His phone lit up with a new text message. He was disappointed when instead of being from Lina it was from Kim. How was he? He tossed the phone back onto the coffee table.
Katie arrived home at midnight. After locking up the house, he went up to the master suite, turned on the television in the sitting room, and stretched out on the couch. Lina finally texted at 1:15. Are you still up?
Yes, he typed back. His phone immediately began to ring. “Are you in your room?” he asked.
“No. We’re at a club. It’s small, and they have a great band. Did you know the clubs stay open until four a.m. here?”
“How much have you had to drink?” He thought he heard a slight slur to her words.
“I’m not drunk.” She laughed. “I’m having fun. You don’t have to worry. We’re just dancing.”
“Who are you dancing with?” He sat up.
“No one. I’m just dancing.”
His hand tightened on the phone, imagining her in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by leering men. “It’s late, baby. Why don’t you go back to the hotel?”
“It’s not late here. Just go to sleep. I’ll be fine, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Don’t hang up. Where’s Adele?”
“Out there waiting for me. I’m in the bathroom, holding up the line. I have to go.”
“Wait—how much have you had to drink?”
She laughed softly. “I’m fine, Phil. I promise. I had two glasses of wine with dinner and two drinks here. I’m done drinking. I’m just dancing and enjoying the band.”
“You’re twenty blocks from your hotel. I don’t want you walking this late at night.”
“Oh my God. You tracked us?”
“Of course I tracked you. It’s late, and I hadn’t heard from you for hours.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take a cab. I have to go. Love you.” She was gone before he could respond.
“Fuck.” He sighed, bringing the phone down from his ear. He drafted a quick text: Text me when you’re back at the hotel
He was surprised when he received an immediate reply. Stop worrying, she texted, followed by an emoji blowing a kiss.
When Liam’s cry came over the baby monitor an hour later Phil was in bed but awake. He slipped on a pair of sweatpants and made his way to the nursery only to find Katie struggling to lift Liam out of his crib. “What’s the matter?” she cooed as she pulled him into her side. “Are you scared?”
Phil’s worry over Lina was temporarily overshadowed by his awe of Katie’s absolute devotion to Liam. Liam was a big baby, and Katie’s petite size made him look even bigger, but that didn’t stop her from cradling him in her arms.
He crossed his arms over his bare chest, propping his shoulder against the doorframe as he watched her comfort her little brother. “Does he need a diaper change?”
Katie spun around at the sound of his voice. “Why are you sneaking up on me?”
“I wasn’t.” He pushed off the wall. “You just beat me here.” He stopped beside her, looking down at Liam, whose eyes were almost closed. “Shh.” He pressed his index finger against his lips. “He’s almost asleep,” he whispered, carefully removing him from Katie’s arms and placing him back in the crib.
They watched him for several seconds, ensuring his eyes remained closed, before leaving the room. Phil heard the soft sound of voices as he pulled the nursery door closed and realized the television in the second-floor rec room was on. “You were still up?”
“I’m watching a movie.”
“It’s late. You should go to bed. You need to get up early and work on your college apps.”
She frowned at him. “I’m seventeen. You need to stop trying to father me.”
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “I’m your father. I can’t stop fathering you. Good night.”
As soon as he entered his bedroom, his phone buzzed with a new text message from Lina.
Safe and sound in my hotel room. Love you.
He let out a relieved sigh as he stretched out on his mattress. He was asleep in less than a minute.
Lina arrived home a little after eight on Saturday evening and was disappointed when Katie told her Liam was already down for the night. “He was like a crazy man all day, and then he just fell asleep while Dad was feeding him his dinner. Like literally. His face just dropped forward onto the tray, right?” Katie asked Matt, who was sitting beside her on the family-room couch.
“He did a face-plant into a bowl of yogurt,” Matt answered.
“He didn’t even wake up when Dad was cleaning him off,” Katie added.
“Where is Dad?” Lina asked.
“Exercising,” Katie answered. “We’re going outside to use the firepit. You’re responsible if Liam wakes up.”
Lina was in the master bathroom putting her toiletries away an hour later when she felt a presence in the doorway. She looked up to find Phil in shorts and a sweat-drenched T-shirt, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “How long have you been there?”
“Not long.” His eyes traveled over her. “Did you have fun?”
“Yes. Did you?”
“No.” He slowly crossed to where she was standing, pressing her back against the vanity. “Did you dance with anyone?”
“Adele.”
“Anyone else?” He gripped the bottom of her shirt and began to lift it up.
“What are you doing?”
“Answer my question.”
“No, only Adele.” She lifted her arms up as he removed her shirt. “It’s only nine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go dancing?” He was reaching behind her as he spoke and unclasping her bra.
“I didn’t know I wanted to until I heard the music.” She felt the chill of the cool air against her breasts as her bra fell to the floor. “Did you lock the bedroom door?”
