Backwoods Dungeon

Chapter Twelve

Unusual Behavior

I was of two minds about Theo’s sudden departure from the workforce. On the one hand, having money was great. I was in school for a master's degree, and having him supporting me through all that had been wonderful in ways I’d never fully expressed.

I still had another few months to go until I finally graduated and could return to work full-time. Until then, I had a paid internship that provided pretty good money but only about twenty-five hours a week. It wouldn’t be enough to keep our beautiful house. Not for long, anyway.

At least I was no longer working for free. Unpaid Internships… who the fuck came up with that stupid idea? Since I’d returned to school, Theo had been making the bulk of our money. There was some level of fear involved in losing that stable ground.

I didn’t worry much, though. Theo had always had a job ever since we’d first met. He’d never been fired before, and he was smart and charming. I was confident he’d quickly find something new. It would just be a struggle until then.

He had hated his job by the end. He never came home happy, and I didn’t think that was entirely due to the… news. That certainly hadn’t helped, but his boss had been fraying his nerves for a long time. Whatever little thing that had ticked him off at work was just the final straw that broke the camel’s back, and honestly, I would have caved a lot sooner than he did.

I tentatively concluded this was a good thing. He’d have a few weeks to cool off from losing the job and the whole “Kids” thing while he looked for a new one. Not long after he got one, I’d graduate, and then I’d be able to make way better money, so it finally wouldn’t feel like we were constantly living paycheck to paycheck.

I would be both magnanimous and supportive! I would surprise him with how ‘not mad’ I was. He’d be contrite and a little guilty, but I figured the support would motivate him more than a scolding or disappointment would.

He didn’t need more anger, least of all from me. Sterility… no real reason why. God, it fucking sucked. He was already mad enough at himself, and it killed me just how much it hurt him.

‘Doesn’t he know that I don’t care?’ I thought.

He probably did know that, but I doubted it helped much. He cared. It was personal for him. I, however, had fully expected to have to adopt to have children before he stumbled into my life. I was prepared for this in a way he’d never been.

I pulled into the driveway around six Sunday night. I’d been gone since Thursday and was dying for a shower, but I was even more determined to lift Theo out of the funk he’d surely worked himself into.

To my surprise, I could see a faint trail of smoke coming up from the back of the house in the few remaining rays of evening sunlight capable of getting through our canopy of trees. Had he finally decided to burn all that trash out back?

I walked into the house and greeted an excited Genji at the door.

“Hi, Honey!” came Theo’s unexpectedly cheerful voice.

He came prancing around the corner like he’d won the lottery while I set my bags down. He was beaming at me.

“Hi?” I chuckled. “What’s got you in such a good mood? I was expecting to need to cheer up ‘Gloomy Theo.’”

He grinned at me and said, “Job panned out. You checked the account?”

It was Sunday, so there usually wasn’t much need to. Paydays didn’t happen on weekends, or at least they hadn’t.

“No? What’s up?” I asked, fishing my phone from my jacket pocket as I pet the excited dog.

“Give it a look. I only worked a few hours yesterday and today, but it’s great!” He exclaimed. “I think I could really get behind this working-from-home thing! They’re also letting me work the same days you’re gone!”

He was ecstatic. He’d found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He was adorable when he lit up like this. It hadn’t happened for a while, but now his huge frame positively shook with excitement.

I beamed, overjoyed to see Theo’s happy side peeking out. Its absence had left a gloom over the both of us that I hadn’t noticed until was suddenly back.

“Damn, give me a minute!” I laughed as Genji jumped up on me, riding high on Theo’s happiness like dogs do.

I finally got the bank app opened and was surprised to see an extra two hundred and fifty dollars in there. I dug deeper and realized that the money came from a transfer from his personal account. I scowled but decided not to bring it up.

Why would he set up deposits to his own account? Our checks had gone mostly to the joint account for ages. I decided not to make a big deal out of that and instead focused on the fact that he’d already found something, which was pretty impressive.

The amount wasn’t great, though. While it was more than nothing, it still wasn’t anything to be this happy about.

“I made that from seven sales, Hon,” he said, reading my expression. “Only took me, like, three hours.”

I remained at least a little skeptical. “I mean, okay, but it’s still sales. You might’ve just been lucky. What are you selling anyway?”

“Code,” he said.

I blinked. “Huh?”

“Code,” he repeated. “I write small segments of code. I’m basically paid by the line. Individuals commission me for code, and I write them something that fulfills their goals.

Coding. I could almost feel my eyes glazing over. He was so passionate about what might as well have been black magic to me. He’d idly shown me some of his “coding” before, and it looked like fancy indented gibberish. Sometimes, it was colorful, fancy, indented gibberish. A private language I’d never have the patience to understand.

Then again, he reacted the same way when I showed him my textbooks, so perhaps fair was fair.

“Are you… good enough to do that? What happens if someone asks for something you don’t know how to code?” I asked, immediately cursing myself.

Here he was, finally happy for a change, and I had to go, throwing potential complications in the way.

“Come on now. I’m a genius,” he said with a cocky grin, tailor-made to make me laugh.

‘God, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d seen that smile,’ I thought.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said playfully. “Speaking of things I don’t believe, did you finally burn all that junk in the backyard?”

