Faith

 

Another week has passed at my new job that I love, and another week of wedded harmony where slowly but surely, Bryant and I are settling into our new normal. I get up and go to work after Bryant makes me breakfast. I come home just in time for dinner—again, cooked by my husband—then we watch TV or a movie and talk about our day before going to bed, Bryant hauling me over to sleep in his arms. Then we wake up, and it happens all over again. But my plans to be the best wife I can be are well underway.

Which is why I find myself parking Betsy in my parents’ driveway and walking over to the Cooks’ family home with two bags of groceries in my arms.

“Faith,” Marcy says, pulling me into her arms as soon as I step inside. “It’s so good to see you. I’m super excited about this.”

I smile because Marcy’s enthusiasm not just for today but life in general has always been infectious. “I’ve been looking forward to today all week.“

“I hope my boy has been putting his skills to good use.”

I splutter and cover my mouth, trying to hide it with a cough, but as always, Marcy Cook doesn’t miss a thing.

“I like the way you think, but I meant his culinary skills. I love my boys, but I don’t need to know about things like that.”

Unable to stop myself, I giggle, grinning at my mother-in-law’s dancing eyes.

“Marce, are you embarrassing my poor, innocent daughter?” Mom calls out from the other end of the house.

“Would I do that?” Marcy shoots me a knowing wink. She loops her arm in mine, and together we walk down the hall and into the kitchen where I find Mom, April, and Ronnie. I bend down and place the bags on the ground.

“Hey,” I say, taken aback at my new sister-laws’ presence.

April seems to study me, a soft smile curving her lips. “I promise we’re not here to gate-crash your lesson.” She looks to Ronnie, then back to me. “We’re just here as moral support.”

“And we figure it’s easier to form a Cook Wives Pussy Posse if the guys aren’t around,” Ronnie adds, her eyes dancing with amusement when I snort at the title.

“I’ve never been part of a posse before.”

“Ah yes, that’s because you’ve never had us. Now, we’re all in this together,” Ronnie says. “We might even get matching T-shirts. I haven’t decided yet.”

The thought of all of us turning up to the next family get together with pussy posse tops makes me snort.

“Having girls at your back is always good. I love my sons and husband to death but, like any man, they have their moments where they can drive me wild—and not in a good way,” Marcy says. Mrs. Cook could never be called a prude. In fact, I don’t think her name and that word even belong in the same stratosphere.

It was her who took Bry to the dentist after the head-meets-head blow-job incident. I was hysterical, Bryant was groaning and embarrassed to all hell. Marcy just looked at him, looked at me, and snickered before jumping into action.

“Bryant doesn’t know why I’m here,” I whisper, my chest tightening. It’s not lying to him—I said I was coming, just not that I was doing it to start learning how to cook for him.

“And he won’t until you tell him,” April says. “Jamie and Ax have gone over to the house to work out what to do about the back yard and then all the guys—Rick included—were going to take Ax to the park to throw a ball around.” Rick being my new father-in-law.

My shoulders relax, and I let out the huge breath I was holding. “It’s not that I’m hiding it—”

“You want to surprise him,” Mom surmises correctly.

“That’s part of it…” I say, wondering whether I can still be part of the pussy posse if I admit I have a plan to prove myself to my new husband.

“You’re doing this for him,” Ronnie says.

“Well yeah…”

Marcy places her hand on my forearm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “No, what Ronnie means is, you’re doing this for him.”

I bite my lip and nod, my embarrassment fading away as I catch the looks of approval on everyone’s faces. Feeling emboldened, I explain further. “Okay, so this is probably too much information,” I say, turning toward my mom. “But then again, it was you and Marcy who sat me down at fourteen and scared me off even touching Bryant by showing me photos, diagrams, and a graphic childbirth video.”

Marcy looks at Mom, and they both burst out laughing. “That was so much fun. I swear you almost passed out when that girl got an episiotomy.”

“I had one of those. I almost passed out, and I was an adult and couldn’t even feel my lady parts,” April says. “Though as a fourteen-year-old seeing that, I would’ve gladly put on my own chastity belt to avoid a penis coming anywhere near me.”

“Hey, I think I would’ve gladly had the Marcy and Patty sex talk. It’s better than freaking out when I first felt something hard poking my leg when I was fifteen and making out with Billy Harris—my biggest crush ever,” Ronnie says.

“Oh God,” April gasps, wheezing with laughter. “I remember that. Good times.”

