Page 366 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Or rather, meet up with the man at a gym and get the piss beat out of him while at the same time, getting his thoughts and feelings picked apart by a man that John couldn’t hide shit from. Because yeah, he’d learned that about Cree since he started seeing the man regularly. If Cree thought something was up, he became a dog searching for a bone. And he didn’t forget shit. It didn’t matter if John randomly mentioned something in passing, the guy kept it locked in the back of his mind for future use.

Sometimes, it was annoying.

Other times, it helped.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Siena asked.

John let out a heavy breath, his arm tightening around her while he stroked her stomach with his other hand. “I just … I figured, you’re pregnant, you got a lot of shit on your plate, and I’m handling my business. There wasn’t any reason to give you something else to obsess over when you already do that with everything else, babe.”

She didn’t even deny it.

Strangely, though, out of all the people in his life, Siena was the one and only—next to his therapists—that could call out his shit, or see it for what it really was, and he didn’t get defensive about it. John didn’t put up walls with people who were there to protect him, his wife included.

It made him vulnerable, yeah.

He worked through it.

“Anyway,” John said, “that’s what got in the way today. Cree’s meeting places are unconventional, and when Leonard canceled today, I had to go elsewhere. I keep up with my sessions no matter what—I promise. But we shut the phones off. It’s a thing. I lost track of time, that’s all. I do that a lot with Cree.”

Siena cleared her throat. “That’s not a bad thing, though. It means you don’t mind being there with him, right?”

“I guess. After, I had to run over to Andi’s place because I missed shit with him today, too, even though I had business handled elsewhere. Except he was a fucking prick overstepping on me, and I had to let him know it.”

There.

He’d told her everything.

Basically.

No, he hadn’t given Siena all the details, but she also didn’t need them. She only needed the important bits so that she knew what was going on and why shit might seem different lately with him.

“Still could have told me,” his wife whispered. “And that doesn’t seem like Andi.”

“He becomes an asshole when he’s worried.”

John hated it.

He still saw it for what it was, though.

Once his cousin had gotten some shit through his thick skull and came back ready to apologize, then the two of them could sit down and properly hash all of this out. Simple as that. Right now, however, John needed some time by himself.

“When I start to feel like I’m not good enough to be where I am,” he said, letting one of his darkest thoughts finally come out of his mind, “the last thing I need is for those around me to think the same thing.”

It was funny—he hadn’t been able to tell Leonard that’s how he felt lately. Or even Cree. Yet, with his wife, the words came out too easily.

“Why would you feel like that?” she asked.

John swallowed hard. “I’ve just … been really up lately. It’s not bad, but it’s noticeable. I’m not bouncing back and forth or being irrational but it’s still there.”

“Not medicate-able, you mean.”

“That’s not even a word,” he said, chuckling.

“But still.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Thing is, when I go up, I always gotta come back down. I keep thinking about you and the baby and—”

“We’re fine, John.”

He met her gaze, and she held strong.

“We are,” she promised. “And so are you.”

Leaning in, she closed the small bit of distance between them to take a kiss. John let her. The rest of the evening and all his worries, well, they didn’t exist when they were like this. Siena would never understand how grateful John was that she could do that for him.

He’d love this woman forever.

She didn’t give him a choice.