“Alright. Well, dictate as much as you can, so you’re not overdoing it. Let someone else do the hard stuff. If you do that, maybe we can get a few more days out of this. I still have plenty of vacation on the books at work and can take the whole week off if I want to.” I said.
“Okay, precious. Let me get cleaned up, and we’ll put this plan in action. The sooner we get started, the sooner I’ll have you back in this bed, and the sooner I’ll be buried inside you.”
“I believe the plan was to take a nap,” I reminded him.
“Perhaps we should renegotiate the plan.”
“Go get cleaned up,” I said, swatting him with a pillow. “How does chicken salad for lunch sound to you?”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching his arms up and stretching his back. I admired the view of his muscles moving beneath his skin. Such a sexy bastard. Sometimes, I still couldn’t believe he was mine.
“Chicken salad would be perfect,” he said on a yawn. He stood pulling his lounge pants back up and heading toward the bathroom. After cleaning himself up, blew me kiss before making his way to his office down the hall.
I lay in bed for a moment, just languishing in my contentment and happiness that we seemed to be back on track after weeks of being disconnected. I’d had no idea how much we needed this time together. I really could not wait until his current deal was over and we could go back to being our normal selves.
My moment of reflection was broken by an angry shout from the back of the house.
“Mimi! Get in here!”
Startled, I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall. I skidded into his office to find him standing behind his desk glaring at me.
“What the hell happened to my desk? Everything is a mess. All of my papers are scattered, and my drawers are completely disorganized. My system is completely ruined. It will take forever to get everything back into place.”
“I’m sorry, Vance. I was in a panic when I found you outside, passed out in your car. The doors were locked and I didn’t have the spare key to open them and get you out. I came in here to find it, and in my urgency, must have disturbed everything. I didn’t mean to make a mess of everything, I was just so worried about you. The only thing on my mind was getting to you and making sure you were okay,” I explained.
He hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“Well in your haste, you made hours of work for me. Now our little plan for the day is ruined, because you were thoughtless when it came to my stuff. As usual.”
“What?” I blurted out, affronted and confused. I couldn’t believe he was accusing me of being insensitive toward him, when the only thing on my mind had been his welfare.
“Are you telling me that I should have put these stupid papers ahead of your safety?” I said, my voice rising in pitch and taking on a slightly shrill tone. “Because I’ll be honest with you. If it happened all over again, I’d do the same thing in a heartbeat. If I have to choose between your life and your stuff, I’ll choose you every single time. Your shit can be replaced, reorganized or whatever. You cannot.”
I crossed my arms in front of me, chin out, taking a defiant stance.
“Just get out, Mimi. Forget about lunch, forget about naps or dinner or anything else. I’ve got to fix your mess and get this work done before it costs me my shot at that partnership, or worse, my job. I should never have let you talk me into taking this time off. It’s not worth it.”
I took two stumbling steps backward as tears filled my eyes. I thought I had my Vance back, but it seemed as soon as he got anywhere near his work, this mean and now apparently cruel man was back. I didn’t know what to make of it. I looked at him in shock, wondering just who he was.
“Are you deaf now? Or just plain dumb? I said to. Get. Out.” He yelled with a wave of his arm toward the door.
I spun on my heel and fled the room, tears falling down my face with alarming speed. A little piece of my heart had broken off. After all the beautiful time we had just shared, he had gone and destroyed it all in the space of a few minutes. I couldn’t help thinking his work was killing us, and had no idea what to do about it.
Unable to remain in the house with him, I quickly dressed and hopped in my car. I drove around for a while, unsure of where to go. I thought about calling Grace, or one of the other girls, but I really didn’t want to see them while I was so upset. I didn’t want to admit that my brand new marriage was anything but happy. Besides, they were all probably at work. I needed to talk to someone, but there was only one other person I could think of and I wasn’t sure how appropriate he would be. Nevertheless, I found myself parked out in front of Justin’s house, just sitting there looking at it. It was only about two in the afternoon, so I’d expected him to be home working, but I didn’t see his motorcycle in the drive. He made his own hours, perhaps it wasn’t unusual that he wasn’t home at this time. I rested my head back against the seat and wondered what to do next. I didn’t want to get caught waiting outside his house for him and have him think I was some sort of stalker, but I really didn’t have a place to go. I didn’t want to go see my mom, since she would be able to tell something was wrong and I didn’t want to destroy her good opinion of Vance. She adored him, but she was fiercely protective and it wouldn’t take much for her to turn against him if she thought he was mistreating me. I was sure Vance and I would eventually smooth things over, and I wouldn’t want to hear her snarky comments about him for the duration over one small fight.
While I was contemplating what to do, the dilemma was resolved when Justin’s motorcycle came up the street and parked in the drive, with him attached to the seat. He pulled off his helmet and walked over to my car. He bent over and looked in the passenger window, simply raising a brow at me in question as I looked back at him. He looked at me expectantly, so I rolled down the window.
