Almost Ordinary (The Song Wreckers Book 2) (12 page)

Shit. He didn’t expect me to help him this year, did he? I never liked to decorate for Christmas so I made up for it by baking for it.

I doctored two cups of coffee with cream and sugar then sipped on mine while I brought Caleb’s upstairs. I handed him his cup. He started opening the boxes one-handed until he realized it wasn’t efficient. He chugged the entire cup of hot coffee to be able to unpack the boxes faster.

I laughed without making a sound, remembering that I bought some of the most God awful, tacky, and cheapest quality decorations during the clearance Christmas sales last year for the sole purpose of fucking with my crazed husband. I snuck them into the boxes when the good stuff was getting packed away.

“What the . . .? Where did this come from?” He held up a psychotic-looking elf.

I willed a serious, straight face. “Oh, I forgot to tell you I bought some new decorations last year.” To distract, I said, “I’m glad the boys are sleeping in. You going into work today?”

Next, he lifted out a Santa on a stick by its sleeve, as if it had cooties. “Uh, yeah, for a few hours. Then Brett’s coming over later to help me with the outside lights. I told him we’d make dinner for him and Katie.” He cringed. “Where did you get this?”

Ha! At a store where everything cost one dollar or less. That particular piece of crap was on clearance for a whopping twenty-five cents. “Macy’s I think. It’s cute, right?”

“Mmm,” he said.

I left his horrified face to take a shower, snickering the whole time. Last year Caleb tried to banish the only two Christmas decorations I brought into our marriage. It didn’t work. I found my Charlie Brown Christmas tree with its lone ornament in the closet, after I had set it out. These two new gems were payback for that.

I would think it weird for such a manly man to be so into holiday decorating, except it was a continuation of his childhood holidays. The Ramsey household always had the best decorated house in the neighborhood. After Caleb’s father died, the kids continued going ape shit every year, covering every possible space with lights and whatever else. Now he’s ape shit at our home. It’s cute, I suppose, in that oh-my-God-we-are-going-to-have-the-biggest-electric-bill-ever sort of way. Plus, it was a good distraction for him. He needed something positive to be able to focus on, and if it made him forget about our disagreement, even better.

When Caleb left his decorations to go to work, I called Katie. “What do you want for dinner?”

She detailed the kind of steak she wanted, how she wanted it cooked, what toppings were to be slathered on her baked potato, and the five different types of vegetables that should be present in her salad.

Geez. “Anything else, your royal, pregnant highness?”

“Do not skimp on dessert,” she added.

The boys and I went to the grocery store to be able to meet Katie’s food demands. It doubled as a way to keep the boys out of the boxes of decorations Caleb had brought downstairs that they tried many times to dig through. There were five big boxes dedicated to strings of lights alone. I didn’t bother to count the number of light up spiral trees, and I was pretty sure that in Caleb’s version, Santa has way more than nine reindeer.

Chapter 15

“Good lord, it looks like Bronner’s threw up in here,” Katie observed, referring to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth. It’s a few hours north, and claims to be the largest Christmas store in the world.

Caleb beamed. “Thanks.”

Caleb and Brett shook hands as if they didn’t see each other all the time, and Caleb led him into his office where he had hand-sketched plans for the outside lights.

Hand. Sketched.

There were a few things set out around the house. Most of the items sat outside of boxes, or piled on a table waiting to be put in the perfect location. It was already a pain keeping Alex and Zander from climbing on them and pulling things out. I put my foot down an hour ago and forbade the storage of anything Christmas related in the family room. The room was gated off from the rest of the house, and was going to stay kid friendly.

“You look good,” I told Katie. She wore a thin sweater that showed off her bump.

We corralled the boys to the family room to be able to sit down to talk.

“If my boobs swell any bigger I’m going to throw my back out. You don’t know how lucky you are to be flat-chested.”

“I have perfectly respectable B cups.”

“Same thing.”

Tell Katie I visited Cooper, or keep my mouth shut? She couldn’t empathize with my situation, so any advice or criticism she twanged my way would be from an outsider’s point of view. As my best friend she might think she knew how I felt, but no one did, really.

On the other hand, she was my best friend, and hated it when I didn’t tell her something and she found out later. She’d lay on the guilt trip, and drone on and on about how she tells me everything. And she did, even stuff I didn’t want to know.

