I was hoping this chapter would be up so much sooner than it was, but I had a lot of difficulty writing it (and even more so, being happy enough with it to post this chapter). However, it's up now and due to my perfectionism with this chapter I've already written about half of the next in the meantime too... and I get the feeling that I'm in a writing mood today.

So, review, inspire me and then you shall keep on reading!

Have a great day.

Chapter 6 – Reality Bites

Lewis' POV

Walking in the front door of my in-laws house, I watched Cleo quickly rush off the couch, before I felt her throw herself onto me, resembling a rubber band being released.

"Hey!" she squealed excitedly.

"Hi Cleo" I said, less enthusiastically, kissing her cheek to move past.

"How was your day?" she asked bounding upstairs behind me.

I'd forgotten that Monday was Cleo's day off and she had a tendency to be a little bored and energetic when I got home. On her days off she'd always have a sleep in and normally she'd just stay home, see one of the girls or go out for a coffee, conserving her energy until when I got home, however, I wasn't experiencing the same energy perks of a day off.

"My day? Yeah it was fine. Yours?" I asked as I got to our room, throwing my stuff on the end of the bed.

"I had a great day! Sam was home this morning too, so she taught me to make éclair's and then I went shopping after that and- Ooh! I bought you a present!" she said with another squeal.

"Really? What?" I asked, but not sharing my wife's enthusiasm as I chucked my shoes off, watching them land in the corner of the room.

"Well, because it was our 6 month wedding anniversary on Saturday, I thought that I'd get you something special, so…" she started saying, but paused as she ran over to the wardrobe and with a quick kiss, handed me a big silver gift bag.

"What is it?" I asked taking a quick birds eye view look inside the bag.

"Have a look" she prompted me, smiling.

I reached in and extracted a huge, heavy book out of the gift bag.

I felt a wave of happiness, before my heart dropped as I read out the title. "The Complete Encyclopedia of Marine Biology…"

"It's the latest version too. The one that was released last fortnight" she added, looking as proud as punch.

"Oh Cleo… thank you, but-" I said, dreading how I was going to tell Cleo this, as my eyelids slowly shut, before being cut off from my explanation.

"You're welcome! And I thought I'd treat myself too!" she said as she pulled out yet another different pair of black shoes, these with a lacy finish and the typical new shoe sheen.

"Aren't they gorgeous?" she asked me, waving the pair of footwear in my face.

"Yeah Cleo, they look amazing, but we need to talk first."

"Don't you like the book? I thought that you really wanted it…" she said, sounding a mixture of disappointed, uncertain and sad - and I already felt guilty.

"No, I love the book Cleo, I really do, and the shoes, they look great, it's just…" I started to say again, before this time I stopped myself. Cleo looked so sad and just moments ago she was bouncing off the walls. How was I going to tell her that there was no way in hell that we could afford either of them? I knew what the RRP of the book was which was the only reason why I hadn't bought it myself, and I knew the average price range of Cleo's taste in shoes.

"It's just what?" she asked, looking at me with her unintentionally sad eyes that just continued making me feel worse.

"Actually, don't worry about it. It's all good. Thanks for the surprise" I said, making the split second decision to try and work this one out a different way and attempt to keep up with creating the façade of a world where Cleo and I could afford the pair of shoes and the book. It was just a bit of money, I could scrounge together enough to cover it especially if it meant Cleo's happiness, which was my greatest priority of all in life.

"Alright then" Cleo said with a smile as she jumped off our bed again. "Are you hungry? I'll get you an éclair!" she added, leaving the room without waiting for my response.

I sighed and while I waited for Cleo to return, I got my laptop out and started on some of the accounts and taxes that were long overdue. I checked our bank balance, hoping for a miraculous couple of hundred of dollars to appear, but once again, my wish didn't come true.

Financially, it was marginally better now that we were living with Cleo's family, but I hated it. I felt like I was always being watched, - mostly by her dad or sister, and sometimes Sam too. It was like living in a fishbowl.

Cleo didn't seem to mind it as much as I did, but I guess she'd grown up here and it was just easier for her to adjust to living back at home, just with someone else.

Regardless, it was better than having to lay awake at night, hungry and worrying whether the electricity or water would be cut off or not. I guess I just had to deal with this little set back. It's not like we'll be here forever, it was just until we had enough to cover the bills & debts and to get back on our feet again.

I could live with that.

I still had Cleo and we were all good, so it's not like it's the end of the world anyway.

Cleo rushed inside the room, slamming the door shut and carrying 2 plates over to me. "I'm back!" she smiled and handed me the second plate, sitting down next to me.

"Thanks" I said with a smile, kissing her cheek.

"Welcome. Just don't be expecting éclairs every time you get home from work!" she laughed, making me smile.

"Aww damn! I could get used to this!"

"Sorry, my cooking skills are just taking baby steps for the moment, but you never know, some day you might have the perfect cooking-cleaning-sewing- domestic-goddess wife!" she laughed, with another bite of her éclair, which I must say I was impressed with, considering some of her previous attempts at cooking & baking.