“I had some free time. Might have a lot of it now. I still didn’t get it all, though. That futon was hard as a rock. I’m still not sure if it was a good idea to burn it. I’ll have to tear it into a few more pieces tomorrow to fit it into the burn barrel,” he said.

Genji took that moment to leave my side and go running at Theo. He laughed and caught the leaping dog. We both hated it when she jumped, mostly because she was huge and might hurt someone who wasn’t ready for it, but he dropped her and started petting her before I could scold either of them.

“Fixing it would’ve been more trouble than it was worth,” I said with finality.

He shrugged in acquiescence as he stepped around the huge retriever and wrapped a hand around my back. He kissed me, and it lingered longer than they had been lately.

I’d worried about that. I worried about everything. Was every kiss a reminder now? Was every touch a jab at his… masculinity or whatever? It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, so far as we knew.

Thoughts like that melted away in the kiss. My eyes widened a little. He smelled good. Not like… cologne or anything, but better than usual. It triggered my nostalgia, reminding me of when we first started dating. He’d clearly showered after burning all the crap out back.

He pulled away, grinning dopily. “So, how was school? I missed you.”

“I missed you too. Two more months,” I said.

“Two more months,” he intoned, a rote response counting down the time until we were done with these constant separations.

Master’s Degree students didn’t really have days off. He’d been working a regular eight to five but I’d managed to get my classes to only Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I could’ve come home late on Saturday, but I’d spent Sunday with my parents, who lived closer to the school.

Monday through Wednesday was spent working, of course. I’d honestly been lucky to get into the Saturday classes. Most schools didn’t offer them, especially not for Master’s programs, but mine did.

The schedule left us with hardly any free time, though.

“School was… school,” I sighed. “Most of my homework is at least done for this week, though. I was able to get most of it Saturday night.”

Theo lifted an eyebrow. “That’s unusual.”

I shrugged. “Have to get lucky sometimes.”

He chuckled as he pulled away from me. He opened the fridge and grabbed out an apple.

“So… do you want to talk about it?” I asked, idly nudging the elephant in the room.

“Not really,” he replied.

“Do you think you should?” I asked pointedly.

He sighed before taking a bite of the apple. He sat down at the kitchen table.

“Probably… I just… like I said on the phone. I lost my temper again. The stupid bitch was…” he cut off with a shake of his head. “Well. She wasn’t saying anything unreasonable… but she could’ve been less condescending about it. Now that I’ve got this code thing, it feels like good riddance.”

“Aren’t you going to miss Brian?” I asked.

“Yeah… probably. Old dude’s gonna be bored out of his mind without me,” Theo said with a chuckle. “Wonder if he’ll still let me into the fantasy league in September.”

I rolled my eyes. It was just like him to deflect a serious conversation with something like football. He hadn’t even liked sports before I met him. He did like gambling, though, and long-term, low-cost gambling, like fantasy sports, seemed like something worth encouraging when the alternative was going to the casino.

“Theo, I’m glad you found this coding thing. Really. If it makes you happy, I hope it works out, but I don’t think it's smart to depend on something you managed to get over the weekend. Plus, staying at home all the time isn’t healthy,” I said, voicing my concerns.

To Theo’s credit, he didn’t discount anything I said out of hand.

“You’re probably right. I’m going to keep looking for a new job. In the meantime, though, I think I’m gonna stick with this. I’ll see where it goes. Who knows, maybe it’s perfect for me?”

“I hope it is,” I agreed. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work out.”

“I think I’ll manage if it doesn’t,” he said with a smirk, rubbing his thumb worriedly across his chest.

He didn’t worry as easily as I did, but somehow, things did tend to work out for him. I didn’t really expect whatever this online coding thing was to become a career like he hoped. Theo was smart enough to recognize a sinking ship before going down with it, though. My mom had said he was one of the good ones and he hadn’t proven her wrong yet.

In fact…

“You know…” I said, raking him over with my eyes. “It’s still early.”

There it was. The subtle widening of his eyes. Proof of his attraction to me, written plain as day.

He stood slowly, wrapping his arms around me again.

“I remember hearing you might’ve gotten a surprise for me. Did you return it?” he asked, tone going husky.

I shook my head with a seductive smile.

An hour or so later, I giggled as his eyes followed my naked butt to the bathroom. I hopped in the shower to clean off all the sweat before getting ready for bed, feeling like a million bucks, while he threw the remains of my surprise into the laundry basket.

Theo was hiding something. I was almost sure of it. Whatever it was, though, I was confident he’d tell me in time. He always did. In the meantime, anything that would make him this happy needed to stick around.

‘Good god, he better not be cheating on me,’ I thought with a laugh. I supposed there was a chance that could be it. It wasn’t, though. He couldn’t lie to save his life for one thing, and he would be a stuttering guilty mess if it were something like that.

It was something about the new job, I was sure. Still, I didn’t need to pry. I trusted my husband. That was enough.

I tilted my head up, letting the water stream down my hair, when I noticed something odd between the tiles on the ceiling.

A small speck of red. Another, blue. Deep shades. Some sort of weird mold? Paint?

‘Strange,’ I thought.