The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5)

by Nicole Strycharz

  He was pressing his thumb to my clit, but I didn’t feel it. In fact, it irritated me.

  I pushed at his chest. “Noah,” that didn’t work, so I held his hand and stopped his pawing. “Honey, I think… I don’t think I’m in the mood… I know I’m ovulating, but I think the pressure is making me feel anxious. I want a baby, but I think I’m feeling down that it is taking so long,” his disappointment was loud from his thoughts.

  “Are you sure you want to turn up this specific window?”

  I nodded, maybe a little too eagerly. “I’m worn out, and I feel almost achy…”

  He turned from driven for sex to concerned, putting the back of his hand to my forehead and cheek. “You’re a little warm… maybe you’re coming down with something?”

  I moved to get back into my nightgown. “Yeah, another reason we should wait. I don’t want you sick…”

  He helped me under the covers and bent over me. “I don’t care about getting sick, I just feel bad that it messed up our timing,” he caressed my cheek. “I’ll go make you some tea and bring up ibuprofen, okay?”

  As he left the room, I doubted myself again. He is the perfect husband and I’m accusing him of the worst.

  When he returned with my tea and my medicine, I held his hand while I was laying on my side. I tugged until he sat down.

  Sitting up, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and started kissing the side of his neck. He feels like home. Warm and strong, the person I put all my trust in. The person I saved myself for while growing up. The person that supports me and will one day father my children.

  “I love you,” I say by his ear.

  “I love you too,” he turned his head to kiss me and I let my hand drift down his chest and abdomen. “I thought you weren’t feeling good?”

  “I’m better,” I felt him over his bottoms. “I’m fine, and I want this.”

  He let out a little moan as the fire I stoked in him came back to life.

  “You can rest if you need to,” he tried to say.

  I started pulling the straps down on my gown, then pushing the garment down my waist and hips.

  Noah turned around and watched me before coming to lay over me again. I parted my legs and pushed down his PJ pants, not allowing my stupid brain to put more distance between us.

  He slid inside me wordlessly. It was good again. No fears, no doubts, no sick feelings. Just us, making a baby.

  When it was done, we went to sleep. I curled close to him, all the bad feelings just magically gone. I listened to his heart beating, the light rain tapping our roof, the sound of the ceiling fan humming. It all lulled me deeper into sleep until a vibrating buzz jarred me awake. My eyes opened as though I hadn’t been sleeping at all. I focused on the dresser across from our bed until the buzzing made Noah stir.

  They were short spurts of vibration, so they were likely text notifications.

  He reached for the phone and the bright screen illuminated the room a little. With my head on his chest, I knew he couldn’t see that I was awake, so I kept my eyes open.

  His hand that was holding me lifted to type back to the person. When he stopped moving, I knew he was waiting for a reply. When it came, I heard his phone vibrate in his hands. Whoever it was, texted him three times.

  Putting the phone on his nightstand, he gently touched my shoulder. “Lydia,” he whispered.

  “Hmm?”

  “One of the teens I parole is having suicidal thoughts, I have to go…”

  I came off him right away and then sat up.

  He turned on our light and got up.

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “I don’t have time to explain, I just got the text. I’ll be back in a minute,” he went to our bathroom and turned on the shower.

  I frowned. If this is an emergency, why shower? There is no time to shower if someone is battling suicide.

  I looked over at his phone.

  This time I didn’t argue with myself. I unlocked his screen and tapped his texting app, not as surprised as I should have been when I saw that the last text he received was Todd from church at six in the afternoon.

  It’s currently midnight.

  Where was the message?

  He deleted it.

  He came out of the shower fast, looking fresh as he hurried to put on jeans and a t-shirt. “This one does struggle with his thoughts, I should have had my cell volume up.”

  I held the bedding around myself. “Is he alone? Should you have skipped the shower?” I was being sarcastic. We’ve both dealt with suicidal teens, and you don’t shower. You don’t finish eating or brush your hair, you drop everything and go to them.