"Nah, that's boring. I love my un-domestic mermaid."

She smiled and leaned in to kiss me, but I beat her to it.

After a pattern of several passionate kisses, we heard noise from downstairs and pulled away, knowing we'd be interrupted any second later and it was better to be prepared, than to be caught in an awkward and compromising situation.

I sighed at the inconvenience. "I'm sorry, Lewis" Cleo sympathized as she rubbed my shoulder, being the calmest that she had been since I got home.

Expectantly, we were interrupted by Kim who burst open the door.

"Ugh, there you are" she sneered.

"What do you want Kimmie?" Cleo asked looking up at her sister.

"I was checking whether anyone else was home. Dylan's coming over."

Cleo rolled her eyes. "Good for you…"

"You could've knocked. Doors are made of wood for a reason, you know." I added.

"Whatever. He'll be here in 20 minutes. Don't annoy us, alright? I think he could be the one!"

I watched as Cleo sniggered and nodded at Kim, and like I hadn't either, Cleo didn't believe a word her little sister had said.

Since our wedding, Kim has developed an unusual and unnatural interest in weddings, as well as the desire to get married too. Her Dad isn't happy with this, needless to say! Anyway, when Cleo was arranging our wedding, Kim felt the need to add her two cents worth in every aspect of the planning. But no, that's not enough. She also had to compare her own 'wedding' to ours. And now she's been husband-searching so that she can boast about her wedding and outdo ours.

"Like Leo was the one, hey Kim?" I asked sarcastically. About a month ago, Kim was confident that her then-boyfriend was going to propose to her. She'd perceived him as being nervous about popping the question… he broke up with her that day.

"Shut up Lewis. No-one asked you" she hissed at me, before storming out of the room again.

Cleo laughed and kissed my cheek. "Good job!"

"Thanks" I smiled and leant down the bed to pick up my laptop again.

"So… what are you doing now?"

"Now, I just have to write a quick incident report for today."

Cleo frowned and rested her head on my arm, in more of a slouched position than I was. "Incident report? What happened?"

"No biggie. The floor was wet in the lab; Alana had a bit of a slip, dropped the beaker she was holding which broke and she got a little bit of glass in her foot" I said as I started typing away.

"Oh, ouch. But why do you have to do the paperwork for it? Wouldn't your boss have to cover all of that legal or official records stuff?"

"She was alright, it was just a small cut. Normally he would, but he was at a some meeting with a diving researcher the company's funding and I was the only one there, so I had to cop the paperwork!"

"It was just you and Alana?"

"Yeah… is that a problem?"

She looked away from my gaze. "No, not a problem, I just didn't realize that you two get left alone to work together."

"Well we hardly ever do, like maybe once every few weeks."

"Okay" she said with a small nod, looking down and scratching her nail polish.

"Cleo? Are you sure you're alright with that?"

"Yeah. It's your job. Don't worry about it, its all good. I just didn't realize that you two got left alone at work." I wasn't convinced however, and I could sense Cleo's insecurity was still there.

I gave her a quick kiss. "Tell me if it's ever a problem, alright? Besides, Alana and me barely ever talk anyway."

She smiled. "Okay."

"Besides, I should be getting jealous of your work situation."

"What? Why?" she frowned, looking a little worried again.

"You get left alone with dolphins all day! I should keep a better eye on them to make sure one of them doesn't steal my wife!"

Cleo burst out laughing. "I think your pretty safe with that one Lewis!"

"I don't know about that… I don't trust Ronnie!"

She continued laughing and pulled me in for a kiss. And another kiss, and a few more after that before she pulled away.

"Anyway, I'll leave you to that report" she said with another kiss on my cheek before crawling off the bed and walking out of our room.

#

I spent the next hour writing the report and having to extend everything and use the longest and most intellectual words to make the simple, common accident sound as if it was a life-or-death situation for legal purposes. At least it was finished and out of the way.

Anyway, after I'd emailed that to my boss, I went downstairs where Kim was flipping through a Uni textbook and Sam & Cleo were watching TV together.

"Finished?" Cleo asked, looking over to me from the TV, as I walked downstairs.

"Yeah all done" I said just before Don rushed over to me from his office with a finger pointed at me.

"Lewis" he stated, before turning his head into the lounge room. "And Cleo. Okay, good!"

"What's up?" I asked coolly but with a slight eyebrow furrow, as I must admit him pointing at me wasn't making me feel very easy on the inside.

"Oh you're not in trouble, don't worry" he said watching me with a light laugh as he lowered his finger.

I nodded, as he continued. "Sam, Kim & I had a chat last night and we decided that we should go on a family holiday. The 5 of us."

I looked over to Cleo who smiled excitedly at the news and replied to her Dad on my unwarranted behalf also."Sounds great! Where are we going?"

"Well, Sam & I wanted to go to Byron Bay, but Kim wanted to go to Sydney. However, we compromised and decided on Coffs Harbor."

