And at this point, I was pissed. He was supposed to be a newlywed too. I didn’t know what his business was and maybe he was seeing to it. Any man let out of prison would want to get on with his life, I guessed, so starting a job would be good. I could see that. But disappearing for an entire day? Going out with his buds for drinks after work, drinks that lasted into the wee hours? Not coming home until way late? How did any of that say newlywed?

What the f**k was up with that?

This anger stopped me from calling him because I worried I’d shout at him over the phone and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to do that because if I did, it was easy for him to hang up. When I shouted at him, I wanted it to be hard for him to get away from what I was saying.

At a quarter to nine, he came home in sweaty workout clothes, long shorts, skintight, sleeveless shirt, carrying a workout bag and two plastic grocery bags.

“Yo,” he said to me at my place on the couch watching TV.

Uh… yo?

Three days with the definition of minimal conversation, he comes home when I’m awake and he says, “Yo”?

Then he dropped the workout bag, turned to the counter, dumped the grocery bags on it and started to take stuff out of them.

I turned the volume down on the TV, rolled off the couch and approached the kitchen asking, “Where have you been?”

He turned slightly to me, very slightly, looked down at himself, glanced at me then turned back to the counter.

Although I knew these actions were a form of communication, he didn’t respond verbally.

I sucked in a calming breath so I didn’t unleash hellfire.

Then I started, “Ty –”

“Wiped,” he cut me off. “Gonna make a shake, hit the shower and hit the sack.”

It was then I saw he had a package of strawberries, a bunch of bananas, a pot of yogurt and a big, plastic vat of something I didn’t know what it was. He pulled the blender to him and started to peel a banana.

“Um… we need to talk,” I said, putting my hands flat on the island where I stood opposite him, the island between us, Ty at the counter at the back wall.

“’Bout what?” he asked.

About what?

“Where do you want me to start?” I asked back as he dumped the banana into the blender then opened the strawberries.

“Don’t care. Just start. Like I said, I’m wiped so, sooner we get it done, sooner I can hit the shower.”

I stared at him as he pulled the stems off of the (unwashed) berries and started to add them to the banana.

“Ty –” I whispered and he turned to me.

“Spit it out. I’m not f**kin’ with you. I’m not in the mood for this but if you got something to say, say it.”

I swallowed against a throat that was closing and this was because, suddenly, I wasn’t pissed anymore.

I was something else.

And that something else was understanding that I’d been wrong that day we’d arrived in Carnal. He hadn’t shut down after our kiss. This wasn’t the closed Ty. This was a different Ty. This was an ass**le Ty.

And it hurt to know that there was an ass**le Ty.

“I…” I started, not knowing what to say, he went back to his strawberries and then I tried to start with something easy. “I don’t know what you want me to be doing.”

He didn’t respond. He finished with the strawberries, leaned way to the side, opened a drawer, grabbed one of our awesome new spoons and went after the yogurt.

“Ty,” I called. “I can’t spend my days hanging around and watching TV. What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Starting a life,” he told the blender, spooning in yogurt.

“How?” I asked.

“How?” he asked the blender.

“Yeah, how?”

He opened the big vat, dug in with his hand, came out with a scoop full of powder and dumped it in the blender saying, “What people do. You want a job, get one. You don’t want one, I can cover you. Deal with your shit in Dallas. Buy groceries. Clean the house. Do what people do.”

He screwed the lid on the vat of powder and went to the fridge. I watched him get a big handful of ice and go back to the blender and drop it in. Then he went back to the fridge, got the milk (Maggie had kindly stocked us up) and splashed some of that in. He put the milk beside the blender, shoved the lid on top and fired it up. Then he stopped it, took the lid off and drank directly from it.

I didn’t speak throughout this. I didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t like the feeling that I was right there and he was acting like he didn’t know I was even on the same planet.

He was halfway through his shake when I said quietly, “Something’s changed.”

He turned to me and leaned his h*ps into the counter.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Something’s changed. We’re here. This starts. No f**kin’ around. I got shit to do, it’s important and I gotta focus on it. Vacation’s over. Time to earn your fifty K.”

Then he threw back more shake like he hadn’t just delivered a verbal blow to the gut. And this blow was reminding me about the fifty K, something, for some stupid, insane reason, I thought we’d gone beyond making us something we obviously were not.

Even so, to remind him of who I thought we had become, when he dropped his arm, I whispered, “That wasn’t nice.”

His blank but still beautiful eyes leveled on mine. “Never promised I’d be nice.”

“You’d been being nice,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he affirmed then said, “Mistake. Told you in Vegas, been in chains five years, don’t need anything chaining me.”

Blow two.

“I’m not chaining you,” I told him, my voice trembling.

“Woman, you’re pu**y and never met pu**y that didn’t come with a chain. Some of them are heavier than others. Don’t wanna find out how heavy yours is.”

Another blow. That one savage.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” I whispered.

“Well I did,” he replied then threw back the last of the shake, put the blender on the counter and left the milk, banana peel, strawberry stems and everything where it lay as he headed to the steps saying, “Hittin’ the shower then goin’ to bed. Wood’s comin’ again in the morning to get me. Man who was lookin’ after my ride’s bringin’ it back tomorrow. Probably see you tomorrow night.”

Then he was up the steps and gone.