Even When the World Comes Down (Sequel to Always & Forever)

Chapter 5

After some more silence, Adrien reached over and kissed my bare shoulder.

"So I take it that we won't be heading out to Bill's today?" he asked.

I looked out the window. The sun was already setting.

"We could always risk being taken out by the infected that we won't be able to see in the dark," I retorted.

"That wouldn't be smart right?" he said.

"I don't know would it?" I asked sarcastically.

He thought for a few seconds.

"No. You're right. It's much safer to just stay here," he said pulling me closer to him.

I had been rubbing my wedding band since we'd finished.

"Tell me about him," he said.

"What?" I asked not having paid attention to what he'd just said.

"Tell me about your husband," he said.

"Oh. Well, what do you want to know about him?" I asked.

"What's he like?" he said.

"Um... well his name is Joel and I've known him since I was in diapers," I said.

"Wow. How can I compete with that? There's absolutely no chance for me," he said.

"Sorry?" I said shrugging my shoulders.

He chuckled.

"I'm assuming the two of you started off as friends correct?" he continued.

"Yeah. The best of friends now that I think of it," I said.

"When did you know that you wanted to be more?" he asked.

His questions were not annoying me this time. Maybe it was because we just had sex or the fact that I hadn't talked about Joel in such a long time.

"I don't know about him but when we started high school, I started looking at him differently. It was like a light bulb went on in my head. It didn't take long for me to start having feelings for him. I mean this guy that I've known since I was a baby, I was bound to develop feelings for him, right?" I said.

"That's usually how it happens. So did either of you ever act on those feelings?" he said.

"Didn't take us until we were 17 to admit it to the other. God that whole year was just a whirlwind of emotions," I said as I reminisced about our senior year.

"How come?" he asked.

"There was this girl who was constantly wanting to get into his pants. Roxanne Sullivan. She eventually did," I said.

"While you guys were together?" he asked with full shock in his voice.

"No. God, no. Joel wasn't like that. We were at a party and I had finally mustered up the courage to tell him how I felt. He'd gotten drunk and was wanting to sleep it off in one of the bedrooms. Roxanne had used that to her advantage. She actually tried to slip him some pills to knock him out but he never fully passed out. Once she'd had her way with him, the realization of what he'd just done was made clear when I had walked in on them," I said.

"No," he said.

"Yup. I had gone to take his brother home after he'd gotten completely shitfaced and was wanting to look for him to tell him and to my surprise, I walked in on that," I said.

"What a bitch. Talk about desperate. How'd the two of you work that out?" he asked.

"It wasn't like we were together or anything. I couldn't really be mad at him for cheating or anything. And so I heard him out and it was then that we admitted our feelings. After that incident, I told him how much I loved him and he did the same," I said.