Page 6 of The Write Choice

I take her hand and shake it firmly.

Chapter 2

Katie

Leade Park. Leade-fucking-Park. At first, I thought he had to be kidding, but no. He showed me pictures of the house on the internet. He had me sign paperwork for the mortgage that he just happened to have in his desk drawer. He bought a real-life house, in a real-life suburb, near real-life Chicago.

I’m going to be one of those suburban moms in leggings and a sweatshirt with a messy bun. I’m going to be a suburban athleisure mom.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the dresser, noting my leggings, sweatshirt, and messy bun. I grunt to myself. Fine. I’m already an athleisure mom, but at least I’m an urban athleisure mom.

For the next few weeks, anyway.

Of course he up and bought a house without me. Of course he did. That man buys and sells real estate investments all the time with his seemingly unlimited funds. He even bought two apartments next to each other and knocked down walls like some home renovation show to make this space perfect for our family. Well, he can treat this house like another one of his investment properties, because we’re not staying. Even if I do have to admit that the house looks pretty cool from the pictures, and the kids will have lots of space to play and run around.

I dump the basket of clean laundry out on the bed and sigh through my nose, noting how wrinkled the clothes have gotten from sitting in the basket for two days. I consider spraying them down and throwing them back in the dryer for a while but ultimately decide against it. They’d just sit there for two more days, since Brandon sure as hell isn’t going to fold them.

I start tossing clothes into four piles—one for Brandon, one for me, one for Mason, and one for Christine. I do it with more fervor than strictly necessary.

I’m hate-sorting clean laundry. On a Tuesday in November. This is what my life has become.

I used to be fun. I used to have a life outside of this apartment. I used to party all weekend and, sometimes, into the week. I used to have a job and friends.

I don’t miss the partying. Well, I do, but I don’t miss the hangovers and the incessant need to chase the freedom from my nerves that alcohol provided. There’s drinking, and then there’s drinking too much. When drinking at parties turned into too much wine with high-paying clients followed by slipping shots in my lunchtime soda, it became a lot less fun.

I suppose I kind of miss the job. Working in the gallery didn’t leave me much time to paint, but neither does motherhood. At least I got paid to work in the gallery.

Since Brandon has so much money—both from his family and from his job—it has never been necessary for me to work. My parents both worked themselves to the bone. Dad had to work long hours to make ends meet, and Mom took on odd jobs while I was at school. They were both miserable and died relatively young. They never had a chance to enjoy me or each other.

So, once I finally decided to marry Brandon, he asked if I wanted to stay home and enjoy my babies. I did. I could have been a single parent. My mom basically raised me alone all those years, and I was confident I could do it, too. But I fell in love, and that was that. Within a year, I became a stay-at-home mom and wife, all by surprise.

Though after seven years of motherhood, I’m starting to realize that having a job might not be all about the income.

I had started thinking about the possibility of going back to work part-time now that Christine is in preschool, but then Brandon dropped this bomb on me. It’s a moot point now. There aren’t any art galleries in Leade-fucking-Park.

I suppose a move to a suburb was always inevitable. We’re a family, after all, and family living in New York City is difficult. But I wanted to be a mom more than anything. I was ready. It didn’t matter to me that Mason was the product of a hot-and-heavy week during which Brandon and I only left my bed to use the bathroom, eat, or drink more wine. Come to think of it, we did most of the eating and drinking in bed, too.

I should have known my life was about to change the minute we met. It was at a party; I was with a woman I met at a club the week before. I smile lightly at the memory of her. She was incredibly good looking—all legs and sharp features. But she couldn’t hold a candle to Brandon, who was there as the date of one of my work friends. We took one look at each other across the room and our fates were sealed.

I knew next to nothing about him. I didn’t know he was wealthy. I didn’t know he was a grad student studying architecture. I certainly didn’t know he was five years younger than me, almost ready to graduate and take on the world. The only thing I knew was that the high I got from that first kiss when he pressed me up against the outside of a brownstone was better than anything I had ever experienced. Which was a fair amount, with both men and women.

That was one of the things I loved about Brandon from the start. He wanted to know about my past, but he’s never asked me to label or define myself. With him, I’ve always been just… me. Which, I suppose, is still true. But the me I am now is a hell of a lot different than the me I was then.

I groan internally and start chucking clothes a little harder until I get to the bottom of the basket. Just the sight of the bed, even under piles of clothes, has me thinking about Brandon and me in it. He and I haven’t been together since we were in Leade Park for Daniel’s wedding. Before that, actually, because there’s no sex when you’re on vacation with two small children.

Sex had never been an issue with us. A lot of couples lose that desire when they add kids to the mix, but we’ve always craved each other. But if he thinks he’s welcome in this bed after these most recent developments, he’s got another thing coming.

So far, my willpower has been stronger than my libido. I just don’t know how long I can hold out.

I grab his t-shirts and start laying them out flat on the bed, one on top of another. A low chuckle resonates behind me, and I whip around to face the bedroom door. Brandon is leaning against it, his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose the tattoo of a cat on his forearm. I love that tattoo. It’s a black outline of a sleeping cat, curled up and happy, but it takes up almost his entire forearm. He wanted a tattoo of my name on his arm, but I told him that was too gauche, so he settled for the animal that he nicknamed me for instead. With his sleeves rolled up like that, he looks like a damn Adonis. I glare at him, certain that he’s doing this on purpose to tempt me.

“Are you hate-folding laundry?” he asks with a smirk.

“No,” I say sharply. Technically, I’m not folding anything yet.

He laughs again, clearly not buying it. “Okay. Do you want some help?”

I avoid looking at him by lowering my attention back to the bed and the piles of laundry laying there. I’m not surprised he wants to help now that he knows how upset I am, but where was he before this? How many times had I wished for a break from the drudgery of housework when Christine was a tiny baby and the piles of two kids’ laundry felt overwhelming? How many times had I hoped he’d come home early and relieve me of some of these boring chores?