“The fuck you doin’ here, Peaches?” he asked looking at his watch. “At two in the afternoon? Don’t you have a job or something?”
“Not being at work is a long story. I’m here because Vance and I had a fight and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“Don’t you have girlfriends for this kind of shit?” he asked.
“I do, but they’re working. I don’t want to talk to them about this stuff anyway. They don’t know Vance like you do,” I said.
“So you think I’m going to give you some kind of insight into what that asshole is thinking, do you?”
“Maybe, I don’t really know. Please, can I come in?” I plead.
“Fine,” he sighed. “No point in leaving you outside here in the cold.”
I smiled weakly and got out of the car following behind him as he walked toward the house. He stopped at his bike and pulled a greasy looking bag out of one of his saddle packs. He motioned to it with his free hand.
“You had lunch yet?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, I was just about to make some, when Vance got angry. I left the house right after.”
“Well I have a couple sandwiches in here. You can have one if you’re hungry.”
We went inside and as I took off my coat and seated myself on one of the slouchy leather sofas in the living room, Justin plated two cheesesteak sandwiches and brought them out, setting one on the coffee table in front of me. He returned to the kitchen and brought back two Coronas, opening them with a bottle opener he had dangling from his key chain.
He took a seat next to me and said, “Dig in. You can tell me what happened while we eat.”
I recounted the events of the last few days between bites of my sandwich, beginning with Friday when Vance got angry with me for staying out past the time I had told him I’d be home, to the time I found him passed out in the car before Justin said anything.
“Was he drunk on any of these nights?” he asked.
“Not so far as I could tell. He was drinking the scotch on Friday, but he didn’t seem like he’d had too much. On Sunday morning, t
here was no smell of alcohol on him or anything. When I finally got him to wake up, he only seemed very disoriented and confused. Really out of it, like he was just exhausted. He did say he couldn’t remember how he got home. He had no idea why.”
Justin gave me an odd look but didn’t say anything, so I continued on with the events that followed. I explained talking him into taking some time off and resting. I went through the next two days and how he seemed to be like his old self again, until this afternoon.
“So,” Justin begins, “he just got in the vicinity of his work and turned into insta-dick again?”
“That’s about right. I think all the stress from that job is just killing him. It’s unhealthy and it’s turning him into someone I don’t know,” I said.
“From everything you’ve just told me, it’s someone I don’t know, either.” He sighed and shook his head, slowly stroking his goatee with one hand. “I’ve known Vance for twenty years, Peaches, and I’ve never heard him talk to anyone like that before. The fact that he’s saying these things to you of all people, someone I know he loves more than anyone in the world, I… there’s no explanation for it.”
“Let me ask you something,” I said as a thought occurred to me. “How much time have you spent around him with his previous girlfriends?”
He paused to think for a while. “Vance never brought women around too much. He had a few that we met, don’t get me wrong, but I never got the feeling that they were serious. He was affectionate with them but only to a point. He wasn’t rude to them or mean to them, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for, but like I said, he didn’t bring them around that often.”
I nod, wondering if there were something to that.
“I can see what you’re thinking. That maybe he treats his women differently than other people in his life.”
“It’s possible, don’t you think?” I asked. “There are countless stories of women who are abused and nobody has any clue about it. The guy seems like this great person, an upstanding citizen to everyone else, but behind closed doors, he’s another man entirely.”
Justin stiffened. “Has he hurt you, Mimi?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Just my feelings. It’s that he’s getting meaner. He called me dumb today.”
“Whoa now. I really can’t imagine that. I want to say it’s just the stress from work but that’s going way too far.” He rested his elbows on his knees as he ran a hand over his shaved head, clearly frustrated by the thought of his best friend’s behavior. “I know this is going to sound really lame, but you two should go on a vacation once this deal is over. Maybe then you can talk him into switching firms. If he makes partner at this place, the pressure on him is only going to get more intense, and that won’t be good for either of you,” he said.
I nodded in agreement. “That’s my fear, too. He said this deal would be over in a week or two. Yesterday we talked about taking a trip to Tahoe. Perhaps then I can approach the subject of making a change. Maybe he’ll be receptive to it, assuming he still wants to go and doesn’t stay angry with me.”
“I think once he cools down, he’ll be fine. Isn’t that how he’s been ever since this started?”
“Yes,” I confirmed, a seed of hope beginning to grow in my chest. Although he’d been mercurial, he would eventually calm down and go back to his usual self. I took this as evidence it was just the stress getting to him. When we had more time to spend together, things would go back to normal.
“Thanks, Justin. You’ve helped me realize that it mostly likely is just the stress getting to him. I was beginning to think it was something more serious. I just have to find a way to convince him to make a change. To show him that we can’t continue on this way because it’s hurting us too much.”
Justin gave me a hug. “Sure thing, Peaches. I know how happy you make Vance. If he really knew how this was making you feel, he wouldn’t do it. He’s just so blinded by his ambition at work right now, he can’t see what it’s doing to him. We’ve just got to give the man a little change in perspective. Once you see him through this patch at work and get him out of town, you use every dirty trick you can to make him realize that what you have is worth more than any job can offer him. My suggestion is lots and lots of blow jobs.”
