Heart & Soul

by Nicole Williams

  Better make it five just to be safe. I wanted him good and tipsy so all I had to do was crook my finger to get him to come running, but I didn’t want him drunk and sloppy. After my own three-month stint of going without, I wanted to take my time and do it right. More than once if possible.

  By the time Garth had returned with a few waters, Jesse had almost downed his whole bottle. Sloshing what was left of it in front of me, he lifted an expectant brow at the bottle in my hands.

  Two could so easily play at this game.

  After unscrewing the lid, I clinked my bottle to his and lifted it to my mouth while I heard Josie whisper to Garth what was going on. Another curse flooded from his mouth. I took my own dainty sip at first, and just when Jesse was crossing his arms, I tipped the bottle back and drained all sixteen ounces in the time it took Garth to mutter yet another comment that would earn his forehead a dent the size of Jesse’s fist if he didn’t watch it.

  “Well?” I waved the empty bottle in Jesse’s face. His eyes were wide with surprise. “What’s it going to be? Your wife’s and child’s well-being, hydration included, is in your hands.”

  Jesse’s head fell some, his eyes drifting to my stomach. When he looked up, I saw a look of resolve I was all too familiar with.

  “Black,” he called, his voice matching his expression, “get me another.”

  MY HEAD WAS swimming, and my body was floating. I couldn’t remember how many beers I’d had, but it hadn’t been many. At least too few to feel so hazed. Given my low tolerance to all things of an alcoholic nature paired with the added clincher of not having had a single drink for the past few months, the three or four or five I’d had the past couple of hours was screwing with me like I was a teen girl who’d just busted into her parents’ liquor cabinet and reached for a bottle of peach schnapps.

  I wasn’t quite drunk, but I was close enough to realize I needed to cut myself off unless I want Garth to have to peel me off of the barn floor. Rowen had kept up with our agreement . . . bet . . . thing, matching my every bottle of beer for her own bottle of water. So that meant she’d had three or four or five too, which should be more than enough.

  Except it was so hot in the barn it felt as if my skin was about to start peeling off. Garth had opened up the back barn doors when the heat hit stifling levels, but of course it would be the night when not even the faintest of summer breezes would grace us with its presence. So it was hot. Ungodly hot. Rowen was wearing something light which should keep her cool, but her arms and chest had been coated with a sheen of sweat for the past hour. She was seeping water as quickly as she could drink it.

  Not to mention she’d hardly drank anything on the drive over because she had complained that if she downed more than a thimble of water an hour, she had to hit every rest stop and gas station we passed. A pregnant woman needed at least three liters of fluid every day, so given that each bottle was . . . I squinted in an attempt to focus on the miniscule numbers stamped on her water bottle . . . okay, the first number was definitely a one, but the second one could be a six . . . it could just as easily be an eight.

  I gave my head a swift shake to see if that would help clear my vision, but it seemed to do the opposite. So it was either sixteen or eighteen ounces. If she’d had three or four or five—let’s say four as a safe average—that meant she’d had about . . .

  Math’s hard. That was all I could think as I made my third attempt to multiply four by sixteen, then eighteen. I couldn’t arrive at the right answer, but I arrived at a conclusion. She hadn’t had her daily recommended value of fluid.

  I’d reached mine, beer-wise, after I lifted my second bottle to my lips, but I was a big guy—my body could take it. Rowen’s though? Hers was too fragile to risk chancing something as important as hydration.

  “Is that another empty bottle I see you clutching?” Rowen’s arm wound around my back as she nestled into my chest. “I’ll flag someone to bring you another.”

  I had to shake the bottle in my hand. Nothing. When she cocked an eyebrow, I lowered my gaze to the water bottle she was holding.

  “Mine’s empty,” I said, resting my hand on her back. Even through the thin layer of her dress, I could feel her sweat. I felt that familiar sensation cinching around my stomach, almost like an invisible vise had been attached and was being clamped down. It had been getting worse and more frequent, triggered now by something as simple as Rowen sweating a little. My neurotic switch might have been triggered from the moment she’d flashed those two pink lines in my face, but I hadn’t started out like this. No, my fall into hard-core loco had been a daily regressive effort. “Yours is not.”

