Megan Hart - Switch

smeling of perfume and guilt, or that it didn't matter

whether he had or hadn't fucked anyone else, it was that

he was content to choose a night with his buddies over

staying home with me. I didn't bring up the times I'd said I

was studying for school when I was realy someplace else,

with someone else.

"I just want you to be happy, Austin." I meant it.

He leaned back and frowned more fiercely. "You want me

to be happy so you can feel better about yourself, that's

al. So you don't feel so bad about what happened."

The truth of that stung me like a wasp, smooth-stingered

and able to jab more than once. "I think you should go."

Damn him, he didn't. He moved closer and cupped my

elbows in his palms so I had to uncross my arms to push

him away or let him snuggle up close. I put my hands on

him away or let him snuggle up close. I put my hands on

his chest, but didn't push. His muscles beneath the tight T-

shirt were hard and firm. He leaned, and I didn't pul away.

If he'd kissed me, I'd have been lost, but if he'd ever

thought he knew me, he proved himself wrong again. He

didn't kiss me. He spoke, instead.

"I'm your husband."

I pushed my arms straight. His hands slid from my elbows

along my arms and fel away at my wrists. I stepped back,

my hand against his chest preventing him from folowing

unless he pushed me, too. Austin looked for a second as if

he meant to try it, but didn't.

"I have a folder ful of paperwork that says otherwise," I

told him.

"Okay, so not officialy. But you can't tel me—"

"I can tel you anything I want, so long as it's true," I shot back.

"Can you tel me it's true that you don't miss me, too? Not

even a little?"

"I miss fucking you," I said flatly. "The rest of it? Not so

"I miss fucking you," I said flatly. "The rest of it? Not so much."

Austin grinned and spread his fingers. "It's a start, right? I'l cal you."

"I won't answer."

"I'l cal again."

I pointed at the door, and he went. I waited until it closed

behind him before I gave in to the urge to sigh. What is it

about bad boys that make them so, so good?

I've known him since kindergarten. Austin. In my

elementary-school class photos, more times than not, his

freckled face is beaming from the row behind me. In one,

we stand beside each other, our grins showing the same

missing teeth.

In high school, we had nothing in common. Austin was a

jock. I was a gothpunk girl with multiple piercings and a

tattoo of a dragonfly on my back. We shared colege-level

classes and the same lunch period. I knew who he was

because of his prowess on the footbal field. If he knew me

it was maybe because I was one of the girls every boy

it was maybe because I was one of the girls every boy

knew, or maybe just because we'd been in the same

school since we were five. We didn't say hi when we

passed in the hals, but he was never mean to me the way

some of the boys could be. Austin never caled me names

or made crude invitations.

In the fal of our senior year, Austin went down under a

pile of boys pumped up with testosterone and fury. We

won the homecoming game, but instead of riding in Chrissy

Fisher's dad's 1966 Impala convertible, Austin took a red-

lights-flashing ambulance to the Hershey Medical Center.

He recovered, nothing miraculous about it. His body,

bones broken and skin torn, healed. Nobody ever said

he'd never play footbal again. Austin simply never did.

Nor basketbal, either, and in the spring, not basebal. By

then his chances of going to anything other than community

colege had vanished along with the scholarship offers, but

if he ever cared he wasn't getting a ful ride to Penn State,

he never said so to me.

And by then, he would have. By the time our senior year

ended, Austin told me everything.

We were an odd couple, but nobody shunned us for it. I

We were an odd couple, but nobody shunned us for it. I

didn't hear whispers in the hals. No jealous cheerleaders

tried to pul out my dyed-black hair, and no slick rich

jocks tried to convince him he was better off without me.

We didn't go to the prom, but only because we decided to

stay home and watch soft porn and fuck, instead.

When I told my mom we were going to get married, she

hugged me and wept. Her bely poked between us—she

was pregnant with Arthur, then. If she suspected I wanted

to marry Austin as much so I could move out of the house

as for passion, she didn't say anything.

When we told his parents, his dad said nothing and his

mother's eyes dropped to my waistband. She didn't ask

me if I was pregnant, and she must have been surprised as

the months of our marriage passed and my bely stayed

flat, but no matter how she might have felt about the

prospect of me as a daughter-in-law, the idea of a bastard

grandchild must've been worse.

I wore a thrift-store wedding dress and Austin wore a suit

of his dad's we'd paid the dry cleaner to take in. In

pictures, my thick black eyeliner and my spiked black hair

make me look pale, wan. Tired. Scared, even.

The truth is, I was happy.

We both were, I like to think. At least at first. Austin went

to work for his dad's construction business, and I kept up

work at my mom's shop. My granddad had died and it

was hers, ful-time, and now that she had Arty, she

couldn't spend as much time with it, so I managed the

shop.

We were happy.

And then, we weren't.

Chapter 07

When I was younger, the prospect of Sunday dinner at my

dad's had so excited me or stressed me out I'd vomit.

Never at my father's house—even when I was little I knew

Stela wouldn't approve of a puking kid. I didn't puke

anymore, but I'd never managed to get rid of the knots in

my stomach, either.

I popped an antacid tablet now as I sat in my not-

expensive-enough-to-be-impressive car in their half-circle

driveway of stamped concrete. This was the fourth new

house my father'd had in the past seventeen years of life

with his second family. Before that he'd lived in a stately

Georgian-style half mansion with his first family. He'd

never lived with my mother.

Birth-order studies claim that an age difference of six or

more years between siblings complicates the normal

oldest, middle and youngest personality traits by also

making each child an only. That's why, though I have five

half siblings and an uncle who's more like a brother, I'm an

only child. I've tried identifying with being the middle kid—

but what it comes down to, in the end, is I'm not.

The door opened and Jeremy and Tyler ran out. They

both favor my dad, too. Al of us look more like siblings

than we were raised to be. I was fourteen when Jeremy

was born, sixteen for Tyler. They're more like nephews or

cousins than brothers. I'm not sure what they think of me,

just that they're always glad to see me and aside from the

fact they're spoiled brats who could use a good spanking

now and then, I'm usualy glad to see them, too.

"Hey, Paige." Jeremy at twelve no longer ran to clutch at

my legs. He settled for a half wave with limp fingers.

Tyler, ten, was nearly as tal as me but squeezed me

anyway. "Paige, c'mon, we're going to play Pictionary.

Grandma and Grandpa are here already. So's Nanny and

Poppa."

"And Gretchen and Steve, too, I see." I pointed to the two minivans that belonged to my dad's kids with his first wife.