  “One of his mentors is with him but he asked for me,” he put on a belt. “We just had sex, Lydia, it would be inappropriate for me to go smelling like sex.”

  I nodded. “I’m glad he knew to text you.”

  “Me too, I sent him a message back, telling him to just stay put with the mentor, hopefully, he listens.”

  Noah came and kissed the top of my head, then grabbed his wallet and phone.

  “Be safe,” I said.

  “I will.”

  While I heard him hurry down the steps and out the front door, I turned our wedding band over and over on my finger.

  Chapter Four

  LORENZO

  I came to my mother’s house in the afternoon to help her and my family decorate the place for Halloween. It’s the end of September but Halloween is my mother’s favorite holiday.

  When I walk into the kitchen, I find her and my Grandmother flanking each side of Liam at the table while they go through my mother’s countless shoe boxes full of family photos. She has black and white ones dating back to when my dad’s side immigrated here. Some from when his side was still in Italy, and of course, a ton from when she was since her time there was so recent.

  “This is my wedding picture, look,” my mom hands it to Liam. “This is my father walking me to my husband Flavio. Look, you see how much Lorenzo looks like my father? Look at the nose, yeah? Look at the lips.”

  “Ma,” I gestured to Liam. “Stop it with all that.”

  “No,” she looked at me with indignance. “He is family. He needs to know all the histories, now. And look,” she held up the picture for me to see. “You see how pretty I was. Just like Giada, no? Liam should know the girl has good genes.”

  “You are still beautiful, Ma,” I came to kiss her cheek, and she patted my face.

  “Ah!” she suddenly screeched. “Stop that!”

  I looked around to find she was yelling at my brother Milo reaching into the fridge.

  “Do not eat that!” she snapped. “You wait until tonight.”

  “Ma!” Milo whined.

  “No, you wait! Get out, go, shoo. Not in here.”

  Milo slammed the fridge and knocked my shoulder going by.

  “He’s in a mood?” I asked mom.

  She made a humph sound. “He is always in a mood. When is he not in a mood? The boy was born in a mood.”

  We heard a crashing sound and mom jumped up to go check. My sister brought her boys, a five and seven-year-old, meaning trouble. After the crash, I heard giggling and then yelling from my mother.

  My grandmother gave Liam a picture and smiled.

  Liam is always polite, taking the picture from her gingerly and studying it. “Who is this?” he asked her.

  She touched her chest, still smiling.

  “Oh, wow,” he looked closely at the picture. “You were beautiful,” he said sincerely. “Oh, uh,” he tried to translate by saying it slower. “Beautiful, you, you were very pretty.”

  She likely understood some of what he was trying to say but I translated. “Bellissima,” I said to her.

  Her smile grew very wide.

  Liam nodded to me in thanks. “Is this before or after your grandmother came here?” he asked.

  I came around and stood behind him to look. “My Grandmother just came here a few years ago after my gran
dfather passed. That’s Italy.”

  “Is that a vineyard?”

  “Yeah, our mother’s side grew prosperous vineyards. Still do. My Uncle runs it now.”

  Liam handed the picture back to my grandmother. “You all have such rich culture, half of us from here have no clue how we got here or even care.”

  “My siblings don’t care either.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not true, Giada learned Italian like you, she speaks it.”

  “My father’s side hung an American flag almost instantly and shed most of their language to Americanize as quickly as possible. The culture was constricted to Cibo Degli Dei. He poured it all into there. My mother’s the same way. She took English classes all through my toddler years, but whenever I was visiting my grandparents in Tuscany, which was often, I became bilingual.”

  “But if—"

  I snapped my fingers at him. “Come on, we need to start decorating while we got sun.” That was enough show and tell for one day.

  He got up and followed me out. My brothers were starting on the porch, but it was always my job to do the yard.

