Does Your Husband Know the Way?

I bit my lip, my legs curled beneath me as I stared down at my hand the sun gleaming off of my wedding band. I twisted it around my fingers as my thoughts began to wonder. I’d been married now for a year and I’d been happy. I was so in love when I stood there at the altar, his hands holding mine protectively as he had always done. His warm eyes keeping contact with mine, nothing but love in his stare. But now...now something was missing in that stare and I wasn’t sure what it was.

I didn’t want to think the worst of him because I knew he was one of the few good guys left in the world. But his attention seemed to have drifted slightly away from me. Not necessarily towards another woman, though to rule it out completely could be foolish of me, but he just seemed distant to me now. Almost like he wasn’t there anymore, though I knew he was. It just felt like he wasn’t around, even as he shared our marital bed.

The thing that I think might have happened was that he had expected that exciting feeling to last throughout the whole of our marriage. That feeling you get when you’re in a new relationship, the feeling that is reignited when you first get married. It’s that ‘honeymoon feeling’. That feeling does fade over time, as much as people like to publicise that kind of love that will last forever and that will always bring excitement and sparks every time you touch.

I’m not saying that it can’t happen. That there isn’t excitement and spark every time you touch after being with someone for so long but it just isn’t constant. Not like in the beginning. Nothing is ever quite like it was in the beginning. Things will always change and I don’t think he realised this.

I had bargained for it. I knew it could happen...that it would happen. After being together for four years, married for one, it didn’t come as a surprise to me that I no longer felt the need to always be with him. To always be touching him like I had when we’d first gotten married.

It didn’t help of course that our jobs had started to get in the way too. We had always tried to make time for one another, blowing off work just so we could see each other. Be with each other, even if it was just for an hour extra than we would have had. But with demanding contracts for him and demanding hours for me...well, there were only so many hours in the day and if we wanted to keep on top of the bills and the rent, we had to take on those demands.

It was called growing up and I knew he hated it. But we weren’t the kids we once were. We were adults now and as such had responsibilities.

Niki always told me that I thought too much when I talked about this kind of thing but I think she just wanted to stay young forever. She was like the rest of my friends. Sarah said that when she was younger she always wanted to grow up but now she had grown up she’d reverted into Peter Pan. All she wanted was to never grow up.

It wasn’t like I wanted to be a boring adult. I just understood that it couldn’t always be about partying all the time...okay, so I do like to party a lot but I didn’t shy away from responsibilities just because of a hangover. I did it to myself so I would suffer through the day. Not like the rest of the girls who liked to huddle beneath their covers and feel sorry for themselves, bitching at their husbands when they looked on in amusement at the state of their wives.

Of course it also helped that they all married ‘rockstars’ and so didn’t have to strive all the time to make ends meet. Not like I did. Niki was happily married to the stupid short shit Jay. Raychel was with Moose. Rhian had Padge and Sarah was all the way over in America with Lyndsey, the two of them married to JB and Brian. Of course, they didn’t just laze around like bums. They each had a job, Lyndsey’s being the most demanding because she decided to be a nurse. But the point was they didn’t just sponge off their men.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead as I tried to get rid of all my thoughts. I needed to stop over thinking everything.

“You okay?”

I jumped slightly before looking to the side and seeing Matt Tuck. I only knew him because Niki, Raychel and Rhian were married to his band mates. I’d never really spent much time with Matt but I’d always admired him from afar, something I often had to kick myself about since I was supposed to be happily married.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Matt cocked an eyebrow before sitting beside me, waving over a waitress and ordering himself a drink and ordering me one too.

“Maybe I didn’t want a drink,” I pointed out to him.

Matt shrugged. “Well you’re getting one. ‘Cause I want to talk to you.”

My eyebrows shot up slightly as I looked over at him, his blue eyes twinkling slightly with amusement as he watched my reaction.

“Don’t seem so bloody shocked Taylor,” he chuckled.

I smiled and shrugged slightly. “Sorry it’s just this doesn’t often happen.”

“What?”

“This,” I gestured between the two of us before glancing up as the waitress came back with our drinks and then scuttled off again. “We don’t talk...like ever.”

“Maybe I want to change that,” Matt replied as he smiled over at me.

And talk we did. For four hours in fact, only stopping when I got an abundance of texts and phone calls from the girls saying happy birthday.

“And you didn’t tell me it was your birthday why?” Matt asked.

I shrugged and sent him a teasing smile. “You never asked.”

Matt rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. “Well happy birthday Taylor.”

I smiled over at him, my teasing falling to a softer smile. “Thank you Matt.”

Matt smiled back before frowning slightly and looking out of the window before looking back at me.

“What?” I asked warily.

“You can totally tell me to piss off but how come...if it’s your birthday, where’s your husband?”

I shrugged and looked down at my drink. “Probably at work.”

“Probably? You don’t know?”

“He’s usually at work nowadays,” I told him quietly, stirring my drink absentmindedly.

