Page 75 of The Logic of Loyalty

Sitting on my front porch, watching my wife park her new car, and waiting for our conversation is the most stressful thing I’ve done in years. My leg shakes, my foot taps, and my hands strangle the stupid fucking rock.

Our messaging earlier was a disaster. I managed to make a fucking mess of the entire exchange and was not surprised when she didn’t answer my phone call. However, she knows I’m on my way, and Bethany said she’ll keep Jacob out for ice cream and whatever else until Paige and I have it out. Maybe she’ll yell at me. I perk up a little at that thought. I’d prefer her fire over the way we’ve been talking in stilted, basic instructions for weeks.

Paige’s face is weary, pale, and wary when she shuts off the car. I leap out of my seat and rush to her door, opening it for her. She eyes me, but reaches to the passenger seat to grab a bag before stepping out. Instead of heading for the house, she rounds the car and pops open the trunk. Following behind, I see the mass collection of plastic shopping bags filling the space. Then, to my horror, she slips her hand into all the handles.

“Whoa, nope. I don’t think so.” I bump her out of the way, but she bounces a little too far, nearly falling over. “Shit.” I latch onto her arm and pull her straight, steadying her with my hands on both shoulders. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry. I didn’t⁠—”

“Stop, Trevor. It’s fine. I’m fine.” She shrugs out from underneath my hands and rubs her palms over her pants.

“Okay, just, can you let me grab the groceries for you?” She nods and steps further away from me. I flex my fingers and turn to the trunk, grabbing the majority of the bags myself. I’m one of those people who is fine with multiple trips, but my wife is not. I am well aware that she will grab any remaining. There are so many bags. “What happened to all of the reusable bags?”

“Hmm?” Her voice is distracted beside me. “Reusable bags? We have more than one of those?”

Don’t laugh or smile or anything that might be misconstrued, you dumbass. She’s standing close to me, and the heat of her body is filling mine with an electric energy that’s making me fidgety. There are only two bags remaining, but I choose to leave them for Paige to grab instead. I lean back with the load and trudge under the weight up the steps. When I get to the front door, I pause. Likely, I shouldn’t be the one to open it … and my arms are very full.

Paige brushes past me while I consider my next step, lighting me up at the contact, to open the door for us. I have to bite my lip and breathe through my nose to try to calm my body. Getting a hard-on when a woman passes by is something creeps and teenagers do. Not grown-ass family men. When her shapely backside weaves through the house, I follow like she’s the pied piper, playing my song.

Her shape is subtly changing, and I eagerly take in every detail. She’s wearing leggings that cup her ass in the perfect⁠—

“Ahem, Trevor? Did you hear me?”

“Yes! No. Wait. Sorry. No. What was that?” Heat climbs my neck and suffuses my cheeks at my fumbling. I thought I had gotten past this part of me.

Her lips tug at the corners, reluctant amusement clear on her beautiful face because of my idiocy. I miss her unguarded smiles. “I asked if you would put those on the island, please.” She dips her chin, and I clench my fist around my massive load of bags.

“Sure can.” I lift them and deposit them onto the cleared island. “Let me help you put them away? Please?” She nods, looking distracted, and I get to work. She joins in, and I don’t argue. Instead, I relish the domestic dance we fall into as we put everything away. I dip, she weaves, I reach, she squats. Our hands make contact in silent communication with where we are and where we’re going. Each place of contact is innocuous but wildly intoxicating.

When only empty bags remain on the island, I’m embarrassed as fuck when emotion clogs my throat. She gathers those and smashes them into a small ball. Clearing my throat, I open a cabinet under the island where we keep our emergency kit. “Uh, so under here.” I point to the bag of bags, located next to our reusable bags. “You can put it here. Or at least, that’s where I’ve always kept it.”

“Oh, that’s convenient. I never thought about. Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Always.

We fall into another silence, this one flavored with awkward tension and a current of need. “Do you want to talk⁠—”

“Let’s go to the living room. To talk.”

We laugh, small stilted sounds, the ease of moments before vanishing. I brush my hand against my pocket. I eye the chair alone in the corner, but sit on the couch next to Paige. Her shoulders tense, but I have enough distance between us that she can lean away from me easily, or she can lean toward me. “I have some things to tell you, and I think it might make you hate me more, but maybe it will also help you understand me.”

“Excuses.”

“Reasons.”

“Same thing, Trevor.”

“Wait.” I breathe in and out from my nose slowly and try again, pulling two life-altering documents from my pocket. I hand them to her. “I need you to know something I should have told you a long time ago. Something that has shaped our lives without your knowledge, and slowly buried me under the weight of fear and and shame.”

She unfolds it, wetting her lips, a subtle tremor in her hands. “What is this?” She uncurls the first one. “Is this a hospital bill?”

I fold my hands and lean forward against my thighs. “While you were recovering from nearly dying, we got our first bill from the hospital.” It had arrived at Carter’s house, who unknowingly delivered the end of my dreams of a life away from my family, my father. “It was more money than anything we could have imagined, and it was the first of many.”

Her head jerks back before she pulls the paper closer and squints. “That’s the bill? But my insurance⁠—”

“Was dropped weeks before without our realization.”

“So then … how?” Her brows furrow as she looks at the life-altering total of our first doctor bill.

Returning my stare to the floor, I see it needs to be vacuumed. Maybe if I grab—no. I can’t avoid this any longer. “I went to my father with that paper.” I nod to the one open on her lap. “And left with that one.” I nod to the one that remains folded.