  Rowen’s hand moved lower down my back, her thumb curling through a belt loop and giving it a few tugs. “This is fun.” She smiled at me and tapped my nose, which was starting to tingle. “I like this game of You Drink, I Drink.”

  When she pressed closer to me, her fingers splaying more into ass than back territory, I felt something flicker to life that I’d been doing my damndest to repress. That flicker grew to a rolling flame when I saw the unsaid things in her eyes. Things that should stay unsaid in public but positively sighed, cried, or exhaled in private. That was the alcohol’s fault too.

  If it hadn’t been for alcohol doing what it did best and lowering my inhibitions, I would have been able to drop a cage around that flicker then douse it in baking soda and aim a fire hose at it before it had the chance to ignite into something else.

  I already knew what she wanted—she’d made no secret of it—and I knew she knew I wanted the same thing. But I couldn’t have that. Or I wouldn’t let myself. Not until she and the baby were both given a clean bill of health and I could stop worrying about her heart giving out if I did so much as kiss her too hard.

  “Yeah, but your part of this game can’t make you upheave the contents of your stomach all over your boots, or whoever’s boots are close by.”

  Rowen peeked down at her feet. She wasn’t wearing boots like most everyone else was. Her feet had been swelling whenever she’d been on her feet or in the heat, and since she knew she’d be experiencing both tonight, she’d ditched the boots and thrown on a pair of sandals she could adjust as her ankles swelled into the night.

  “No, but I spent the first four months of this pregnancy upheaving the contents of my stomach all over my boots, your boots, and every other surface within a ten-foot hurling radius.” Her fingers curled into my backside, almost making me flinch. It seemed kind of weird to grope my ass after talking about puking, but I wasn’t in a rush to complain. “I think you can suck it up for one night. Besides, you’ve just finished your fourth beer, and even though it should be an impossibility at your stature that you’d look as buzzed as you do, I think you’ll survive another”—she tipped her head from side to side—“three or four more.”

  If I had one more, I’d be line dancing on the rafters. If I had three or four more, I’d be hungover into Sunday morning.

  “Are you calling me a lightweight?” I asked, not really caring what she called me as long as she didn’t stop touching and looking at me the way she was now.

  She tapped my nose again. “I’m calling you a featherweight, oh no-alcohol-tolerance husband of mine.”

  “You’re right. I surrender.” I lifted my hand clutching the empty beer bottle. “I’m a disgrace to my gender and my cowboy kind. So why don’t we call this game on account of a touchy stomach? But first, you’ve got to finish your bottle like I finished mine.”

  Challenge was written on her face as she lifted the bottle to her mouth. Gripping the lid with her teeth, she unscrewed it all slow and deliberate like, her eyes trained on mine the entire time. Letting the lid fall from her lips, she caught it with one hand as she tipped the bottle to her mouth with the other. She didn’t blink until she’d finished the water in one long drink.

  Tossing it over her shoulder, she tipped her head at me, the challenge going another level deeper. “So what’s it going to be, Walker? One more? Or
no more?”

  I swallowed, realizing the game she was playing and what she hoped to get if she was declared the victor. I also knew that after another beer or two, I’d have lost my ability to put up a fight. The last of my fraying inhibitions would be frazzled.

  Like she was a mind reader and picking up on everything I was warring with, she ran her forearm across her forehead. “Wow. It sure is hot in here. I don’t know about you, but I’m sweating like I’m six months pregnant and have just been chained inside a sauna.”

  “Then have some more water. Let’s go cool off and get some fresh air.” Those were obvious solutions to the hot problem, right? Go brainpower for not totally failing me.

  “Sure, I’ll have another bottle of water,” she said with the nuance of if only in her tone. “If you have another beer.”

  “Rowen.” I shook my head.

  “Jesse.” She nodded her head.

