by Jana Aston
“Sure you can,” Vince agrees, which is kind because we both know it’s a lie, “but I’m already here.” He winks when he says it, accompanied by a wicked little grin. God, he just made a joke while cleaning me up after sex so I don’t have to move. If I didn’t already love him that alone would be enough to do it.
When he’s done he gets back into my bed and I snuggle into his side and it’s all so fucking normal and perfect. He laces his fingers with mine on his chest and we talk. He uses his other hand to play with my hair and I’m not sure if I want to fall asleep or stay awake forever so this night never ends.
When he tells me he’ll be traveling next week I know I have to say something. Now, before he leaves, because he’ll be gone an entire week clear across the state on some trial he’s consulting on. Maybe it’s too soon, but fuck it. Maybe my decision-making skills are shit but my spontaneity skills have served me well.
“You know how when you meet someone new, you’re on your best behavior? How things are a little awkward because you’re still feeling the other person out?”
“This has been you on your best behavior?” He can’t hide the alarm on his face and I slap his chest with my open palm.
“No! That’s my point. I’ve never felt that way with you. From the very first day I felt like myself.”
Vince slow-blinks at me, his features relaxing.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“Do you?” Vince rolls us over so he’s on top, brushing my hair back from my face. Then he kisses me, his lips brushing softly against mine. It makes me crazy, the soft caress of his lips in direct contrast of the hardness of his body, pressed against mine. The way his cock rests against my stomach, getting harder by the second.
“I do. I am.” I’m distracted by his kisses and his cock, but I want him to know how I feel. “Which is good because I think fate wanted us to be together.”
“Fate?” Vince pauses in kissing me, another frown marring his brow.
“Hmhmm.” I trace the line on his forehead with my fingertip. He nods, but in a distracted way, so I’m not sure we’re on the same page about the contribution of destiny. But it’s fine because destiny doesn’t really care what you think about it, it just does its thing without your approval anyway.
Besides which, he’s rolling another condom on so we can talk about destiny later.
By later I mean much, much later because his stamina on round two is off the charts. Life could not be going better for me. I’m capable of multiple orgasms and I’m in love with my husband. A man who makes me believe forevers might just exist.
Until destiny delivers a turd directly to my doorstep. A turd in the form of annulment papers.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Vince left on Monday.
That part was fine. The trial, he’d mentioned the trial. He’d mentioned Reno. He’d mentioned he’d miss me. Isn’t that what he’d said? I’ll miss you, gorgeous. I’d grinned like a silly swan when he’d said it. Secure in where we were headed. Secure that his feelings for me were at the very least on the same game board as my feelings for him. But maybe I’d overwhelmed him with my silly proclamation of love. With my overactive imagination and demands for his time. With me.
Why? Why had I been sure?
I’ll miss you.
Miss you forever?
He’d never mentioned that I’d be served with paperwork. Paperwork that would end our marriage. No, not just end it. Undo it.
Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all?
Lost is the answer here, because at least that’s real. At least that happened. An annulment is nothing; it’s a footnote on a Wikipedia page. It’s official legal paperwork declaring that something was so insignificant as to have not existed. That it never should have happened to begin with. Maybe we were on different game boards after all. Maybe I was playing the game of Life and he was playing Operation because I feel like I’m a moment away from being shocked as Vince removes my heart.
He argues with people for a living and he couldn’t talk to me himself?
That’s so… insulting.
Is it because I distracted him with sex all week? He had to wait until he was six hours away and then have me served? Do you know how that feels? You probably don’t. I hope you don’t because it feels terrible. Awful. The worst ever.
“Are you Payton Tanner?” That’s what I was greeted with when I opened my door this morning. I was less than a minute from leaving for work when my bell rang. I thought the guy worked for the apartment complex—that was my first thought when he spoke because how else would a stranger at my door know my name?