  “I like learning about your family,” Liam told me as we each used a wheelbarrow to move the bunches of fake headstones my mother wanted peppering the lawn.

  “She loves to talk about our history. She keeps all them boxes of pictures to pull out and smother new family members or friends with,” I said.

  “Did your wife learn all this too, then? I bet she was as fascinated as I am.”

  I know what Liam is doing, trying to get back on my good side. Problem is, he knocked up my youngest sister and just brought up Ruby. Something the existing family members know not to do unless they want me to turn temperamental.

  “I don’t think I’ve met her,” he jabbered on. “Will she be coming over tonight for the decorating? Giada said the girls do the interior, guys do the exterior…”

  I dumped the headstones and ignored him.

  “Is your wife American or Italian?” he asked.

  “How about, you stop trying so hard?” I asked back.

  Liam went silent and watched me.

  I picked up the shovel leaning against a tree and halted. If I don’t explain even a little, the dumbass will keep bringing it up. “My wife isn’t part of this family. It’s complicated to explain, and I am not going to do it, especially not to you. Bottom line is, don’t talk about her.”

  He agreed and started working.

  But as I dug fake graves and set the stones, I felt my anger boiling up. I felt that old pain that likes to rear its head.

  That night, when I came home, Ruby was standing over the living room coffee table. “Hey!” she waved me over. “Good timing, come here.”

  I dropped my keys on the counter and took off my coat as I came to look at the giant paper, she had anchored on all four sides.

  “Look,” she stood in her bare feet and a robe, pointing to the paper. “What do you think?”

  “What is it?”

  “Our restaurant.”

  I crossed my arms and looked down at the many thousands of changes. “Remodeling?”

  “It’s long overdue.”

  “Nah, nah, nah, I told you no changes.”

  “Don’t nah, nah, nah, me, just give this a second and look. More kitchen space, more dining space… we could expand. Double our capacity, and look,” she sounded like an excited child. “More room in the kitchen means more staff, less elbowing, plus the place needs a facelift. It looks like a museum.”

  “It looks like rustic Italian art. We do all this and it will look like a mess.”

  She sighed. “Try not to be closed off and actually think about it. I had a guy sketch this up so we could talk about it, not blink in its direction and then toss it. Think about what more space means.”

  “I want it to stay the way it was when it came to me. The legacy of the restaurant is in its appearance.”

  She shook her head, blonde curls bouncing. “Nope, the legacy is in the food. Expanding is what will keep it alive. Your dad only made it this successful because he wasn’t afraid of change.”

  “Ah, I didn’t know you two were so close.”

  Her eyes cut in my direction, catching the quip. “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Make me into an outsider, the way your family does.” She mimicked me, crossing her arms. “How was decorating tonight? Have fun?”

  I shrugged. “No one said you couldn’t come.”

  “No one invited me either.”

  “I’m not responsible for how my family feels.”

  She laughed in a harsh way. “Yeah…” she looked back down at the plans. “Let’s stay on topic, I want to knock out the back wall and add a good—”

  “I said, no, Ruby,” I sat in the corner of the couch.

  She bit the inside of her lips, an old habit. “Right, of course. The man of the house says no.”

  “It’s not about that.”

  “What is it about, then?”

  “I want you to respect this one part of me.” I sat forward and glared at her. “One part. Can you afford to give me an ounce? This is my restaurant and I want—”

  “Ours,” she corrected.

  I looked at her in open shock. “When is the last time you even been there?”

  I’m not sure if she was taking too long to answer because she was coming up with a date or if she was being stubborn.

  “My dream was law,” she said. “Yours was Cibo Degli Dei. I am only trying to salvage it.”

  “Salvage what? The place is doing better than it ever has. We are the best. What more is there.”

