I smiled, bemused that he would have noticed my eating habits. “Right. Well, thanks.” I picked up the sandwich, taking a bite, musing over how different Harrison was to my inattentive and ungracious husband. Harrison would certainly make someone a great boyfriend or husband one day, when the lucky girl finally managed to catch his eye and make him settle down. “You on your own today, no date?” I enquired. I never actually saw him with a date. I knew he played the field a lot because Skye had told me, but I’d never seen him bring a plus one to anything.

He shrugged. “Nah. Can’t hit on you if I bring a date, can I?” he joked. One side of his mouth pulled up into a playful smirk, and I tried extremely hard not to notice how attractive it made him look. Instead, I focused on the black smudge on his face.

“You have something on your cheek,” I muttered, unsure how to respond to his flirting. Immediately, he swiped at the wrong cheek. I smiled and pointed to the mark, but as he rubbed it, it just smudged even more and grew. I chuckled and picked up a napkin, dipping it in my white wine that I’d been working on for the last hour. “Here, let me.”

Stepping closer to him, I tried not to inhale the spicy aftershave that he wore, because the smell of it made the hair on my arms prickle with excitement. He had always caused this reaction in me; it was like he turned me into a giddy little girl just with one of his boyish, carefree smiles. Even with my husband standing less than thirty feet from me, I still couldn’t curb the attraction that I felt for my brother-in-law’s business partner. My fantasies and imagination of things I’d like to do to his body bordered on obscene for a few days after I’d seen Harrison. Finn was in for a good night tonight, because lust was building up inside me in preposterous levels.

I gulped as I finished cleaning off the smudge and stepped back. A sexy little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I muttered in reply, feeling my cheeks flush as I tried not to let my dirty thoughts show on my face.

“Here,” Skye said from just beside me, causing me to almost jump out of my skin because I’d been so inappropriately lost in the moment with Harrison. We both turned and looked, seeing her holding out a clean pale blue shirt. “Should fit you, you and Brandon are both about the same size.”

Harrison smiled gratefully and took it, immediately yanking his own shirt over his head. My eyes widened as I caught my first ever glimpse of his golden tanned chest and that fine spattering of blonde hair on the base of his stomach – the treasure trail that led to the good stuff. My dirty thoughts were back in abundance.

Knowing it was wrong of me to devour his body with my eyes in front of everyone, I turned my head away. As I turned, I caught sight of Finn. He was exactly where I last saw him – propping up the booze table. Except now he wasn’t on his own drinking away his sorrows; instead, a girl who I used to go to school with was standing there talking to him. My eyes narrowed as I realised who she was – Morgan Henshall. She was one of Skye’s friends, so a couple of years older than me, but I remembered her for being a serial boyfriend stealer. If my memory served me correctly, she prided herself in being able to steal even the most committed of boyfriends; it was like some sort of game for her at school.

They were laughing together; she was standing too close to him for my liking. I knew he was drunk, I could tell by the lopsidedness of his smile and the way his left shoulder was slightly lower than his right, it was always the giveaway. I wasn’t surprised he was drunk, he’d had his first beer at eleven o’clock so he’d been drinking already for a solid six hours. When he, rarely, accompanied me to a family gathering, he always seemed to drown his sorrows in alcohol. It was one of the reasons why I didn’t ask him to come with me often, and I think one of the reasons why he did it. I frowned at the pair, gritting my teeth in frustration.

“I’m going to go say happy birthday to Evie.” Harrison’s hand touched the small of my back for a second and I turned my attention back to him and away from my husband who was clearly flirting with someone else while at my niece’s birthday party and standing in my sister’s garden. “Watch my food for me, huh? Make sure some little sod kid doesn’t come and nick my chicken nuggets.” He winked at me playfully and, just like that, the tension inside me diffused momentarily.

“You’re such a child sometimes,” I joked, rolling my eyes as he walked off towards the scary-looking clown that was producing overly large, fake flowers from his sleeve. When Harrison turned back to grin at me, I took one of his chicken nuggets and ate it just to spite him. His eyes narrowed as he pursed his lips in silent scolding, before plopping himself down on the grass next to Evie and joining in the fun.

