Page 91 of From Best Friend to Bride
I took a step back. “Is this our first fight as husband and wife?”
“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “And it’s all your fault, so it’s up to you to make it right.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “In return, I’ll consider forgiving you in eight to ten business days.”
“Business days? Wow. Tough opponent.”
“Three to five if the apology is really good.” She stopped. “Now get out and stay out, you rotten, shouty husband.”
I reached for her, but my hand stopped a couple of inches short of her face. She looked at it in confusion, as if she hadn’t expected it to stop either, and I quickly dropped it. I turned away and rubbed the back of my neck, feeling a wave of awkward shyness tickle over me.
Touching her was a no-go.
God only knew how my day would fall apart even more if I did that.
“I’ll see you later. Apology in hand,” I added, barely glancing at her before I headed towards the door. “Let me know what time you think you’ll be done at work tonight.”
Deli sniffed and leant against the door. “If I feel like it.”
At least it wasn’t a no.
Now, how the hell did one apologise to their wife?
19
DELILAH
Fred blushing was a new one.
Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t as if I’d never seen him with a red face before. The man was ginger, for goodness’ sake. Red was his default colour any time the sun came out.
Butblushing? And shy?
No, no.
Those were new ones to me.
I wasn’t sure he could be shy. He’d always been a confident, extroverted kind of person, and I had yet to witness him so much as stutter when asking a girl out.
And I’d been his wing woman a lot of times.
He hadn’t blushed the first time I’d properly seen him naked when we were fourteen. Nor had he blushed when I’d burst into his room and pulled the covers off his naked body when we were eighteen. He had no issues wandering about with his chest out in front of me, either.
So, what was different this morning?
Especially for him to snap at me the way he had. That really was different. We’d argued before, of course, and it wasn’t exactly a new occurrence. We’d once been full of raging hormones and the demons of uncontrolled PMS.
Well, I was.
Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to suffer the monthly drama that was the menstrual cycle.
Probably fortunate for the rest of us, too. He was enough of a drama queen without that hormonal cesspit added into the mix.
But still, we didn’t talk to each other like that. We didn’t snap out of nowhere. We vented, we argued, we ranted, we even threw insults at each other, but that? A flippant comment that felt way more personal than it should have?
I was hurt.
I didn’t want him to know that, though. I didn’t want him to know that his words had made me want to cry a bit in the shower.
The crying was probably because of my PMS, but I digress. It still hurt. Even now, as I stood here drying this glass three, four, five times, there was a little ache in my heart.