  “You think too small, you’re short-sighted,” she argued. “You always have been. Businesses fold when they don’t keep up. When they don’t continue to modernize and grow while things are good. They only make changes when they see their pockets hurting and by then it’s too late. You must constantly work to stay current. The old-world Italian thing needs to be blended with the twenty-first century and we need to turn fewer reservations away by expanding. Staying small won’t always benefit. Little family loyalty acts won’t be what keeps customers loyal.”

  “What the fuck do you know about the word loyalty?”

  Her stunned look upsets me more than anything. There is some strange Goddamn denial in Ruby about what she does to me. She takes actual offense to the allegation of cheating. She acts hurt at the mention of what we both know.

  The light in her eyes dulls as she starts packing up her papers on the restaurant. We don’t speak at all as she gets the last of her things and leaves the room.

  LYDIA

  The first week of October was cold, the second was frigid. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s really that cold or if it’s because of how I feel. Since my suspicions have grown, I can’t ever seem to get warm. I’m cold all the time, cold or sick to my stomach.

  If Noah is lying, why do I feel like the one choking on guilt?

  At church today, I keep glancing over at Noah. As if staring at him will help all this make sense. During worship, while we all sang, I just moved my lips, so no one questioned my inability to join. I’m too distracted to be here.

  “Are you okay?” Sara touched my shoulder while I was pouring myself hot cocoa after the service. Our refreshment table is long, but everything is picked over. No one is hovering close enough to hear us.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You don’t look fine. You were like this last Sunday too.”

  “Like what?” I need to stop drawing attention to myself.

  “Mopey. Is something bothering you? Family trouble or…”

  I shake my head and put on a fake smile. “No, I’m great. I haven’t been sleeping good because I drink coffee at night to do my toy repairs and then,” I laughed to seem lighthearted. “Like an idiot, when it’s time for bed, the caffeine is still in my system.”

  Sara isn’t a surface-level person. Her eyes are boring into me, like little scan
ners, sensing dishonesty. “You’re one of the nicest women in here,” she said. “You’ve never made me feel wrong for being here and I think you have a really pure heart. Just know that… if you need a friend… or if you want one… I’m here to talk to.”

  My fake smile in place, I jammed up.

  I really wish I could tell someone.

  I need this stuff to stop circling in my brain. I need to unburden myself of all this fear but telling even one soul that belongs to this church, could result in a wildfire of gossip and the flames would consume Noah’s position here. I can’t do that to him, most of all when I don’t even have proof of my qualms.

  “That is so sweet,” I held her wrist. “And that means the world to me, but I am so okay. I’m just sleep deprived and,” I quickly thought up another half-truth. “And you know about how Noah and I have been trying to have a baby, it’s been a long time and I’m starting to get… concerned.”

  “Then call someone,” her sudden belief in me, made me realize I’m not a bad actress. “Just get an appointment with a specialist. Stop waiting. You are putting yourself through a hell of a deal.”

  I winced at her use of a curse word, but I agree with her.

  Noah took the youth kids to the classroom, or better yet, lounge in the back of the church and waved at me as he went.

  “You need to be sure,” Sara’s words didn’t get applied to the baby thing. I was starting to see them as advice toward Noah. “There is no reason you should go day to day wondering and getting worked up for nothing when all you have to do is get clear answers and then move forward.”

  “Mmhm,” I nodded. “I need answers… I need… to know…” I fought tears, but of course, she thinks it’s about pregnancy.

  “Awe, come here,” she hugged me, and I clung to her.

  I really do need this. I need someone. I let my guard down and hugged her tight. She’s right. I need to know for sure.

  “Your slip is showing, dear,” said the Reverend’s wife, walking past.

  With my new goal in mind, I started my week on another lie. I told Noah on Monday, that Reverend Hammond’s wife wanted to do an impromptu women’s prayer meeting. To thicken the plot and to cover my tracks, I told him it was private, about something personal going on in her life so he wouldn’t mention it to anyone. I told him this prayer meeting was going to happen on Friday night, and that it would go late into the night. That I would probably stay over so I wouldn’t have to come home so late.