He yanked his T-shirt over his head, tossing it on the vanity behind her. “How many men came onto you?”
“You’re being silly,” she whispered.
“How many?” He grasped the sides of her hips, easily lifting her and placing her on the vanity.
“Everyone was just having fun. It wasn’t like that.”
“It’s always like that.” He dropped his mouth to her neck, biting and licking his way to her ear. “You’re mine,” he growled. “I don’t want other men watching you, wanting you, if I’m not there to protect you.”
“I was fine,” she said breathlessly, gripping his upper arms as he dragged his mouth down her neck to her shoulder, his scruff rough against her skin.
“I’ve seen the way men look at you. Promise me you won’t go out to a place like that again without me.” He sank his fingers into her hips as he pressed his lower body into the juncture between her legs.
“Phil—”
“Promise me. I was out of my fucking mind last night. I’ll take you dancing. I’ll take you clubbing. Whatever you want. But I don’t want you in those places without me.”
“You’re talking too much.” She reached between them, stroking her hand over his erection.
He pulled back long enough to strip off the rest of his clothes, and then he was kissing her, his tongue stroking over hers as he unclasped her jeans. He reached into the shower to turn on the water while she finished undressing, and then he lifted her off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he took her into the shower.
“Do you think it’s odd that Phil has such a negative reaction to my traveling?” Lina asked Adele the following weekend when they met for lunch.
“Odd for Phil? No,” Adele answered. “Odd for a normal person? Yes, it would be very odd.”
“He seems to genuinely fear that something is going to happen to me.”
“He just likes to have complete control of you. When you’re traveling, you’re not under his thumb. He can’t stand it.”
“That is not true.”
“How many times over the years have I tried to get you to go away for a girls weekend? Phil wouldn’t let you.”
“It wasn’t Phil. It was me.” The idea of going away with her sister had appealed to her, but when it came to the execution, she’d never been able to go through with it, not able to leave Phil. The thought of being without him overnight would bring out a feeling of panic. It was a lingering effect of the trauma she’d experienced as a teenager, feeling unsafe at night unless she was with Phil. The one positive outcome of their six months apart was finally learning to feel safe alone.
“Maybe it was you, too,” Adele conceded. “But Phil didn’t want you to leave either. He thinks of himself as your protector.”
Adele’s words, he thinks of himself as your protector, replayed in Lina’s mind long after their lunch was over. She finally realized it was striking a chord in her because it was the exact phrasing her mother-in-law used to describe Phil over Christmas.
“I have a question,” Lina said to Susan Hunter over the phone later that day. “Do you remember how you said Phil thought of himself as my protector? You were in my room looking at that picture of us as teenagers.”
“Of course.”
“What did you mean exactly? I mean, I know a husband protects his wife, but was there a deeper meaning? Were you implying that Phil takes that role more seriously than other men?”
Several seconds passed before Susan responded. “I don’t think he can help himself, not after what he witnessed happening that night to you and Shiloh. It changed him. I think it would have changed any man. Phil couldn’t stand to have you apart from him after that.”
“I thought that was me. I thought I couldn’t stand to be apart from him.”
“It was mutual. Phil couldn’t leave you any more than you could leave him. Why are you asking about this now?”
“He doesn’t like me traveling overnight,” Lina admitted. “It upsets him. He thinks something is going to happen to me. But he has no problem leaving me. He goes away on business. A couple of weeks ago he took Logan skiing for the weekend.”
“He leaves you in your home, which has the most elaborate security system of anyone I know. Bruce said he spent thirty thousand dollars on it.”
“I’ve never really paid attention,” Lina admitted. She recalled the number of times Phil had called while on trips to remind her to set the alarms. He could see remotely from his phone whether or not the alarm was set. “What am I supposed to do?” Lina asked. “I have to travel for my job.”
“You’ve gone away twice already, and he survived. Just have patience with him. It’s still new. He’ll adapt.”
***
“I think I figured out why you hate me traveling without you,” Lina told Phil as they were preparing for bed. “It’s because of that night.”
“What night?” He frowned across the bed at her.
“When Shiloh was attacked.”
His entire body tensed up. Even after twenty-six years the memory of seeing Shiloh raped and a man restraining Lina had his pulse increasing. “I don’t see the correlation.”
“You saved me that night so you feel like you have to continue to protect me.”
“I do have to continue to protect you. I’m your husband.” He stretched out on the bed. “Come here,” he said patting the mattress.
“I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl anymore,” Lina said as she laid down beside him, curling her body into the side of his. “I’m a woman who is careful. You don’t have to worry. I can take care of myself.”
“Taking care of you is part of who I am,” he said against her ear. “You’re my girl.”
