11. Monkey Bar

CHAPTER11

Monkey Bar

Wyn

You’re right. We need to talk.

The instant that text whooshed away, doing whatever geniuses had allowed it to do to go from my phone to Remy’s, I had second thoughts.

However, I’d also had a second martini as well as two glasses of wine with dinner.

So I was on the other side of tipsy.

The dangerous side.

Fiona Flipping Remington drove me home with her bodyguard trailing, and I’d promised to view lots and properties with her tomorrow even though I had a very full schedule.

She was gone and now I was tipsy-texting.

I didn’t care.

She was right.

I should hear what Remy had to say.

And really, what the hell?

He couldn’t come right out and give things to me?

What was with the mystery?

Bluh.

Text him.

Talk.

Mystery solved!

So there!

I wandered into my bedroom then my bathroom, and I did my evening routine by rote.

Down to bra and panties.

Brush teeth.

Makeup off.

Cleanse face.

Use rice polish to gently exfoliate.

Night serum and under eye moisturizer.

Put on jammies (indigo satin with huge, swirling gold flowers, cami edged in a delicate line of indigo lace, long bottoms, and I made this choice because the set had a matching short kimono, and I wasn’t done with my tipsy evening, so I needed the robe).

I then went to the kitchen, poured myself another glass of wine, and went back to my bedroom.

Moisturizer over the serum and then I turned off the bathroom lights, climbed into my huge bed, situated me and my wine in the middle, and I phoned Bea.

“So you’ve finally called to apologize?” was her greeting.

I blinked at my elegant, white, Dian Austin damask duvet cover.

“Sorry?”

“It’s been nearly a week,” she stated.

I wasn’t certain why she shared this information with me.

But I was on a mission, so I got on with that.

“Bea, we need to sit down and talk.”

“Great. Happy to accept your apology face to face.”

Uh…sorry?

“What, exactly, do I have to apologize for?” I asked.

“Hanging up on me?” she asked back sarcastically. “Your inability to listen to some cold, hard truths without being ugly to me?”

“Are you for real?” I whispered.

“So you aren’t calling to apologize? Instead, you’re calling to…what? Hand me more of your denials that your ex was a piece of shit who walked all over you and…”

She kept talking, but I stopped listening because I sensed movement in the room and my head shot up.

There stood Remy three feet from the foot of my bed.

My mouth dropped open.

He spoke.

“You said we need to talk?”

“Who’s that?” Bea asked in my ear.

“Call you later,” I said hurriedly, hung up and dropped the phone on the bed. “How’d you get in here?”

“You never asked for the key back, Wyn, and obviously you didn’t change the locks.” He lifted a hand and his key ring dangled from his fingers. “Have you considered why you didn’t do that?”

Okay.

Oh God.

Oh shit.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

He took a step forward.

I noticed he was wearing black joggers and a heathered gray, long-sleeved T-shirt that clung to his shoulders and pecs, and even in his casual, hang-out-at-home clothes, he looked like he was waiting for Grace Coddington to call him in front of the camera.

“Wyn,” he called, his tone meant to get my attention, but it wasn’t sharp.

I focused on his face, he instantly smirked, and I realized I’d been focused on his joggers.

Specifically, the crotch of them.

How was this happening?

“You wanted to talk?” he prompted.

I pulled myself together.

“Yes, but I didn’t mean immediately.”

“Are you doing anything else right now?” he asked.

“I was talking on the phone.”

“You aren’t anymore,” he pointed out.

“Because my ex-husband showed up in my bedroom.”

He nodded then asked, “Who were you talking to?”

Damn it.

“Bea,” I mumbled.

I heard the breath hiss up his nose, but he didn’t get into that.

He walked to the bathroom door, which, hidden in the dark, was a long space that included every nuance of every girlie-girls’ dream.

He flipped the switch, actually all of them, as the area all the way back to the enormous custom closet lit up.

Then he said slowly, “Jesus. It’s like Zsa Zsa Gabor threw up in here.”

That hurt.

We’d always been at one with interior design choices.

“You don’t like it?” I asked.

He turned as slowly as he’d spoken. “It’s stupidly perfect.”

“What’s ‘stupidly perfect’ mean?”

“Only you could make Swarovski chandeliers work in a fucking bathroom.”

“Remy—”

“We’re gonna fuck in that bathtub, baby.”

My nipples got hard.

“Remy,” I whispered.

He came forward and sat on the side of my bed so we could face each other, but just down, so we could do it without turning our necks.

And he wasn’t too close, which, at that juncture, I thought was kind.

“What were you talking to Bea about?” he asked quietly.

“I didn’t get a chance to say much, she answered by upsetting me.”

“Mm,” he hummed.

Okay, he was here.

Let’s go.

“I didn’t protect you from her,” I whispered.

His caramel eyes melted. “No, you didn’t.”

“She was terrible to you.”

