This is a very sexy and very raunchy chapter.
Prepare yourself.
We got used to it. Tyler not being around.
He'd come home around ten or eleven, sometimes after one in the morning, and he'd fall asleep, and then he'd be gone before I woke up.
Some days he got a hotel because he's too tired to come home.
So we got used to it.
I thought it'd be different in New York.
That'd I'd see Tyler and I would stop feeling like a single mother.
But I didn't, and I don't.
It's August 10th.
Emily starts kindergarten on August 20th, meaning I have exactly a week and three days to get her ready for school and to get Ethan ready for school.
It's going to be hectic, getting all three of the kids up and in the car by 7:30, dropping Emily and Ethan off at the elementary school where Ethan will attend preschool until 2:30 and Emily will go to Kindergarten until 2:30.
It's going to be just Declan and I all day.
We leave back for home tomorrow, and the kids were hysterical when they found out that Tyler wouldn't be coming home.
Most nights I lay awake, tossing and turning until Tyler comes home.
He usually calls me around ten to let me know if he's on his way or if he's staying in the city.
We visited him in the city one day and we took the kids around New York City. We took them to Philadelphia and showed them the penthouse and everything.
He missed all of it.
He hates it.
We all hate it.
I'm awake, staring at the ceiling.
We've not had sex one time on this trip, and now it's been eight months exactly since I've last had sex. We had sex the night before he left for New York.
I feel tears slowly sliding down my cheeks.
It's 1:47 when I hear the bedroom door creak open.
I know it's Tyler. I don't move, I just continue staring at the ceiling.
He shuts the door quietly, and I hear him shuffling around. He slips into the bathroom, and then he comes back in his boxer briefs.
He climbs into bed, laying on his right side, his arm propping his head up, watching me.
Slowly, he reaches forward and wipes a tear off of my face.
I sigh quietly.
"You know, and I know this sounds stupid, but the scent of you left the house." I whisper. "I can't smell you anymore. I've spent hours at night when the kids are in bed, ripping through the bedroom, looking for some sign of you. I know your clothes are still there, but you're not. The scent of you is gone. Your dirty clothes aren't around for me to pick up anymore. I can't bitch at you for leaving water on the bathroom floor after your shower because you're not there."
He sighs, moving his arm from under his head, pulling by body against h, his left arm under my head, his right arm on my stomach, kissing my lips softly.
"Sunshine," he begins carefully. "I've been working myself so hard this summer."
"I know. I know that. I really, really appreciate you and everything you do for me and the kids. Don't think I'm taking you for granted. I'm not. I'm so, so grateful for you, but you...you're not home."
