Trophy Wife

Thank you all for being understanding of my week off!  I didn't get as many posts ready to go as I would have liked, but I have enough for a few weeks, so hopefully I can just keep getting some written regularly now and keep up.  Unfortunately, I am going to go down to twice a week.  I'm not sure if it'll be a temporary change or permanent.  You all know how much I love to post my bonus posts, so I'm sure as soon as I have more time and energy to write, there will be some extras here and there :)  I plan to post on Sunday and Wednesday evenings for now.  This one is coming today, on Saturday, because I have a very special "thank you" bonus planned for tomorrow!  There may come a time when I have to skip a posting day, but I will be sure to at least let you all know.  I know it's a pain when bloggers are inconsistent and take breaks, so please be patient with me!  In return I promise to do the absolute best I can to keep up and keep you all informed! 
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Lauren was at Alex's house and Brody and I were being lazy at my house on Sunday morning when my phone rang.  I looked at it and saw that it was Sarah calling.  I hadn't heard from her since we had exchanged numbers when we met.  I had thought about calling her, but didn't want to push anything.

I answered cheerfully, but could barely hear Sarah's quiet, sullen greeting on the other end.  "How are you?" I asked sincerely.

"Fine," she replied shortly.  She said nothing else.  Okay, this wasn't going to be easy, but I was determined to make an effort.

"Did you do anything fun this weekend?" I tried.

"Not really," she said.  Again the heavy silence quickly took over.

"Well that's too bad," I said.  I paused, making a face at Brody.  Talking to teenagers that aren't sitting in my office is hard.

I was struggling with what to say next when she spoke up suddenly.  "Do people call you Olivia?" she asked.

Taken aback by the sudden question, it took me a second to make sense of it.  "Oh, well, sometimes.  Most people call me Liv.  It's just easier."

"Can I call you Liv?" she asked shyly.

"Absolutely," I replied, smiling.  "Sarah, did you just call to chat, or is something on your mind?" I asked, finally deciding to just jump in.

"I don't know," she replied, and the sullen note was back in her voice.  Shit, bad move Liv.

I scrambled for something safe to ask about that might get her talking.  Why was this so hard?  "Do you guys have any pets?" I asked finally.  Luckily, she started talking about her grandparents' dog and actually strung a few upbeat sentences together.  I told her about my dog growing up, and we talked about animals for several minutes.

"Liv?" Sarah asked hesitantly after our animal conversation had tapered off.

"Yeah?" I replied curiously.

"There's a girl at school spreading rumors about me."  Her sentence was abrupt, and she didn't provide any details.

"That's the worst," I offered sympathetically.  "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," she said.  "What do you think I should do?"  Ah, the real reason for her call.  I was impressed that after the painfully difficult start to this conversation that she would ask for my advice.  We talked for a few more minutes through her options and the pros and cons of each.  When she was satisfied with the options, she said she had to go and we said goodbye.

"That was weird.  Good, but weird," I said to Brody after we hung up.

"Teenage girl drama is always weird," he observed.  "I never did understand it."

"Don't worry, neither do teenage girls."

We decided to go out to brunch, and after brunch I dragged Brody to the grocery store with me (but why, I have no idea...he's the worst at the grocery store).  When I got home, I saw Lauren's car parked in the driveway.  Brody parked on the street and helped me bring my groceries in.

When I walked in the door, I looked around in shock.  It looked like a tornado had torn through my house.  Half-folded laundry was all over the living room.  I walked into the kitchen and quickly realized that I had nowhere to put down my grocery bags because the counter was covered in the aftermath of brownie baking.  Lauren was nowhere to be seen.

"Laur?" I called, listening for the shower but not hearing it.  No response.  "We were only gone for a couple hours," I muttered.

"I know, this is an impressive mess to make in that amount of time," Brody said, chuckling.  His laughter stopped short when I glared at him.   "I mean...want some help cleaning it up?"

"Good save," I snapped.  "But no.  I'm not cleaning this up.  It's not my mess.  I'm just going to put my groceries away and...and..." I looked around.  I couldn't cook because the kitchen was a mess.  I couldn't sit in the living room because of Lauren's laundry explosion. 

"And then we can go out to my house," Brody finished smoothly.  "Here."  He quickly cleared a spot on the table for me to set my bags down and then helped me put everything away.  He waited while I went upstairs and grabbed clothes and makeup for Monday.  On my way back out the door I paused and looked over the mess again, shaking my head.

"What are you going to do?" Brody asked, once we were headed to his house.

"I don't know," I moaned.  "Nothing, probably...she's one of my best friends.  I offered to let her move in knowing she's messy.  I didn't realize it would bother me so much.  I don't want to talk about it, I just want to forget it."

Brody changed the subject and chatted away about something work-related, distracting me.  When we got to his house, we settled on the couch with a movie.   Brody grabbed his laptop and did some work while we watched.

After the movie, I got up and rummaged through Brody's kitchen, pulling things out of the fridge and cabinets.  "What are you doing?" Brody asked, leaning against the doorway and watching me with an amused smile on his face.