Because Caleb didn’t like me seeing Cooper, perhaps I needed another opinion. Maybe Katie could see my point of view and help ease the bad wife weight sitting on my shoulders.

“Guess what I did?” I asked, at the same time she said, “Let’s start making dinner.”

“You first,” Katie said. “What did you do?”

Heavy footsteps thudded toward us from the office. “Heading outside,” Caleb barked.

Our heads followed him and Brett as they blew past us, each with a set of plans for the outside lights. They slammed the door behind them.

Katie and I looked at each other. “Pathetic,” I said.

“A hundred bucks says they’ll have to leave to buy more lights.”

I checked in on the boys to make sure they were okay. “I’m not taking that bet, I’d lose.”

Katie asked, “What did you do?”

“I slipped in really ugly decorations into Caleb’s nice stuff and didn’t tell him. He found them this morning.” Why did I chicken out telling her about Cooper?

“Nice,” she remarked.

We put the boys in their high chairs and sat for dinner an hour later. The men had a start on the outside lights. Once everyone had food in front of them, Caleb and Brett continued a conversation that must’ve started outside.

Brett asked, “Where’d they send him?”

Katie perked up. “Send who? Where?”

“Adam. Prison,” Caleb answered. “He’s up in Bellamy Creek. Not far enough away for me, but that’s where they had room. Plus they have the resources that are supposed to help rehabilitate him.” His tone indicated he didn’t think rehabilitation was possible.

I didn’t either. I hoped we were wrong.

Once I knew Adam was off the streets for a very long time, I never asked Caleb for the rest for the details. I had enough going on without wanting to add bad memories. Sometimes Adam crept into my mind and I hated that. The relief of him being in jail had turned into anger. Even hearing his name pissed me off. Belinda Nord had been tortured and killed, yet Adam lived. And sometimes, mundane things that shouldn’t be significant, were. Like roses, because those were what he liked leaving for me.

Road kill, since he had mutilated two animals and left them on my porch.

Brett’s alley, because that’s where he almost killed me.

I shook off the memory.

“Pleading not guilty would’ve put him on trial and in the spotlight for a while. Wonder why he passed that opportunity up.”

Caleb squeezed my hand. I nodded as if to say
go
ahead. “He had two options. One, he could go through a trial, but if a jury declared him guilty—and there was a mountain of evidence against him, so the chances of that were good—he probably would’ve gotten life in prison without the possibility of parole. Taking the plea meant he was guaranteed to see life outside of prison someday. Unfortunately.”

Katie reached over and squeezed my shoulder in a show of support. I dumped more food on Alex and Zander’s trays. To show this conversation didn’t bother me, I added, “I’m glad neither one of us suffered through a trial. Sure would be nice if they locked him up until he died.”

“What’s Cooper’s take on this whole ordeal?” Brett asked.

Damn it, why did he have to mention Cooper?

I shrugged. “He’s already trying to open another branch of 3D, he’s still not fully recovered. Adding the bullshit—”
Dang it, not in front of the boys.
“—of a trial makes more work for everyone else.”

“Not to mention,” Caleb said, “it makes Cooper an even bigger A-hole than he’s already been.”

“Believe me, not wanting a trial is for selfish reasons. I’d much rather have my husband home, not spending his days at a trial and nights playing catch up at work.” I really wished Brett hadn’t brought up Cooper’s name, but he didn’t know our history so I couldn’t be mad at the guy.

“Everything’s a done deal?” Katie asked. “Adam’s there to stay, end of story?”

Caleb nodded. “Yeah. It took almost two weeks after the police caught him to bargain out the details of what he would plead guilty to and attach the amount of time he would serve for each crime. Bastard threatened to go through with a trial if they tried charging him with any part of the attack on Molly. He relished in the glory of being a big news story, so that probably satisfied his need for attention. The
Metro Press
deal was, what, six months ago? Bet he’s missing his moment in the spotlight. Good.”

Brett refocused on us. “It’s possible he’ll be out of prison someday while we’re all still alive? Doesn’t seem right.”

No, indeed it didn’t. Nothing we could do about it.

The boys started being cute, saying the few words they could—ball, da, more—so we cut the depressing talk and moved on to Brett and Katie’s gender-unknown baby due in a month and a half.

