The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers

like a big blanket of you’re-going to-be-okay. She rested against him. Just for a minute. Bobby’s extra pounds made good leaning material. The music played. Bobby went slowly. He put an arm around her and strummed his fingers on her shoulder in time to the song. He reached for her hand. He tucked her fingers in his.
    “You get more beautiful every year.” Bobby brought her hand to his lips. “Honest. You’ve spoiled me for anyone else.”
    “Where’d you learn those lines?” She let him trace the top of her shoulder. “Corny old Bobby.”
    “Excuse me, college girl.” He tipped her face to his and planted sweet kisses on each cheek. Bobby Kerrigan, secret softie. “You know I like that, right? That you went to college? How else do you get anywhere in this world? I admire you, Tia.”
    You drive me crazy, Tia. You make me so damned hot, Tia, Nathan would say.
    Bobby’s hand went lower. He played with the bottom of her Red Sox shirt. She pulled away, for a moment becoming, while not sober, not as drunk. His palm brushed her waist where pregnancy stretch marks and puckered skin striated her flesh into an unrecognizable terrain. If he touched her, he’d know her secrets.
    She hadn’t slept with anyone since the day the stick showed that positive pink line.

CHAPTER 6
    Juliette
    Juliette opened her eyes to the welcome sight of Nathan holding her favorite mug: sturdy, big, and rough textured. She struggled to a sitting position, already wanting her first sip, Pavlovian in her response to the rich smell of dark roast. “You’ll never leave me,” Nathan used to joke. “You couldn’t live without your morning coffee delivery.”
    Teasing like that was long gone. Much more than trust had been broken when Nathan cheated; a level of ease had disappeared. Kidding about affairs was crossed off the marital banter list six years ago, when the idea of getting her own morning coffee sounded just fine—a terrific bargain to never have to see him again. But, well, life was filled with buts , wasn’t it?
    Max’s screech drifted in through the bedroom door, followed by Lucas’s louder bellow.
    “What are they fighting over?” Juliette asked.
    “Some shirt that Max swears you gave him but Lucas says still belongs to him.”
    “What does it look like?”
    “Blue?” Nathan sat on the edge of the bed. “Maybe green?” He ran a hand down her arm.
    Nathan was forty-two. She was a year younger. Worry lines,which on Juliette portended the not-too-distant day when she’d become invisible, added gravitas to his good looks.
    “Are they dressed?” Juliette brushed off his hand, though even as she batted away temptation, she considered it. Locking the door and making love, even if it was silent surreptitious sex, offered a moment’s sanctuary from Wednesday, the worst day of her week. Deliveries poured in. Customers woke up realizing they had to look perfect by some weekend function, and only juliette&gwynne could perform that miracle. Lucas and Max both had practices to which she had to somehow shuffle them in between her work.
    Juliette hated Wednesdays.
    Increasingly louder shouts came from the boys.
    “I better make sure they’re okay,” she said.
    Nathan held his hands up. “Stay. I’ll deal with them.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Rain check?”
    She squeezed his love handle. “Rain check.”
    By the time she’d brushed her teeth and pulled on her robe, the sound of fighting had given way to the clicking of computer keys. Both boys, but particularly Lucas, at fourteen, thought their parents’ refusal to allow computers in their bedrooms was insane. For Juliette, it meant keeping her boys safe. She’d read too many times about some nut going after a kid he’d met on the Internet. She could easily imagine her sweet Max drifting out to a playground where, instead of a fellow Civilization video game player, he’d find a thirty-five-year-old killer pervert.
    Juliette stood at the door of the upstairs