Wrapped Up in Holly (Hart Brothers)

1. Evan

Evan

B ing Crosby crooned through the speakers while glasses tinkled and voices chattered all around us. But Holly and I, we were silent.

I flipped my knife and spoon.

She sipped from her glass of white wine.

I cleared my throat, tugged on my button down.

She fiddled with her gold necklace, the one I’d given her a few years ago for Mother’s Day. The one engraved with our daughters’ name on a gold bar.

I tried, “Did you see they have chocolate mousse cake?”

Holly nodded.

“You going to get it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

And we fell silent again.

When our marriage counselor assigned us this homework, I didn’t think it would be so difficult. Take Holly on a date and not discuss our work or children? Easy.

Until we got here, and I faced my wife of ten years and suddenly had nothing to say.

I didn’t know how we got here.

Well, I know how we got here , to this slow death of a date. It started a while ago; I supposed. As our girls got older, and as I expanded the business, Holly and I grew apart. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint when, but we’d stopped kissing each other hello and goodbye, stopped talking during the day, and rolled away from each other at the end of the night. Then, a few weeks ago, during the November lull when I had the whole day off, and I treated myself to doing absolutely nothing besides lying around in my sweats, it happened.

With no one else home, I decided to scroll through a porn site and jack off. But Holly walked in, right at the moment I was moaning while my orgasm hit. She froze, her brown eyes wide and staring at me on the bed with my dick in my hand, the evidence of what I’d done on my stomach. I didn’t even have time to say anything before she bent over and started crying.

Not the wailing, painful kind of cry that might have made me feel better. Like it was something I could fix or protect her from.

No, that day, in our bedroom, she had wept silently, like something inside of her snapped. And she was done.

I couldn’t fix it.

I couldn’t protect her from myself.

So, here we were on this date, and my wife and I could barely look each other in the eyes.

Our server arrived with our dinners. The scallops for her and the ribeye for me. Holly always ordered seafood when we went out to eat. Something passed down from her mother, who hadn’t made a lot of money, so when she had received a bonus, she’d always splurged on seafood. They’d get dressed up in their best clothes and share crab or lobster or scallops. Still, even now when we had a healthy home and savings, Holly only ordered seafood when we went out.

We ate in silence. Me tossing furtive glances her way. Her ignoring them.

“How is everything?” the server asked, and Holly nodded, her hand over her mouth as she swallowed a bit of risotto.

“It’s delicious, thank you,” I said. “Can we order the chocolate mousse cake for dessert?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll put that in. Anything else?”

I eyed Holly, then added, “Another glass of wine for my wife.” I lifted my beer. “And I’ll take a refill as well.”

The server nodded and was off, leaving us to finish our dinner in silence.

Later, when the cake was delivered, I nudged it closer to Holly, gesturing for her to help herself, but she didn’t move. Instead, she set her focus on a couple a few tables over.

I watched them, too. They were older, maybe in their seventies, and they clinked their glasses together. I idly wondered what they were celebrating.

“I used to think that would be us,” Holly murmured, and my heart sank.

“You don’t think that will be anymore?”

She shrugged.

“I want that to be us,” I said. More, promised . “Can’t that be us?”

She brushed her hair back. It wasn’t as long as it used to be when we were younger, but it still kissed her shoulders. After a sip of wine, she met my gaze, admitting, “I feel like I’ve lost myself.”

“What do you mean?”

She closed her eyes and dropped her chin, her chest rising and falling on deep breaths, and it occurred to me that I didn’t think I’d told her how beautiful she looked tonight. She was always beautiful.

Shit, I mean… Come on. She had been in enough magazines to prove it.

But I should have told her. In this plaid dress that she’d worn before. That I knew she said made her hips look big, complained was too tight around her belly, and that she often talked about getting rid of but never could because it had been her mother’s.

“I’m not sure if I told you,” I started quietly, waiting for her to open those big eyes to me. “You look beautiful.”

Her gaze drifted to her hand as she fiddled with her wedding ring, a solid gold band, and the tiny diamond I’d given her when we were stupid kids in love. Maybe it was time to upgrade.

I laid my hand over hers, stopping her from spinning the rings around her cool finger. She’d had them resized after being pregnant with the girls because her fingers had never gone back to the size they were before, and now her rings were just a hair too big. Enough that whenever she was anxious, she had picked up the habit of spinning them.

“I was thinking about taking you shopping,” I said. “For Christmas, I’d like to get you new rings.”

Shock then outrage rippled over her features. “I don’t want new rings.”

“What do you want?” I asked with a bit of impatience. I was trying . But she seemed content to let me drown. To give it all up. Everything we had. Everything we’d built. Our entire lives.

“I want…” She blinked a few times, clearing her eyes of tears, and I automatically reached for her, curving my hand around her cheek. I’d never felt good enough to touch her. Me and my big hands with calluses. She was good and fine and beautiful. I’d always been afraid I would break her.

And my fears were not unfounded. I did break her.

I swiped my thumb under her eye. “I’m sorry. I want to fix it. I want to fix us. Tell me what I have to do.” When she shook her head, leaning away from my touch, I dropped my hand to the table with a frustrated thump. “Tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

She sniffled, twirling her wineglass back and forth. “You gave me these rings. How could you think I want new ones?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I didn’t know what she wanted. I didn’t know what she needed.

And I felt like shit about it.

More minutes passed and the chocolate mousse cake sat untouched between us.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

After an eternity, she flicked her dark gaze up to mine, her brows narrowed. “I’m thinking about what it used to be like. When we were kids. Do you remember?”

Of course, I remembered. I remembered everything, including the first day she had shuffled into my sixth-grade class, her attention on her shoes, her long dirty blond hair hanging halfway down her back. She had been so afraid to meet anyone’s gaze, and Mrs. Wentworth directed her to the open seat next to me.

It had taken her a few days to even look at me.

A few weeks to smile.

Longer than that to tell me the story of how her mother had died, and how she’d been placed with her aunt and uncle. She’d moved from New York City, where she lived with her fashion-obsessed mother in a little apartment to Akron, Ohio, where her cousins bullied her, and her aunt and uncle struggled to connect. It was later that summer I had taken her to my family’s farm, and she immediately loved it, being with all of my siblings, and my parents, who sometimes acted barely out of middle school themselves. My family had welcomed her with open arms, and Holly and I had become best friends. Connected at the hip.

There was not one day, since she’d first sat next to me, that she was not the center of my life.

I was nothing without her.

But somehow, I had let her forget it.