"How was the shower?" he asks as if nothing is wrong. Liz, do not kill him.
"It was fun. How was your three days not talking to me?"
He lowers his head, scratching the back of his neck. "Not good. I missed you."
I cross my arms and dig my nails into my skin to keep from smacking him. "Please grab a shovel for that hole you're digging."
He half-grins, and damn him for looking good doing it. But this is no time for smiles. No half-smiles or scared smiles or love-you smiles. None of that shit.
"Where were you, Landon?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
He gestures to his attire, and I slowly shake my head.
"Uh … "
He half-smiles again. Stop that. "I was looking for a job."
"What? Why?"
"Because we have no money."
"Yeah, which is why I'm working maximum overtime. You didn't have to leave."
He pushes from the wall and takes a step toward me. "I did. I needed to do something."
"That's fine, okay. If you want to get another job, I get it," I say, picking up his socks and walking past him to the bedroom. I turn on the bedside lamp and toss the socks in the laundry basket. He follows right behind.
"I just need something more stable."
"Okay."
"And I didn't want to come home until I found something."
I pull off my heels and set them as neatly as I can in the closet with my shaking hands. "Why didn't you tell me that over the phone?"
"I wasn't sure what I was doing. And I didn't want you to worry more about money."
"I don't care about that. I care about you. About us. And about warming my feet in the bed when they're cold."
He laughs at my joke and tentatively crosses the room and pulls me into his arms.
"I can warm them tonight."
I breathe deep, inhaling the cologne on his shirt and yelling at myself for not being more stubborn as my arms wrap around him too.
"So did you find something, then? Is that why you're home?"
He shakes his head. "SOL."
I wiggle from his hold and walk to my side of the bed. My molars grind as I keep my tongue from unleashing its wrath. But I know saying whatever I want to say will make him upset, it'll make me more upset, and I really don't want to fight. I just want to sleep and hopefully figure out a calm way to tell him he's a complete dumbass if he thought leaving was best.
"I love you," he says, and I chuck the top sheet down on the bed with an uncontrollable roll of my eyes.
"Love you, too," I grumble. Yes, damn it, I love you, but you piss me off and you still haven't apologized.
"Wait … you're still mad?"
I look up from the bed and see his genuine confusion. And I can't bite my tongue anymore. "Of course I'm still mad. You left for three days, Landon!"
He takes a step back, eyes wide at first, then his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow. "To look for a better job! More money, benefits." He tosses his hand out at me. "So maybe you'd be able to work a normal shift again."
He did not just make this about me.
"Well, you could've done that here. Why was it so important for you to leave?"
"I was embarrassed, all right?" His face goes red and his eyes gloss over, and my heart pounds like a two-ton weight. "I make shit. I don't do shit for you. What the hell am I bringing into this relationship?"
I gulp and blink, and great, my eyes are watering now too. "You have no idea how important you are to me, do you? How important it is that you're here."
"It's not good enough. I'm not good enough. That's why I left."
"Stop thinking that."
He shakes his head, like he doesn't believe what I'm saying or he doesn't want to. And it pisses me off more that he won't just say "Okay" or "Thank you" or anything that means he actually heard the sincerity of how I think of him. Instead he stands by the other side of the bed, voice shaking as he tries to keep it from being so loud he wakes the neighbors.
"I was doing this for you. For us. So we don't have to raise a family in a hole-"
"That's why you're directing! That's why you've put so much into making movies, right?"
"That's never gonna happen."
"Stop thinking that!"
"It's not!"
"Then why are you doing it?"
"I'm not anymore."
My two-ton heart stops. "What?"
"I'm not doing that anymore. Once I get a job, that'll be it. I'll stay there and work my way up or whatever normal shit people do and we'll have medical benefits and I can have paid days off and a nine-to-five schedule which makes sense for a family and for marriage and for you, so if macaroni gets spilled again we don't have to worr … What the hell are you doing?"
