The Home-wrecker (The Goode Brothers)

When I come downstairs from my nap, I stop at the bottom step, admiring the scene in the living room. Dean is lying on the couch asleep with Abby curled up at his side.

As the bottom step creaks, his eyes pop open. He holds up a finger to signal me to be quiet as Abby naps.

“Thank you,” I whisper, leaning on the arm of the couch. “I needed that.”

“I already told you you don’t have to thank me,” he replies quietly. “What time is it?” he asks, looking for his phone.

“It’s three thirty,” I reply.

Letting out a sigh, he looks despondent. “I have to work tonight. I can cancel my appointments, though, if you need⁠—”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Don’t do that. Caleb will be home soon. And I’m fine.”

The moment those two words—I’m fine—leave my lips, I feel how untrue they are. Dean seems to notice as well, his brow furrowing as he gently works his way out from behind Abby.

When he stands, I fall easily into his arms.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, his lips pressed to my hair.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whisper. “I don’t know how I feel.”

Gently, I pull Dean from the living room to the kitchen so we don’t wake Abby. I quietly start to make a cup of tea, pouring water into the kettle to boil. He stands behind me, stoically keeping close and patiently waiting. He asked if I wanted to talk about it, so I do.

“When I saw that streak of blood on the toilet paper today, my first reaction was relief. And then guilt for that relief,” I say, facing away from him. The moment I say those thoughts out loud, I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. Something about Dean is safe. So I continue.

“My emotions ricocheted so fast in my mind that I started to feel crazy. How could I possibly feel relief when we have been trying for a baby for so long? How dare I?”

“Let me stop you right there,” he says coldly from behind me. “You are allowed to feel however you feel, Briar. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for your emotions.”

I scoff. “My mother says God has a plan. It will happen when God intends it to.” My face twists in anguish. “What kind of God would do this to us? To me? God does not decide. I decide. Caleb and I decide.”

“And what would you decide?” he whispers. “If it were up to you, what would you choose?”

I’m getting so angry my hand is gripping the counter, my knuckles white from the intensity. “I felt relief, Dean. I felt relief because deep down, I don’t want a baby anymore.”

Saying that out loud leaves me feeling cold and empty. As if the lie I’ve been telling myself for years has been the only thing keeping me alive. But I’m not sad. A single tear doesn’t fall from my eyes. Not even when his arms wrap around me from behind and he holds me tightly. I lean into his embrace, feeling free for the first time in a very long time.

It’s like I’ve just handed myself my own life back.

“You may change your mind, and you may not,” he mumbles against the side of my face. “But you don’t have to feel bad either way. There’s no right answer here, Briar.”

Spinning around, I wrap myself up in his embrace. We stand there for a while when the teapot starts to whistle and we both jump from the sound. He releases me, and I retrieve a cup from the cabinet, and he watches as I stir honey in with the tea.

“I meant what I said,” he adds. “I can reschedule my appointment.”

I shake my head. “Dean, you love your job.”

“Yeah, well…” His voice trails off, and my hand stills as I stare at him. Lifting his fierce blue eyes to my face, he adds, “I love you more.”

I nearly drop the mug in my hand as I set it clumsily on the counter and rush back into his arms. It feels wrong to hear another man say he loves me, but God, I needed to hear it. I already knew I loved Dean, but I would have never said it to spare him from the complexities of everything between us.

I look up at him as he takes my mouth in a warm, tender kiss. The feel of his tongue sliding against mine nearly makes me forget everything.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he whispers. “I know how hard and complicated this is.”

“But I do, you know,” I reply.

His lips stretch in a smirk before kissing my cheeks, one at a time. “I know you do.”

The door closes, and I glance up from the book in my lap to see Caleb walking in from work. He yanks at his tie as he walks over to the couch and kisses me on the head.

“Sorry I’m late,” he mutters with a yawn. “Work piled up.”

“It’s okay,” I say, resting my head on the back of the couch. “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“Is Abby in bed?”

“Yeah,” I answer softly, and he looks disappointed. I know how much he hates working late and missing evenings at home.

“Where’s Dean?” he asks as if he’s already expected to be living in our house and not out in his apartment where he technically lives.

Caleb wants things to seamlessly fall into place without any tough conversations or acknowledgments.

I close my book and turn toward him. “He’s at work.”

Immediately, Caleb’s expression changes, frustration washing over his face as he marches toward the stairs and up to our room. Standing from the couch, I follow him.

He’s tearing off his shirt, looking aggravated when I enter. I lean against the doorframe. Clearly, he’s upset about the idea that Dean is still a sex worker and Dean still works. But right now, we have bigger things to discuss.

“Caleb…” I say carefully.

He spins toward me. “He can’t seriously keep working, can he? That’s not right.”

“Caleb…” I repeat.

“I can’t stand the thought of him at the club, letting people use him for his body like that.”

“I have something to tell you.”