“You’ve been served,” he said, thrusting a manila envelope into my hands and walking away. A very familiar manila envelope, because it looked exactly like the one Vince dropped on my countertop a week and a half earlier.
Those words are terrifying, by the way. You’ve been served. I know they’re just words, but until they happen to you you have no idea how you’ll react. How your heart will pound in overdrive the second your brain realizes that something serious is taking place.
They’re just words.
I think I’m falling in love with you. Those are just words too. Unrequited words.
We’d talked or texted every night he’d been gone. Every freaking night. When he’d called on Monday night I’d smiled throughout the call because I’d loved hearing his voice over the phone. Loved knowing he’d wanted to talk to me when he couldn’t see me. Loved knowing that he’d made time for me even though he had an insanely busy week in Reno.
Tuesday night we’d exchanged a series of racy texts. Racy, dirty, lusty texts.
Or maybe, maybe that was my imagination? Maybe I wish you were here so I could bend you over and give you my cock really meant I’m horny, not I wish you were here.
Or maybe he was telling me that he did want me, but not in the way I want him. There’s so much to Vince I still don’t know. Maybe I don’t know anything.
I text him, in case you’re thinking you’d react differently. That you’d pick up the phone and call. Or wait until he’s back in town and ask him about it face to face. Or maybe you think you’d jump on a plane and fly to Reno, searching every courtroom until you found him.
I’m a reasonable person. So I texted.
* * *
Me: got the paperwork
* * *
And then I waited. I waited twenty minutes before sending a second text. I drove to work, alone with my overactive imagination. Shaky with nerves. Wondering if I was imagining this entire thing. If I was imagining how good things were between me and Vince. If I was imagining the paperwork that was sticking out of my handbag, even now. Mocking me as I side-eyed it while coasting through the parking garage at work, looking for a good space.
Except it’s still there when I park. District Court. Clark County, Nevada. Vincent Thomas Rossi vs Payton Elizabeth Tanner.
It’s sweet the way he knows my middle name. I didn’t know his. Why did I never ask? I had an entire ten days up to this point to ask. I’m a terrible wife.
I put the car into park and check my phone. No reply. It’s fine. It’s so fine. I get it. I want him to know I get it so I send another text.
* * *
Me: it’s fine
* * *
I toss my phone into my bag and head inside. I don’t have time to dawdle while I hope for a reply because I’ve got less than ten minutes to get to my desk. Getting served with annulment paperwork has thrown me a bit behind schedule this morning. I set my phone face down onto my desk and deposit my handbag into the bottom drawer. I wiggle the mouse so my computer will spring to life. I brood, because it’s not fine. I watch the clock on my computer and flip my phone over checking for a text no fewer than five times. Nothing. Every minute is an eternity in which I envision ways this ends badly.
An hour later when Vince calls, I nearly send him to voicemail. Mostly because my imagination is raging out of cont
rol. But as I’ve said, I’m very reasonable. Or at least on the scale of reasonableness. The low end, I know. I’m not a reasonableness overachiever but I have a very firm grasp on the concept.
So I answer the phone.
“Hey,” I say. Because that’s how you answer the phone when your husband who you’ve just met but have fallen very hard for has you served with annulment paperwork. Annulment is a word that means to take something back. To cancel. To retract. To reverse. To undo.
It’s the worst word ever.
It’s the worst feeling ever.
Worse than the time the Girl Troopers dumped me. Worse than every time my parents got divorced. Worse than being cheated on sophomore year in college. Worse is a word that means icky. The ickiest.
“Payton.” He exhales into the phone. He has a great phone voice. Deep and seductive. Composed and captivating. But right now he sounds rushed, distracted. “What paperwork, Payton?” There’s a lot of background noise. Voices, commotion, possibly the ding of an elevator. He’s busy, clearly he’s busy. So busy he forgot today was the day I was being served. Or perhaps he didn’t know when I’d get the paperwork. If I’d gone to work even ten minutes earlier, I’d have missed the server this morning.
