"Thank you so much for watching Angel," said Mia as she watched Alyson put the rest of the shopping bags in her trunk. Since Nikki was at a friend's for the weekend, Alyson ended up watching Angel for Mia who got called into work.
"You know I'm always open to spending time with my nieces," Alyson closed the trunk and turned to face her sister. "Besides, we had so much fun. We went out for lunch, I took her to the mall and bought her some stuff. We even picked some things out for you and Nikki, so enjoy."
"Aww, I love you!" Mia hugged her tightly, "and by the way, you look so good!" She backed away, taking in the sight of Alyson who was currently wearing a tan bikini with high waisted shorts and white crochet top.
"Thanks!" Alyson gushed, "Evan and I are going to Kelly's birthday pool party tonight."
"Oh, really?" Mia cringed at the mention of the blonde's name, "sounds fun."
"Yeah, Rick didn't tell you?" Alyson crossed her arms over her chest.
"Why would he?" Mia scoffed, "it's not like we're besties. I haven't talked to him for like six months."
"Seriously?" Alyson was surprised.
"Yes! I meant it when I said that I didn't want to be a problem between him and Kelly. Though Kelly and I are cordial, out of respect, I think it's good we keep a safe distance."
"Wow."
"What?"
"I'm just surprised Rick agreed to keep a distance."
"Now I didn't say that. That hasn't stopped him from trying to check up on me. The guy's nuts."
"Or he's just a good friend and cares about you," suggested Aly.
"Whatever," Mia shrugged.
Not only was she keeping her distance from Rick because of Kelly but it was harder to be around him when she was sure there was something going on between Kelly and Evan. Just like Alyson, that wasn't something Rick was ready to hear or come to terms with.
It takes a lot to break Rick down, so hearing that his wife and best friend might be having an affair would crush him.
"So, how are things with Joseph?" Mia changed the subject.
"Things are great!" Alyson lit up, "things are better than ever. We have some big things coming up. Besides traveling, Joseph has been spending the last six months, coming up with a new bottle of wine. He's been working so hard, with the planting and the studying, and the tasting, he is amazing. His work ethic is out of this world."
"That's really good! I'm so proud of you, Aly. I knew that working with him would be good for you. Evan's not giving you any crap about is he?"
"No, actually, he's not. He hasn't even brought it up. I told you, he's been very consistent with his behavior."
"Hm," Mia mentally rolled her eyes at the fact, he suddenly became nice after her conversation with Kelly.
"This is the best things have been between us in a very long time."
"Then how come you don't sound happy? And you never sound happy when you have to come from work."
Alyson's speechlessness gave Mia her answer.
"You don't have to tell me," Mia rubbed her hands, "but I will say, Aly, listen to your woman intuition, okay? She might not tell you what you want, but she tells you what you need to know. She's your best friend, don't ignore her."
Alyson's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "what are you talking about? Is there something you need to tell me?"
"I -" Mia quickly cleared her throat, when she noticed Evan coming down the stairs.
With his swimming trunks, a white button-down shirt and shades, he looked pool ready too.
"Hey, Evan," Mia greeted him.
"What's up, Mia?" Evan put his arm around a brooding Alyson.
"Nothing much, you know working, being a mom, same ol' same ol'." Mia glances at the car where a sleeping Angel is in the backseat. "I should go before she wakes up, you guys have fun at Kelly's."
She hugs Alyson, "I love you."
"Love you too."
Rubbing her arms, Alyson watches her sister get in the car and drive away.
"You alright?" Evan notices how deep in thought she is.
"Yeah," she puts on a smile, "yeah I'm good. You ready?"
"Yeah, let's go," he takes her hand and leads her to the car.
* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
The whole ride to Kelly and Rick's house, Alyson was quiet. She couldn't stop thinking about what her sister had told her. Mia has always given Alyson advice about her marriage, even when she didn't care to hear it. Yet, for some reason, this time it stuck. It stuck because now that Alyson had been working, she could see the difference in how she felt being away from home versus being at home.
Alyson had been thinking so much, she didn't notice they had arrived.
Evan parks the car and turns it off, "you okay?" he had to touch Alyson's arm, just so she could come out of her thoughts.
Alyson nods, "yeah, yeah. Sorry, just a lot on my mind."
