his head. “I don’t know why you do that shit to yourself.”
I gasped, having never heard Pete curse before. Not that I didn’t think he was fully capable of it, but it just seemed so out of character.
Wait, to myself? What did he mean?
Before I could ask, he turned his back on me, obviously heading for the toilet even as he continued, “There’s nothing wrong with aging naturally.”
Oh my stars, he was intending to use the porcelain throne in front of me. While we were having a conversation.
I pushed off the counter and bolted for the bedroom, ignoring his call of, “Where’s the fire?”
“Gotta go!” I raced out of the bathroom and the bedroom still clad in blanket, bandages, and baby-doll nighty. The morning erection had almost stopped my heart. No way could I handle seeing Pete Green pee in front of me.
Who did that? I stopped, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. George had never done that but from what Darcy said, that was standard behavior of men. Specifically, married men.
I had been so focused on my right wrist that I hadn’t thought to check my left hand. I lifted it up to my face and stared. There sat a diamond and sapphire studded gold band. It had to be a wedding ring.
I was married to Pete Green! I did a little caper, right there in the hallway. Oh, happy happy day, it had worked! I, Joey Whitmore, had changed my entire destiny.
The hallway was brighter than the bedroom. I was on the second story of an open-air foyer that overlooked a massive great room below. The triangle windows were covered with heavy shades, giving no hint to what lay outside the house. Everything was white, brilliant, and clean. My own house! With my own husband that was really a man! And I was thin!
Life couldn’t get any better.
A glint of sunlight reflecting off glass caught my eye and I stopped dead in front of a transparent display case. Tears welled as I looked at the sight of an Olympic gold medal.
First place in floor routine. Beside it sat a silver with a small card underneath. Second for uneven bars. Bronze for the vault. My hand covered my trembling lips. Not just one Olympic medal, three. I couldn’t believe it. It had all been worth it. So what if I had lost my virginity to that tool Billy Tucker in a frigging barn? I was an Olympic champion.
I closed my eyes and pressed my bandaged forehead to the case. Everything I had longed for so desperately had become mine. I wanted to shout to the heavens. I knew that if I had just dodged that accident everything would work itself out.
My stomach growled. Loudly. Reluctantly, I turned away from the glorious sight of those medals and headed to the spiral stairs that led to the main floor.
The kitchen was at the back section of the house and on my way, I looked for more clues to what new forty-something Joey’s life was like. Did Pete and I have any kids? That thought drew me up short. What would it be like to meet my own children for the first time? Were they young? Or maybe teenagers. Boys or girls? If I had been at the Olympics in 2000, when I was twenty, I could have adult children by now! How long had Pete and I been married? Frustration gnawed at me. I had so many questions and no one to ask.
Hopefully, any potential offspring were nothing like I had been as a headstrong teenage gymnast. Until I’d been forced to deal with myself directly, I didn’t realize what a bratty pain in the butt I’d been. Note to self: cut mom some slack.
The side by side stainless steel refrigerator stood to the far end of the room. I moved to stand before it and then opened the doors, revealing its contents. Vegetables, vegetables and more vegetables littered every shelf. No eggs, only a cardboard container proclaiming to be egg whites. Almond milk, fat-free salad dressing. No orange juice or yummy looking leftovers to nosh.
I opened the freezer side. Regimented stacks of blue Tupperware stood in a row. A whole cellophane-wrapped salmon stared up at me with an accusing dead eye. Stifling a shudder, I shut the fridge and tried my luck with the glass-fronted cabinets.
Lots of fiber-rich whole grains and beans in identical glass containers with obvious labels. It looked like Jamie Lee Curtis’s house.