Sketch

by Laramie Briscoe

  “That message is from Nina. You mind if I check it?” I ask him as I stop the needle and question him. I don’t want to be rude, and he’s one of my best clients, but Nina didn’t know he was sitting for me today.

  “Sure, go for it. Hope everything’s okay.”

  I do too, but my heart is pounding as I take off my gloves and check the message she’s left me.

  I passed out at work. I think I’m fine. I’ve felt bad today, and they won’t let me drive myself home. Can you come pick me up?

  Immediately I’m scared, worried, and panicked. There are a lot of scenarios that run through my head, and none of them are good. She says she’s fine, but I need to know that, I need to see that for myself. It’s not something I can take her word for.

  I turn back around, and Reaper must see the look on my face. “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Nina passed out at work. She says she’s fine, but I’m not sure I’ll believe that until I see her. I need to go pick her up.”

  “Nah, man, go. I’ll get River to clean me up, and I’ll make an appointment with Jackie to finish this up. You go. I get it.”

  I’ve never run out on a client before, ever, no matter what’s happened. I feel weird doing it, but everyone is pushing me out the door, not giving me time to analyze what’s going on. I don’t even remember getting in my truck, but I know I’m on my way to the Montessori School. I pull into the parking lot and slam the truck in park, hopping out. I’m at a dead run as I enter the school and wait patiently for someone at the information desk to appear.

  When she does, I don’t even wait for the woman to ask me what I need. “My wife, Nina Solomon, called me to come get her.”

  “She’s in the nurse’s office,” she tells me, picking up the phone. “If you go wait right over there, I’ll call her and see if you can go down there.”

  I walk over to the wall and lean back against it, waiting. I don’t wait well, but I realize I have to do what they asked of me. It will do no one any good if I get in the way.

  “Devin?” A woman who wears a stethoscope and looks like a nurse walks towards me.

  I step forward, relieved and scared at the same time. “That’s me.”

  “C’mon back with me.”

  This woman looks like she’s a year or two younger than me, and it doesn’t necessarily make me feel better. I wait until we get out in the hallway, walking towards I assume the nurse’s office. “How is she?”

  “She’s okay. She said she hadn’t felt good most of the day. I suspect she has a sinus infection. Sometimes that can clog up the ears and give the sufferer a bout of vertigo.”

  Finally, I can relax, and I feel my heart start beating at a normal rhythm again.

  “We can’t release her unless we know you’ll be with her. I called her family doctor, and he’s calling in a prescription for her. She’ll be off work the next few days.”

  I nod. It’s time for me to take care of her; it’s time for me to put my wants to the side and take care of her needs.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  SKETCH

  “You can take me to my apartment,” she tells me as she notices that we’ve pulled into the driveway at the house.

  “No way, I’m not leaving you by yourself. You need someone to check on you, and to be honest, I need to be with you. I think I lost five years off my life when I got that text from you.” I reach over and grab her hand.

  I’m careful because her head seems to be too heavy for her shoulders. We go into the house and she’s quiet. I want to know what she’s thinking, but I’m trying very hard not to pressure her; I don’t want her to think she’s got confide in me. Of course I want to know what she’s thinking, but this seems like it’s a private thing she’s trying to work through.

  “I really should go home,” she tells me. “I have things I have to do tonight. I have no time to be sick.”

  I mentally count, telling myself she’s been through something here and she’s probably freaking out a little on the inside, and it’s coming out as the words she’s saying. “You’re sick, and this is your home, Nina.”

  I put some steel in my voice to let her know that I’m here, and she has me to hang onto. Her head snaps up, and I see a look on her face I wasn’t expecting. She’s panicking, she looks hurt.

  “How could you? How could you do that to me? I am my own responsibility, Sketch.” She has tears in her eyes, and I’m wondering what the fuck I’ve done.

  “I took care of it,” I tell her slowly.