Franny panted. “Ram is a good man, but I hate him right now.” She helped me chase down Zander. He managed to snatch a wooden Christmas tree that had been sitting on a bookshelf, and was currently running away from us, smacking random places with it. The wall here, a table there, Franny’s arm when she attempted to grab it from him.

“I know, right?” For the most part, Caleb did a great job of keeping the Christmas decorations where the boys couldn’t reach them. In a few places, he’d underestimated their drive to want colorful objects that looked like toys.

Franny chased Zander and Alex as if they drove her crazy, but she adored them. If she didn’t, I would’ve fired her a long time ago. They adored her too.

“Three weeks I’ve been doing this! And they get better at running every day. Got you!” She scooped up Alex and pried a Little Drummer Boy from his hands.

We made sure the boys couldn’t reach any more stuff, then I put them down for a nap and crashed on the couch for an hour. I’d been tired as hell the last several weeks, burning the midnight oil working on Gina’s album. The added stress I put on myself of Cooper being somewhat in my life didn’t help either. I couldn’t help it, discovering he was mixing Vicodin and booze scared me. Had addiction taken hold?

With Caleb’s begrudged acceptance I used the weekends for surprise visits to Cooper. I never stayed long. I wanted to make sure his health didn’t decline. I never found anymore pill bottles. When I asked him if he still took Vicodin he told me to mind my own business so I figured he hid them from me. My lectures about getting healthy fell on deaf ears and sometimes I wanted to give up on him. There was that part inside of me though, that couldn’t let the biological father of my children flush himself down the toilet.

The visits to Cooper stole time away from my kids and career, and created an underlying tension in my marriage that I didn’t want. And the guilt gnawed a hole in my gut because I wasn’t ready to give up.

I didn’t know enough about the man yet. What if, sometime in the future, one of the boys needed like, an organ or something? If I’m not a match he might be. What if they grew up and decided they wanted to beat the shit out of the man who gave them up? I wanted him alive so they could pummel him with my full blessing. Not gonna lie, I might want to hit or kick him a few times too.

So far Cooper wasn’t getting any worse. He remained a constant, belligerent asshole. One day, the scale was going to tip. He’d either succumb to his demons or pull his head out of his ass. I wasn’t sure which would screw with my life more, probably both.

Chapter 16

Yawning, I told Caleb, “Okay, here’s the deal. My mom and Victor are coming over on Christmas Eve.”

I didn’t want Christmas to come up and bite me on the ass, so I’d made an effort to take care of all the details well in advance. That included the obligatory visit with my mom. She wanted us to bring the kids to her house, complaining that she and Victor were tired from all the travelling they did. She changed her mind when I reminded her that I might not be able to keep the twins from destroying everything in their wake.

Caleb rustled through a mess of papers on his dining table desk. He threw his hands up in defeat. “Where is the Candermann file?”

I walked around the table desk and picked it up off of his chair. I held it up, and when he reached for it, yanked it out of his grasp. “Repeat for me what I just told you first.”

He made another grab for it so I leaped to the side and taunted, “Fifteen years as a dancer, remember. My reflexes are still damn good.” I waved the file in front of his face. “Tell me what I want to hear.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re beautiful.”

I blushed. His compliments still surprised me. “Thanks, but that’s not it.”

“You’re smart.”

“This is common knowledge,” I joked, “but thanks again. Come on, Caleb. Repeat what I told you a minute ago. I’ll give you a hint, it dealt with your favorite holiday.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a predatory smile. “You bought slutty lingerie and are gonna wear it on Christmas and let me do dirty things to you?”

I threw my head back and laughed, glad he was able to lose himself for a minute. “No,” I said handing over his file, “Well, maybe. My mom and Victor are coming here on Christmas Eve.”

He sat down with his file. “Oh. Is that it?”

“Then Christmas we’ll go to your mom’s, of course. Even though the twins’ birthday is the next day, I want to hold off for the party until Sunday.”

“Shit,” Caleb exhaled.

“What?”

He dropped the file to run his hands through his hair. “I mean it’s not like I didn’t know that their birthday was coming up. Shit, I didn’t buy them anything yet.”

“I handled it. There’s nothing more to do.”

He reached out so I took his hand. “I haven’t even shopped for Christmas. It’s been in the back of my mind, but I haven’t done anything about it.”

