Page 7 of Unruly

He didn’t need to tell her to sleep again. She closed her big brown eyes, and that was it. She didn’t even peek as he closed the bedroom door after flicking on her nightlight. Sometimes he found her tucked into her mother’s side of the bed come morning, if she had woken up in the night, but mostly, Cece was a good sleeper.

She had been that way from the day she was born.

Thank God.

Cross snatched his phone off the decorative stand in the hallway as he passed it by. A quick check of the screen said the caller had been his wife. Instantly, he was calling her back, and pressing the phone to his ear as he headed into the master bedroom of their three-level, Newport home.

It took four rings before Catherine picked up.

“Cross?”

“Hey, babe.”

“Cross.”

He smiled.

All it took was one word.

His name coming from her mouth.

That was it.

Everything was right in his world once more.

“How’s the tyrant?”

Cross laughed as he grabbed two duffle bags from the walk-in closet. Tossing them onto the bed to ready them for packing, he said, “Pretty good. Doesn’t like the book tonight, either. Probably thinks I’m an idiot for reading about cats wearing mittens. Also, she’s decided she doesn’t like peanut butter, now. Not really sure when that happened.”

“Last week, she didn’t like waffles.”

“Waffles are good this week.”

“Oh?”

“I guess.”

Silence stretched over the phone. Sometimes, this was how their conversations were had. Easy topics because neither of them wanted to hurt the other inadvertently by saying shit was rough, or too tough, or whatever else. He never wanted to tell his wife she couldn’t do the thing she loved and was good at—making money alongside her mother as a high-class drug dealer—simply because he wanted her home more with him.

It wasn’t fair to her.

Marriage was about love.

Compromise.

A collection of imperfect moments made perfect.

So what if their life was a little unruly?

They would figure it out eventually.

Or … he hoped so.

“One more week, and I’ll be home, Cross.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Miss you,” Catherine said quietly.