  She laughs and it sounds a little crazy. “Like you always do, huh? Nina’s not strong enough to take care of herself. You thought I would never be able to last without you, and I have. You can’t stand it; you had to take control of something, just like you used to. You couldn’t wait to ask me what I wanted to do, could you?”

  I’m shocked. I have no idea where this is coming from. There’s a part of my brain that’s telling me she’s in shock and that’s why she’s lashing out.

  “I did what I would have done for anyone, Nina,” I tell her slowly. “I didn’t take the decision from you, at least I didn’t mean to.”

  Her bottom lip quivers, and I watch as she disintegrates in front of me. “I have been taking care of myself. I’ve been showing everyone I can do this, even if it’s on Ramen Noodles and tuna.” She takes a shuddering breath. “But I’ve done it. Me.”

  “And nobody’s taking that away from you, babe. If anything, the reason I did it was so I didn’t have to think about you being hurt. I freaked the fuck out when I got that text,” I tell her. I want to touch her, but I’m scared to. I’m scared of making her more skittish than she already is.

  In my pocket, my phone vibrates. Out of habit, I reach in and grab it. It’s Jackie, and apparently in my haste to get to Nina, I forgot all about dropping the deposit off at the bank.

  “Is that the shop?” Nina asks, her teeth clenched.

  “Yeah, I forgot to drop the deposit off at the bank. It’s still at the shop,” I explain to her, hoping to talk her down.

  Doesn’t work, she starts crying now, taking heaving gulps of air.

  “It’s always going to be the same isn’t it, Sketch? They will always be more important than me.”

  I’m so fucking confused about what’s going on here. “Look, I know you’ve had a day.”

  “A day? I’ve had months of waiting for the moment when I can prove to you that it didn’t break me to leave you.” She’s crying, wiping at her nose and eyes with the palm of her hand, and it’s hurting me seeing her doing that, because I know it has to be painful. “And when I finally get my chance, no matter how that chance came about, it’s taken from me.”

  “Nina.” I approach her.

  “No, don’t come over here and touch me, I’ll forget to think, and then I won’t realize anymore that nothing’s changed. You still take charge when you feel like I can’t handle it, and the shop will always come before me.”

  Her shoulders are slumped as she turns around. I reach out for her, but she shakes me off. “I’m going to go soak in the tub since I’m stuck here. It’s bigger than the one at my apartment anyway.”

  I watch her leave, and I know it won’t do me any good to follow her. “Fuck,” I breathe as I make my way back out to my truck. I have to drop this deposit, I can’t leave it. Firing up a cigarette, I head back towards the shop, careful in the conditions that have worsened since I went to the school.

  I’m still unsure of what happened back there, but I hope like hell that by the time I get home, both she and I are in better frames of mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SKETCH

  I take longer than I need to, going back to the shop and then to the bank. I stop over at the pharmacy and grab her medication and stop at the grocery to get her some bland food. I wonder, as I turn into first my subdivision and then my driveway, if Nina’s still going to be there. I worry she’s so far deep in her head that she’s left, and this time she’s left for go
od. That’s run through my head more than once as I’ve run my errands.

  Entering the house through the back door, like I did so many weeks ago from my run, I listen for sounds of life. I breathe easier as I hear the TV in the living room. Before I enter the living room, I brace myself. This probably isn’t going to be easy. I know there needs to be apologies, but there needs to be apologies on both sides.

  “Nina?” I see her lying on the couch.

  When she hears me, she sits up before gingerly getting off the couch. “Oh my God, Sketch, I’m so sorry.” She throws herself at me.

  I feel the wetness of tears against my shirt. “What’s wrong?” I ask pulling her away from my shirt, framing her face with my hands.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I was such a bitch to you earlier. I had convinced myself I was in this by myself, that this was the time you were going to tell me good luck, and I’d built it so far up in my head that when you’d already taken care of it, I was pissed.” She laughs, crying at the same time. “It took the wind out of my sails, and then it was so easy for me to get pissed because something came up with the shop.”