"Cooking.  It's what people generally use this room of the house for," I replied, rolling my eyes.

"Hey, just because your roommate can't keep anything clean to save her life, it doesn't mean you should be a jerk to me!" he protested.  He was right, of course, but I wasn't in the mood to be called out right now.  I turned my back to him and busied myself deciding what to make from the random things I had pulled out.  Brody, maybe figuring out that any other comments he might have would probably only make the situation worse, said, "Can I help?"

"Sure," I replied, feeling guilty.  "Can you chop this please?" I handed him an onion.  He took it and pulled out a cutting board and knife.  I grabbed another knife to cut a lemon in half.  "Sorry," I muttered softly.  "Also, if you want to say 'I told you so,' you might as well just get it over with."

"I would love to say 'I told you so,'" he said with a smirk, "But you have a really sharp knife in your hand, so I'll pass."  I glared at him, and he grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me, and then I started laughing.  I laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, and at the stupid face he was making, and at everything else that wasn't even funny.  Once I collected myself, we were able to finish making dinner.

After eating, Brody grabbed our dishes and stood to take them to the sink.  "That was good.  Someday when you're my trophy wife, we won't even have to hire someone to cook for us."  He looked over his shoulder at me with a devious smirk, knowing his trophy wife comment would rile me up.  I glared back at him.  "What?" he asked with mock innocence.  "You don't want to be someone's arm candy for the rest of your life?  Or at least until you lose your youthful good looks and get traded in for a newer model?"  I balled up my napkin and threw it at him indignantly.

He walked back to me and pulled me up from my chair.  I didn't respond to his lips against mine.  "Oh, come on," he said softly against my ear.  "I think we both know you'd make a terrible trophy wife because you're way too smart and driven to be a brainless Stepford. Plus you're too pretty to be a trophy wife, you wouldn't have any plastic surgery to discuss with the others."

"Trophy wives everywhere are offended by that," I replied, trying to maintain my stoic composure as his lips moved from my ear to my neck.

"Sucks for them," he murmured, before sliding his tongue across my collarbone.  I resisted the urge to lean against him as his lips moved back up my neck, his teeth grazing lightly across the sensitive spot where shoulder meets neck.  I was enjoying his seduction way too much to give in that easily.  "Nothing?" he asked, before nibbling gently on my earlobe.

"You'll have to do better than that after your trophy wife comment," I said aloofly, struggling to keep my voice steady as his fingertips traced the skin just above the waist of my pants.

"How much better?" he asked, moving his lips to the other side of my neck while his hands crept up my sides.

"A lot, probably," I replied, but my resolve was already crumbling.  His hands slid around to my back and he pressed his fingers into my skin, massaging the tight spot between my shoulder blades before unhooking my bra.  As he moved his hands back around and cupped my breasts, brushing his thumbs across my nipples, he tried kissing me again.  This time, my lips melted into his and I kissed him back.  I stopped as soon as I felt his lips turn up into a smile against mine.  "Don't get too cocky," I warned him.  "You haven't fully convinced me yet."

"Hmmm," he mused, "I think I need you to come upstairs with me if you need further convincing."  I pretended to consider this for a second, and as I considered, he turned me towards the stairs and pressed his lips to the back of my neck.  "Come on," he said, nipping at the back of my neck before nudging me forward.  I gave up my reluctant facade and pulled him upstairs with me.

Once we got upstairs I required very little further convincing.  Since I made him work so hard to even get me upstairs, I made sure he did very little work once we got there.   "What time is it?" I asked, settling against him when we were finished.

Brody rolled over to look at his clock.  "Almost 9," he said, rolling back towards me.

I groaned.  "I don't want to get up and wash those dishes.  I just want to go to sleep."

"I'll do them," Brody said.  "You did most of the cooking, and I need to get some work done before I go to bed anyway."

I raised myself up on one elbow and met his eyes in the dark.  "What's the catch?" I asked.

He laughed.  "The catch is you don't say a word about me getting up out of this bed to go do some work."

"Deal," I agreed.

"That was easy," Brody said.  He leaned forward and kissed my cheek before rolling away from me and standing up.  I heard him pulling on pants and a t-shirt.  "I'll try not to wake you up when I come to bed."

He succeeded, because the next time I woke up, gray dawn light was filtering into the room around the edges of the curtain, and Brody was silencing his alarm.  We both got ready in a surprisingly coordinated way, managing to time it all perfectly to never be in the other's way. 

"Well, that's an impressive skill I won't need once I'm a trophy wife," I said wryly, as Brody flipped off the bathroom light.

Brody yawned and shook his head.  "Actually," he replied, "I changed my mind.  I don't want a trophy wife.  I want to be a trophy husband.  You can run my business and stay up until 3am on a Sunday night, and I'll go to bed at 9."

"Nothing would ever get done," I pointed out, as we started down the stairs.  "I'm physically incapable of staying up until 3am."

"That's true," Brody agreed.   He dropped me off at my house so I could get my car.  I couldn't even bear to go inside because I didn't want to spend my whole work day annoyed if the mess was still there.  We said goodbye, and went our separate ways to work.