Not to brag about what I’m packing.
Her strawberry-blond hair rests at the nape of her neck in a low ponytail, and a few loose tendrils frame her face. The spark in her dark brown eyes died years ago. Slim and put together, her body looks exactly as it did when we were sixteen. I can’t deny her beauty. Though, it’s a shame God doesn’t strike down adulterers and steal their best assets. Not that I’m much different. Twelve months is all it took for me to go from a one-woman man to fucking my way through half the town.
We all deal with pain in our own way.
I don’t respond to her antagonizing remark as I hand over our son. The whimper as she grasps him beneath his arms compresses my heart like a fist. Little chubby arms reach to me, and I lock down every muscle in my body in order not to take him and flee the damn state.
“Same time next week.” The question sounds stated, leaving no room for arguments.
“You’ll still be at this hotel?”
My thighs burn. The need to move overwhelms me. “Yep.”
“You haven’t found your own place?” The disparaging mention scores across my heart.
Arms crossed over my chest, I lean in. The words hiss between clenched teeth. “Maybe if my bitch of wife didn’t fuck me over, steal my own house, and drain my accounts, I wouldn’t have to live in a fucking hotel.”
She rears back as if I slapped her, and her eyes dart around the pristine lobby. I wouldn’t put it past her to play the battered woman card. I would never lay a finger on her, but she’s shown me over the past year that she’s not above doing what she needs to get ahead. With that in mind, I drop the diaper bag at her feet and flick my shades over my eyes. She’s no longer privy to the pain she causes.
“One week.”
No response from her is powerful enough to stop me from strolling around her and out the circular door into the noon sunshine. I bleep the locks on my Jeep, toss my duffel in the back, and fire the engine.
Then I wait.
Nora strolls out five minutes later, bouncing my boy on her hip. She aims a smile at him. He’s undoubtedly the only person left on the planet to receive her genuine attention. I wait patiently for her to load him up and take off. Five more minutes pass in silence. My hand itches to turn the radio dial, but I force myself to sit. To feel. To become it before it becomes me.
The one and only rogue droplet splashes from the arch of my cheek to my jeans before I can swipe it away. With nobody around to hear it, I unshackle the bark of agony. The hounds of hell scour the inside of my Jeep, feeding on my pain and begging for an encore.
A palm connects with my steering wheel, and my face contorts as I swipe the other through my hair. I hiss an excruciating breath. A year is a long fucking time to live on this precipice. The struggle she drags me through in order to wring everything from me. Taking my heart and dreams isn’t enough. She won’t stop until she has my home, my money, and my kid in her control.
The fight leaks from my fingertips first, feeling returns to the digits after a tingling existence. Back under control, I shift gears and exit the lot. The direction steers me to the outskirts of town, back to my temporary home.
After ten minutes of mindless driving, I arrive. Home sweet fucking home. I direct my Jeep to the edge, execute a three-point turn, and reverse into the farthest spot at the back. This position provides an uninhibited view of the expansive space. I remove my jumpstart generator from the glove box and plug in my phone in preparation for the night.
Either I’ll find someone’s bed to warm at Calypso’s, the local watering hole, or I’ll spend another night sleeping beneath the stars. Reminiscent of camping trips enjoyed during my childhood.
The former lost its appeal long ago, but I wouldn’t have made it through winter without the option. Leaving my home in early March was piss-poor timing, but when Nora paraded the man she’d cheated on me with through my own fucking living room, I’d had enough.
A week into what I hoped was a temporary arrangement at the Arrow’s Inn Hotel, my cards declined. Nora had opened new accounts and left mine drained. With nothing more than several hundred-dollar bills in my wallet, I wouldn’t have lasted a week’s stay. I’d already slept with a couple of women since I found my wife cheating, so what were a few more? In exchange for a sexual release, they provided me with a warm bed.
Nobody knows of my current status, and I’d like to keep it that way. My friends assume I’m nothing more than a playboy out on the prowl post a lengthy separation. Asking them for help isn’t an option. Law helped me last year with building that fucking monster dream home Nora’s kept in her clutches. With his own home construction underway, I can’t force my way into his rambler when he and Cami are already cramped and busy.
And Nathan has a new baby, a new wife, and two houses to sell. Not to mention I once hooked up with his wife, Kiersten, prior to them getting together. The very definition of uncomfortable.
I’m not proud of the man I’ve become, but finding my high school sweetheart being plowed by her boss hit my ego with a fucking sledgehammer.
The assumption is always of young girls dreaming of the perfect family and the perfect life. Not here. I had the dreams. The perfect plan. Meeting Nora in high school initiated a chain reaction of hopes for my future.
Take over my grandfather’s extermination business.
Get married.
Build our dream home.
Start a family.
I pictured my life with stark clarity from the day we traded in our V cards with one another. I was on the fast track of getting everything I wanted.