I allow myself a brief fantasy in which I did leave for work early. A fantasy in which the server spent weeks attempting to find me, never in the right place at the right time. Weeks in which Vince fell madly in love with me and put a halt to the unraveling of our marriage. ‘Madly’ is the only word in that sentence that makes any sense at all though. A drunken lustful night cannot possibly work out in a rosy happily-ever-after way.
“The annulment paperwork. I’ve got it.”
“What do you mean you’ve got it?” I hear him tell someone in the background that he needs a minute, the words not spoken directly into the receiver, but as if he’s tilted the phone away from his lips. I can picture him, even without seeing him. I can picture what he’s wearing and how he’s standing. I can imagine his shoes, polished, and his tie, knotted. I wonder if he’s wearing a tie I’ve seen before, or one I haven’t. Likely one I haven’t because he surely owns more ties than I’ve had time to see. I imagine his phone pressed to his ear, held in place by two long fingers and a bent thumb. No case on the phone. A thousand-dollar piece of glass and metal that he carries without a case. I asked him once if he worried about breaking it. He shrugged like it was nothing and said he’d get a new one if something happened to it. I didn’t think he’d break it, though. I thought the phone simply knew better than to dare slip from his grasp.
“The annulment paperwork. I was served this morning, on my way to work.”
“Fuck.” This is muttered straight into the receiver, but I get the impression he’s saying it to himself as opposed to me. “Payton, about that.” He sounds harassed, and I hate it. Vince never sounds hurried. He never sounds like he’s anything less than one hundred percent in control and I hate that I’m his speed bump, an interruption to his day. To his life. I’ve put him in this position, saddled with a pretend wife he didn’t ask for. I’m a husband predator. Targeting unsuspecting men for drunken shenanigans that end in vows of forever. That’s what I did, right? I saw him in the lobby at work, fell instantly in lust with him and then decided fate, my libido, and my love for instant marriage reality shows meant we had a shot at being together forever.
Thinking I could circumvent failure with random luck and lust. Thinking statistically we had as good a chance as anyone. Thinking I could use alcohol as my scapegoat.
Stupid.
I’m embarrassed. So embarrassed that he doesn’t feel the way I feel, because that’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? Saturday night I told him I was falling in love with him and not only did he not say it back, he questioned my pledge of love. What did he say? Are you? Do you? It didn’t bother me in the moment. It didn’t feel awkward when he simply smiled and fucked me into multiple orgasms as a response.
“It’s fine,” I interrupt him before he has a chance for a lengthy explanation. He’s not breaking up with me. At least, I don’t think he is. He can’t possibly be, we just had phone sex twelve hours ago. I think he’s just slowing us down. He’s busy and I’m a handful on the best of days.
Today is not my best of days. But still, I dig deep into my small vat of reasonableness.
“What do you mean it’s fine?” he asks and now his tone seems annoyed—with me. The word ‘fine’ is enunciated with more edge than I’m used to from Vince. Unless I’m imagining things. I do tend to run wild with my imagination and my reasonableness vat is closer to the size of a coffee cup at this moment. Could last night have been goodbye phone sex? God, that cannot be a thing can it? No one does that.
Then I hear him speaking to someone he’s with, the phone pulled just far enough away that it increases the background noise and lowers the volume of Vince’s voice, but I can still hear every word. “Are you still on the phone with Gwen? Have her hold. I need to talk to her when I’m done with this call,” is what he says.
Gwen? It takes me zero point zero two seconds to locate that name in my brain. Gwen is the name of his ex. How many women living in the Las Vegas area could possibly be named Gwen? It’s not that common. Or popular, Gwen. I hate you and your dumb name because my math-ing tells me that it’s likely this Gwen and his ex Gwen are the same person. This all just became so much ickier because why does he need to talk to Gwen about anything? Why does he even talk to Gwen at all?