Still doing the slow thing, he nodded.

“How bad?” I asked.

“I hate the bitch.”

Oh hell.

I wasn’t sure Remy hated anyone, even his parents, and they were hate-worthy (according to me).

“Remy, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Wyn, I did.”

I clenched my teeth.

“She was your friend, and I kept telling myself she showed up that time you were sick with that flu,” he said.

Oh God.

“I was so fucking worried about you,” he continued. “You were slurring your words, talking about asking your mom to fly out from Indiana, not making a lot of sense. Then you didn’t answer the phone. I couldn’t get Kara on the line. Bernice was on a flight, Cornell too. Bill was on shift. He’d just broken up with Janelle, and that was ugly, so she wasn’t speaking to any of us. Bea wasn’t picking up. Lisa was in Houston with me. No one was available. So I was a goddamn wreck. You were completely out of it. People die from flus, Wyn.”

Oh, Remy.

He kept speaking.

“And our kids. Stupid, fucked up, but all that was in my head was that scene in Steel Magnolias where Julia Roberts is flat out and the baby is sitting there crying and the spaghetti sauce is burning on the stove.” He drew a breath. “But we had three babies.”

Oh, Remy.

“Got a car. Weather was so fucking bad, it was insane. I couldn’t stop until I was nearly across Texas. Hit a station to get gas, called, hoping you’d answer, but Bea did. And I felt so much fucking relief, I can’t tell you. I don’t know how I didn’t fall to my knees. So that was what I’d tell myself when she unsheathed her claws. She obviously hated me, but she loved you.”

“I wished you’d made it more clear,” I said softly.

“And I wished you didn’t put me in that position, and you just knew to take my back, and dealt with it.”

I looked away.

He kept going.

“But you didn’t, and, baby, that hurt, you throwing me under that bus, making me eat the shit she said to me, the shit you told me she said to you about me, and how goddamn relentless it all was.”

God, I’d messed up.

I would do that. Tell him.

I’d rant about it, telling him all the ugly things Bea said about him.

No one wanted to hear the nasty things someone said about them.

And no one wanted to hear that someone they loved had listened to them and didn’t put a stop to it. Definitely not knowing that person was speaking those words to the loved one, and that wasn’t handled either.

God, I’d messed up.

“Eyes, Wyn. Give me your eyes, honey.”

I looked back at him.

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” I admitted.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied.

“I’m learning there are downfalls to thinking your husband is a titan who can conquer everything.”

His head ticked.

And his lips whispered, “Sorry?”

“You were bigger than her, stronger than her,” I tossed out my hand, realized it held a glass, and I reeled it in before disaster struck with red wine on white damask. “You’re you, Remy. You’re smart and talented and handsome and funny. You were a great husband, we made beautiful babies, and we were happy. You had all of that and she had her moans and gripes. I just thought, since I got that, you did too, because you were so above her, she couldn’t reach you.”

“So above her, she couldn’t reach you,” he repeated so softly, I almost didn’t hear him.

And he was no longer looking at me.

His gaze was aimed at my pillows.

“Remy,” I called.

His attention came back to me.

“Please tell me you didn’t walk out on me because my girlfriend was mean to you.”

“I didn’t leave you because Bea was mean to me. But I will say that it bugged the fuck out of me, and it didn’t help things.”

Okay.

Here we were.

“What were those…things?”

“Do you remember the Monkey Bar?”

I was on edge, freaked out, very scared, but Remy asking that, there was no way I wouldn’t smile.

So I did.

“Yes,” I answered.

His gaze was on my smile. It was warm and something else I didn’t have time to gauge, maybe relief, maybe triumph, maybe a touch of both, and it lifted to mine.

And the solemnity of his tone stunned me when he asked, “Do you, Wyn? Do you really remember?”

“Of course I do. You took me there on our first date.”

“Do you remember what you told me when we sat down?”

I remembered I couldn’t believe I was with such an amazing man on a date.

But I didn’t remember what I said when we sat down.

So I shook my head.

“You said you’d never been anywhere like that before.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Do you remember what I said?”

Oh God.

Tears hit my eyes.

Because it was coming back to me.

And the word was husky when I said, “Yes.”

“What’d I say?” he asked gently.

“You said, ‘Get used to it.’”

“Give me the glass, honey.”

I handed him my wineglass.

He reached long to put it on my nightstand, and he’d barely sat back before I fell in his arms.

I would have crawled into his skin if I could have, such was the power of how good it felt to have Remy’s arms around me again, the depth of the emotion I was weeping into his tee, the strength of my need to be swept back twenty-five years and be sitting in a booth in the coolest place I’d ever been with the most handsome man I’d ever seen, and have him say, straight out, the minute we sat down to truly start our first date, that I was his.

I was his.

Get used to it.

So sure.

Completely.

Which meant he was mine.

Forever.

