Some Day One Day (Maylor AU)

Chapter 90

Hey guys! So here's the updated/revised chapters that I told you I was going to work on. For those of you who've already read it, Chapters 90 and 91 are pretty much the same. It's Chapter 92 (and now also Chapter 93) that I reworked, so hopefully you like it! Thanks for reading!

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time Brian stirred awake, his head pounding as he discovered that he'd crawled into bed the night before—or really, earlier that morning—with his clothes still on from yesterday. He reeked of cigarettes and sex, and he could only imagine the reaction Chrissie had when he joined her underneath the covers. Whether that reaction happened while it was still dark out or after the sun had peeked over the horizon, he would never know, but what he did know was that she couldn't have been too happy about it.

Taking a quick shower, the professor descended the stairs with water droplets clinging for dear life to the ends of his curls. He froze, however, when he reached the bottom steps—the soft sound of Chrissie's voice stopping him dead in his tracks.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight too," she whispered, the smile that curled her lips at the corners reaching the other end of the line just the same as her words.

A short pause ensued, followed by an infectious giggle. "No, no, it'll probably just be me. He and Sting can't stand each other."

In an instant, Brian knew who Chrissie was talking with, and what they were talking about. He was prepared to yell at her, call her a hypocrite, and throw his hands in the air and say, "It's over," but as soon as he swung around the banister to do so, something Chrissie had said to him earlier popped into his head: Promise me that you won't do anything. You can like him all you want, I don't care, but leave it to those words on the page. She had asked him to suppress his feelings and resist from giving into his impulses, yet there she was in their kitchen, putting forth no effort in suppressing hers and giving into her impulses without a second thought. She was deliberately planning to go behind his back, and Brian saw it only fair that he hold her to the same standards that she held him to.

A smirk tugged at the professor's lips as he entered the kitchen and approached Liz in her highchair, the baby girl prodding and sorting the Cheerios scattered about her tray. He bent down and planted a kiss atop her head, glancing at Chrissie out of the corner of his eye. It didn't take long for the headmistress to notice, her face turning pale as she rattled off a reason why she had to go into the bottom half of the phone. Shortly after, she hung the phone up on its receiver and flashed Brian an anxious grin.

"Hey," she greeted timidly, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Hey," he echoed, the corner of his lips pricking upward just ever so slightly. He had started to pick up the loose pieces of cereal, dropping them back in the bowl they were originally contained in one by one. "Who was that you were talking to?" the professor calmly asked, returning his attention to the task and the infant who seemed determined to prevent him from completing it.

"Oh, just an old friend," the headmistress answered, folding her arms over her chest and leaning back against the wall.

She wasn't technically lying.

"Just an old friend," Brian repeated her once more, glancing over his shoulder at her and causing a deep blush to rise in his wife's cheeks. "Which one?"

Chrissie chuckled nervously. "Y-You wouldn't know him."

"Wanna bet?" he blurted out, immediately regretting his impetuousness and hoping that perhaps he said it quick enough that the headmistress hadn't caught it. It was obvious she did, though, and apparently so had Liz, for an awkward silence fell over them all—the little girl staring up at Brian with wide, innocent eyes. He heaved a sigh and hung his head, wrapping his hands around the highchair tray and muttering, "So, have you called my mum yet?" in hopes of breaking the tension that filled the room.

The headmistress's eyebrows furrowed together. "What would I have done that for?"

"To see if she'd watch Liz tonight." He turned to face her and crossed his arms. "We're still going to Sting's show tonight, right?"

Chrissie looked as though she just saw a ghost. "I-I didn't think you wanted to go to that," she stammered.

Brian laughed, contradicting his refusal the other day as he replied, "Why wouldn't I want to go to it?" Suddenly, his face dropped, along with the light tone he carried in his voice as he gravely tacked on, "I thought we were trying to keep up appearances, here."

Color returned to the headmistress's face, mostly in her cheeks. It was almost as if she'd forgotten the conversation they had right before he stormed off yesterday to go confront Roger about being in the band. It seemed unlikely that she would've forgotten about it. The only possible explanation that Brian could think of was that, because he asked her to keep herself in check, instead of her asking him, their talk went straight over her head.

From personal experience, however, Brian doubted that was the case. Those conversations always weighed heavy on his heart, and even though their relationship had changed drastically, he imagined they still carried their weight. Ever since Stewart came into the picture, though—or really, the conversation, for Brian had yet to meet the man—it was like Chrissie didn't care as much about the consequences of someone finding out about either her or her husband's infidelities.

Perhaps she had grown too confident in acting like everything was fine. Hell, she probably already had an answer to give her colleagues when they would ask her at the show they'd all been invited to, "Where's your husband?" He isn't feeling well. We couldn't find a sitter for Liz, so he offered to stay home. This isn't really his kind of scene. Any of the excuses could've worked, but how would they hold up when someone burst into the dressing room and found the two of them grinding against each other, biting and sucking at each other's lips, and groping each other in a way that only Brian and her—as a married couple—should?