Lina lifted her head so she could see his face. “I’m going to have to travel occasionally. I don’t want you to get upset every time.”
He shook his head. “I can’t help it. I don’t like you apart from me. Maybe it’s because of that night. I don’t know. But if this job makes you happy, I’ll deal with it. I won’t like it, but I’ll deal with it.”
“I love you,” Lina said.
“Yeah?”
“You’ll always be the boy I want to swim naked with,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-five
Phil was late to pick up Liam and then forgot to pick up food on the way home. “Just order a pizza,” he told Katie, handing off Liam to her. “I think he needs a diaper change.”
“No way.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars.”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen and make sure he’s completely clean and dry.”
Phil continued upstairs, pausing beside Logan, who was on his way down. “How was your history test?”
“Good. I think I got an A. Is Mom home?”
“She has a late meeting. Katie’s ordering a pizza.”
Logan’s lips turned down. “I liked it better when Mom didn’t work. We’re always ordering in.”
“We need to support Mom. She’s happy.” Phil touched his shoulder as he continued by him and up the stairs.
When he returned to the kitchen Katie was feeding Liam. “Where’s Logan?”
Katie inclined her head. “Where do you think?”
“Daddy!” Liam banged his tray.
“Hey, buddy.” Phil patted the top of his head. “Where is he?” he again asked Katie.
“In his room, hiding from Liam. Liam waved at him and he just turned around and left. It’s starting to hurt Liam’s feelings. His little lips turned down.”
Phil looked toward the front of the house, debating whether or not to talk to him. He’d thought after their three days together on the slopes Logan might be a little warmer to the idea of Liam, knowing he was still getting quality time with his father. That clearly wasn’t the case.
“I can talk to him later if you want,” Katie said. “Or maybe I’ll have Matt talk to him and tell him how much it sucks to have a dad that doesn’t care about him.”
“What are you talking about?” Phil frowned at her. “Don’t compare me to Matt’s deadbeat father.”
“I was comparing Logan to him. Obviously you care about him.”
Phil didn’t see the correlation, but he was too tired to verbally tangle with Katie. Instead he pulled a beer out of the refrigerator.
“Daddy.” Liam waved at him.
Phil smiled, taking a chair beside Liam’s high chair on the opposite side as Katie. He stole a Cheerio from Liam’s tray, making an exaggerated motion with his mouth as he chewed it. Liam took a cheerio and imitated his father.
“I think he’s smart like me,” Katie said. “You know, not just IQ smart but wise, too. I can see it in his eyes.”
“Speaking of smart, how are the college apps going?”
“Done. I’m going to Maryland.”
“What do you mean you’re going to Maryland? With your grades and SAT score, you’re going to have a lot of options.”
“I don’t need options. I already got into Maryland. I did the early admissions thing.”
“Who said you could do that?”
“I did. It’s my life. I get to decide where I go to college.”
“Does your mother know?” Annoyance flared in his chest that this had been kept from him. He’d wanted her to go out of state and get away from Matt.
“Daddy!”
“Just a second, buddy.” Phil continued to stare at Katie.
“I’m not like Megan. I don’t have a need to share every little detail of my life.”
“Deciding on a college is not a little detail,” he said through clenched teeth.
“To me it is. Why are you getting so upset?” She put a spoonful of rice cereal into Liam’s mouth.
“Because I think you chose your college based on your boyfriend, and that’s the wrong reason.”
“You gave up a scholarship to Duke and went to Maryland so you could stay with Mom. What’s the difference?”
“You aren’t your mother and me. That�
�s the difference.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered what we said,” Lina said when Phil told her about Katie a few hours later. “Did you really think she was going to leave him?”
“I hoped.” He was sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning forward with his elbows braced on his knees. “Logan ignored Liam again.”
“You didn’t say anything to him, did—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I didn’t want my wife to get mad at me.”
“Thank you.”
***
Phil was leaving his office on a Friday in the middle of February when he received a text message from Kim asking if he wanted Liam for the weekend.
“Do you think you could give me a little more than an hour notice next time?” he asked when he arrived at her house.
“Something came up.” She stepped back from the door. “He’s in the family room.”
There were a couple of small suitcases and a pair of ski boots to the left of the door when he came into the foyer. “You’re going skiing?”
“Something came up,” she repeated.
“And something came up Wednesday night and something came up Monday. You’d rather go skiing than spend a fucking weekend with your son.”
“How would you like to try being a single working parent with full custody of a one-year-old? It’s not exactly fun. You get to waltz in and out of his life while I do all the work. I have an idea. How about if you have him all the time, and I visit him twice a week and every other weekend? How about that?” She raised her eyebrows. “Exactly,” she continued when he didn’t respond. “Easy to criticize me when the truth is you don’t want to deal with him full time any more than I do.”
Swimming Naked Page 30