My gaze travelled back to Finn as I sipped my wine. He was still talking with Morgan; she was currently giggling at something he’d said. Anger was making my feet twitch, and I longed to go over there and throw my wine right in his eyes and smile while it stung. Instead, I stayed back, watching, praying for her to walk away before other people noticed that my, supposedly loving, husband was trying his best to get into some taller, prettier, skinnier girl’s pants.

I didn’t want to cause a scene; I also didn’t want people to look at me with that sympathetic ‘Aww, you couldn’t hold onto your man? You poor dear’ look in their eyes that they looked at me with last time I told my family that he’d cheated. But when Morgan put her hand on Finn’s arm and he leant in, giving her that smile, I saw red.

Roughly setting my wine down onto the table, not even caring that it slopped over the sides and onto my hand, I stomped in their direction. When I got to them, Morgan looked up and her eyes widened in surprise before a smile graced her lips.

“Bronwyn? It’s been years since I saw you! How are you?” she gushed, discreetly taking a step away from my husband and letting her hand drop from his arm.

I forced a smile in return. “I’ve been good, thank you. I see you’ve met Finn, my husband,” I replied, putting plenty of emphasis around the last word as I slipped my hand in his and raised my chin.

Her gaze darted to him and one of her eyes twitched as if this was a new revelation. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the ring that he wore on his finger… or maybe she had seen it but just hadn’t realised he was married to her friend’s little sister.

“Oh, yes, we kind of already met. Finn was just helping me open my wine,” she lied, picking up her glass as evidence of his helpful act. “I’ll catch up with you soon, Bronwyn.” Without waiting for an answer, she sauntered off quickly, walking up to a group of Skye’s friends and immersing herself in conversation, discreetly checking over her shoulder at us.

Finn squeezed my hand. “Uh oh, is someone jealous?”

Jealous? That had to be a joke. Dropping his hand, I turned to face him, looking him right in the eye. “Jealous? I’m not jealous of a slut like that. But I am bloody furious that you’d disrespect me in front of my whole family by hitting on one of my sister’s friends at a birthday party!” I hissed, leaning in so no one would suspect we were about to have one of our famous blazing rows. “What’s wrong with you? Seriously?”

He shrugged, reaching out and touching my face awkwardly with his drunken coordination so instead of the affectionate gesture he was going for, it was more like he smooshed my cheek roughly. “It was harmless,” he replied. “I’m just killing some time before we can go home. This f**king thing is boring as ever.”

I gritted my teeth as my hands clenched into fists. I wanted to punch something, really hard, right in the centre of his flirtatious, drunken face. “It’s one thing to do this kind of shit in secret and me not see it or know about it, it’s quite another to have you parading around at my niece’s birthday party leeching onto my childhood friends and not even seeming concerned that my family might see!”

He chuckled darkly. “I’m not parading around. I’m just waiting for this f**king thing to be over so we can leave. Kids’ parties aren’t my thing, you know that.”

“Yeah, your thing is getting drunk and gambling our rent money away,” I snapped, slapping away his hand as he went to touch my face again. “Don’t touch me. Seriously, I’m so angry with you that I want to… to…” I didn’t even know what I wanted to do.

A smirk graced his lips as he leant in. His beer breath blew across my face, and I silently wondered exactly how much alcohol he’d ingested. My guess would be, a lot. “Want to go blow off some steam and have angry sex?” he offered, winking at me.

I almost choked on my scoff. “Screw you,” I muttered.

His smile grew. “That’s what I offered,” he replied, hiccupping before letting out a large belch that caused the people near us to turn their noses up in distaste.

I shook my head in frustration. “Why do you even bother coming with me to family parties? Seriously, all you do is whine about wanting to go home, get drunk, embarrass me and then sit on your phone playing online poker using my mum’s internet!”

His eyes narrowed as he downed the last of his beer before slamming the bottle down onto the table. “I come because you make me come!” he retorted.