My shirt falls to the floor, and I go to yank off my bra, getting tangled in the straps. "I'm undressing. What does it look like I'm doing?"
His gaze flicks down when I finally free myself from the bra. I start on my jeans' zipper and he says, "Sorry, Liz, but I'm not exactly in the mood."
I puff out a derisive snort. Like I'm in the mood either. But I twist my underwear off, kicking my clothes away with as much force as I can muster. "If you want to yell at me, you're going to have to yell at me while I'm naked."
His eyes narrow. "Fine."
"Fine."
He practically tears the buttons off his shirt before it leaves his body. "Fine."
"Fine." My arms cross as my eyes drift to his zipper as he struggles to get out of his clothes as fast as I got out of mine. He shoves his slacks and boxers to his ankles, straightens, and echoes my crossed-arm stance.
"Okay," I say. "Have at it."
He pauses, biting his bottom lip while I see the corners of his mouth twitch and twitch like he's desperately trying not to smile. I have to force my own laugh back. Finally Jace has some valid advice, and the whole situation makes my voice come out less harsh than it has been.
"You're not allowed to give up everything you want just for me."
"I want you. Just you." His arms drop, and he plays with the back of his hat, the only clothing he's still wearing. His eyes are desperately focused on mine, like it's taking so much effort not to stare directly at my boobs. "I want you to be happy." His voice is soft now. "And I want to give you what you want in life."
"Then do it." My arms fall to my sides, hitting my hips. "But don't give up anything for yourself in the process. Whatever you want, I want that for you. It would suck if we look back twenty years from now and you resented me because the world was at your fingertips and then you got married."
"Same goes for you." There's a tiny twitch in the corner of his mouth, so small I wouldn't have noticed it if the light wasn't hitting him in the right spot. He pulls one foot out of his clothing, followed by the other as he steps toward me. My heart makes itself known again, lighter now, drumming an unsteady beat in my chest. He's closer, and I don't know what I'll do if he completely closes the distance. I'm still royally pissed. But I can't seem to care.
Landon stops a breath away. "My dream is unrealistic. It's never going anywhere, I'm never going to make money off it, and if I don't get my ass a steady job we'll live in this apartment forever and you won't get that house in the suburbs. Whatever kids we have we'll be struggling to feed. I can't force you to wait for something that won't happen."
"It will-"
"Becoming a director?" He cuts me off with a short laugh. "Making movies? Living in Hollywood, going to premieres, doing interviews on television? How unrealistic does that sound? It doesn't happen to normal people."
"You're not normal." I push my fingers against his, slowly interlocking them, and squeeze twice at the exact time he does. "You're extraordinary. And I will not let you give up."
The twitch of his smile grows. "So … we're basically arguing over who gets to be more selfless in this marriage."
I smile, too. "Basically."
He shakes his head with a small laugh and pulls me by the back of my neck up to his lips. I pull his baseball cap off, tossing it with the rest of our clothes. Damn, I've missed him, even though he didn't deserve to have been missed. Yet I open my mouth wider, invite him in, press against his warm chest, and drown in the reunion .
He's very careful to keep his hands off the goods as he rubs them down my sides, over my hips, and to my upper thighs to coax me on his waist. I resist a little, because as sweet as it is to have him home, and as much as I love him, I'm still upset he felt the need to leave in the first place.
I hop into his arms anyway.
He braces himself on the mattress as he lowers us onto the comforter, still kissing me with the deepest of kisses, both of us gasping for air every time we part. I'm thinking Yes! We still got it. But I'm also thinking I need to hear words before we go anywhere. I need the "sorry"s and the "I love you"s and "I'll never do this again." And it bugs me that he's not saying anything.
Sex used to be an apology all in itself. Now has it become a reward? Why is it not good enough for me anymore?
"Liz?"
"Mmm?" I lilt, hoping an apology is forthcoming.