I mouth, later.
She lets out a small huff, a lot more impatient for details than me, but I love the way she crosses her ankles and her arms, her breasts rising with a deep inhale.
Theo answers Lo, “It was interesting. Every time he caught me smoking, he’d tell me that my ambition was being asphyxiated.”
“I wasn’t wrong,” I say my first words to him in years. I glance at my phone when it buzzes.
Ignore that. – Frederick
I do ignore his texts since I have Theo frowning at me, and Lo lets out a long whistle at my statement, breaking a string of tension.
I meet Rose’s fiery, incensed gaze for a moment and she mouths, who? She’s hardly concerned about Theo, just my texts since we’ve been working together to handle this mess with the media.
I’m mostly worried about her OCD flaring, so I pass her my phone.
She reads quickly and hands it back, her shoulders relaxed, probably thankful it’s not Scott. Her eyes meet mine again, and they still possess that fire.
I remember the time I asked her what she thought of Theo. And she called him “a guppy in our ocean”—our ocean. I love Rose, and it’s easy for me to be amiable towards Theo when he sits so far in my past, a past that I don’t cradle like everyone else.
I let people go all the time, and he’s one that has drifted a thousand leagues behind me. I don’t care enough to go swim after him. I wouldn’t. I won’t. But I do wholeheartedly appreciate his morality. It’s one of those values I admire but know I don’t always own.
“I still have ambition. Don’t you see where I am?” Theo tells me, pulling my gaze from my wife. Rose hardly seems to mind. We have so much confidence in our relationship that it’d be nearly impossible for a person to wedge themselves between us and cause doubt and friction in our marriage.
Don’t you see where I am? His gray eyes repeat the statement.
He’s in a Fortune 500 company. He’s in a higher salary-paying job than most at Faust. He’s climbing his way to the top.
“It’s not what you wanted,” I tell him. He dreamed of writing poetry, of living off the land with life’s bare necessities. He dreamed of throwing his arms in the air, half-naked in the wilderness where he’d commune with nature and learn great, untouched meanings.
Now he’s in a suit, in the city, stuck within a high-rise where poetry has little use except within his own mind.
“Dreams change,” Theo says, and I can see that he’s accepted this new life now. Maybe it is what he wants.
Dreams change.
I think there’s good change where we see our path diverge and we willingly follow the new road. And then there’s forced change where debris impedes us from our path and we’re searching desperately for a route back onto our planned destination.
The dream I’ve always desired—to grow a family with Rose—is being forced to change.
And I can’t see any way around the debris.
41
ROSE COBALT
Jane cries bloody murder, focused on the bodies cramped against the windows of Connor’s limo. I want to slaughter every person that is making her cry this way. I can’t tell if we already parked in front of the pediatrician’s building, but I’m antsy to reach our destination and bring Jane to her regular checkup on time.
Her first birthday is in June. I’d like to think this’ll die down by then, but it’s most likely wishful thinking on my part.
I hold Jane on my lap, wiping her tears quickly. “Mommy’s going to dropkick anyone that touches you.”
“And Daddy’s going to bail Mommy out of jail,” Connor says, placing tiny blue earplugs in my palm.
I give him a look. “Mommy will be within her full rights to assassinate any vile creature that harms her baby.”
He caresses my cheek with his knuckles, the pressure how I like. “Nothing will happen to our baby.”
He’s pacifying me. Connor can’t predict the future. He knows this, and there is reasonable probability that something could go wrong.
“Anything can happen,” I tell him. I almost wonder if we should turn back and reschedule her appointment. We tried to lose the paparazzi, but they’ve been camping outside our gated neighborhood for the past week, waiting for us to drive out. Our neighbors have already complained, and Connor thinks another house will be up for sale by the end of the month.
It’s very likely the media’s presence could increase by the beginning of May, so it’s hard to return home, knowing that tomorrow and the next week and the next week after that could be worse or the same.
“I’m not leaving your side,” Connor reminds me. We’ve formed a plan to barrel through the paparazzi without Jane being harmed or even breathed on the wrong way.
I nod, soaking in his confidence, and I fit the soft plugs into Jane’s ears.
Gilligan, Connor’s driver, cranes his neck over his shoulder. “We’re here.” I hardly noticed the limo stopping since we’ve been inching along.
“Where’s Heidi?” I ask Connor.
He has his phone out, texting our bodyguards instructions. “All three of them just parked next to us.”
I peek out his window, a camera lens literally pressed against the glass. “I don’t see them.” And just as I say the words, our bodyguards push aside the paparazzi, clearing space by Connor’s door.
I tuck Jane to my hip, her cries escalating now that I’ve put a foreign object in her ear. Outside is too loud and caustic to remove them. “Shh,” I whisper. “Be brave, my little gremlin, and I promise they’ll all go away.” Her tears sincerely do a number on me, my chest twisting. I splay a woolen, teal blanket over part of my shoulder and her head, all the while rubbing her back.
She settles only a little.
I let out a tense breath. I never believed a baby could stir this type of emotion from me, but I channel her fear into motivation, prepared to bypass every lens and person that stands in our way.
You’re a fucking category five hurricane, Rose. They should all fear your destruction.
Damn right.
Connor clasps my free hand, threading his fingers with mine. “Ready?”
I raise my chin and nod.
He opens his door, the flashes exploding. The noises and bright shutters blind me for a millisecond, almost pummeling me backwards. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, not even when the media first took interest in my family.
I orient myself about the same time that Connor slides out. I scoot along the seat, his hand never leaving mine, and I exit with him.
“Is your marriage fake?!”
“Did you know Connor has been with men?!”
“Are the sex tapes real?!”
Connor squeezes my hand, and I can’t shut the door behind me. Vic takes care of that, staying back while Heidi and Stephen push forward. “Give them room!” our bodyguards keep shouting for us.
I hug close to Connor’s back while he guides me forward, Jane protectively shielded between my chest and his six-foot-four towering body.
I’d like to cast threatening glares in every direction, more territorial over my baby than I’ve ever been before, but every time I look out, flashes burst and white lights flicker in my vision.
So I dip my head and concentrate on Jane. The brick building with a pediatric sign isn’t far from here.
“Whose idea was the business arrangement?!”
“Connor, do you have a boyfriend?!”