  I stop her there. “Nothing is ever going to be more important than you, Nina. I swear to you. Reaper was in my chair when you texted me.”

  She gasped. “I didn’t realize he was coming in today.”

  “I don’t tell everybody when he’s going to be around because I don’t want him to get mobbed,” I explain. “But he was in my chair when I got that text. I didn’t even clean him up—River did.”

  “And here I was the absolute biggest bitch in the world when you had to go take the deposit. God, Sketch, I’m a mess.” She wipes at her eyes again.

  “You’ve had a really hard day.”

  She nods. “I’ve never passed out before. It was shocking and scary. I don’t even know why I lashed out at you. I appreciate what you did.”

  I grab her up into my arms again. “Stop, babe. It’s over.”

  She cries harder, shaking her head. “But it’s not. I realized so much today, and I need you to hear it.”

  I’m open to hear it, I’ve been waiting to hear it if I’m completely honest. I pull her over to the couch, putting her in my lap, carefully. “Tell me anything you want to tell me. I wasn’t open to it a few months ago, but I’m open now. I’m all fuckin’ ears.”

  I watch as she tucks her hair behind her ears and takes a steadying breath. “When I left, I did it because I felt like you didn’t care about me. I felt like you cared about the fact I was your wife. We didn’t do any of the things we said we were going to. You worked at the shop and you gave me material things, but they didn’t make me feel good here.” She points to her chest, right over her heart. “They almost made me feel like I was a whore instead of your wife. I was good enough for you to spend money on, but not good enough for you to spend time with. Time was really what I wanted.” She leans her head against my shoulder, and I continue to let her talk. “Looking back now, I realize time wasn’t something you had a whole lot of. You had goals and you had pressures that I can’t even begin to understand. I want to understand them, I’m trying to understand them, and to a point now, I do. What I’m saying is, I want to come home, Sketch. It’s time. I want to come home.”

  I’m speechless; this was the last thing I expected when this day began. I’ve told myself from the beginning she’s got to the be one who comes to me, she’s got to be the one who wants it, and here it is—handed to me on a silver fucking platter. “Please do,” I whisper. “This place is really lonely without you. I mean really lonely. I think we need some ground rules, though, so that we don’t go back to what we were before. We don’t want to fall into bad routines.”

  She nods against me. “I want to be at the shop with you more, I want to try for those kids we talked about, I want to tell my dad to shove his attitude up his ass. I’m no longer going to let him invite just me for holidays. We go together as a team. No matter where we go, it’s together.”

  There’s a part of my soul that warms, hearing her say that. I’ve always felt like I’m not good enough, and while it was easy to blame it on other things, there’s an acceptance from her family that I’ve always wanted. I’m never going to get that, and I know that now. It’s not worth it for me to try, but knowing she’s going to stand beside me is the most amazing feeling in the world. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve never wanted Nina behind me or in front of me; I’ve wanted her beside me.

  “It will be. You’ll stand beside me as my equal. I won’t ever put you behind me again, even if it’s to protect you. You make that decision, babe. I never want to make you doubt how I feel about you or how you feel about me again. We’re a unit, and fuck anyone who tries to come between us,” I tell her as I hold our entwined fingers up.

  She laughs and then moans. “Jesus, it hurts to laugh.”

  “C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” I tell her, tapping her lightly on her thigh. “You need some rest, and I just need to hold you and make sure you’re still here.”

  Those years that got taken off my life when I got that text? They’ll be added back on as I take care of her, as she lets me take care of her in a way I haven’t before. My wanting to nurture her is no longer a cocky, smug, representation of my love—it’s real, it’s true, and it’s pure. Finally, this woman who wears my ring and has my last name will get the best part of me, and I’ll get the best part of her.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  SKETCH

  Three Months Later

  Date night is something we don’t take for granted in our household. It’s a production, for the most part. Since we got back together, things have been different—totally not saying they’ve been perfect—we still fight sometimes, but those fights are now few and far between. The making up is still the fucking best part too.

