Sansa hated that she spent longer than normal choosing an outfit to wear to meet Robb. She didn't want to wear something revealing, but she also didn't want to look all buttoned up. So, she went somewhere in between. She wore black dress pants and a soft blue silk top with a suit jacket over it. She curled her hair so it fell in soft waves around her shoulders, and wore her eye make-up smoky.
She contemplated changing into sweats and washing her face clean at least five times before she left to meet him.
He was waiting for her outside wearing dark blue jeans, a white shirt with some kind of print on it, and a suit jacket. Sansa decided to leave her suit jacket in the car. With shaking hands, she grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and then made her way over to him from across the street.
Robb saw her almost immediately and he broke into a grin as he watched her make her way over to him. Sansa found it hard to look at him directly. For one thing, he was just to pretty, and for another he made her nervous in the fluttery "butterflies-in-my-belly" way. He was her brother for cripes sake and she was acting like a schoolgirl on her first date, not as a grown woman with a fiancé.
"Hello, gorgeous," he said as soon as she walked up to him.
She darted a look around and shot him a reprimanding look. "Don't say things like that out loud where anyone can hear you," she hissed.
"Then tell me how we're supposed to have a frank discussion about what happened yesterday in a busy restaurant?" He had her there. She just narrowed her eyes at him and he laughed. "So you admit then, that it would be virtually impossible?" he asked.
She pursed her lips together. "Then what do you propose?"
"Your place free?"
"Don't even, Robb Stark. I know what you're thinking."
His eyes were bright with mirth. "And what am I thinking?"
"That it'll happen again," she hissed.
"I wish."
"Let's get something to go and then go to the park."
"Oh, a romantic picnic then?"
She shot him a withering look and he laughed.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Twenty minutes later, Robb climbed into Sansa's car at the park and opened the Panera bag they'd gotten with their orders inside. Robb handed her the carton with her sandwich and salad inside and he opened his with his sandwich and chips inside.
He took a long sip of the soda he'd gotten there and stuck it in her cup holder before digging in to his sandwich. Sansa bit into hers and while she chewed she took a minute to see if anyone was around.
It was actually rather dead. Just a mom and her son over on the playground, and she and Robb were far away enough in the parking that she could barely make them out. Aside from a couple other vehicles, no one else was about.
"Talisa wanted to have sex last night," Robb said.
Sansa swallowed what she'd chewed and forced herself not to react. She looked over at him as he munched on a chip. "Oh?"
"She was excited, I think, because I told her we could go to that Thai place in town in for dinner."
"You hate Thai," Sansa said flatly.
"She always forgets that."
"Why did you go?"
"Because I was feeling guilty I suppose."
Sansa nodded slowly and took a bite of her salad.
"But it didn't end up happening," Robb said. "She gets, well, gassy after Thai—"
Sansa snorted and then giggled. She held up a hand when Robb looked over at her. "Sorry. Sorry. I just didn't expect you to say that."
He grinned. "How unsophisticated of you to laugh at something so base."
"So, she wanted to jump your bones because you took her to get Thai food?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Why do I find that sad?"
"Because it is. Talisa and I haven't had sex in months."
"Is that why you were so eager yesterday?"
He looked at her in a mixture of hurt, anger, and frustration. "No, Sansa, I was eager yesterday because it was you. Because I've never stopped wanting you and loving you. Because the idea of having sex with you got me more excited than any time I've ever had sex with Talisa."
Properly chastised, Sansa took a bite of her sandwich.
"Why did you have sex with me yesterday?" he asked.
She looked away from his penetrating gaze and pretended to be engrossed in watching the kid and his mom.
"Sansa, answer me."
"What does it matter the reason?" she asked.
"Maybe I'd liked to know it wasn't just an itch you wanted scratched."
"I don't have the same problems with Willas that you have with Talisa."
He put the half-eaten carton of food on her dashboard. "Meaning?"
"Do I really need to spell it out for you?"
He sighed, the sigh of frustration. "So you and Willas have an active sex life."
"I wouldn't say we go at it every day, but it hasn't been months."
"Do you like it better with him than with me?"
Now Sansa put her carton of food on the dash. "Robb, Jesus, what the hell?"
"I fucking hate this, Sansa. I hate seeing you with someone else. I hate being married – I hate the whole goddamn thing."
She'd never seen him so angry. He opened the car door and climbed out, slamming the door shut behind him.
Sansa just stared out the window at him as he paced, feeling very much at a loss as to what to say or do. Finally, she got out and went to the back end and stood there. He looked up at her and stopped pacing, his hands on his hips.
"You shouldn't have come back here," she said.
"My mother had a heart attack. We already lost Dad, and you're the only one here to help look after her. How could I not come back home? I just didn't think it would be this hard!"
Sansa couldn't stop the tears from coming. Robb was hurting, that much was obvious. So was she. "Obviously, I slept with you because I never stopped loving you and wanting you either," she said. "But we made a pact—"
"I don't care. I can't be here and not want to be with you. I can't continue on with this marriage that I didn't even want—"
"Yeah, about that," Sansa said. "Did you literally find the first woman that crossed your path to settle down with or…? I mean, the corpse of what we had was barely cold before you were shacked up with someone else. What the hell was that?"
"I was trying to move on instead of wallowing in how I missed you so fucking much. We agreed to move on with our lives and have normal relationships. That's what I was trying to do. I wanted to feel for Talisa the way I felt for you. I wanted to want her as much as I wanted you but I never did. I failed. Epically, in fact. I thought I could take all those feelings for you and put them on her and all it did was rip me apart inside. Not affectionate enough?! What kind of shit is that, Sansa?"
"I don't what it is you want to do. You just moved here, Robb. With your wife. I'm engaged. This is even more impossible than it was before because now there are other people involved here."
"Do you love him the way you love me?"
"Why do you ask me these things?" she asked exasperatedly.
"Maybe because you're so buttoned up now. I used to be able to read you like a book and now it's like you've just closed yourself off—"
"Having your heart ripped wide open will do that to a person. You think this is easy for me? It's not. I hate it too! But what can be done about it, Robb? Fuck around? You divorce Talisa and I break off my engagement with Willas? Then just what – hide it from Mom until she wonders why neither of us have any inclination to date?"
"Compared to what I'm doing now that sounds a lot fucking easier."
At a loss yet again as to what to say or do, Sansa wiped at the tears that had fallen and gestured to her car. "Come on, you have to get back to work and so do I."
He sighed and nodded, looking very much as though that had just sucked the life out of him.
The ride back was quiet and when Sansa pulled up beside his truck in the municipal parking lot, and put her car in park so he could get, Robb leaned over, took her face in his hands and kissed her. At first it took her by surprise, then she sort of fell into it, but then, remembering where they were and how anyone could see them, she batted at his arms and pushed him away.
"Anyone could have seen us," she said.
"Just wanted to give you something to think about the next time you and Willas have sex," he said, sounding angry. He got out of her car and slammed the door shut without another word.
Sansa waited until she was sure his truck started before she put the car in drive and left. She cried the whole way home.