AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Excuse me.”
“What?” I ask. “We’re married. What’s yours is mine.”
He playfully scoffs. “I want to share my life with you, Kenny, not my food.” With that, he reaches over and steals a forkful of my mashed potatoes.
I strategically arrange my fries under the bun as he watches with horror on his face.
“What? It gives it some crunch. Leave me alone.”
“Remind me again why I married you.”
I take another bite and while wearing a twenty-seven-hundred-dollar cocktail dress, I speak with my mouth full of a greasy burger. “Because you’re obsessed with me. Remember?”
I know our wedding song is playing on a loop in his mind the way it is in mine. That becomes evident thanks to the knowing smile he wears as he watches me scarf down my food.
“You’ve never been hotter than you are right now, just so you know.”
“Thank you.” My tongue darts out to lick off the drop of ketchup lingering on my lips.
He tracks the whole thing. “Fuck.”
The rest of the night continues like that. His legs wrapped around mine as we inhale our food. Dinner is greasy and filling and delicious, and the conversation is teasing and light with no more mentions about my intimacy issues I’m hoping to correct.
Thankfully, the material of my dress is stretchy because Isaiah orders a molten chocolate cake for dessert that disappears at an embarrassingly quick rate, but it’s the ending to the best dinner I’ve had in a long time.
The food, sure, but mostly the company.
Chapter 14
Kennedy
“Why exactly are we doing this?” I ask Miller as we both position ourselves in downward dog in my hotel room in St. Louis.
“Yoga is supposed to be good for stress.”
Hanging upside down, I glance over to her. “You’re stressed?”
“No. But you must be. You are married to my brother-in-law, after all.”
A laugh instantly bubbles out of me, and it only grows louder when Max, Isaiah’s nephew, mirrors our position, hands and feet on the ground, booty in the air.
“Good job, Bug!” Miller encourages. “You’re better than both me and Auntie Ken!”
Miller and Kai have referred to me as Auntie Ken for a while now. It just feels a little differently now that, legally, I am.
Facing the window, opposite the door, I lean into the stretch. We’ve been on the road for over a week, and my body is feeling the stiffness of the constant flights and sleeping in a bed that’s not mine.
I can’t imagine how Isaiah’s feeling. Well, actually I can. I’ve had to work on his back, shoulders, and hips before each game because he insists on sleeping on the floor. I’ve offered him the bed to himself. I’ve offered to share. And still he takes the floor each night.
It’s been over a week since I asked him to touch me, to teach me how to touch him, and he has yet to try anything.
Miller is right. I am stressed being married to her brother-in-law because I’ve been on my toes, eager and nervous, all week, waiting for him to try something. Anything.
I don’t know what he’s waiting for, or maybe he changed his mind.
There’s a nagging part of my brain that’s berating myself for asking him to help me in the first place. I should’ve done the work myself. Gone to therapy. Dealt with my issues alone without involving someone else. I should’ve fixed myself in silence.
“Okay, yeah. Screw this.” Miller drops to her knees, sitting on her heels, but I continue to stretch, extending through my heels and elongating my calves and hamstrings.