I opened my mouth to attempt to graciously decline the invitation, but Cleo had bet me to it.

"Coffs Harbor? That sounds great! When do you want to go? Around Christmas time would suit us because we'll both have time off then" Cleo said, evidently bubbling over with excitement and seeing that clenched the guilt inside of me again.

From there on, I half-heartedly listened to Cleo & Sam talking about arrangements and planning this trip which had only been brought to my wife's attention less than 5 minutes ago, as I cupped my head in my hands, trying to work out how on earth I was going to break it to Cleo and then how we were going to tiptoe around it with her family without it looking suspicious.

"Lewis? Are you okay?" Cleo asked softly as she looked up at me, distracted from her planning.

"Um, no, Cleo. No, I'm not okay" I said trailing my cupped hands through my hair feeling like the stress and pressure was beginning to pile up on me physically as well.

"What's wrong? You look stressed" she asked with her voice and eyes projecting concern as she got up off the lounge and rubbed the top of my arm and shoulder.

I sighed. I'd been regretting and trying to hold off from having this conversation with Cleo and I was mortified that I even have to, but there was no other way. It might even make things easier if she knows and understands how bad things really are...

"We need to talk" I said softly, looking into her worried brown eyes, before gently taking hold of her hand, leading her upstairs as she followed silently behind me.

"What's going on, Lewis?" she asked with a frown as I shut the door, leaning against it.

"We can't afford a holiday, Cleo. We can't afford those shoes, we can't afford that book and we can't even afford to pay bills from three damn months ago! I'm having to max out our already overdue credit cards to pay the even more overdue bills, and then you just going out and buying treats is just making things worse, even though I know that you mean well."

With a sigh from letting out my inner turmoil and frustrations, I looked at Cleo, who was fiddling with her lips, wearing a blank expression.

"I knew things weren't good, but it's that bad?" she asked softly, in more or less in a whisper.

I nodded and morphed her question into a statement. "It's that bad."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I wanted to fix things. I didn't want to put as much pressure and worry on you as I have on me, so I thought I could do a few extra hours at work and I thought moving here would help us more than it has" I said, feeling disappointed with myself and how I'd failed.

Cleo walked over to me and grabbed a hold of my hands. "You should've said something. I would've understood."

I nodded at her sadly. "I know, but I was just so disappointed and angry with myself. I wanted to find some sort of miracle, and I didn't want you to have to deal with this too."

"Well we can return the shoes and the book, I'll tell Dad that we can't afford to go on holiday and I'll try and get a few extra hours at work too."

"Okay, but don't tell your Dad, Cleo. I don't want him to know, alright?"

"What? That money's tight and we're in a bit of debt?"

"Yeah..."

"Why not? He knows that we're not millionaires."

"I know, but he thinks that we're just being wise with our money and trying to set ourselves up for the long run, not that we've got no other options. And I should be able to afford to pay for somewhere else to live and I should be able to afford holidays and other treats to make you happy. "

"Wait. Let's just get one thing straight here, Lewis. I am happy. I'm with you, we're both healthy, and we've got a roof over our heads. We're good. I don't care if we don't have enough to go on a family holiday which will probably just turn out being a 2 week bore or embarrassment-fest."

I nodded. "I know, but I just really don't want your Dad to find out that we're so in over our heads with debt. I promised him I'd look after you."

"You are looking after me. Sure, money's a bit tight for the time-being, but we'll get through this. It's not going to last forever" she said with a reassuring smile that always prompted me to mirror her action.

"That's better..." she added as both of our smiles increased.

For a short time, I reflected on our conversation and how I'd felt the inner relief after the burden was lifted off of me, just from coming clean with Cleo. "Have has anyone ever told you how amazing you are?" I hypothetically asked her, knowing the answer to my own question that just made her laugh.

Watching Cleo laugh gave me hope. I'd spent so much time mulling over our problems and I'd spent just as much time trying to think of a way out of our mess. The thing is, it felt all so unjust. It's not like we'd splurged out thousands of dollars on our honeymoon and when we returned home, we had a low budget apartment, we hadn't made any big purchases and we'd tried to keep a budget.

The problem was, the combination of a little bit of money going into a lot of things like the wedding, the honeymoon, the cost of moving out of home, the apartment, bills and the few things we had bought. We didn't have that much to begin with and we certainly didn't have enough to cover all of the above.

However, now that Cleo knew more about it and was more conscious, I felt so much better and for the first time in months, I could see the glimmer of light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.

We can get through it.

So, a sort of nicer chapter for Clewis... the question is, what else is going to pop up? I've got a couple of more things ready and waiting to throw at them, so just you wait and see (or in this case, read).

What did you think of the chapter anyway? I haven't covered Cleo or Lewis since the very beginning and I found it extremely hard to write from Lewis' POV, so I'd love some second opinions on how you all think I did. Not too O.O.C?

Next chapter, we pick up where we left off with the chapter before's cliffhanger. Review & that will be up soon!