"I have dishes to do." I sighed and ignored his cutesy words. He was drunk and I didn't want to take anything he said right now too seriously. He'd been loving and attentive all evening and my body still felt high from our lovemaking, but I didn't want to read anything into it. I already knew that he was weird with his feelings and as far as I knew it was the alcohol putting him out of character.
"Leave the dishes until the morning and we'll do them together," he said and put his arm around my waist. "Let's go to bed and have some lovemaking."
"TJ." I leaned my head against his shoulder. "You look like you're way too drunk for any lovemaking to me."
"I'm never too drunk for lurvemaking," he said and he slurred his words.
"Uh huh," I said as we walked towards the bedroom. "We'll see." We walked in companionable silence in the room and I watched as he pulled off all of his clothes and jumped into bed. He lay flat on his back, looked up at me and grinned as he closed his eyes and stretched.
“You’re so tired,” I said, smiling down at him, a feeling of affection sweeping through me as I gazed at him.
“I wouldn’t say so tired,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.
“Oh, wouldn’t you?” I said softly, smiling to myself as I took my dress off and put on a nightgown. I walked out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom so I could take my makeup off. That was something Sally had instilled in me. Always try and remove makeup at night; especially eye makeup, because it did terrors to your skin if you left it on when you went to sleep. I cleaned my face and then walked back to the bedroom feeling happy, but still slightly anxious. Everything was going so well, but it was all really a facade. Nothing had really changed between us. I sighed to myself as I wondered if I was doing the right thing staying here and playing this game. Was I only prolonging the pain I was going to feel in just a few weeks? I crawled into bed and snuggled next to TJ. He rolled over, pulled me towards him and held me against his chest and moaned slightly. I snuggled next to him and listened to the sound of his heartbeat as I lay there.
“If I ever wanted to get married, it would be to someone like you,” he mumbled next to my ear and I froze and looked up at him. His eyes, though still sleepy, were open now.
“Why don’t you want to get married?” I looked at TJ, truly curious as to why he was so opposed to a union I couldn’t wait to enter.
“Because a marriage is meant to last forever,” he said without pause, his eyes finding mine as he tried to focus on me.
“And that freaks you out? Being with the same person forever?”
“No.” He shook his head and frowned, sleepiness making me confused. “What freaks me out is the possibility that the marriage could end. What freaks me out is that I could have the one person I love more than anything in the world and I could lose her. Marriages aren’t infallible. People change, fall out of love. It happens every day. My heart would break, my world would end. I would cease to be the person I am if that were to happen.” He shook his head. “I will not let myself become a statistic.”
“Your marriage might not end,” I said, but I felt weird saying the words. I wanted to say our marriage would not end, but I knew that would be putting all my cards on the table and I wasn’t willing to do that.
“But the love might,” he said with a yawn and I watched as his eyes fluttered closed again and he drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
TJ
Two Years Ago
“When I meet the man of my dreams, I want him to woo me with flowers and chocolates and poems.” Mila laughed as she spoke to Sally in the living room.
“Poems?” I spoke up and sat on the couch next to them. “What sort of pansy is going to be writing you poems?”
“A man full of romance.” Mila rolled her eyes at me. “A man who loves me more than life itself.”
“You’ve been reading too many of those romance books, Mila.” I shook my head. “I don’t know any guy who’s writing love poetry.”
“I know plenty of guys that do,” Sally said with an encouraging smile. “Don’t listen to TJ. He’s just jaded because he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.”
“I know. He doesn’t.” Mila stuck her tongue out at me and laughed. “When I fall in love and meet my soulmate, I want to be so special to him that he’d give up his life for me.”
“Give up his life, huh?”
“Yup.” She grinned. “He would give up his life, his happiness, his everything just to be with me.”
“Would he give up his dog?” I asked with a grin.
“If he had to,” she said, not even blinking.
“Would he give up his car?”
“That’s not even a question.”
“Would he give up his job?” I continued, grinning.
“He’d give up everything because he loves me so much.”
“Would you really want a guy who would give up everything just to be with you? He sounds like a bit of a loser. Have some self-respect, man.”
“He does have self-respect.” Mila frowned at me. “He’ll just love me so much that nothing else matters but making me happy.”