He flings his tie across the chair and lets out a disgruntled sigh.

“I started my period,” I mutter softly. Everything about his demeanor softens.

“Oh, Briar…” He crosses the room quickly, pulling me in for a tight embrace. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper into his chest. “Dean was here.”

His hands rub comfortingly on my back as he kisses my head. “I’m glad.”

“But I need to talk to you,” I murmur.

Holding me by the shoulders, he stares into my eyes. A sense of contentment and security washes over me. Just having him close and feeling this connection between us makes me feel as if I can say anything.

We’ve been through so much together, and we’ll go through so much more, but it will always be us. No matter what, we’ll have each other. In sickness and in health. In good times and bad. Those vows rang with truth, and they always will.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper. His brows furrow and I feel his fingers tighten around my arms.

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to have another baby.”

With a sigh, he rests his forehead against mine.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, fighting off tears. “I know you really had your heart set on⁠—”

“You don’t have to apologize, Briar,” he says gently.

I peel him away from me and force him to look at me. “You’re not upset?”

“How could I be upset?” he asks. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted. Another baby would have been great, but I want you to be happy even more. Not to mention…” he adds, placing a kiss on my shoulder. “When you said you couldn’t do this anymore, part of me worried you were talking about us.”

I jerk backward, staring at him in shock. “Caleb, how could you think that?”

“Come on, Briar. We haven’t exactly had the best couple of years. I feel you slipping away, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Grabbing his face, I force his eyes to mine. “Caleb Goode, all marriages have hard times. We have been through a lot. But I love you so much. I would never, ever leave you.”

A smile pulls on his lips as he gathers me back into his arms. This time, I squeeze him back until we’re holding each other so tight it feels like we’re one. We stand there for so long, embracing tightly, neither of us speaking the entire time.

There is so much we need to speak about and so many feelings to be expressed, but right now, just feeling is enough. Feeling his love and letting him feel mine.

Through everything in the past few weeks, we’ve changed. We are a different couple than we were before. There is a new energy in our relationship, and we are stronger than ever.

When he lifts me from the floor and carries me to the bed, it takes me by surprise. After laying me on the mattress, he takes off his pants and crawls in next to me. Pulling me into his arms, he lets me lie against his chest as he softly strokes my hair.

And I don’t expect him to speak because it’s not like Caleb to start the conversation, and I certainly don’t expect him to be nostalgic or emotionally vulnerable. But when he starts talking, I’m pleasantly surprised.

“The day we got married was the best day of my life,” he says with his lips against my hair. I lift up and stare at him.

“It was?”

His brow furrows. “Of course it was. Until that day, I kept thinking I would lose you. That you’d change your mind or that our relationship was just a phase for you. I seriously thought there was a chance you would go back to him.”

“Caleb,” I say in a scolding tone.

“I’m serious,” he replies. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I kept waiting for my luck to run out. But then you said your vows at the altar, and I knew it was real, and it was forever. It felt like the first day of my life.”

Tears prick behind my eyes as I lean toward him and press my lips to his. “I love you so much.”

“And if you want to stop trying, we’ll stop trying,” he says, stroking my hair and pulling my face to his chest. “I wanted a baby, but I need my wife. And I need you to be okay and happy.”

This freedom to speak our minds, no matter how wrong or unconventional our thoughts are, is why I fell in love with Caleb in the first place. I am safe with him.

“I just wanted to give you so much more,” I whisper.

“Why are you taking the blame, Briar? You can’t help this any more than I can. And I refuse to put you through any more pain for something we don’t even have. This life is perfect. We have Abby. We have each other. And now…”

His words trail as if he’s too afraid to speak this into existence. This affair with Dean already feels like so much more, even if we don’t acknowledge it.

The question that haunts me even more than whether or not Dean truly wants to be with us is the question of what happens to our marriage if we add him in. Are we strong enough to withstand this? Will we still be us?

I stare into Caleb’s eyes as our minds both reel with thoughts and worries. But rather than keep them hidden away in my mind any longer, I finally feel free enough around Caleb to let them out.

“I’m scared of how bringing him into our marriage will change us,” I say.

“Yeah, me too,” he replies, letting his eyes cast downward. “But I’m even more afraid of what losing him will cost us.”

My breath hitches as I gaze into his eyes, tears soaking my vision. Caleb holds me closer as he continues.

“Briar, he fills a piece of our relationship I never knew we needed. And I don’t care what anyone has to say about it. The three of us fit. We were made for each other.”

“It’s so amazing to hear you say that, Caleb.” When I blink again, another tear falls as I bury my face against him again.

As we lie there, with a bright future beaming on the horizon, I don’t think about what we lost but what that loss has granted us. With every moment of darkness and grief, there is a moment of rebirth and hope.

And while there is still so much for us to discuss and work on for our future, I know that we will build this new life together, slowly, brick by brick.