After a while, I realized Remy was holding me close with one arm, I was draped across his lap, and he was playing with my hair with his other hand.

God, that felt so nice.

I shoved my face in his chest.

“All right?” he asked.

No.

I nodded my lie and started to push away, but the hair-playing stopped and both arms came around me.

I dropped my head back to catch his eyes.

“You’re drunk,” he stated.

“Tipsy,” I corrected.

He smiled.

“You’re tipsy,” he amended.

“Indeed,” I agreed.

“I miss your taste. I miss your smell. I miss the noises you make. The way your face looks when you’re turned on. I miss being balls deep in you. And I figure, if I kissed you right now, I wouldn’t be able to stop making you come until maybe this time tomorrow. But only to pass out so we could start again.”

I just stared up at him because he had all my attention.

“But no way in fuck am I doing that when you’re…tipsy,” he continued. “When we go there again, you’re going to be fully lucid, I’m going to be fully lucid, and we’re going to have our shit fully sorted.”

“I—”

“Say goodnight, Wynnie.”

I pressed my lips together because he rarely called me Wynnie. He was the only human being on the planet I ever allowed to do it, but when he did, it was always a precious gift.

I did it also because I was cross that he’d talk dirty to me and then just…leave.

Though he was right, if this happened, neither of us should be under the influence of anything.

Not to mention, there was more to go over (so, so much more).

But still, I missed his taste, his smell, his noises, the way he looked when we made love and him being buried inside me, and it was a dirty trick to remind me I did before he was going to just…leave.

“I’ll toss your wine and clean the glass before I go. And since I brought the key this time, I’ll lock up,” he finished.

“You aren’t pouring out that wine. It’s a full glass. I’m not certain I’ve even taken a sip. I’ll pour it back into the bottle.”

A shadow drifted over his face, and he said, “It’s just a glass of wine, Wyn.”

“And I’m not so tipsy I can’t pour it back into the bottle.”

“Is it a special bottle?”

“A special bottle?”

“Special. Or expensive?”

“Not particularly. I actually don’t even remember where I got it. I think it’s from one of my wine clubs.”

“Wyn.”

I started paying attention, close attention, because the way he said that, the pain in my name, it came unexpected but it packed one hell of a punch.

“What?” I whispered.

“You can throw away a glass of wine.”

“But I can also keep it.”

“When you cry like that, you get tired. Do you want to get up and pour a glass of wine in the bottle, or do you want me to take it away so you can just turn the lights out and get some sleep?”

Door number two.

However.

“Will you pour it back in the bottle?”

“Wyn.” That was sharp.

So my repeat of “What?” was too.

“You have Swarovski crystal chandeliers…in your bathroom.”

“Yes.”

“Your duvet cover cost over a thousand dollars.”

Of course, he recognized an Austin.

“And?”

“Are your pajamas polyester?”

Well!

“Of course not.” That was a snap.

He shook me gently. “Jesus, Wyn.”

“What?” That was a snap too.

“If you wanted Swarovski, I could have given it to you,” he said.

I blinked, rapidly, three times.

“Sorry?”

“Though, no way in fuck would I take my kids’ rooms to do it,” he went on. “We could have built on.”

“Remy, they’d moved out and Manon was—”

“You figured out Bea, what’s the rest, Wyn?”

I pulled out of his arms because…

Was he serious?

“Are you…is this some kind of…quiz?” I asked.

“He gave her everything. To keep her quiet. To keep her docile. To keep her from asking too many questions. To keep her from aiming her vitriol at him. Did my mentioning the Monkey Bar penetrate with you?”

Well, I thought it did, but apparently it did not.

I shook my head, “Remy, I’m not following.”

“Why did I want to give you everything?”

I stopped moving.

I stopped thinking.

I stopped everything and focused solely on him.

“She knew he fucked around on her. No way he could be gone as often as he was for so much time without getting himself some,” Remy carried on. “She knew. I was her little man. I was her perfect boy. I was her son, but I had to take up the fuckin’ slack when he was gone, for fuck’s sake. I was the one who was her stand-in to take out her rage that her husband turned to other women and was never home. And he kept that aimed at me by coming home with diamonds and furs.”

I reached out, put my hand on his chest, and although I knew now he was talking about his parents, I didn’t know why.

But what he was saying was scaring the hell out of me.

“Remy, go back and explain why you’re sharing this with me.”

“Because you are not her, Wyn, but I am him. I need to be him. For you. I didn’t take you to the Monkey Bar simply because it was a cool place to go. I took you to the Monkey Bar because I knew I was going to make you mine, and you needed to know how things were going to be. You needed to know who I was going to be for you. From our start until our end.”

And with that, he got up, nabbed the glass of wine, which was full, so it sloshed, but I did not care, and then he walked out.

I didn’t follow him.

But when time had passed, I did.

I checked the front door (locked).

I checked the kitchen.

And saw he’d thrown out the wine.