Her Reluctant Husband by Erica Marselas (summer beach reads txt) 📗

is starting to wear on me. You’re fucking loud when you get up.” I glance over at the clock on the mantel and realize I’ve been out for about twenty minutes. “Shit. I have work tomorrow.” I step back from her.

“Sorry.” She frowns, a deep v forming in her forehead.

“Listen, maybe you should think of sleeping in the basement.” I move to the kitchen, finally in search of the bottle of water I really wanted when I came down here. “You might be able to do this, but I can’t. Some of us need sleep to function.” I fling open the fridge and it rattles from the glass bottles inside. I’m rooting around the drawer, waiting for her to say something smart, but she’s unusually quiet. “What? No witty come back? You’re losing your edge.” Since there are no cold waters left, I grab a ginger ale and slam the fridge door shut. When I turn around, I find her gone.

I head back upstairs and try to get a few hours of sleep. I’m not going to let little Ju-Ju’s bad dreams rub off on me any longer and ruin the rest of my night.

The only problem is Adrian’s words are circling in my head, and the dreams scream only like they happened yesterday, making me see things differently. I still can’t help but wonder, if she wasn’t guilty, why did she run that night?

The smell of bacon rouses me before my alarm. Today is only day five into this marriage. We haven’t even made it a week and it’s already felt like years.

It took me hours to fall back to sleep after the whole waking up to June’s nightmares and dealing with my own. I admit I’m confused after all the trips down memory lane and I don’t know how much more I can take. There are too many feelings I can’t process and I’m not sure if I want to because I refuse to be wrong for how I’ve felt for so long.

"What's all this?" I ask, looking over the extravagant array of food on the counter. I would think she’s trying to feed a small army.

"Breakfast. I couldn't sleep and cooking relaxes me. You also said that you wanted me in the kitchen, so here I am."

“Here you are.”

“And I do feel bad for keeping you up last night, so I thought a nice breakfast would help get you going.” She grins as she turns off the burner.

"I don't eat breakfast before work."

It’s a lie. I'm starving and the meal she made looks amazing, but I'm not ready to sit and enjoy a meal with her. It's too married-like and my feelings are too fucked up from the things I experienced last night.

"Of course, you don't," she laments as she pushes some home fries onto a plate. “You only break the fast on the weekend. Silly me. Well, I’ll have Maggie over then."

"I'm sure she'll enjoy it.”

"If not, I guess some of the animals will.”

"Or you could just eat it later."

She shakes her head. "It's fine," she mutters and then moves to the coffee pot and fills up a mug.

Why the fuck is she suddenly acting like such a Suzie homemaker? Maybe the lack of sleep is getting to her.

"Well, I made you coffee, too. You can't tell me you don't drink that." She goes to hand me the silver coffee mug and I eye it suspiciously.

"Did you poison it?"

"No." Her eyes narrow and she snatches the mug back out of my hand. "I'm fucking trying. It’s the least you can do too."

"The audience isn't here right now, so I don’t feel like practicing for the show this morning."

"For fuck’s sake. I just want to be civil. Maybe we could survive this thing as friends."

"Not happening." Just because she caught me watching her last night doesn’t mean the beginning of a beautiful fucking friendship.

"Fine," she says gruffly and pours out the coffee into the sink. Then the mug hits the metal with a loud twang.

Damn, I didn’t think she would act this prissy about it.

I go to snatch a piece of bacon as her back is turned before leaving and she catches me. Stealing back the bacon. "I'm sorry but bacon is for people that appreciate things."

I steal another piece and go to the door. "You need to get some sleep. It's making you all cranky without it."

"Hi, Mr. Married Man," Whitney greets me with my usual morning coffee and drops a FedEx package on my desk. “Missed you around here.”

I take a long sip of my coffee and cringe slightly at the grittiness. Even after two years with me, she still can't make a decent cup of fucking coffee.

Guess I should've taken June's without complaint even if I thought she was trying to kill me. She, at least, can make a decent fucking brew.

"Nice ring. It really makes it look official."

"It is official." I twist the band on my finger and it still feels so foreign to me. I started taking it off the night after we got married but stopped before I’d pulled it past my knuckle. I couldn’t do it. It’s her dad’s ring and I can’t disrespect Hamilton. I admired him, so no matter how I feel about this commitment, I will wear this ring to honor him.

“Hmmm.” Whitney's hand travels across my shoulder as she walks behind me. She then sits on the edge of my desk, her skirt riding up to the edge of her thigh high stockings. "Well, if you'll like, I'm available to work late tonight. Or I can help with the tension you have now. I’m sure the new wife isn’t taking care of you the way I can," she purrs, placing a kiss behind my ear.