I slugged him in the shoulder. “My god. You are a bigger pervert than he is.”
“Those are the most persuasive words in man-speak, Peaches. That’s some wisdom, right there.”
“Thanks, Justin.” I said with a big grin.
“Now, I think I’ve laid enough knowledge on you for one day. I don’t expect you’re in a hurry to get home just yet, though. You want another beer? You can kick back, relax and watch a movie. I have some work I need to finish up, but you’re free to make yourself at home for as long as you like.”
“I think I will, if you don’t mind. I can’t thank you enough for listening and everything. You really are an awesome guy.”
“Don’t let it get out, darlin’. You’ll ruin my reputation as a badass. Beers are in the fridge. Help yourself,” he said as he swaggered off to his home office.
Chapter Twelve
I awoke to a hand shaking my shoulder. “Mimi, wake up, darlin’.” You fell asleep.”
I immediately sat up, rubbing my eyes. “I’m sorry, Justin. I just drifted off. What time is it?” I asked, looking around. It was dark outside the picture window in the living room, and I had a sudden sense of disorientation. It could have been eight p.m. or three a.m. and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
“It’s only about six-thirty. I would have checked on you earlier, but I got caught up in the project I was working on. You should be getting home though. I’m sure Vance has cooled down by now and is probably wondering where you are,” he said.
“You’re right. He’s probably worried, since I didn’t leave a note or anything,” I said, thinking of how he acted when I didn’t call to let him know I’d be late. I dug my phone out my purse to check to see if he’d left me any messages, but my phone was blank. Maybe he hadn’t cooled off yet after all. In any case, it was time to get home. He was sure to be hungry, and I was determined he’d have another home cooked meal. Especially since I didn’t get to make him lunch.
I shouldered my bag, gave Justin a quick hug and dashed out to my car. I made it home in no time, but the house was dark and Vance’s car was missing from the drive. I went through the house, flicking on lights as I went. I looked for a note, but didn’t find anything anywhere. When I got to his office, I noticed the box of files was missing and my heart deflated. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where he was. He had gone to the office. There was no telling when he’d be home now.
I went ahead with my plan to cook him a nice meal, just to make myself feel better. I made sirloin steaks with baked potatoes and spinach on the side. I left a plate for him in the oven, while I sat at our kitchen table all alone, eating my food and wondering how to turn things around. I could only hope things would work out as I had hoped after my conversation with Justin. Once this deal was over, and I got him away from all this pressure, things would be fine.
After I finished eating, I cleaned up the dishes, left a note on the refrigerator for Vance to let him know dinner was waiting for him in the oven and went to bed for the night.
I never heard Vance come home that night, but I knew he’d been there because his suit was laying across the foot of the bed when I awoke the next morning and there was still a fog across the mirror in the bathroom from his shower. I decided I would go back to work that day as well, since it seemed our time together was over. I went to the kitchen to make my morning cup of coffee and to my horror, I found his plate from the night before, turned over in the middle of the floor, food splattered everywhere.
Two weeks passed much as they had before “the incident” as I was coming to call it in my head. We almost never saw each other, with Vance leaving before I woke in the morning and coming home after I went to bed at night. Every afternoon, before I lef
t work, I sent a text message to see if he wanted me to bring dinner like we had planned while he had been off. He always responded that he was too busy that day, but maybe the next. It never happened.
One Friday evening just before Christmas, Vance came home from work early in an amazingly good mood, a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. I was in the kitchen going over cookbooks trying to plan a menu for Christmas dinner. I had invited both of our mothers to spend the holiday with us, and was looking forward to a picture perfect evening filled with family and love. Very Norman Rockwell.
Vance dropped his burdens on the table and scooped me up into his arms, twirling me around the kitchen. I couldn’t help but laugh at his exuberance.
“What’s gotten into you?” I exclaimed as he twirled me around a few more times.
He stopped and gave me a warm, smacking kiss. I reached up with my fingertips and touched my lips. It was the first time he had shown me any affection since that last day he was off work.
I stared at him, wide eyed as he smiled down at me, his eyes practically glowing with excitement.
“It’s over!” he exclaimed. “We closed on the deal today! All those weeks of hell are finally over.”
I gasped in disbelief at first, and then as the realization of what that meant soaked into my brain, I jumped into his arms.
“Finally, I get my husband back!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
I pulled back and beamed at him. We could go back to our normal, happy lives. We could take that trip to Lake Tahoe and I could convince him that this job was wrong for us and that he needed to find something that allowed us to put our marriage first.
“You haven’t even heard the best part yet, Mimi.” He said, grabbing my upper arms and shaking me slightly in his excitement.
“What, what?” I cried, his enthusiasm infecting me like an airborne virus.
Shattered Perfection (The Perfection Series Book 1) Page 18