"Hey, honey," Caroline says as I walk into the kitchen.

"Hey," I mumble, heading over to grab an apple from the fruit bowl.

"I'm sorry about last night," she looks up from her coffee cup and smiles. "Hormones, you know."

"Yeah. It's okay." I look over at her, puzzled. "Should you be drinking that?"

She shrugs. "Decaf."

I nod and sit down at the table across from her. "So, what are you doing today?"

"Hanging around the house." She smiles at me over the rim of her mug. "What about you?"

"Same thing." I shrug and take a bite of my apple.

"Yeah." There's a silence for a couple minutes. "Oh, your mom called. She's going to pick the kids up before she goes to church tomorrow morning and keep them overnight, and she'll take them to daycare Monday morning."

"Any particular reasoning as to why?"

"You know, I asked her the same thing, and she started yelling at me in Italian. I think it was something about her having the right to see her own grandchildren when she felt like it."

I laugh. My mother is crazy. And by crazy, I obviously mean Italian. "Well, okay, then."

"So we'll have the house to ourselves."

"Yeah... well, I told Spot I'd help him with his lesson plans for his workshop tomorrow, and that'll take most of the day, but I'll be home in the evening."

"Oh." Caroline nods. "Well, we can have dinner, then."

"Sounds good."

Another silence, and it lasts several minutes.

Just as I'm about to get up from the table and go wake the kids up, Caroline speaks. "So, you hated Spot Conlon in high school. How come you're all buddy-buddy now?"

I shrug. Because I'm in love with him, perhaps? "Well, we were really close freshman and sophomore years... we had this falling-out, I guess, and didn't talk for a while, but then we ran into one another at Specs and Dutchy's wedding, and we made up."

"Uh-huh." Caroline nods. "What'd you have a falling-out about?"

The fact that he professed his undying love for me, and even though I was in love with him, I wouldn't admit it and completely shut him down.

"Oh, I don't know. It was high school. Probably a girl or something." I shrug. "Okay, well, I'm going to go wake the kids up."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The day passes by at a painstaking pace and by the time I wrestle the kids into bed for their nap, I'm ready to gouge my eyes out with a blunt object. I've avoided calling Spot all day simply because Caroline is around, and now I feel like I'm about to explode.

I slink into my bedroom with my mind set on a pillow and a blanket and passing out for a good hour or two, but Caroline is in the bedroom, folding laundry and packing it away neatly into drawers.

"Hi, sweetie, what's up?"

"Was gonna take a nap," I respond, as I pull my shirt over my head and toss it into the laundry hamper, followed by my jeans.

"Ah," she says as I crawl underneath the covers. "Well, you want some company?"

"Um. I guess."

She slides in beside me, resting her hand on my stomach and her head on my shoulder. I close my eyes and start to fall asleep, but soon am suddenly awakened by her hand traveling further down my torso and her mouth on mine. Before I can decipher whether I'm actually awake or if I'm just dreaming, she's straddling my hips and trailing aggressive kisses down my neck toward my chest.

"Caro--"

"Don't talk, Tony." She nips – well, more like chomps – at my collarbone, laughing a little when I suck in a sharp breath of air.

"Yeah, but Caro, I--"

"Come on, Tony. Do you know how long it's been since we last made love?" She looks at me, a pleading look on her face. "Five weeks. Five weeks, Tony. Do you have any idea how long that is?"

Before I have a chance to respond, she's kissing me again. Kissing, biting, grinding, and as she's tugging my boxers down, well... nothing happens.

"Oh, Tony," she sighs, shaking her head as I lay in disbelief. "It's okay, honey."

"Get off," I mutter, pushing her away from me. I grab a random pair of sweatpants off of the pile of laundry that Caroline was folding when I came in and yank them on, heading out of the bedroom.

Caroline follows me, trying to keep up with my stride as I grab a bottle of beer out of the fridge and slump into a kitchen chair. "Tony, honey, it's alright. It happens to every guy now and then."

I fold my arms on the table and drop my head onto them. "It's not okay, Caroline. It's not okay."

"Are you more stressed out than usual?" She rubs my shoulders.

"What do you think?"

"Well... um... do you think maybe this is because I'm pregnant?"

No, it's because you're not Spot. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Honey, you know this isn't going to last forever. Me being pregnant, I mean. And... and it's not like I can't..."

"Caro, can you just stop?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry." She lets go of my shoulders and stands off to the side. "Um... you can go take your nap now, if you want."