“I don’t make you come,” I protested, gritting my teeth.

He rolled his eyes as if I’d said something ludicrous. “Yes, you do, buttercup. If I don’t come with you then you sulk and don’t talk to me for days, and when you get back you make sarcastic comments about how everyone missed me and asked about me, trying to make me feel guilty.”

“I don’t do it to make you feel guilty; I tell you that because people always ask where you are.” Grinding my teeth in frustration, I shook my head. To be honest, it was easier for me when he wasn’t here. At least then I didn’t have to watch over him all the time, making sure he wasn’t too drunk and going to throw up somewhere, or say something inappropriate, or hit on my sister’s friends. I wasn’t even sure why I always asked him to accompany me to family gatherings – maybe it was because I was secretly hoping that one day he’d actually want to be accepted as part of my family and that he’d appreciate the effort they went to to include him. But no, it was clear now that would never happen. Finn wasn’t interested in being accepted by anyone. “Know what, just don’t come any more. Don’t come to your niece’s parties, don’t wish her happy birthday, don’t come to stay at my mum’s any more then.”

“Your niece, not mine,” he corrected.

My hand itched to slap his face. Biologically yes, she was my niece, but he had known her since birth, didn’t that count as family in his eyes? “Whatever, just don’t come to any more family events then, I’ll go on my own with Theo.”

“Thank the f**king lord for small mercies,” he muttered sarcastically.

Frustrated and angered even more, I shook my head knowing I needed to walk away from him. If I stayed there much longer then I’d start shouting, and then he’d start shouting, and then I’d start throwing things, and that never ended well. “Just go upstairs and sober up, I’m done talking to you.” I stomped off back to the table where I’d left my wine, picking it up and downing half a glass in two gulps.

Eyeing me worriedly, my mum excused herself from her friends and walked over to me. “Everything OK?” she enquired.

I nodded, forcing a smile so that she wouldn’t know that I was mere moments from bursting into frustrated tears. “Everything’s fine. Shall I go get the matches for the cake?” I offered, trying to change the subject. From the corner of my eye, I saw Finn stomp into the house with a beer in each hand. I had no doubt in my mind that he would spend the rest of the party in the house and playing games on his phone and then we’d ignore each other for the rest of the night before pretending like nothing had happened in the morning once he was sober.

Mum nodded. Her furrowed brows told me that she didn’t believe that I was all right, but that she didn’t want to probe. I loved her even more for not prying because I didn’t want to admit that she’d been right about Finn all along, and that he was no good for me, and that he would hurt me in the long run. Leaning in, I planted a soft kiss on her cheek before heading into the house to find the matches and pretend like I didn’t feel like a worthless pile of dog shit inside.

All I wanted, all I’d ever really wanted, was for Finn to just love me like he should do and for us to lead a normal, happy life together. Was that really too much to ask for? Apparently it was.

August 2013

The year following the birthday party was a hard one for me and Finn. Money was tight because Finn had written off the car in an accident, so we’d had to buy a new one, well, a new old one. As a result of having to pay out for the new car, spare money was few and far between, which meant that some things had to give.

I was working extra shifts whenever possible, and Finn had to cut back on his drinking. With him not drinking as much, he stayed home more often in the evenings, but all that resulted in was us arguing more. By spending more time together, it became glaringly obvious that we were totally and utterly incompatible. I’d known it before then, of course, but somehow our relationship worked because it was almost as if we led two separate lives and just shared a bed and bank account. But with us spending more time together, I realised that I actually didn’t even like Finn any more. Every single little thing about him irritated me – sometimes even just the way he breathed.

The year had been long and painful, but we’d reached the point now where we didn’t even argue any more. It was like it was too much effort, too much contact with one another. Even the physical stuff between us had fizzled out. Finn didn’t even try to instigate anything any more with me. In fact, it was coming up to our five months’ anniversary of no sex. I had a horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that he was getting his kicks with some other girl, but I was too afraid to confront him about it.