Free Eye Candy by Ryan Schneider Page A

she’s sleeping with.”
    “Good for her. She’s a single woman now. It’s none of your business who she sleeps with.”
    Rory stared at the cedar ceiling, tracing the black whirls and whorls of the knots. Some of the knots looked like breasts. “That’s true.”
    Harley set on the edge of the bed and looked at Rory. “Was it ever any good with her?”
    “The sex?”
    “Yes, but everything else, too.”
    Rory took a deep breath and sighed. “I guess. In the beginning. I think all relationships are exciting in the beginning. Everything is new and fun, and just being together feels like enough. With Melinda it was sex, sex, sex. But a few months after we were married it was, ‘No, no, no.’ She lost interest. The only time she wanted to do it was when she was ovulating. Once she was pregnant with Rose, she said no sex during pregnancy. Period. So I figured it was a hormonal thing. Or that maybe she was worried about the baby. I figured once Rose was born, having a baby together would help us feel more connected, and would renew our passion. But it didn’t. Then, two months after Rose was born, she said we should have another child, so the kids will be close together in age. Otherwise they’ll be less inclined to be friends when they grow up. I agreed. So we did it once and she got pregnant with Ruby. Bam – just like that.”
    “Did you have sex during that pregnancy? A lot of women are really nervous during their first pregnancy, so it’s not that they don’t want to have sex, but they’re afraid to, like you said. Once they’ve been through it, a lot of times things are a little easier.”
    “Not for us. We didn’t do it for a year. Again I thought having Ruby would make things different. That once we got into a routine and were on some kind of a normal sleep schedule and weren’t exhausted all the time, that we could begin dating again, that we could renew our passion. But every time I suggested we get a sitter for the evening or take the girls to my sister’s for the weekend so we could go away for a couple days, she never wanted to. She always said she was too tired, or she was too worried about the girls, or she had work to do over the weekend. She’s an attorney who specializes in contract law, so it wasn’t unusual that she would have work to do on the weekends. I even suggested she suspend her practice for a few years, until the girls were a little older. We could have easily gotten by on my salary, so it wasn’t about the money.”
    “What was it about?”
    Rory sighed. “I’m not sure. I think . . . I think she got tired of me.”
    Harley crawled across the bed and knelt beside Rory in the moonlight. “She got tired of you? What kind of fucked-up shit is that? She married you. She took a vow. If you take a vow, you should goddamn well live by it.”
    “You’re preaching to the choir, Harls.”
    “Did you guys go to counseling?”
    “I did. She refused. But after a couple of months, my therapist and I agreed we weren’t going to get anywhere without Melinda. Melinda had to participate. But she wouldn’t. So I stopped going. And then I met you.”
    “And then you met me.”
    “You were fun and happy all the time. Not to mention being drop-dead gorgeous and built like a brick shit house.”
    “A what?”
    “A brick shit house.”
    “What the hell is a brick shit house?”
    “I don’t know. It’s an old expression. Tim used it one day when we were having lunch and we had this really attractive waitress. I think it’s one of those things they used to say seventy-five years ago.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “It means you’ve got an amazing body. Which you do. Look at your legs. And your shoulders are huge. And you have the nicest breasts I’ve ever seen anywhere ever.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “I’m sorry about Melinda. I didn’t know it was like that. Still, you should’ve told me you were married when we met. I never would have slept with you if