“For you, maybe. I punched him in the junk and left him rolling around on the ground in the fetal position. He never spoke to me again. I even saw him a few years ago at a restaurant, and he turned around and walked the other way.”

“Men and their fragile egos,” Marcy says with a smile. “I’m just glad we raised our boys to roll with the punches.”

“There’s one thing I can say about the Cook and Baker boys—there’s nothing fragile about them,” I add, earning nods from everyone.

“I don’t know. Our boys have a soft spot,” Marcy’s eyes drift around the room before falling on me. Her meaning is not lost on me. I’m Bryant’s soft spot. Probably his blind spot too.

Knowing she’s aware of that fact—hell, everyone does—I decide to confess my plan.

“I want to be the best wife, partner, everything for Bry. I screwed up years ago, and I know he’ll never forget that, but I’m going to work myself to the bone to make it up to him so he never doubts my feelings.”

“Would he have married you if he held a grudge?” April asks gently.

“No, but I know he’s still holding back.”

“It’s only been, what? A month?”

“Five weeks, and yeah, I know it’s still early days, but I see it in his eyes. He’s waiting for the penny to drop, for me to freak out and run away again, and I hate that because it means I hold back too. I don’t wanna get hurt, and I definitely don’t want to hurt him.”

“You planning on running away again?” Marcy asks, her tone inquisitive. I meet her eyes head-on and don’t hesitate in reassuring her.

“Hell no. I came back for him. I came back to win him back. Did I expect another marriage proposal? No.”

A collective gasp fills the room.

“What?” Mom whispers, her hand lifting to her mouth.

Marcy’s eyes are wide and glassy. “Oh my goodness. He never… he didn’t…”

I go completely still. He didn’t tell them. Why didn’t he tell anyone?

“He proposed?” Ronnie whispers. I slowly drag my eyes from the moms, who are still standing there in shock, to my sister-in-law.

“Yeah. The night before I left. I freaked out and ran away. I was leaving anyway; I just hadn’t told Bry about my decision.”

Ronnie opens her mouth to say something, but I quickly beat her to it, feeling the need to justify myself.

“I panicked. It felt like I was going to lose my one chance to make something of myself out of the spotlight of the Bryant and Faith show. So I—”

“Ran,” Mom says from my side, her hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “I always thought it was something to do with that.”

My head jerks back. My eyes snap to hers.

“You always marched to the beat of everyone else’s drum. I knew the day would come when you wanted to set your own beat,” she says softly, and finally hearing someone say out loud what I always struggled to express myself, I lose it, wrapping my arms around her waist and crying into her shoulder.

The soothing circles of her hand on my back calm me down, the tight feeling in my chest slowly easing as the other women in the room softly murmur around us.

Then I feel heat at my back as Marcy joins us, making a Cook/Baker sandwich.

“He knows,” she whispers in my ear. “And he gets it.”

My sudden intake of breath seizes, and I freeze, my mother-in-law’s words surprising me. I pull away from Mom and turn to meet Marcy’s eyes.

“My boys may seem big and tough, but there’s one other lesson I taught them from a young age. Whatever happens and however old they are, their mom will always answer her phone and will never not be there for them. Bryant would have known something was up when you left. Maybe not at the time, but looking back on it, he figured it out.” She reaches down and runs her thumb over my ring. “There’s no other way he would’ve given you the same engagement ring he’s had in his possession since he was eighteen otherwise. He begged me to help him choose it. He was always going to use it… with you.”

I suck in a few breaths, desperately trying to quell the deluge of emotions threatening to drown me. It’s not a panic attack this time. It’s a warmth so all-encompassing that I feel like I might spontaneously combust. It’s the consuming realization that my gut instinct was not wrong when I was eight, fourteen and that it’s still right now that I’m thirty-four. Bryant Cook was, is—and will forever be—the best boy, man, and husband I will ever know.

He waited for me.

There’s never been anyone for me but him.

“Swans,” I whisper, earning puzzled looks from all the women in the room.

“What, baby?” Mom asks, giving my arm a gentle squeeze.

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head, a slow-growing smile curving my lips. I square my shoulders and take a step back. “Now more than ever, I really need to learn a meal that’s going to blow his socks off.”

That earns soft laughter from everyone.

“Oh, no, Faith. It’s not his socks you wanna blow,” Marcy says with a wicked smirk and a devilish gleam in her eye.