I sat in his lap. “Everything is taken care of. All the presents are bought, even the stuff that’s from you to your brothers. You don’t have to do a thing. Franny and I did all the shopping and wrapping. Everything’s in the spare bedroom, Christmas and birthday.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“I know it’s been hell for you lately.”

“I owe you one.” He kissed me and slid his hands up my pajama top for a few seconds.

Any other time I’d welcome his touch. Not today. Ouch. I pushed his hands down. “Sorry, PMS boobs. They’re sore. Do you want to know what you bought me for Christmas?

“I should probably know what it is before you open it.”

“Hold on!” I jumped off his lap.

I zipped upstairs then returned a minute later holding my new guitar. “You were generous enough to purchase me this Gibson Epiphone Dave Navarro Signature acoustic/electric guitar in black with a custom mother of pearl inlay. And—” I held up my other hand. “—a new strap with
The Song Wreckers
custom embroidered down it.” I waved them both in his face. This sucker was an impressive piece of musical art. I always wanted a strap with my band’s name on it, but didn’t want to look stupid being the only one in the Song Wreckers who wore one. So I bought two and gave Katie one for her birthday last week. She loved it.

No smile on Caleb’s lips, just a raised eyebrow as he ran a finger down the neck of the guitar. “You already have like, two other guitars.”

“Three,” I corrected. “This one is so much cooler. Look.” I dropped the strap to hold the guitar as if I were about to play it. “Awesome, right?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. Did I spend a lot of money on you?”

“Let’s just say that you like me to have the best.”

Sobered, he said, “Princess, I do want you to have the best. Always. Come here.”

I carefully set the guitar down and let him gather me in his arms. “Thank you,” he said into my hair, then kissed my head.

“You’re welcome. Thank
you.
My new guitar is awesome.”

“Thank you for taking care of Christmas and the boys’ birthday. Cooper’s been handing me work to do like there’s forty-eight hours in a day and I have no life.”

“How is Cooper?”

Caleb released me and sat down. I sat on the corner of the table and kept my eyes on his face. His eyes were normal, but his mouth stayed in a tight line. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t think he’s doing all that great. There’s more than him being as asshole. He’s always on edge. I think his doctors want him to have surgery on his leg. They’re calling him at the office so it must be important. I’ve overheard him more than once telling them he’s not going to have surgery. He’s still taking pills.”

“Vicodin?”

“I think so. In the mornings it’s almost like he’s hung over, so he must be hitting the bottle at night. He doesn’t look good. Healthy good. If it . . .”

“If it what?”

He let out a noisy breath. “If it were anyone else, I’d say I was worried about him. Maybe I am worried. Hell, I don’t know. This is Cooper so it’s hard for me to feel concerned.”

Don’t make the offer
. “You want me to convince him to go to the doctor?”

“No.”

“Hear me out.”

“No,” he said again.

I stood, hands on hips. If Cooper needed surgery and refused it, he needed someone to set him straight. “Caleb, listen. Maybe I can talk some sense into him. He
might
listen to me. Who knows. I’ll leave the boys with Franny, drive to 3D like I’m there to see you, then slip in and talk to him. He’d probably kick me out of his condo, but not the office with other people around.”

“If Cooper’s messing himself up, then it’s on Cooper and doesn’t concern you.”

I shook my hands in frustration. “That. Man. Took. A. Bullet. For. You. For that and other reasons, his recovery concerns me.
Us
.”

His legs pushed his chair back so hard it rolled and hit the wall behind it. “You’re obviously going to do what you want to do, regardless of what I say.” He stomped out of the dining room and into the kitchen.

I followed. “Caleb, be reasonable. The worse off he is, the more work it is for you and everyone else. I miss you, and you’re miserable there lately. You miss being home as much as you used to. The sooner he’s his old self, the sooner we can resume our normal lives and pretend he’s nothing more than your boss.”

He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. With his head still inside, he mumbled, “That’s something I’ve never been able to pretend.”

I burst out crying. From zero to blubbering. Caleb came out of the fridge and turned to me.

I continued to cry—hard, not quite sure why. Sometimes the guilt from the Cooper affair and pregnancy resurfaced and threatened to swallow me whole, but I’ve never broke down like this. I would remind myself that Caleb chose me, chose the twins, and chose our life together, and then I’d be fine.

