Page 28 of Ever After

“Hey, sorry about Lindsee’s parents earlier today,” Jay says.

“There is nothing for you to be sorry about. I’m sure running into them wasn’t planned.” I take a bite of my shrimp fried rice. It tastes so good. I don’t remember the last time I had Chinese food.

“I’m sure it was still awkward for you. I never expected her to ask me to get back with Lindsee.”

“It shocked me when she said that,” I say with my mouth full of food. Jay hasn’t touched his food yet, and I’m over here eating like a pig.

“I never liked her mom. She was always in our business, always deciding for us. Lindsee would go along with it.”

“Her name suits her then,” I say and we both start laughing.

I couldn’t imagine Aiden’s parents coming up to me and asking me to give Aiden a second chance. Jay handled it, though. I would have exploded on them. It hurts to know Jay grew up with no family at all. Being bounced around from house to house. Never having a steady family. The way he talks about his life, it sounds like he has always been content with it, always putting one step in front of the other.

I’m waitingin the kitchen while Jay walks in with grocery bags around both arms. He wouldn’t let me grab any, and he insisted on doing it in one trip. He sets them down on the counter, and we both start pulling food out of the bags and putting it away. I get this déjà vu feeling. Weird, I can’t place where it’s coming from. I think more on it and realize maybe it’s because the two of us are putting groceries away, moving seamlessly around his kitchen like an old married couple.

This feels like when Aiden and I would go grocery shopping together. We used to always go together in the evening in the middle of the week because it was less busy at that time. We would come home and put the food away together, always leaving out what we were going to eat for dinner that night. After the groceries were away, we would work on dinner together.

I can’t believe I forgot about this. It was one thing we always enjoyed doing together. I always appreciated him for helping me because I know a lot of men leave it up to the woman to do that. As if it’s the woman’s job. I would always thank him after. He would tell me not to thank him because a marriage is fifty-fifty.

It makes me wonder when that stopped—and why it stopped. It’s one of those little things that made such an impact, and I didn’t realize how much of an impact it made until he stopped. It’s those types of actions that make a marriage work. No one knows how significant little things can impact a marriage until they go through it. It makes me sad to think Aiden and I got to this point without even realizing it.

Did I stop grocery shopping or did he? I can’t even remember. I used to enjoy doing that with him, and now I can’t even remember why it stopped, let alone that it even happened. I feel the urge to text him and ask him if he remembers. It can’t only be me that forgets these memories. This shouldn’t have ever been a memory left in the back of my head to be stored away. It shouldn’t have ever stopped to turn into a memory.

I grab my phone and have almost a hundred messages from him I’ve been ignoring. I put his messages on silent. It stops notifying me when his texts come through. I can see he has texted by the number of text messages rising. I decide against texting him and put my phone down out of reach.

Jay fills a pot with water for the spaghetti we are going to make. I grab a frying pan and start on the meat sauce. I can’t help but keep thinking about Aiden. The déjà vu feels so real right now, and I don’t know how to stop it from consuming me.

I continue frying the meat, trying to shake this feeling off. Jay has now turned on some music while we work in tandem in the kitchen. I glance over at him, watching him put the last of the groceries away. He sees me glancing at him and walks over to me, then wraps his arms around me and kisses my neck. A tingling sensation runs down my body.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Nothing, just admiring you.”

“What’s there to admire?”

“You being you.”

He bends down and kisses my neck again. I give him a slight smile and turn back to the stove. Not a lot of words are being spoken, just actions that I have been needing. Actions that I’ve wanted and needed from Aiden for so long.

My chest constricts, thinking about all the times I waited and waited for these actions from Aiden and I never received them. It always made me feel like I wasn’t worth his time. Like I was one of those ex-wives where the husband doesn’t put in effort but puts in effort with his new wife. The effort that the ex-wife was needing. Those situations have always crushed me when I see them. Why wasn’t his first wife good enough for him to save the marriage? The second wife comes along, and he makes all the effort in the world. I’ve seen it happen once to a friend of mine. Never understood why she wasn’t good enough. I could tell it hurt her a little, seeing what she needed from her ex-husband play out in front of her with someone else. She never let us believe she was hurting from it. Sometimes people make little sense. I guess it’s better to stop it than to force it to happen. But when should you realize enough is enough?

Texas heat isno joke in August. The humidity is a little rough, too. My state is so dry. I’m not used to this. Jay has a good client of his that lets him use his country club for free. He’s done a lot of contracting work for him, and always ensures he gets the best subcontractors to do the jobs that he needs done for his club. He appreciates how hard he works for him, so in return, he gets in for free.

We’re both sitting out by the pool. Jay feels bad when he works because I’m left with nothing to do or left home alone. He has computer work to do today, so he took me here so I wouldn’t be at home bored while he works. They have an open bar for members. Jay technically isn’t a paying member, but I’ve been using this open bar to my advantage. Every time the waiter comes with my drink, we tip them.

I'm not sure how much it costs to be a member. If they have an open bar for members, I couldn’t imagine the monthly price. Especially with everything else they have here. There’s a golf course that wraps around the entire club, two fancy restaurants with bars inside, tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts, an open gym, a pool with an outside bar and small cafe.

I felt out of place when we arrived. It’s a lot of older people that look bougie and settled more in life. I look around, wondering what everyone does for a living to afford this. Jay made a comment that he would never pay for this. He hardly ever comes. He said he never cared to bring Lindsee here. The money got to her head, and she wanted to spend it on extravagant purchases.

I’m four drinks in and I’m getting drunk. I lean over to look at Jay’s computer. “What are you doing?” I ask flirtatiously.

“Working.” He gives me the side-eye.

“Do you want to join in on the free drinks?” He looks over at me and squints his eyebrows.

“Is someone getting drunk with these free drinks?” I slowly take a sip of my drink from my straw and look up at him. My lips raise a little, giving him a small little smirk.

The next thing I know, Jay slams his computer shut, grabs our bags over his shoulder, and stands up fast. So fast I’m looking at him, confused. He reaches out for my hand, and I give it to him. He leads us out of the club before I can even ask what’s happening.

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