Page 181 of The Reason I Married Him
“Sorry, should we have named him something generic like Kevin?”
“Kevin would have been better than Millipede, but continue. Sorry for the distraction. I was just surprised by that detail.”
“It’s fine,” he says and sighs again. He starts to tense up, and I can tell we’re getting to the hard part of the story, so I continue to smooth my hand over his chest. “Millipede was growling, but we just thought he saw the neighbor’s dog outside, so we let him out to go to the bathroom. That’s when he started barking incessantly. Mom was getting annoyed, so she called Millipede in, and when he didn’t come, she had to go out there to bring him back in.”
“Oh God,” I say, my heart starting to race.
“Nothing happened to her. But Millipede was going crazy. We ended up putting him in his crate that night because we didn’t know what had got into him. We both got ready for bed, and Mom said good night. She went to her room, and I went to mine, where I turned on my reading light and started to read.”
I am not loving this story.
“After reading a chapter, I remembered that Dad had asked me to put out the trash, and I’d forgotten, so I jumped out of bed and peered down the hall at Mom’s room. Her light wasn’t on, so I decided not to bother her. When I turned to head back into my room, I saw a flash of something in the dark. Something moving in the living room.”
“Oh my God,” I say, my heart nearly beating out of my chest.
“I assumed Millipede escaped his crate somehow, so I fumbled down the hallway in the dark, switched on the light when I reached the living room, and standing in the middle was a man in a hoodie with a knife in his hand.”
I gasp as my hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my God, Wyatt. What did you do?”
“What any other teenage boy would do . . . wet myself. Right there, on the carpet of the hallway, I piddled.”
“Wait, you peed yourself?” I ask. “You didn’t scream? You didn’t run? You just peed?”
“Yup. There was so much pee that it flooded the hallway, one of those never-ending pees, you know? The kind where you stand there—or sit in your case—and start laughing because there’s so much pee. But I didn’t laugh. I just watched the hallway fill up with pee, at least a foot of it.”
My expression of shock and horror slowly slips away as I stare at Wyatt and the glint in his eye. “Are you lying?”
“Lying seems harsh. But spinning a story for your enjoyment? Now that’s more like it.”
“Oh my God, Wyatt,” I say, swatting at his chest. “I thought you were being serious.”
“About the peeing or the invader?” he asks.
“The invader,” I growl.
He smirks. “Well, I guess that makes me a good storyteller, doesn’t it?”
I flip to my other side, tucking my head against the pillow. “You’re annoying, that’s what you are.”
He leans over me and smiles. “Don’t be sour.”
Staring at the wall, I say, “You know, I was trying to have a serious conversation with you, find out something interesting about you, and you took it upon yourself to turn it into a joke. Well, I don’t find it very funny.”
His expression softens as he rolls me to my back. He brings his hand up to my cheek and says, “I’m sorry, Aubree.” He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “You want to know something? What I just told you, it was true, but in a dream I had when I was twelve. And the peeing, well, that happened too, but in my bed. My mom had to help me change my sheets in the middle of the night.”
I stare up at him and look for any tell that he’s lying. “Are you being serious?”
“Do you really think I’d lie about peeing the bed? Flooding the hallway with pee because there’s a murderer in the house, sure, but peeing the bed at twelve? That’s something only my mom and I know. We didn’t even tell my dad. She swore she wouldn’t.”
“So you really peed the bed at twelve?”
“Yes,” he answers, looking very serious. So serious that I crack a smile.
“That’s so embarrassing,” I say.
He chuckles. “I know. Tell me about it. I will never forget the feel of wet boxers plastered against my dick.”
“You know, the details aren’t needed.” I wave him off.
