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Her blond hair was in a tangled cloud around her face, and she looked completely fuckable. Well, if I wasn’t still in a foul mood because of last night. I knotted the lace with a huff and looked over my shoulder in time to watch her flop back on the mattress.
Yeah, I could totally mount her right now. I had always loved morning sex, but again, still a bit annoyed from our last romp.
“Go back to sleep. I’m going for a run. I’ll probably be back before you wake up.” My comment was delivered devoid of emotion, and she rolled to her side to watch me.
“Hey,” she said in the gentlest tone I’d ever heard from her. But I pretended not to hear her and continued searching for my keys on top of the dresser. She had so much crap spread around the room, I couldn’t find anything I looked for this morning.
“Carmen?” This time she was a little louder but still careful in tone.
I swung around to meet her stare and couldn’t identify what I saw there. Maybe it was an apology, but that was one I definitely hadn’t seen from her before to reference. I knew it wasn’t surrender, but it wasn’t confrontation either. So I waited for her to add to the conversation first. I just wanted to go for a run and try to clear my head. Unlike her, I’d slept like shit. Funny, because she slept like the dead for the first time since moving in, and I lay there most of the night and watched her.
She finally gathered the courage to ask, “Do you want to talk? About last night, I mean?”
“Later, okay? I really want to get a run in before the sun comes up and it gets too hot.” And yes, I was kicking the can down the road by putting off the conversation we definitely needed to have, but it was way too early to battle with my darling wife.
I must have mapped out the conversation four different ways throughout the sleepless night, but no matter the approach I thought best to take, we were going to end up bickering.
Out the front door, I made sure it was locked behind me. I jogged down the concrete staircase and hit the pavement with heavy feet. I definitely didn’t have the energy for a run this morning but knew it was the best way to clear my head. So I took off through the complex to pick up the jogging at the trailhead the city maintained. The sun was just a pinpoint of light on the horizon, and the early morning air was crisp.
Most of my life I’d been a runner. The feel of the ground was solid beneath me as my feet fell into a familiar pace. After the first mile, my muscles were warm, and my breathing rate was barely above normal. Yeah, this was a good call. Over the next two miles, my body was on autopilot, and my mind really started to wander.
The star of most of my thoughts these days was Agatha. Never had I met such a confusing little package as the one currently fast asleep in my bed. She was delightfully infuriating and frustratingly enthralling. How was one woman so many contradictory things? Moreover, would our relationship always be that way, or was it another byproduct of marrying someone you hardly knew?
But I simply refused to give up on her. On us. Because when we were good, we were so good. She was smart and witty as hell and possibly the bright spot in life I’d been missing. I knew I had been digging myself into a rut before I met her, and life had been anything but boring since.
Agatha made me laugh, even when she wasn’t trying to. She had an innocence about her underneath all that tough-girl bluster, and it shined through in the most curious ways. The careful consideration she had for the people she cared about was one of her most inspiring qualities. I listened to her chatting with her younger sisters, and she was always thoughtful in the advice she gave them and attentive when they just needed an ear.
I found myself daydreaming about the mother she’d be one day and had a goofy grin on my face as I marked the third mile on my route. Parenthood was far off in our future, for obvious reasons, but she was definitely the kind of woman who would be a naturally great mother. I suspected that had a lot to do with her own parents, and that thought led me to another one I didn’t like admitting.
Would I be a shitty parent because mine had become so bitter and emotionally destructive? Were they always that negative, at least to some degree, and it just took Gray and me this long to see the truth of it? It seemed like a check in the plus column that I recognized their shortcomings and could identify how their toxicity affected us. Maybe by having that degree of awareness, I wouldn’t repeat their mistakes.
Maybe it was easier to think all these things not having walked in their shoes. Every person I knew who was a parent said it was the toughest job they did every day. Another reason to wait to jump in that pool… I wanted to give the task my one hundred percent so my child—or children—would know they were my priority.
My thoughts came back around to Agatha. I’d bet she never gave parenting this much head time. That’s what I meant by her seeming to have a natural inclination for raising children. She accessed her patience and tenderness when appropriate but could be a total ballbuster when she had to be, too.
The running trail looped around to make a big circle, and I neared the end strong. The endorphins from the exercise would energize me for most of the day. Back at my front door, I was rummaging through my pack to find the key when the door whooshed open.
My wife was awake, showered, dressed, and ready for the day. Her skin was fresh and free from makeup, and her blue eyes shimmered when the morning sun danced in them with promise.
“Hello, sexy,” she said with a sultry grin while scanning my body from head to toe.
“Hey yourself,” I said with a matching smile of my own.
Agatha just stood in the doorway and seemed to be in a daze after inspecting me so thoroughly.
Stepping closer to her, I asked, “Are you on your way out?”
“I was going to go check the mail,” she explained. “I should be getting my final paycheck since it wasn’t ready the other day. They said they would mail it.”
“Do you know where the mailbox is? I can walk with you if you’d like some company. Although I’m a bit sweaty,” I offered.
“I like this sweaty thing you’ve got going on,” she admitted, and a little pink blush colored her cheeks. “Sexy.”
After giving her a sideways smirk, I said, “Is that so?”
“Indeed,” she purred back. But when I reached for her waist, she smacked at my seeking hands.
“No, no more. My vagina needs a day to recover from your mad skills.” She laughed.
