by C. Hoover
How thoughtful of him. He’s about a day late, though, but I’m sure Jon failed to tell him that.
“I figured she liked it there,” I lie. “Don’t you guys have some kind of open relationship? How does that work?”
Asa’s eyes narrow. “No, we don’t have a fucking open relationship. Why the fuck would you think that?”
I laugh and casually bring up all the reasons why someone in my position should think that, even though I know better. “Jess? The chick you fucked in your bedroom last week? The girl in the pool two nights ago?”
Asa laughs. “You have a lot to learn about relationships, Carter.”
I lean back in my seat. I try to keep this conversation going without seeming too interested, but I want to know every detail about why he’s wasting Sloan’s time.
“Maybe so. I assumed most relationships were between two people, but I guess I’m wrong. Relationships confuse me. As does yours.”
“As does yours?” he repeats. “Who the fuck talks like that?”
We’re interrupted by the waiter delivering our beers. We both take drinks and then he pushes his beer aside and leans forward, tapping his index finger against the table. “Let me teach you about relationships, Carter. In case you ever find yourself in one.”
This should be interesting.
“Is your father alive?” Asa asks.
“Nope. Died when I was two.” That’s a lie. He died three years ago.
“Well that’s your first problem. You were raised by a woman.”
“That’s a problem?”
He nods. “You learned about life from a woman. Lots of men do, it’s fine. But that’s what’s wrong with most men. Men need to learn from men. We work differently than society leads women to believe.”
I don’t respond. I wait for him to continue this rare display of charitable genius.
“Men weren’t designed by nature to be monogamous. It’s engrained in us to spread our seed. To keep the population going. We’re breeders by default, and no matter what society tries to force upon us, we’ll be breeders until we kill ourselves off. That’s why we’re so fucking horny all the time.”
I glance to my left, at two older women whose mouths are hung open, eavesdropping on Asa’s definition of the male species.
“Women are the ones who give birth,” I point out. “Are they not also considered breeders? Would it not also be in their chemical makeup to populate the world?”
He shakes his head. “They’re nurturers. It’s their duty to keep the species alive. Not to create it. Besides, women aren’t into sex like men are.”
I wish I were recording this. ”They aren’t?”
“Fuck no. They crave the expression of thoughts...emotions...feelings. They want to form a bond...a lifelong connection. That’s why they push for marriage, because it’s in their biological makeup to crave a protector. A provider. They need stability, a home, a place to raise their children. Women don’t have physical cravings like we do. So it’s only fair that we create the families for the women, but we also need an outlet to partake in our natural urges. When men fuck around, it’s different than when the women fuck around.”
I nod my head like I’m understanding his philosophy, but it’s making me ill for Sloan. “So in your opinion, women don’t have a biological excuse to sleep with more than one man. But men do?”
He nods. “Exactly. When a man cheats, it’s purely physical. We’re attracted to a woman’s hips, to her legs, to her ass, to her tits. It’s all about the sexual act. Dick in, dick out. When a woman cheats, it’s purely mental. They’re turned on by emotions. By their feelings. If a woman fucks a man, it’s not because she’s horny. It’s because she wants him to love her. That’s why I fuck around on Sloan. And that’s why Sloan is not allowed to fuck around on me. Cheating for a man is different than cheating for a woman, and that’s a fact, proven by mother nature herself.”
Holy fuck. People like this actually exist. God help us.
“And Sloan is okay with this?”
Asa laughs. “That’s the thing, Carter. Women don’t understand because they aren’t made like us. That’s why men were also given the distinct ability to lie so well.”
I smile, when all I’d really like to do is reach across the table and put an end to his ability to breed—an end to his ability to create life that might turn out like him.
“So what role do the mistresses play in all this?” I ask.
He smiles sickeningly. “That’s why God made the whores, Carter.”
I force a smile. He’s right about one thing—I can definitely lie well. “So the whores are for nature and the wives are for nurture,” I say.
Asa smiles proudly, like he actually taught me something. He lifts his beer. “Cheers to that,” he says. We clink our beers together and he takes a sip. “My father used to say something similar to that.”
“Is he still alive?”
Asa nods, but I notice the sudden tightness in his jaw. “Yeah. Somewhere.”
Our food arrives, but I’m not sure I feel like eating after that twisted lecture on Darwinism.
I definitely don’t feel like eating now that I know I’ll be seeing Sloan tonight. At her fucking engagement party.
“You should give a toast tonight.”
I pause, mid chew. “Excuse me?”
Asa takes a sip of his beer. “Tonight,” he says, setting it back down on the table. “At the party. You should give a toast after I announce the engagement. You can string a sentence together better than any other fucker that’ll be there. Make me look good. Sloan will eat that shit up.”
I force the food down my throat. “I’d be honored.”
Motherfucker.
I waste as much time as I can before coming home every day. The less I’m here, the better. After classes were finished up today, I went to the gym, then the library. It was after seven when I finally walked through my front door. Jon was sitting on the couch, glaring at me.
I rushed to the stairs and up to my room as fast as I could, but not before noticing his face. I don’t know what happened after I walked away from him and Carter last night, but it’s apparent Carter wasn’t finished with him, because both sides of his face are black and blue now.
