Page 1 of Forgotten Romance

PROLOGUE

Mack

When my husband, Davey, finally walks in our front door, it’s close to 2:00 a.m. He tries to sneak, pushing the door closed carefully, before standing his suitcase next to it and toeing out of his shoes.

My chest hurts just watching him. Everything about him is so familiar, and I miss it. Every day. We met close to twenty years ago, on his visit home after graduating college, and I’ve been consumed by him ever since. I wish we could go back to that. To the days when things were fun and easy and I didn’t have this bowling-ball-sized lump constantly sitting on my chest.

Davey turns and stumbles to a stop when he sees me. “Mack? Baby, I said don’t wait up.”

My face screws up against the need to cry through the anger burning me. “Why are you so late?”

“Flight was delayed.” His voice sounds wrecked. He’s definitely tired, but so am I. So tired. Not because it’s late, but because I’m married to a man who’s never home, who looks after his family by working himself into the ground, and who leaves me to explain to our kids where Daddy is.

I miss him so much it hurts.

But I’m tired.

“Well, it had to be something, right?” I ask, not trying to mask the hurt.

Davey rubs his temples, and I recognize the way his shoulders go stiff. “Mack … I can’t do this right now.”

“Do what? I’m not doing anything.”

He drops down onto the couch across from me, and I can’t hold in the thoughts I’ve sat with for the last six hours.

“Just saying that it’s becoming more and more common for you to get stuck at work these days. Or to miss your flight. Or to have to duck into the office or to take a call.” My throat is getting thick. “Or maybe it’s not work keeping you away at all.”

He sighs, looking at his hands and not me. “Please don’t do this again.”

“Well, there has to be some reason why you don’t want to be home with us.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” he snaps, like I knew he would. I know my husband so well by now that pushing his buttons is easy, and usually I do it to get the amazing makeup sex that comes with it, but I don’t think that’s what it is this time.

This time, I don’t even know what I want.

“I always want to be home with you,” Davey says. “It kills me to leave you and the kids, but it’s my job. Why don’t you get that?”

“Because you could have any job. And you choose the one that means you’re gone half of the time. You dump everything on me, pack your bag, and go, then expect me to be okay with that. It might have worked when it was just us, but the kids don’t understand. Having to do everything myself is too much.”

“You know how much I love what I do. You know how hard I’ve worked for this.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t realize you love it more than you love us.”

I know I’ve gone too far the second the words are out of my mouth.

Am I being an asshole? Yes.

Is it long past needing to be said? Also yes.

“That’s not fair.”

“Not fair? What’s not fair is only having a husband half of the time. The kids only having Daddy when Daddy wants to be around.”

“Mack …”

“We don’t even have sex anymore. Do you know it’s been six months? Six whole fucking months, from the man who couldn’t keep his hands off me when we met.”

“Is that what this is about? You want to have sex more?”

---