What Love Is

Chapter 11

WHO'S HAPPY TO SEE ME? It's been so long, I'm sorry! I was so so so sick and I literally could not get out of bed. I'm excited to be back, finally! I was planning on making this chapter longer but I figured I could just save it for chapter 12. Wow, that sounds awesome. Chapter 12. Lol, well, here you go. It's been about half-written for a week and a half, I just needed to get off my butt and write the rest of it. We're almost to 800 reads, holy crap! Your support is amazing!

-Brittany

Drew parked down the street, choosing to walk up to the house. His comfort level with his own home had dropped dramatically since he had walked in on Jamie having sex with another man. He was still shocked that he had even bothered coming here in the first place, considering everything that Jamie had done in the past few months. She cheated on him. She took his children away. She was divorcing him. She chased Rowan away from him.

Most of all, she wanted him back.

It was most likely the sight of Rowan and her family driving away from Oceanview with all of their belongings in tow that pressed him to go back to his wife. Originally, he'd been stuck choosing between Jamie and Rowan, but now that Rowan had firmly shut him out of her life, he felt that he had no other option. After all, he reminded himself, he had married his wife "for better or worse" and now, assuming that this was just one of those "worse" times, shouldn't he still be there for her?

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his heavy windbreaker and headed up the sidewalk, feet hitting the gray-colored pavement in tired strokes. His life needed to be put in order. He was sick and tired of being the nice guy, and ending up losing all of the time. His time in Oceanview had been slammed hard by his career, causing him to lose everything he had, and now, it was the only stable thing in his life. He had least expected the woman he was trying to hire on to waltz in and complicate things.

He reached their house, a light-tan paneled structure with hunter green shutters. It was settled on a sloping hill, the driveway curving up the incline and flattening out under a dark green carport. Jamie's red Mazda was parked underneath the frost-covered port, and he could hear the car clicking as it cooled off. She'd recently come home, then.

He did not even have time to walk up onto the porch before he was startled by the sight of the front door swinging open. Drew stepped back an inch, momentarily disturbed by the anger on his wife's features.

"What are you doing here, Andrew?" she demanded.

Drew looked at her for a moment, chilled by the frosty air that whipped through his hair. The biting November cold stung his eyes. She had cut her hair, and the pale blonde locks were now severed in a straight line under her chin. Her light blue eyes were lined with makeup, her lips coated with gloss. On her body was a loose-fitting violet dress, complete with a light brown, embroidered shawl around her shoulders. Dark brown heels were on her feet, braced apart as she stared at him.

"I wanted to talk," he simply replied.

Jamie frowned, her eyes widening. A fleeting look of panic crossed her features before promptly disappearing. She gave him a weak, toothy, smile. "Sure," she quickly replied. "Come in."

She stepped back and held the door open, wind whipping at the bottom of the dress on her bare legs. He took a few wary steps forward, being careful not to brush against her as he walked across the wood porch and into the living room.

Jamie had rearranged the furniture, the suede brown couches now facing the fireplace instead of the mounted television on the opposite wall. The coffee table was a new addition, glass on the top and dark wood on the bottom. Scattered across it were various magazines and papers.