"You want to talk about it?" Evan asked.
"No," she shook her head, "no I'm okay. Let's just go."
"You sure?" he took a hold of her hand.
She smiles, "yeah, I'm sure."
After kissing the back of it, Evan gets out of the car to open her door.
* * * * *
Kelly loved her birthday. In fact, she considered it her favorite holiday because she always threw a big party and invited everyone she knew. It was pretty ironic because Rick wasn't into birthdays that much and preferred to be more low key. However, he loved his wife so much, if she wanted a big party, he was never against it.
The pool party was crazy packed. People were hanging out in the pool, the hot tub, dancing, talking, eating drinking, there was a DJ, a four-tier cake that was completely overboard but it didn't matter because Kelly was the queen of overboard.
She was your definition of go big or home.
Usually, Alyson would be having a good time with her best friend but she found herself being in a state of disassociation and she didn't know why. In all honesty, she wanted to be anywhere but there.
She was currently sitting next to Evan on the edge of the hot tub and as always, he was talking about work with some guy. That's all Evan wanted to talk about when they were out with other people. Then again, that's all people wanted to ask him about.
He had the company, the house, and the wife, people had questions about how he managed to be so great. It was hard for Alyson when she knew the truth. Part of her felt guilty for thinking that way because he had been so nice to her.
Sipping on her glass of rum and coke, Alyson noticed Rick and Kelly joining them in the hot tub with their own drinks.
"Here you guys are!" Kelly greeted Alyson with a kiss on the cheek. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Oh you know, work," answered Evan.
Rick rolled his eyes, "of course, you're talking about work. You're always talking about work. Can't you just enjoy life outside of work sometime?"
"You're one to talk," Evan shot back playfully.
"Hey," Rick put his hands up in surrender, "ask Kelly, I haven't talked about a perp or a case the whole time."
"It's true, it's true," Kelly gave him props, "so no more work talk. It's my birthday for god sakes."
"Should we talk about you then?" Rick asked her.
She shrugs, "I'm not opposed."
Alyson chuckled, shaking her head at the blonde.
"Before we change the subject," said the guy Evan had been talking to. He looks at Alyson, "I heard you've been working with that guy who's rich father died."
Immediately everyone went mute.
Alyson looked at Evan who surprisingly didn't look too bothered about the question. She figured, he'd be ready to argue at the mention of his father.
Calmly Evan says, "I think that's enough about work."
"I'm curious to hear about how things have been going with that," Kelly spoke up, raising her eyebrows at Evan, unknown to Alyson and Rick. "Unless you don't want to talk about it, Aly."
Alyson looks at Evan who she could tell was going through a measure of conflicting thoughts.
She raises her eyebrows at him, questioningly.
Clearing his throat, Evan shrugs, "why don't' you tell us about it, babe?"
Even Rick was surprised that Evan was willing to listen.
Luckily, Alyson wasn't crazy. So she kept it simple and short.
"It's going good," she shrugged, nonchalantly. "As you probably heard, we've done a lot in six months but we're still coming up with some stuff."
"Yeah, I've heard," the guy was intrigued. "Me and the wife went to his new restaurant location the other day, had that new dish, it was amazing."
"Yeah?" Alyson was happy to hear.
"Yeah! Is it true that he worked with the chef to help create it?"
"Mhm," Alyson nods, "he's very hands-on in his work."
"So, he's a cool guy? Like everyone says?"
"Oh yeah," Alyson found herself smiling from ear to ear, "literally a heart of gold, just a regular guy, trying to continue what his father started, you know?"
"That's really cool!" the guy was amazed. He pats Evan's arm, "must be hard, having your wife working all the time, huh?"
"I manage," Evan chuckled slightly, "I'm just happy that she's happy." He gives a small smile, kissing Alyson on the forehead.
"Aww," smiled at Rick, "aren't you guys cute."
"The cutest," Kelly gave a slight smirk, downing the rest of her glass.
"Oh my god!" she suddenly gasps, "do you guys hear that?"
Everyone went silent, realizing Kelly's favorite song was playing.
"Alright, everyone out, we're dancing!"
Everyone groaned but she didn't care. If the birthday girl wanted to dance, everyone was going to dance. So they did.
