KristoAs soon as I woke up, I knew.I could feel her tucked into my arm, the weight of her pressing against my body, and I closed my eyes and leaned back to let that hazy half-sleep take me once more. I just wanted to lie here with her all day long, to go over in my head every single moment that had happened the night before and how damn good it had been, but my stomach was grumbling. I needed something hot and greasy to help stave off the effects of the few glasses of champagne I’d had the night before.I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened when we’d arrived back at the apartment. I’d desired her before, obviously—badly too—but nothing like what had happened between us then. I felt as though someone else had swung in to inhabit my body as I took her, as I touched her, but she seemed to enjoy it. I could still remember with a vividness the way she’d tipped her head back as she came, my face between her legs, the way her body shook and trembled as she guided me up on top of
Kristo“Can’t you throw it in that she’s been fucking someone else this whole time?” I suggested, and my father flinched at my use of the word, and I cursed myself internally for not thinking about how badly it would hurt him. He shrugged and shook his head.“I just want this done with as soon as possible,” he admitted. “I can’t handle this. I really thought, after your mother, I thought this was it, you know? She was so good with the family, and she seemed so happy.”I thought back to those encounters I’d had with Karen, and I felt my blood boil in my veins. She had treated all of us like family right off the bat, and it had all been a lie. She hadn’t just hurt my father. She had hurt all of us, and she was going to pay. She wasn’t going to see a penny of my father’s money, no way in hell, no not if I had anything at all to do with it.“Come on, my office.” I pulled the food off the stove and headed through to my workspace. “We’re going to figure this out. Right now.”It was the best
AmayaWhen it started to get dark and he still wasn’t back, I allowed myself to begin to worry. This wasn’t like him, never had been. He was always carefully in control, and that meant knowing where everyone was at any given time in relation to him, yet I hadn’t heard from him all day since he’d stormed out of the apartment when I’d walked in on him and his father.I had heard them arguing in his office. In fact, that was what had woken me. I had reached over in my dozy state to touch him, to greet him good morning, but he wasn’t there. I frowned and listened to the voices outside, and I could hear they were aggravated.I climbed out of bed and paused outside the door, and sure enough, I could hear the two of them going at it. I couldn’t make out every single word of what they were saying, but I was pretty sure Kristo’s father was getting a divorce. I was stunned. When I had seen him and his wife together, they had always seemed completely in love with one another. I had no idea what
KristoShe looked so worried, I found myself wanting to go to her and comfort her, to tell her everything was going to be all right, but the truth of the matter was that I had no idea how things were going to be. My lawyer had called me up when I had been out trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do next, and he had sounded seriously worried.“Wait, let me just grab a beer first.” I held my hand up to stop him. I had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth next, but I had a feeling it would be a whole lot easier to handle if I was at least a little drunk.“Could I have a glass of water?” he asked, and I poured him one and handed it to him as I cracked open my own bottle and took a swig. Amaya reached for it, and I couldn’t help but grin as she took a swig, despite the clear annoyance directed at me written all over her face. I didn’t blame her. I’d just hit the bricks out of nowhere as soon as my father had been out of there, but if she knew what had been going on
KristoI lay next to her in bed and turned to look at the sleeping woman next to me.Just a few hours before, I would have described her as my wife in my head, and I would have liked that. It might have seemed silly now, but just knowing she was my other half, that the two of us were bound in a sacrament that was deep and old and important, made me feel better. I had done a lot of things wrong in my life, that was for sure, but marrying Amaya was something I’d managed to do right. Even if I had only achieved that by stumbling ass-backward into a wedding while the two of us were too drunk to stand.But since my lawyer had come by, I knew that wasn’t true. We had never gotten married. Well, we had gone through the motions and made like we had, but in fact, that marriage wasn’t valid thanks to the place we had gotten it from. They had been conducting illegal ceremonies for months and had long-since had their license stripped by the time we got to them, but they had gone through with our
KristoI wasn’t sure she would want me to lay so much as a finger on her now that we weren’t married. Perhaps she would cut that all off and leave. But we were so entangled in one another now, emotionally, physically, financially, and familially. Both our families had met and promptly formed bonds with each other, and to cut them off from that now seemed unnecessarily cruel. Or maybe I was just looking for reasons to keep her around. I glanced down at the ring on her finger, the glowing gem I’d purchased for her just a week before reminding me of how sure I’d felt of her and of us, and my stomach churned. I tossed the covers back and climbed out of bed. I was doing no good sitting around here and brooding. I needed to get myself a coffee, and then perhaps I could work out what it was I needed to say to her.Because I wanted her to stay. That was what all of this had been about, really. The ring, the contract, the money—whether or not I would have admitted it to myself, I wanted nothin
AmayaI drove to work and tried to remember the last time I had been so relieved to be getting to my job.Since the lawyer had dropped the news, Kristo and I had been going through the motions. Polite, sure, but that was it. Neither of us seemed to be able to muster up the energy to talk about what had happened, and frankly, I was more than all right with that. The thought of admitting this was real, that this was happening after everything we’d been through together … no. I couldn’t handle it.The only time either of us seemed to be honest with one another was when he hugged me in the kitchen the morning after. But as I held him, I couldn’t tell whether he was holding me to let me know he needed me here, that he wanted me to stay, or if it was, in fact, just a hug goodbye. The thought of that made me choke up all over again, and I pushed it through the back of my head. No. I couldn’t let myself get stuck on that, not today. I had so much to do, so much to distract me, and I didn’t wa
AmayaI watched as Darla made her way out of my office, and I leaned back in my seat and let out a long sigh. I knew I shouldn’t have let it bother me, but I couldn’t stop looking at the clock, wondering if Kristo was finished with that meeting yet. I had been checking my phone constantly since I’d arrived at work, on the off-chance he might somehow have decided what was going to happen to the two of us without my knowing. This state of uncertainty was driving me crazy, and I needed to lock something down before I lost my mind entirely.I went back to the papers I had been filing and tried to focus my attention on them, but my head was restless and wouldn’t let me. What was going to happen with Kristo and me? Would we get married now? Would we just keep up with the charade? Either of us could walk away at any moment, and that made the ground feel like it was slipping out from beneath me. I hated this feeling, hated how uncertain I was, hated how my brain seemed to be sloshing full of