We both fell silent and I felt my mood take a turn down as I thought about this morning when my husband told me he was going to work and he’d see me later. Not a ‘happy birthday Taylor’. Not an ‘I love you’. No present. No card. I have a feeling he forgot.

I looked up and to the side as I heard noise and saw that Matt had gotten up and was now sitting in the chair beside me rather than the one opposite me where he’d been originally.

“You okay?”

I nodded but I knew by the way Matt looked at me that he didn’t believe me. I sighed and shrugged.

“You want to talk about it?”

He probably shouldn’t have asked me that because the next thing the poor guy knew, I was spilling my heart out across the table to him. Telling about the problems in my marriage and even telling him the one thing I hadn’t even admitted to the girls.

“I think I might have fallen out of love with him,” I admitted regretfully and watched Matt’s eyes widen slightly.

“Wow, so wasn’t expecting all that in answer to my question.”

I blushed slightly and bit my lip before pushing my mug away from me. I picked up my bag and found some money, putting it on the table to cover for my drinks before I rose to my feet.

“See you later Matt.”

I walked away from the table and out of the cafe, turning right and in the direction towards my home...or at least the house I lived in.

“Taylor! Wait!”

I didn’t wait. I just carried on walking, not quite understanding why I had told Matt everything I had. He’d obviously asked me if I wanted to talk about it to be polite. He didn’t want to hear about all my problems.

“Taylor,” Matt sighed as his fingers circled around my wrist, making me stop walking. “Love, why did you leave?”

I shrugged and glanced at him. “Because you didn’t deserve for me to dump all my problems on you. I hardly know you yet I fucking just...it doesn’t matter okay Matt? Just...please don’t tell anyone else what I told you.”

Matt’s brow furrowed slightly and he brought his hand up, brushing his thumb across my cheek and it was only then that I realised I was crying gently.

“Does your husband know the way you feel?”

I shook my head and looked down to the ground. “He’d have to actually talk to me in order for that to happen.”

“Taylor, don’t you think that if you feel like this you shouldn’t be with him?” Matt asked quietly and gently. “That maybe you should just leave him.”

“And then do what Matt?” I questioned as I lifted my gaze to him. “I haven’t lived without him for four years. I have always had someone backing me and being there for me twenty-four seven. I can’t go back to not having someone. I can’t go back to being alone. It kills being alone.”

“But you said you felt alone even in the marriage,” Matt pointed out before moving in front of me as I went to walk away. “Taylor just find someone else to back you. To care about you. To love you. To be there for you.”

I scoffed. “Yeah. Matt those guys are a dime a dozen okay? He was my last chance for that kind of a life.”

Matt shook his head and cupped my jaw with his hands. I looked at him questioningly, wondering what was going on in his head as he stared down at me.

“Let me back you. Let me care about you. Let me love you. Let me be there for you.”

Words escaped me completely. Today was the most I’d probably ever spoken to Matt and yet here he was telling me he wanted me to leave my husband and not only leave him, but leave him for Matt.

“What? But...”

“I know that today is probably the most we’ve spoken like...well ever. But I do really, really like you Taylor,” Matt admitted quietly. “The reason why I stay away from ever being alone with you is because I like you so much. You’re off limits and have been all the time I’ve known you. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to control myself and would royally fuck up any kind of relationship between us and your marriage. I couldn’t do that to you.”

I probably looked like a fish at this point, my mouth opening and closing as my mind went into overdrive. Like I said before, I’d always admired Matt from afar. He was gorgeous to me. Everything about him just screamed out ‘sexy’ but I could never act on these feelings because I was married. Even during the times before I was married and I was getting cold feet, Matt would be the one on my mind. Those times where I would freak out because I’d never get to go on a date with anyone else, I’d never kiss anyone else and I’d never sleep with anyone else...the anyone else was usually Matt.

“Really?” I finally asked.

Matt nodded, his eyes searching mine as a small smile drifted across my lips.

“You know you’re one of the reasons why I kept freaking out before my wedding?” I voiced and saw Matt’s eyes widen slightly. “I freaked that I would never be with anyone else but in the back of my mind I knew it was me wondering what it would be like if I was marrying you instead of him.”

Matt slowly began to smile too and I brought my hands up to circle his wrists.

“Does your husband know the way you feel about me?”

I shrugged. “Why do you think he’s always been wary around you?”

Matt smirked slightly before smiling at me softly, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks again though I had long ago stopped crying.

“Would it be completely inappropriate to ask you to leave him? Be with me?” Matt asked.

I bit my lip and smiled shyly as I shrugged.

“It depends. Would it be completely inappropriate if I said okay?”

Matt grinned and shook his head before ducking his head down and pressing his lips to mine. I smiled into the kiss before looping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer to me. Matt pulled away after a moment, leaving me with one last kiss.

“Happy birthday Taylor,” Matt whispered as he leant his forehead against mine.

“Thank you,” I replied just as quietly before pulling away from him and lacing our hands together, marvelling at the way his hands fit perfectly against mine.