  I held out another few seconds then gave up with an exasperated sigh. “Fine. But one more. And if you pull that same ‘I’m hot and dehydrated’ thing at the bottom of that bottle, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and dragging you outside before hooking you up to an H2O I.V.”

  Her mouth twitched. She knew as well as I did that she was twice as clever as me and double that in the cunning department. “Deal.”

  I didn’t want to leave the warmth and welcome of her hold, but her water was empty, and if she was going to down another one, I had my own downing to do. “I’ll be right back.” I backed up in the direction of the beverage table but tripped over . . . my own two feet.

  “You better be. I’ve got big plans for you tonight.” Rowen fired a little wave at me as I cut through the crowd.

  I knew exactly what her big plans were, but I wasn’t going to step into her trap. Or I wasn’t going to step into it any farther than I already had. No way.

  The crowd had only grown larger and rowdier, but it wasn’t like anyone was throwing fists (yet) or passing out drunk in the corners (yet). Everyone was having a good time—dancing, drinking, and eating—and from the looks of it, I was the only one going against the popular trend. It wasn’t like I was incapable of enjoying Garth and Josie’s engagement party under typical conditions, but nothing about the past few months had been “typical.”

  Even through the considerable fog of the beer, I was so worried about Rowen that it took priority above all else. A few guys slapped me on the back in passing, clinking their beers against my empty bottle, and I could tell my dad and mom were hoping to catch up with us some more by the way they kept glancing Rowen’s and my way no matter who they were talking with, but I just wasn’t in the mood for keeping up a conversation. After the long appointment and the long drive, what I was in the mood for was crawling into a warm bed beside my wife and falling asleep. Or at least, trying and pretending to be asleep.

  My parents knew I was having a tough time and had done their best to offer support without suffocating me in it, but the tension of the unsaid was still suffocating in its own way. After stopping by to say hi and get the update on how the appointment had gone, Dad and Mom had given us both a big hug, said they’d see us at the house later on, and drifted into the party to find the older crowd so we could hang out with our younger crowd.

  Other than Josie and Garth though, the only person I’d wanted to hang out with was Rowen. Our lives had been so busy that when we both had a night off, I didn’t want to waste it catching up with a bunch of old friends. I wanted to spend it holding my wife and catching up a lot or a little with her. That would have been the case no matter what, but it had taken on a new significance ever since I’d learned what I could lose and how soon I could lose her.

  I wasn’t going to waste a second making small talk with some random acquaintance if I had my choice.

  “Hey, Walker! I’m not used to seeing you make repeat trips to the bar. Must be having a rough night or a great one.” Dustin, who ran one of the small bars in town, greeted me as I walked-slash-staggered toward him. Garth and Josie had hired him to bartend the party, and he was a classic bartender: good listener, better talker.

  “I’m having a bit of both,” I answered, praying he wouldn’t feel the need to offer another lecture on parenting as he had when I’d swung by for my last beer. Somehow I wasn’t grasping the concept of how good cop/bad cop worked with infants.

  “Same thing as before? Beer and a water? Or do you want me to liven up your night a bit more than that water marinated in hops and barley can do?” Dustin made a few clucking sounds as he reached for something I wouldn’t chance inhaling, let alone ingesting.

  “Believe me, my life is so livened up, I can barely handle it.” I nodded at the beers and grabbed two waters from one of the giant metal buckets on the table. If for every drink of beer, I took one of water, I could mitigate my getting drunker chances.

  Dustin waited a minute, like he was waiting for me to change my mind, before pulling a beer out of the ice and popping off the cap. “You know where to find me when you need something harder than three proof.” He handed the icy bottle to me with another cluck.

  I quickly dropped a tip into his jar, collected my drinks, and scooted out of there before he could impart any more wisdom on me. I’d had my fill of bartender parenting wisdom for one millennium.