A minute passed, and I still couldn’t control my emotions. Caleb drank his beer, eyes darting around as if he were unsure what to do. I wanted to run to him and feel his arms circle my body. I didn’t. I made a conscious effort to suck it up and force my emotions down. I grabbed some tissues and dried my eyes and nose. I crossed my arms and pinched the inside of my arm to give myself something else to focus on.

I breathed deep, lifted my chin, and spoke. “I’m sorry you have to deal with everything you do in regards to Cooper. I’m sorry he’s such an idiot, I’m sorry you have to look at his face every day and be reminded of our relationship.” Though
relationship
was too strong a word for what we had. “I’m sorry that it hurts you that I cared for him after he was shot.” The tears threatened to resume. I paused so it wouldn’t show in my voice. When I steadied myself out, I finished. “I’m sorry if the choice you made to be with me is difficult for you, but understand the choice is sometimes difficult for me, too. I have to always wonder if you think poorly of me for what I did. When we argue, I panic that you wish you never would’ve pursued me like you did. Sometimes, I don’t feel good enough for you. I . . .”

I had nothing else to say. Tears flowed down my cheeks in a steady stream as I walked to our room. I passed out as soon as I hit the bed.

The boys must’ve slept through the night because nothing woke me until I heard them babbling at seven the next morning. The empty spot next to me was rumpled so Caleb had slept in bed with me last night.

I should’ve felt good sleeping that hard and that long. Instead, I felt like I’d run a marathon. The argument with Caleb drained me more than I thought.

Needing best friend time, fresh air and exercise, I called Katie. I begged for her to come over and help me take the boys out for a ride in the jogging stroller. She whined, so I reminded her exercise made for an easier birth. She whined some more, so I admitted Caleb and I had argued and that I needed her. She pulled into my driveway twenty minutes later.

“Good lord,” Katie said as soon as she was through the door, “Are you so mean you’re gonna make me go out in that?”

I rolled my eyes. She thought being eight months pregnant excused her from doing anything she didn’t want to do. Okay, I thought that too, but walking really did benefit the birthing process—so I’d heard, the twins were born via C-section. “It’s not that cold. There’s not even any snow on the ground. It’s above freezing so stop being a wuss.”

We bundled ourselves and headed for the trail a quarter mile from my house.

A quarter mile in, Katie said, “This is weird.”

“What?”

“You’re not walking at warp speed.”

I told her about my argument with Caleb.

Putting her hand on my shoulder, she turned me to face her. “Are you worried that he’s going to leave you?”

“That’s the thing. No, I don’t think he has any intention of leaving me. God, this whole thing has me drained. I’m tired all the time, I find myself snapping at people. The other day Franny asked me where I put the vacuum and I told her to figure it out her damn self.”

We started walking again. “Please tell me you apologized.”

“I did. It’s like I have the world’s longest case of PMS.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” she offered.

I’d never told anyone, including Katie, that Caleb was unable to have his own biological children. It was nobody else’s business, and Caleb hated that part of himself.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“When was the last time you had your period?”

“I don’t know. Maybe when the boys were,” I thought for a minute. Since birth control wasn’t an issue for Caleb and me, I never kept track of my periods anymore. “About five or six months old, I think. Then once more after that.”

Katie stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed my arm. “Are you telling me you’ve only had two periods in the last six months?”

“Yeah. Aren’t your cycles supposed to be screwy for a while after childbirth?” At least, I thought I might’ve read that somewhere.

“Okay, Mol. From what I’ve been reading, that may not be the case. And as long as you’ve been having a couple of periods, you’re ovulating.”

“So?” I wished I could tell her that getting pregnant wasn’t possible for us.

“So, you dummy, if the timing was right you could’ve gotten pregnant. Your ovulation schedule is obviously way off. Good Lord, don’t you know this stuff?”

I knew the basics, but why care about my ovulation schedule when my husband couldn’t impregnate me?

She explained in detail all about ovulation and pregnancy. I didn’t comment because I was embarrassed to admit my ignorance of some of what she’d told me.

I put my hands on my hips to drill in the point. “I’m not pregnant.” I mean, seriously, I knew my own body. I’ve been pregnant before.