do her little brother.
Me.
A grown-ass man.
I tried to ignore it, but my wife’s laughter rose above the rest.
A second later, Connolly came back with another spoonful, and this time, when she stuck it in my mouth, I bit down, not letting it go. I growled at her and she growled back. Pie was flying in all different directions, and it was a fucking sugary mess, but the kid was laughing so hard, I worried for her lungs.
In short, though, she was finally enjoying her life. She was comfortable in this house, with us.
I looked up before she came in with another spoonful and met Keely’s stare. She was still smiling, but her eyes had changed. They were at war with the rest of her face. She couldn’t hide the internal war that raged.
“Okay!” she said when she realized that I’d noticed it. She scooped Ryan up, making him laugh, and stuck him on her hip like he was made to sit there. “Bath time!”
Connolly gave me one more bite and then stuck a finger on each side of my lips, where my mouth dimpled from grinning at her. “Ha-ppy,” she said again before she ran behind Keely, following her up the steps.
Maureen appeared beside me, going for my empty plate. “It’s not that hard,” she said, patting me on the head. Yeah, I was a fucking pet