  As I made my way back toward where I’d left Rowen, I noticed she wasn’t there. Assuming my mom or one of my sisters had snatched her the moment I’d left her side, I scanned the general vicinity where I’d last seen my parents and my younger sisters hanging out with a group of girls who were not-so-casually hanging around a group of boys. I’d seen Clementine and Hyacinth, but Lily was still MIA tonight. My mom hadn’t told me directly where she was or who she was coming with—probably because she gave me a hard time for making angry faces when I had a smile like mine—but that didn’t mean I hadn’t figured it out. Lily was coming with Colt. She wasn’t here yet with Colt. So where the hell were they? And what the hell were they doing? And why the hell did I feel like I wanted to hit something really hard?

  I broke to a stop and closed my eyes, concentrating on calming down and caging the anger monkeys that had gotten loose. I hardly had enough energy to spend on Rowen and myself—what was I doing wasting any of it contemplating ways to dent Colt Mason’s face?

  The whole stop, close, and breathe thing seemed to work. At least until I spotted my wife with another guy. On the dance floor.

  Where some guys might have preferred to find their wives dancing to a fast, sharp-beated song with a good amount of distance between her and the guy she was shaking with versus a slow one where space was in short, if any, supply, I felt the opposite. I moved through the crowd with new purpose, and my boots thundered across the dance floor a few moments later.

  Neither of them saw me coming. They were both too busy having a good time and hooting, like the rest of the dancers, to notice me. I saw sweat starting to trickle down Rowen’s neck and creep down her back.

  “Whose brilliant idea was this?” I said when I jerked to a stop beside them.

  Rowen’s body slowed down enough to tell me my frustration wasn’t going unnoticed. Her partner kept moving as he had been since I’d first seen them. They both pointed at the other in answer. I cocked a brow and waited. Their fingers stayed in the air, indicating at the other.

  Finally, I knocked Garth’s hat off of his head. “Come on, Black. What were you thinking?”

  Garth shot a growl at me as he dived to retrieve his hat. “I was thinking your wife looked lonely and had been staring at this dance floor all night like she couldn’t wait to bust a move.” Garth motioned at Rowen after dropping his hat back on his head. “So . . . she’s busting.”

  Actually, she’d stopped dancing almost completely. I knew she liked to dance, and I also knew she’d stopped doing something she liked because she knew I didn’t like it, at least not in her present condition. Another shower of guilt dripped down on me when I realized I’d managed to inadvertently make Rowen’
s life smaller in my quest to preserve it. But what was I supposed to do? Stand by and say nothing while my pregnant wife with a life-threatening heart condition danced her tail off and dripped sweat in temperatures that had to be close to one hundred degrees at the center of the dance floor? I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.

  Garth grabbed Rowen’s hand and gave her a little spin. She started laughing.

  “She’s having a good time, Jess. Let it go. Rowen’s tougher than you and me combined, and you know it.” When Garth gave her another spin, he applied a bit too much force, and she wound up tripping on her own feet.

  My arms were just snapping out to catch her or save her or do whatever they needed to do to help, but Garth readjusted her spin enough I wasn’t needed. He’d saved her, and yes, if he hadn’t, I would have been there as a second line of defense, but the incident had been enough to send another surge of frustration into my veins.

  “You know she’s pregnant, right?” When it looked like he was winding her up for another spin, I clapped my hand over his arm and lowered it.

  “Oh, you mean that’s why my best friend’s turned into a nerve-racked homicidal maniac?” Garth continued to dance with Rowen, just in a more worried-husband-approved kind of way.

  “Haven’t realized the homicidal part yet, but I’m about to get there if you spin my pregnant wife one more time.”

  Garth took a good look at me, his shoulders slumping. “Look, I’m sorry, Jess. Really. I know Rowen’s pregnant, and I know you’re trying to treat her like she’s some porcelain doll, but she looked like she needed to dance. And this is my party goddammit, and I wanted to dance too. So why don’t you upend that beer so you can get shit-faced and totally forget the whole thing?”

  At the reminder of the beer, I was reminded of the water. Shoving the extra one in my back pocket, I unscrewed the other one and handed it to Rowen. “Drink please.”