Passion's Instinct

Seventy Six

Hayden

After Natalie and I had put the kids to bed that night, I crashed on the couch beside her and pulled out my phone, staring at it.

Immediately Natalie pushed my wrists down, pulling my phone away from me and hiding it behind her back.

I reached for it, but she blocked me, pushing me away. Then she held my phone up, high above her head, waving it around. "What would you do if I stuck this down my shirt? Would you get it?"

"Yes."

"Really?" she asked slowly, cocking an eyebrow. "That's a little unsettling."

I rolled my eyes, snorting. "I'm your husband."

She brought my phone back down and I reached for it again, and again she pulled it away.

"Not so fast. I'm still talking to you."

"Okay, what's going on? Why aren't you cuddling with me already?"

She shrugged, playing with my phone case. "Eh, you?"

I glared at her. "Now you're staring to sound like a Canadian."

She smiled, scooting closer to me. I could smell her rose-scented shampoo now. I looked at her, surveying the curves that showed through the fabric of her clothes. Her shiny, soft hair...

"I'm not trying to sound like one," her voice said, snapping me from my thoughts and back into reality. "It's not my fault I hang around Canadians so much. Especially a certain one," she drawled, eyeing me.

"Man, you are one good-looking girl," I said, putting on my best flirty face. I leaned into her and brushed my nose with her cheek, smirking.

"You aren't going to do this now, are you?"

"Do what?" I mumbled, meeting her soft, cocoa-brown eyes.

"Flirt with me. Play Mr. Hottie."

"Aren't I always Mr. Hottie?" I smirked and grabbed my phone from her lap, pulling away before she could get to me. I stood across from where she sat on the couch, laughing.

"Hayden!"

"What?"

"I can't believe --"

"What? That you fell for that? Oh, babe... that was highly entertaining." I sighed, letting out my last laughs.

Natalie, red-faced, apparently did not think that was funny. She got up from the couch and sat on the floor below me, then grabbed my arms and pulled me down on the floor.

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing my arm. I looked at Natalie, who was now standing above me, her arms crossed and wearing a furious look on her face. Then I started to laugh again. "You're adorable!" I howled, looking at the face she thought was scary but was truly the cutest thing ever.

"That's not funny, Hayden," she said, in all seriousness, and I started to settle down a bit.

"Is there something wrong, babe?"

"Is there something wrong?" she repeated, her eyebrows raised. "Are you blind, Hayden?"

"Not too blind to see that you're beautiful."

Natalie glared at me and shook her head slowly, saying, "that's enough with the games."

"What games?" I asked, outraged. I stood up, brushing myself off. "What are you talking about?"

"These entire ten years we've been married, I feel like you just get a little involved with the kids, some with me and then go to work or whatever. I bet you don't even know what ever happened with Sawyer being bullied at school!"

"Yeah, the kid got in trouble and was sent home."

"No! Sawyer was blamed! Do you see what I mean, Hayden? Not even enough involvement to know that your oldest son was blamed by everyone for something he didn't even do."

"Natalie, I still don't know what you're talking about. Okay, fine, it's fair to say that it wasn't right for me to not know about that, but... I'm always involved. Just the other day, it was Father's Day, and you told me you couldn't ask for a better husband and dad who always cared! What happened to that?"

"Just because you care doesn't mean you're always involved!" Natalie cried, tears coming to her eyes.

"Why are you yelling at me? What did I do?"

"I'd like to ask you the same question, Hayden!"

"You know, how did this argument even start? Oh, yeah, because you brought up something totally and completely irrelevant to our previous conversation."

Natalie scoffed, her jaw dropping. "It was not irrelevant! You want to know how this argument started and why I'm mad? Fine! First, you flirt with me and act out all of this meaningful stuff and then I learn you're faking it, then you decide not to take me seriously and come up with all of these wisecrack jokes to turn my mood around! I told you it wasn't funny, and guess what? You still thought it was funny and kept laughing everything off! I'm so done with all of that, Hayden! And don't say you were laughing at me because I'm cute. That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard."

"Yeah, I was trying to laugh it off so we could both forget about it and move on! By now, we could be --"

"You can't just laugh everything off!" Natalie shouted, a single tear rolling down her cheek. Natalie didn't cry often, but when she did, she cried a lot.

Here comes Niagara Falls, I thought, but I reminded myself to be serious and pay attention to the task at hand. Winning this argument.

"Why not? Are the police going to arrest me for it?"

"You know, everything is funny to you, Hayden. I'd like to see what would happen if something serious happened and you had to keep a straight face."

"Everything is too serious to you! It's always: don't do this because the kids are in the room, don't do this because we have kids, act like all of the other parents in the world who put their life into their kids and don't put any time in for each other! Have you ever noticed you're the one who always pulls away when we're kissing? You always have something else to do when we're hanging out on the couch together watching a movie. Every time we do anything together the kids are always on your mind! Don't you ever get tired of worrying about them?"

"I'm a mother, Hayden! I always worry, and sometimes I wish I could let it go! But I can't. And most times when you start to kiss me, other things are on your mind rather that the fact that it's the middle of the day and the kids are around. So of course I'm going to pull away!"

"How would you know? You can't read my mind."

"I know you well enough!"

"Maybe you don't. It doesn't seem like it."

"What? Since when has this turned into the blame game?"

"The entire time!" I yelled. I slowly let out a breath and raked a hand through my hair as I heard a "Mommy? Daddy? Is everything okay?"

I looked over to Sawyer, who was right at the entrance of the living room, staring at us.

"Sawyer," I said quietly, my voice unsteady, "go back to bed, buddy. Everything's fine."

As he shuffled off in his slippers, I watched him as he disappeared up the stairs. And right as I met eyes with Natalie again, she sniffed, didn't bother to wipe away the collection of tears rolling down her cheeks, and ran off, up the steps after Sawyer.