  Tonight, I’m meeting Nina down by the waterfront; there’s a new restaurant opening. A client of mine is the manager and got us on the guest list. It’s supposed to be all business casual and shit. I’m wearing clothes I very rarely wear, a pair of black slacks and a button-down blue shirt. I look almost professional, and I can’t wait to see what the fuck Nina’s wearing. She sent me a text earlier. It was a picture of her getting ready, topless, and she had her tit in her hand, nipple in between her fingers. The nipple rings still get to me, I think they’re going to for the rest of my life—or at least until she decides to take them out.

  I see her new SUV as I pull my truck into the parking lot of the place. Buying a new car was a bit of an argument for us. I wanted her to get a car, but she’d insisted on a SUV—something she called a mom car. We’re planning on trying to start a family soon. We’ve talked about her going off her birth control for two months now, but I let her know that’s her decision, I’m just along for the ride. She’s standing next to her SUV, waiting on me. I quickly park next to her and hop out.

  “Damn,” she says as she walks up to me. “You clean up good.” She leans in, kissing me on the lips, lingering there longer than I know she intended to.

  It’s not as cold as it usually is this time of year, but she’s still wearing a coat. I can’t wait to see what she’s wearing underneath it. I’m loving what I’m seeing so far—fuck-me stilettos and lots of leg. “You’re one to talk. You’re wearing your fuck-me shoes tonight.” I tease her ear with my tongue.

  “I’m so transparent.” She grins at me. “Maybe I’m ready to make that riverfront fantasy a reality.”

  Just like that, I’m rock hard, and these slacks aren’t forgiving. “You couldn’t have waited until we got inside and had a seat before you said that to me?” I push my hips against her.

  She giggles, palming me over the material. “I like to make you squirm.”

  And she does. We’ve gotten very good at teasing each other in the last few months. I can honestly say this woman is my best friend. She’s grown into a person I truly don’t think I would have recognized before. Throwing my arm over her shoulder, I do my
best to conceal the evidence of my desire as we walk towards the entrance of the place. I see my client, and I yell out to him.

  “Sketch! Mrs. Sketch!” he replies.

  There’s a huge line, and we’re ushered to the front. One of the people in line reaches out and grabs hold of Nina. We both glance around and see it’s her dad.

  “If I were you, I’d remove your hand from her arm,” I tell him, stepping up so that I’m closer to him than I am to her.

  “How in the world are the two of you getting in here?” he asks, eyeing us both up and down, probably wondering who we know, or who we’ve slept with, to get here.

  I open my mouth, but Nina beats me to it. “My husband is very talented. He’s tattooed rock stars, sports stars, and people who aren’t important at all. The thing is, he treats everyone exactly the same, no matter who the fuck you are—you can be Reaper from Black Friday or you can be Joe Blow off the street—he doesn’t give a flying fuck. In turn, he’s got the love of a lot of people. People who do favors for him without having to even be asked. They do things because he appreciates them and they appreciate him. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.” She reaches up and kisses me hard on the lips, making a production out of it, before she pulls back. “Sorry, Dad, unlike the people standing in this line, we’ve got a reservation.”

  She grabs my hand and pulls me to the front where my client is waiting for us.

  “You two can follow me right this way,” a hostess says as they usher us into the place.

  “This place is so nice,” Nina says as she grabs my hand and I follow her to the table.

  I’m a gentleman, and I help her take her coat off, and fuck me, the dress she’s wearing is hot. It’s black lace that has a nude underlay, making it look like she’s naked underneath. My favorite thing for her to be wearing, besides nothing, is lace. I wait until the hostess is gone and pull out her chair. “You wore that dress on purpose, didn’t you?”