As they were dancing, Alyson was thinking about how the conversation went down. She was expecting Evan to be agitated by now but he seemed okay, and, what he said about her being happy really stuck with her.
"Did you mean it?" she asked him, as they danced close to the fast-paced music, "what you said about me being happy working with Joseph."
"Yeah," Evan nodded, shrugging slightly, "of course, I did."
Alyson went quiet, thinking again. Here he was, treating her how she's been begging him too and all she could think about was herself, instead of how he's been trying.
"Look, Evan, I'm really sorry if I haven't been showing appreciation for your attempts. You let me work with your father, you've been respectful about it, and giving me more attention which I asked for. And to repay you, all I could think about was myself and my feelings which was wrong. I really do appreciate you and I'm gonna start showing that more, okay?"
While she was pouring out her feelings, Evan was looking elsewhere.
"Evan?" she called his name. "Evan, are you listening to me?"
It wasn't until she turned her head to try and see what he was looking at, that he whipped her around, pulling her closer to him.
"I'm listening," he looks deeply into her eyes. "I hear you and I forgive you. I can't even blame you, really, I know I haven't always . . . been the best husband."
"Yeah, well," Aly wraps her arms around his neck, "maybe it's time we move on."
He nods, "sounds good to me."
Just as they were going to share a kiss, Kelly comes walking past yelling, "time to sing happy birthday," as she pulled Rick with her.
Alyson gives Evan a peck on the lips, and they go to join everyone around the birthday cake.
After lighting the candles, Rick cleared his throat, standing beside an excited Kelly.
"Before we sing happy birthday to my beautiful wife, I just wanted to thank you all for coming. Everyone knows that I'm not big on the birthday thing, but when it comes to Kelly, I'm always happy to see our friends and family come together, to celebrate such an amazing person."
"Aww," Kelly blushed.
"Happy birthday, baby, I love you."
"Thank you," cheesed the blonde as the two shared a kiss.
"Alright, everyone on three," Rick counted off, "one, two, three!"
As everyone started to sing her happy birthday, Alyson realized that Evan had walked away. She looked around to see if he had wandered off somewhere close but he was nowhere to be found.
It wasn't until Kelly blew out her candles that Alyson went to look for him. She found Evan in the house, pacing back and forth in the living room - and he did not look happy.
"Hey, are you alright?" Alyson asked.
Clearing his throat, he turned around, visibly trying to suppress whatever was obviously wrong with him.
"I just don't feel well, all of a sudden. I think we should head home."
"Does something hurt, how are you feeling?" Alyson reached out to Evan but he backs away.
"I'm suddenly just really tired."
"Oh okay, well, we should at least tell Kelly and Rick -"
"Can we just go!?" he snapped at her. "I just want to go, Alyson. Is that too much to ask?"
"Okay, okay," Alyson backed off, "I just have to get my stuff."
"I'll be in the car," Evan was already walking away.
* * * * * * * * * *
Once again, the car ride was completely silent. However, the silence was full of the agitation that was radiating off of Evan. The whole time Alyson was trying to go through everything that had happened at the party to try and figure out what could have possibly changed his mood so quickly.
But she couldn't remember anything.
Everything went well, things were good between them and in one snap, it changed.
Alyson hated to question him when he was in such a state but she was so confused, she couldn't help it.
Following him into their bedroom, she took off her sandals, watching him stomp into the closet.
"You want to talk about what's suddenly bothering you?" she sat on the edge of the bed.
"I told you in the car, I didn't want to talk about it. What makes you think I want to talk about it now?"
Ignoring the harshness in his voice, Alyson replies, "I just don't get what changed your mood so fast. I thought we were actually having a decent time."
Evan comes out of the closet, dressed in his pajamas. He didn't even look at Alyson, he walked to his side of the bed and picked up his pillow.
"What are you doing?" she asked him with a frown.
He walks past her going to the door.
"Hey," she stood, pulling him back, "where are you -"
"To sleep on the couch," he snapped his arm away from her. "Because you don't seem to understand what I don't want to talk about it' means."
Alyson scoffs, finding herself irritated, "well, I'm sorry that I care."
"Yeah," he nods, "me too."
And he leaves out with a slam of the door.
A bewildered Alyson stood there, beyond baffled.