“What did you mean by it’s fine, Payton?” Vince prompts because I’ve still not replied, having been thrown by his tone and my wayward thoughts.
“I meant that it’s fine, Vince. I meant that I get it. We did a drunk crazy thing, I know it’s not forever. We’re having a good time though, right?”
“A good time,” he repeats into the receiver and I can’t tell by his voice if it’s a statement, a question or an accusation.
“A great time?” I offer because I’m feeling him out, because I’m feeling confused by the events of the last couple of hours, by his tone, by everything. Because I’m at work and I’m trying to keep my voice low and this is all so weird. This vibe right now is throwing me for a loop because I’m not used to it. Things between us were so normal. Minus the impromptu wedding, me running out the next morning, the annulment paperwork that he brought over, then took back and never brought up again. Besides all that, super normal. So I’m not sure how to deal with this, with him, in this moment. “It’s okay, is all I meant. It’s fine. I understand.”
“What the hell is it that you think you understand, Payton?”
God. I don’t know! I don’t know what I think I understand anymore. And perfect timing, now my boss is standing next to my cube looking from the cell phone in my hand to her watch and back again. She points a thumb in the direction of the conference room. Right, I forgot we have a team meeting in… one minute.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell Vince. “We can talk about it when you get back.”
There’s a silence so long I’d wonder if he hung up except I can still hear the background noise on his end. He snaps, “Tell her to hold,” at someone in his vicinity.
“You are a whirlwind of chaos, Payton. You’re a goddamn tornado of pandemonium and disarray and I—” He cuts himself off with a harsh inhale. Then he blows it out on a long exhale and I imagine he’s rubbing two fingers across his forehead and shaking his head at my obnoxiousness. “We’ll talk when I get back. I’ve got to go.”
I know you do, Vince. Gwen is holding, after all. Gwen is Holding would make a great band name. A punky angsty band, specializing in teenage breakup songs.
“Try not to do anything impetuous or reckless today, if you can manage it,” he says by way of goodbye.
“Like marry a stranger?” I respond a bit sulkily because I am sulky. I’m on guard and confused and feeling every word that means the opposite of reasonable.
“Like that, yes,” he answers after a long pause. Then he ha
ngs up.
Okay then. I sigh as I push my chair back and stand, gathering my things for the department meeting. At the last minute I grab the annulment papers from my purse and slide them into the stack of papers I’m bringing to the meeting. These things are boring as hell, I might as well use the time to scan over the paperwork. Familiarize myself. Maybe calm down a little and decipher whether that entire crazy exchange really happened. Whether I overreacted and blew it out of proportion or whether I haven’t reacted enough. Like Gwen—what does she have to do with this? Probably nothing, right? But why does he speak to her? That’s annoying. Maybe old people talk to their exes but I don’t care for it. I cross my arms and huff while I try to look like I’m interested in this meeting.
There’s probably something really wrong with him anyway. He’s far too perfect to have just been hanging around, single, waiting for me to show up for thirty-seven years. Right? I’m a disaster and he’s perfect. And Jesus Christ, the things he does to me with his tongue. And those fingers. And his—well, I can’t even think about his penis right now because I’m at work and I have enough problems without spontaneously combusting into orgasm in the middle of this meeting. The point is, he’s probably super annoying in all sorts of ways I just haven’t figured out yet.
Probably.
So fucking annoying the way he brings groceries over. And cooks. And cleans up. And plays board games with me. And engages me in meaningful conversations before taking me to bed and doing all manner of filthy things to me until I come—always before he does. Yup. He’s a jerk. Women probably dump him all the time.
I heave an exasperated sigh until Mark elbows me, reminding me I’m in a meeting. I wiggle my pen around on my notepad, pretending to listen. I’m not a terrible employee, it’s just that we’re covering the same material that was sent via email two days ago. Maybe some people need to have the email read aloud to them. I do not. I’m an excellent reader, it’s one of my strengths.