I make sure to lock my bedroom door. I don’t know if Asa is here or not, but I’m never chancing being alone with Jon again.
Once I’m safe in the room, I toss my backpack on the floor. My eyes instantly fall on the dresser. Specifically on the jewelry box sitting on the dresser.
He bought me a ring. He makes promises almost daily and never keeps them. The one time I want him to forget is the one time he actually remembers.
Just my luck.
I walk over to the dresser and open the box. I don’t even pick it up; I just push it open with my fingers, not really wanting to see it.
I immediately wince. Of course he would buy me this one; it was probably the biggest one in the jewelry store. Three huge diamonds make up the majority of the platinum ring, each diamond encased by smaller ones.
It’s seriously ugly as shit. Am I actually going to have to wear this thing?
There’s no hiding this. I knew I should have told Carter earlier today. I just didn’t know how to tell the guy I’m developing feelings for that I just got engaged to someone else. To someone he loathes. Even if that engagement means very little to me.
I hear laughter outside, so I make my way to the bedroom window. There are coolers set up everywhere and Dalton is standing at the grill, flipping burgers. Several people are lounging and standing around. Maybe twenty. Asa must have heated the pool. It’s like 65 degrees out and the water would be too cold to swim, but there are a few people in the pool already.
Asa only heats the pool for big parties.
Shit.
I spin around at the knock on the bedroom door. “Sloan!”
I rush to the door and unlock it, letting Asa inside. He’s smiling before he even makes eye contact with me. “Hey,
future wife.”
Funny how what he deems a term of endearment can feel like an insult to me.
“Hey...future husband.”
He wraps his arm around me and kisses my neck. “I hope you got a lot of sleep last night, cuz you aren’t getting any tonight.” His lips drag up my neck and stop at the corner of my mouth. “Do you want your ring now or later?”
I fail to tell him I already looked at it, and that the ring just serves as further proof that he doesn’t know me at all. I tell him I want it now, because if I say later, that means he’ll make a big production out of it. That’s the last thing I want.
He reaches over to the dresser and grabs the box. He hands it to me, but then he pulls it back. “Wait. Gotta do this right.”
He lowers himself to one knee and lifts the box up, presenting the ring to me. “Will you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Asa Jackson?”
Seriously? This has to be the worst proposal in history. If you don’t count the one he gave this morning right after he had his hand around my throat.
“I already said yes, silly,” I say to him.
He grins and slips the ring on my finger. I look at it, holding it up to the light. I didn’t know Hell had so much sparkle.
Asa stands up and walks over to the closet. He pulls off the blue shirt he’s wearing and begins to choose a different one. “We should match tonight,” he says. “Black shirt, black dress.” He pulls out a shirt and then throws a dress in my direction. I catch it. “I’ll be so relieved when we have our own place soon. Separate closets.”
My hands make fists around the dress. “Our own place?”
He laughs. “You don’t think I’m going to marry you and keep you in this house, do you?”
“Keep me?”
He pulls the black shirt over his head. He starts laughing to himself as he’s buttoning it up. “I had lunch with Carter today,” he says casually, sitting on the bed.
Lunch? What? Our class together ended at lunchtime. Carter left class after making me feel the things I felt, and then went directly to lunch with Asa?
Why?
I sit on the opposite end of the bed and attempt to sound disinterested. “Oh yeah?”
Asa begins pulling on a pair of socks. “He’s not so bad. I kind of like him. Might even ask him to be a groomsman in our wedding.”
He’s already planning the wedding?
Asa slips on his shoes and stands up, turning toward the mirror. He runs both hands through his hair. “Have you thought about who you’ll ask to be your bridesmaids? You don’t really have any friends, do you?”
You make it kind of difficult for me to have friends, Asa.
“We just got engaged this morning,” I say to him. “Then I had class all day. I haven’t really had time to think about the details of a wedding.”
“You could ask Jess to be a bridesmaid,” he says.
I nod, but internally I’m laughing. Jess hates me. I don’t know why, but the girl hasn’t looked my direction in six months, no matter how much I try to reach out. “Yeah,” I say. “I could ask Jess.”
Asa opens the bedroom door and motions toward the dress still fisted tightly in my hands. “Take a shower and get ready. I want you dolled up tonight for the big announcement.”
The door closes behind him. I look down at the dress. I look down at my ring.
This hole I’m digging for myself is getting deeper and deeper. If I don’t figure out how to climb out of it, Asa’s going to fill it with cement.
Asa likes my hair best when it’s straight. I know this, because there have been a couple of times I’ve put some curl in it and he’s asked me to redo it. The first time was right after we started dating, when he was introducing me to Jon and Jess for the first time. And once on our first anniversary when we went to dinner at a restaurant I reserved myself. The anniversary dinner I had to remind him about three times.
He said his mother had curly hair and he prefers for me to wear mine straight.
I know nothing about his family, other than he doesn’t have one. And that one sentence about his mother’s hair is the only time he’s ever mentioned her in the years that I’ve known him.
