The Song

Part Thirty-Seven

An alarm buzzing woke me up the next morning, and for a minute I was definitely a bit disoriented about my surroundings.

“Sorry!” I heard muttered from beside me, that weird pang in my heart going again as I realized I was in bed with Aston. Not like that of course, a good three or four feet separated us the bed was so big.

But still, we shared a bed.

“It’s fine,” I mumbled, turning over and closing my eyes, soon drifting off to sleep.

“Jess…” a voice whispered later, “Jess!”

“Hmm…”

“I’ve got to go in to work this morning,” Aston said, “You’ll be ok by yourself?”

“Yeah yeah.”

“Promise you won’t just lie in bed all morning.”

“That sounds perfect though,” I said, pulling the duvet closer to my chin dramatically.

“Babe…”

“I’m kidding!”

“Right, ok,” Aston said, “I’ll be back at some point this afternoon.”

“Ok, maybe we can go out tonight? I’m tired of being pent up here and I’d love to go out, even if it’s just dinner.”

“Dinner sounds good,” Aston replied, leaning forward and pressing a kiss against my forehead, “Bye sweetheart.”

I felt my face burn as he did that, surprised by how forward he was being.

“Sorry,” I heard whispered from across the room, “Sometimes I forget I can’t do that anymore…”

“It’s ok,” I replied, sitting up slowly to look at him, “You shouldn’t have to hold back.”

Aston gave me a faint smile, waving slightly as he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him and wandered off downstairs. I knew that his slip up had upset him, and to be honest I did feel bad. He shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around his wife.

Awkwardly, I lay back in bed, taking in the room around me. It was decorated simply in a soothing cream color. There wasn’t much of a mess anywhere, Aston’s clothes were kept in one walk-in closet and my clothes I hadn’t taken out were in an adjacent one.

I tried to go back to sleep, but after the weird moment with Aston I was wide-awake. As soon as I heard the front door pull shut I slipped out of bed, wandering around the room and pulling open drawers and looking at the things in them. For whatever reason I’d always deemed this space as off-limits and really hadn’t done much exploring yet, minus my own wardrobe. Sheepishly I wandered into Aston’s wardrobe, curious as to what might be inside.

“Hmm…” I muttered, taking in the racks of tops and suits that were hanging. There were a lot of clothes in there. “Found the mess,” I giggled to myself, laughing at the pile of clothing on the floor. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made Aston keep his mess to his closet floor… I was a relatively neat person, I bet I did.

When I was done in his wardrobe, I wandered into the en suite, having a look around. I’d been in a few times to grab things, but I’d never properly had a look around, shy about encroaching on Aston’s private space, which was crazy because it was my space too. It was definitely one of the nicer bits of the house, with both a large tub and a shower that could probably fit ten people.

Eying up the tub I couldn’t help but start the water, letting it run for a minute.

“Oh this is lovely,” I muttered, watching the bottom fill slightly and running my hand under the stream of water. Without pause I looked around for some bubble bath, letting the tub fill completely.

While I waited I ran downstairs to fix a mug of coffee, and then I went back to my little bathroom to grab some of my things, finally stripping down and slipping into the big tub.

“Mmm…” I sighed, closing my eyes as the bubbles washed over me. It was actually heavenly.

I relaxed for a bit, sipping my coffee and playing with the bubbles. Eventually I started to doze a bit; my head leant back against the tub as I closed my eyes.

Just as I leant out a content sigh, the door burst open, scaring the absolute life out of me.

“WOAH?!” I said loudly, my heart beating fast.

“Sorry!” Aston said, standing awkwardly in front of me, his eyes darting around as if he didn’t know where exactly to look, “I was wondering where you got to.”

“Right…” I said, my eyes wide as he stood and stared at me, naked in the tub.

I couldn’t really move from the position I was in, or it would be even more compromising. Luckily there were bubbles to cover my modesty, but it was still really awkward. Finally catching on Aston turned his attention to the drawers by the sink.

“Umm… I forgot these earrings,” Aston said, going over to a drawer and digging around, “I need them for a photo shoot later.”

I watched him search for the earrings, my eyes catching his in the mirror as he stared at me.

“Quit checking me out!!” I squealed.

“Sorry!!!” he replied, his cheeks burning bright red as he averted his eyes to the drawer.

He bustled around a bit, dropping a pouch on the floor and leaning down to snatch it up quickly. I could feel my cheeks burning as well as he finally left the en suite, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, catching my breath back. The whole situation had definitely caught me off guard.

Taking a deep breath I climbed out of the tub and dried off quickly, wrapping up in my dressing gown. Cautiously I went down the stairs to find Aston in the kitchen with his pouch of earrings, digging through to find the exact set he needed.

“Um…” I said quietly, not sure how to articulate what I was feeling.

“Sorry!” Aston said. He seemed kind of jumpy, and I watched him knock an earring on the floor.

“You ok?”

“Yeah… Um… I should have knocked. I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine,” I shrugged, going to pick up the earring off the floor.

“No, it’s not fine,” Aston said, “I’ve been really bad today.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” I said.

“It is,” Aston said, “I just can’t help it, you’re my wife and I’ve got these feelings for you that I really shouldn’t be having right now. And I’m just making things really awkward by being a total perv…”

“To be honest Ast,” I laughed, “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t having those feelings…”

“True but…”

“Get to work.”

“Right,” he said, scoping up some earrings of the table, “I’ll be back later.”

“Ok, see ya.”

I watched him leave, a laugh on my lips as I replayed the last ten minutes in my head. My husband was seriously a piece of work, but I found that cute.

--

Author's Note: I'll be traveling until March 1st for both work and pleasure... Not sure how often I'll be able to update since my work hours are really stupid (working noon till midnight for the next two weeks wooo!). I'll try to have something every couple of days, but apologies if I disappear for a while. Thanks for reading!!! JR xx