Page 78 of Method for Matrimony

Everyone avoided me. Guys who’d worked for us for years, guys who I’d shared beers and jokes with, guys I considered friends all inclined their heads, gave me respectable nods, and no longer met my eyes. There were no more jokes, no easy atmosphere on the worksite. At least not when I was there. And I was the one person to blame for that shit.

Because I couldn’t hold it together. Because I was frayed to the last single thread of my control, my sanity. It was Fiona, the situation. I felt fucking trapped. Suffocated. Again, I could leave. But I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to live with myself if I did. Furthermore, I couldn’t trust myself to be alone on the road where no one knew me, where no one gave a shit about me. Though the list of people who gave a shit about me now was considerably shorter than it had been five months ago.

It wasn’t just Fiona. It was the fact that being married to her, going along with this entire fucking facade, meant I couldn’t escape my shit like I had been for the past five years. Couldn’t drown myself in cheap booze, in pussy, couldn’t cloak myself with a persona that hid what a fucking wreck I was.

So yeah, I was a grumpy bastard. I snapped at people who didn’t deserve to be snapped at, I alienated my friends, and I hurt my wife.

Mypregnantfucking wife.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her fucking face this morning. She’d been up early. Much earlier than usual. I’d noted that she was even slower getting up now that she was pregnant. Made sense. She was sick as fuck, on her feet all day, and growing a human. She shouldn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn.

I’d actually sought Nora out one morning to communicate just that.

The woman had greeted me with an arched brow and guarded expression when I knocked on the door of the bakery before anyone got there. More often than not, Rowan was there with her, because my friend didn’t like to be away from his wife, and he didn’t like her alone in the bakery before most of the town woke up. I also knew he now alternated since they had a kid to think about and he’d be at home with her.

The wary look on her face made sense, yet it stung. Gone were the warm, shy smiles from my best friend’s wife.

“Fiona needs to get on a later shift,” I’d told her, deciding there was no point in pleasantries right now.

Nora’s face transformed from hostility to surprise. I didn’t know what she was expecting, but that wasn’t it.

“She’s too fuckin’ tired and still fucking sick, and she doesn’t need to be starting that early,” I ground out. “She needs sleep.”

Nora tilted her head, regarding me with interest now. She was never really good at maintaining hostility. Too much of a nice person. Fiona ranted about it all the time, how she needed to call some customers bitches because they really were.

Fiona considered herself the ‘bitch guardian’ of Nora. Though I thought the woman could hold her own when she needed to.

“She does,” she’d agreed.

I hadn’t been expecting a fight on this, exactly, but I wasn’t thinking I’d get such immediate agreement. I’d come here pretty fired up.

“Well, then get her on a later shift,” I grunted.

Nora put her hand on her hip, and her brow arched again. “I can’t be certain, but I’m sure I’d remember if you were here when I opened this bakery—you know, the blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, fights with French distributors.” She listed those things off on her fingers. “Because if you had been there for all of that, you might have a right to dictate my schedule. Since you weren’t, you don’t.” Her voice was sharp, sarcastic, and I felt appropriately chastised.

Despite that, I ground my molars. “You care about her. You should know she’s not doing well.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I care about her,” she said. “I’ve been there for every doctor’s appointment, have held her hair back when she vomited, have reassured her that she wasn’t going to go through this alone.”

Nora’s words hit home, as she intended them to.

“Then get her a later shift,” I snapped, intending on turning around and leaving.

“She won’t take a later shift,” Nora snapped back. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Fiona is stubborn. She’s strong. And she’s not going to let anyone treat her different because she happens to be pregnant.” She looked me up and down in a way that suggested she found me lacking. “Well, she’s let her husband treat her differently, but that’s only because she has absolutely no control over him being an asshole.”

I was taken aback. Nora was obviously mad at me if she was ready to straight-up call me an asshole.

Which I was.

“Is there anything else?” she asked, tilting her chin up at me.

She was dismissing me.

I’d come here with the intention of doing something, fucking anything, to ease Fiona’s discomfort that didn’t involve me getting too close to her and fucking up both our shit like I had last night.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. I wanted to punch something.

“No,” I said. “There’s nothing else.”

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