Yet...here I am, standing in front of the mirror with the curling iron, adding curls to my hair. Simply because I know Carter likes them. I catch him staring at my hair sometimes when I put curl in it. Like he wishes he could touch it—slide his whole hand through my hair and pull my face to his. And even though he’ll be on the opposite end of the room from me, not even looking in my direction tonight, I curl my hair. For him.
Not for my fiancé.
The music is loud, the house is full of people, and I’ve been in my bathroom for an hour and a half getting ready. Of course an hour of that was probably spent staring at myself in the mirror, wondering how in the hell I got myself to this point in life. But I have to stop dwelling on all the bad decisions I’ve made and figure out how to make better ones.
I go see my brother on Sunday. Now that his care is private pay, I no longer meet with the social worker to sign his annual forms. But I think I’ll schedule an appointment with her while I’m there Sunday. I want to figure out what I can do to get his benefits back in place without Asa finding out.
Someone beats on the bathroom door, so I put down the curling iron and switch it off. I open it to find Asa gripping the doorframe. His eyes run down the length of me and then back up again. “Holy fuck,” he says, stepping inside the bathroom. He wraps his arm around my waist and his other hand drops to my thigh, crawling my dress up with his fingers. “I was planning on waiting until I got you in bed tonight, but I’m not sure if I can.”
His breath reeks of whiskey. I doubt it’s even nine o’clock yet and he’s halfway to being comatose already.
I push against his chest. “Well, you have to wait. I just finished getting ready. I’d like to be able to torture you with this outfit for a few hours, at least.”
He groans and pushes me onto the counter, pressing himself between my legs. “Sloan, how can one guy be so fucking lucky?”
I close my eyes while he kisses down my shoulder. How can one girl be so unlucky?
He grips my waist and pulls me off the counter. He doesn’t set me on my feet, though. He scoops me up in his arms and I’m forced to grab him around the neck to steady myself. He carries me out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Before we reach the bottom, he stops and sets me on my feet. “Wait here,” he says, disappearing down the rest of the steps and into the kitchen.
I look around the living room at all the people. So many fucking people. My eyes catch Jess’s stare and I smile at her. She looks away, but I’m almost certain she cringes before doing so.
I have no idea what I’ve done to her or why she hates me so much. But honestly, I’m used to people treating me like she treats me. I stopped worrying myself sick about it before I even reached high school.
I bring the fingers of my right hand over to my left and I twist the ring around nervously. I guess the one positive aspect of this ring being so big is that I could probably use it in self-defense. Might come in handy if I find myself alone with Jon again.
I can feel the anxiousness crawl into my stomach before I even notice him staring. Carter is on the other side of the living room. He’s leaning against the wall, next to Dalton. His arms are folded together and—true to his word—he’s not looking directly at me. Technically. He’s looking down at my hand.
I stop twisting the ring, and when I do, his eyes flick up to mine. They’re narrowed, his jaw set tight. Dalton is standing next to him, laughing and talking like Carter is completely engaged in whatever he’s saying. But just like Carter said earlier, he can’t see anything else—he only sees me. His expression doesn’t waver. Even when Asa returns with two glasses of champagne and forces one of them into my hands, Carter still doesn’t look away. It’s almost as if he’s torturing himself on purpose.
I try to save him a little bit of pain and look away first. It proba
bly doesn’t help that I look up at Asa. I can still feel Carter’s eyes on me as Asa raises his glass.
“Fuckers!” he yells. “Turn off the music!”
A few seconds later, the music cuts off. Everyone in the room turns toward us and I suddenly want to run back up the stairs and hide. I force myself not to look at Carter.
Once Asa has everyone’s attention, he says, “Most of you already know, because I haven’t kept my fucking mouth shut since she said yes.” He holds up my hand. “But she said yes!”
Collective cheers and congratulations come from the room, but they quickly dwindle as it becomes apparent that Asa isn’t finished speaking.
“I’ve loved this girl for a long time now,” he says. “She’s my fucking world. So it’s about damn time we make it official.” He smiles at me and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something inside me that feels a little something for him—even if it is only sympathy at this point. Somewhere deep inside, I know he is the way he is because of the hand he was dealt as a child. A part of me can’t fault him for that. But just because a lot of his behavior can probably be excused by whatever awful people were around him as a child, doesn’t mean I’m required to subject myself to a life of unhappiness simply because he loves me.
Because he does love me. He may love me with his own twisted take on love, but he does love me. That much is obvious.
Asa points across the room. “Carter! My man! Help us celebrate this monumental occasion with a toast!”
I close my eyes. Why is he pulling Carter into this? I can’t look. I can’t.
“Someone get that fucker a glass of champagne!” Asa yells.
I open my eyes and slowly drag them across the room toward Carter, who still has the same expression on his face. Only this time, he’s being handed a glass of champagne.
And a chair to stand on.
Fuck my life.
Asa pulls me against him and kisses the side of my head as we both watch Carter step onto the chair. The room is incredibly quiet. He’s commanded the room in a way that Asa didn’t even command it, and Carter hasn’t even spoken a word yet. It feels like they all care more about what Carter has to say than what Asa had to say. Something I hope Asa doesn’t notice.