“Marcy!” Mom says with a giggle. April’s mouth drops open, and Ronnie just throws her head back and cackles loudly.

“What?” Marcy says, holding her hands up. “Am I wrong?” She quirks a brow at April, Ronnie and finally me before she nods. “I’m right. I may have birthed those men, but I’m also married to the one who sired them, and I know they’re all a chip off the ol’ block.”

Mom shakes her head, but she’s also smiling when she meets my gaze. “She’s not wrong, Bakes.”

“Okay, I’ve gotta ask. What’s with Bakes? I thought it was a Baker thing, but there’s more to it, isn’t there?” April asks.

Marcy and Mom swap a look between each other before chuckling. “My Faith has always been good at everything. Anything she tried and set her mind to, she bested with ease.”

Marcy grins. “Except cooking.”

“And baking,” Mom adds.

“Really, anything to do with food,” I grumble.

“Ohhhh,” April says, her eyes lit with amused understanding.

“Wait, you made pasta salad for the party here a few weeks ago. I had some. It was okay.”

“Cooking store-bought pasta in hot water and adding bacon, avocado, tomato and spinach leaves with dressing is not exactly culinary genius,” I say with a shrug.

“I once dated a guy who burned boiling water,” April adds.

I snicker. “What?”

“Yep. Put the water on the stovetop and forgot about it. By the time I arrived for our date, the fire department was just turning up.”

“Wow,” I gasp before joining Ronnie, Mom, and Marcy and laughing.

“Did he get another date?” Marcy asks.

“Hell no. I was about to break up with him anyway. Seeing hot firefighters save his ass was just the icing on the cake,” April says.

“I still think a nine-year-old Faith using her Easy-Bake Oven to conduct science experiments and melting plastic takes the cake,” Mom helpfully adds.

Ronnie shakes her head. “Oh, Lord. I had one of those. Sheila wouldn’t let me use it. I think it’s probably still in pristine condition in a storage unit somewhere.”

“Sheila?” I ask.

“My mother. Or the woman who gave birth to me but who probably had an elective C-section because I swear if anyone were too posh to push, it would be her.”

“She’s not wrong,” April says before standing and walking toward me as I grab the bags I came with and walk around the kitchen island. She reaches my side and helps me unpack the groceries. “So, Bakes. What are we cooking?”

I look over to Marcy, Mom, and Ronnie, who now stand opposite us.

“Bryant’s favorite,” Marcy replies, and I can’t help but smile.

“Oh, Faith. Don’t make plans for Saturday night in two weeks’ time. April and I are taking you out. Us Cook wives have to stick together,” Ronnie says.

“Okay,” I say with a smile, liking that I’m part of the wives now. “Where are we going?”

“Our friends Mia and Natalie are having a sex-toy party, and you’re coming,” April announces, her gaze pinned on me.

“Ah…” I look between Mom and Marcy, not expecting to see them nodding in approval.

“That’s a brilliant idea. Because the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and his—” Mom’s hand shoots up to cover Marcy’s mouth, so all we hear is “mmph-hmph.”

Ronnie’s eyes are dancing when they meet mine. “I don’t think any of us need a translation for that,” she says with a laugh. “But she’s not wrong.”

I nod because honestly, there’s nothing else to say. She’s married to my husband’s twin, and from growing up with the Cook brothers, I know for a fact that all of them—even Cohen, who was just coming into himself when I left—are men who are men, and they all had plenty of women at their beck and call. They probably still would do if Jax and Jamie hadn’t met the awesome women in front of me. Bryant may be understanding and willing to wait for things to happen naturally, but a woman can never have enough weapons in her arsenal.

“Soooo, now that we’ve blown my mind and discussed not only my lackluster cooking skills but also the fact that the love of my life has waited for me while I was off making something of myself, what are we cooking and can I do it without burning anything?”

Mom and Marcy look at each other before turning approving eyes my way. “You’re going to get there, Bakes, and as you do, just know you’ve got all of us girls cheering you on.”

My throat tightens, and I have to swallow the big lump growing there. “Okay, before you make me cry again, can you teach me how to blow Bryant’s taste buds?”

“Always good to start somewhere. I’ve always said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Mom says with a proud smile.

“Just remember to move south before the end,” Marcy deadpans. We all burst out laughing before setting out to teach this old dog—me—new cooking tricks.

First step is his stomach, then who knows? Maybe Marcy isn’t so wrong about working my way down.

One thing is for sure, it’s his heart that’s the end goal.