He looks past me, eyes haunted by something only he can see. “You’d be surprised about all the shit you don’t know, and I might just tell you someday, but for now you’re going to have to just trust me. What you need to do is go home and hold her. Sometimes words aren’t needed to tell her that you’ll always be there. If she’s falling apart, no matter what the reason is, then it’s your job to hold her together.”
I wipe my hands off on a rag and throw it into the hamper. “In that case, I’m going to head home. We’re not going to be able to finish this old junker tonight anyway.”
Charlie waves me away. “Go, Liam will be in tomorrow. We can’t baby him forever. If his sobriety is so fragile he’d relapse from working a few long hours, then he should go back to rehab.”
It isn’t the first time I’ve sacrificed my own needs, or even Wren’s, in a misguided attempt to help my son. I know what I should do, but there’s this paralyzing fear that what is best for me will be the thing that pushes Liam over the edge. This is what holds me hostage. To be fair, he hasn’t asked me to make these sacrifices, but while he’s done the work to make changes, I haven’t done shit to rid myself of these toxic habits.
I’ve been doing this since he was a child. I think a part of me always knew there was something a little off with my son. Looking back, I can see that what I used to think was hyper-fixation on one thing or another was his addictive personality searching for a fix. For a while, Wren was the recipient of that extreme level of attention. I don’t blame her for being swept away by it. But, just like with everything else, eventually the object of his obsession stops producing the same high, and his eye starts to roam in search of new thrills.
Here I’ve been trying to love her through it, and really, all I’ve managed to do is be as overbearing as my son once was. I wonder if she is even able to tell that my love is different than the weak facsimile he gave her.
Charlie is probably right. I don’t need todoanything. I just need to be there and hold her while she sorts this out. I should probably also think about talking to a professional. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, and God knows that being raised by two selfish alcoholics, becoming a father at eighteen, and a single father at twenty has probably done a lot to fuckme up. Then there’s all the shit heaped on top of that from my son stealing from my business, overdosing, and me using those things as a free pass to take his wife. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that it’s way past time for me to plop my ass down on a couch and start spilling my guts.
The drive from Harriston to Centralia feels longer than normal. Of course, every time I’m away from Wren it feels like it takes forever to get back to her. I have flashbacks to that long fucking drive to Florida when I wasn’t sure if she’d even speak to me when I got there.
By the time I make it home, Wren is curled up in bed. I kick off my shoes by my dresser, and strip down to my boxers. My clothes reek of oil and sweat. Wren is very sensitive to smells right now, so I shove them down to the bottom of the hamper.
Trying not to wake her, I carefully pull up the corner of the blanket and slip under. We haven’t even been together for two years yet, but still we move together like we’ve had years of practice. My arm slips under her neck, and the other pulls her back against my chest.
My hand rubs her growing bump. I just know that this baby is a boy. Not because of some macho bullshit or anything, but because she’s bigger than she was with Parker. Not that I’d tell Wren that. I guess it could be because this is her second pregnancy, but even still, this is going to be one big baby. We’re going to find out in a couple of weeks when we go in for her twenty-week scan.
“Griff?” she asks in a voice still husky with sleep.
“Sorry to wake you, Baby Bird. I missed you today.”
“Mmm,” she hums and laces her fingers on top of mine. “I don’t like it when you’re away. Even though it’s only during the day.”
I move her unruly blonde waves away from her neck and kiss the soft skin beneath her ear. “I don’t like being away. My entire world is in this house with you.”
“Do you think—” Wren’s voice grows smaller, and she trails off mid-sentence.
“Do I think, what?” I push. Something tells me that this question is going to be crucial to learning the reason that she’s been so quiet lately.
She shakes her head. More like rocks it back and forth on the pillow, but the message is the same. It’s also one I’m going to play dumb and pretend I don’t pick up on. How else am I supposed to make her speak to me when she’s so dead set on holding all of this inside?
“Are you telling me no, Baby Bird? Is it okay to tell Daddy no?”
She huffs, not really in the mindset to play with me, but begging, bargaining, or even bribing her doesn’t get her to talk to me like when I barrel through her walls.
“It’s stupid, and saying it out loud will just make me sound like an insecure nutcase. Just forget it,” she says, but the slight warble to her voice betrays her real feelings.
She doesn’t want to appear insecure, but she is. That’s not some kind of accusation against her, but something I’m not doing right to make my girl feel safe with me.
I don’t have the words, and Charlie told me I don’t need them. That’s what I get for listening to the perpetual bachelor. But, without a better game plan, this is all I have.
Of course, he told me to hold her, not slide my hand down inside her sleep shorts and stroke her bare pussy. I am pretty sure my instincts are spot on when her ass grinds against my rapidly hardening dick.
I whisper in her ear, “Pull off your shirt and let Daddy play with your heavy tits.”
She might not want to do as she’s told and tell me what she’s thinking, but as usual, she’s quick to obey any sexual demand I make. That’s fine, I don’t want a completely submissive wife. I live for her fire just as much as her softness.
My arm under her neck reaches farther around her and starts gently massaging one very full breast. She’s so quick to arouse now that she starts to ride my hand as it teases lightly against her clit.
“If you won’t tell me what is going on in that head of yours, I’m going to fuck it out of you,” I warn her.
“Whatever you want, Daddy.”
“How hungry are you for my cock?” I pull my hand away when she doesn’t immediately answer, and I’m rewarded with a desperate whine.
