Plus, I keep myself occupied. In addition to working out with Meg, I read at least one romance novel a day and I have a nice little side business on Etsy, selling homemade soap and candles. I'd prefer to bake cakes and try to sell them here in town, but Roger says we can really use the side money I make, and he's not much for taking risks. So I keep doing what I'm doing.
I check the timer and peek in the oven, when the computer dings a new notification in the den, the sound of a new Facebook message. Roger doesn't usually leave his Facebook open, but I shrug it off. Besides, I'm not supposed to touch that computer. Roger likes his privacy, and last year he gave me my own laptop.
But as I'm pouring myself a tall glass of sweet tea, there's another message, and then another. And for some reason, curiosity gets the best of me.
Carrying my iced tea, the glass already slippery with condensation in this Tennessee summer heat, I saunter into the den. It's big but modest. It reminds me of Roger's parents' place. After all, the furniture is mostly theirs. The green shag-style carpeting is tacky and I hate it, but we don't have the money to replace it. Besides, I'd rather do the kitchen first.
I sit down on the barbershop-style chair in front of our antique wooden desk, and shake the computer mouse to wake the computer. I pull up Google Chrome, and click to the tab flashing with a new Facebook message on Roger's account.
When I read the name in the message box, I frown. It's from a "Sandra Lawrence." But we don't have any friends by that name, and she's definitely not a resident of Maple Ridge. I'm pretty sure I've heard the names of every one of our town's 3000 or so residents, even if I don't know them personally.
I click into the message.
Roger u leaving soon?
You there?
I frown, and I feel a knot starting to tie itself in my stomach. Roger's never given me any reason to believe he's anything other than honest, but I don't like the look of this. I scroll up to older messages.
Thank u for last nite, can't wait for the weekend x
The knot in my stomach explodes into a fireball. I scroll up further, and as I read through Roger and Sandra's messages, I find everything that I hoped I would never find between my husband and another woman.
Naked pictures. Made-up business trips. Weeknight dates when he told me he was working late at the office.
The soap opera playing on the television fades to a blur in the back of my mind, and my whole body starts to shake. I push the iced tea away from me on the desk, no longer thirsty.
My entire world has gone up in flames in the span of five minutes. This life with Roger, this life that I've given up all my hopes and dreams to pursue—it's a lie.
It's all a lie. And my honest, forthright, moral husband, is really none of those things at all. He's a lying cheater.
Wiping a tear off my cheek with my sleeve, I stumble back into the kitchen and realize the egg timer is beeping. The cake is done.
Roger's birthday cake.
Since I don't know what else to do, I take the cake out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack on the kitchen counter. Then I take a seat, fold my arms on the table, and bury my face in my arms.
Four, maybe five minutes later, the front door opens. I hear Roger set down his briefcase and keys.
"Tess, honey, I'm home," he calls from the den, and his footsteps get louder as he approaches the kitchen.
I lift my head up as he enters. There he is, in his pressed blue suit, smiling a fake smile. We were supposed to spend the evening together for his birthday, before his 10:30pm business flight. But now, thanks to his Facebook chat history, I know exactly what was going to happen.
He was going to catch a flight to Honolulu with Sandra.
He was going to come home and kiss me, eat the birthday cake I baked for him with a straight face, and then fly to Hawaii with his side piece. All while continuing to tell me that our money is tight.
All while I continue working my ass off selling scented soap and candles on Etsy, just so he can work a little less overtime in the office.
"Overtime." What a joke.
I grab the cake off the counter as he approaches, and his big fake smile fades as he reads the expression on my face.
"What's wrong, buttercup?" he asks. His hands settle on my shoulders, and I freeze up like a corpse in winter soil. I feel physically sick to my stomach.
"Did you make this for me?" he asks in a baby-talk voice. "Did you bake a cake for me before I go on my trip?"
I hold the cake rack in my hands, frozen. The chocolate smells delicious, but I couldn't eat a crumb of it right now. I'd planned to have the cake frosted and candles lit when he walked in the room. Instead, the candles lay unopened next to a box of matches on the table.
"H-happy," I say, my voice shaking. And then everything hits me for real. Roger's smile fades as I burst into tears, my salty teardrops falling onto the cake with soft thuds.
"Happy birthday, you asshole," I manage to sputter. Then I shove the cake in his face, and he stumbles backward, shocked. He wipes the cake out of his eyes, his fingers leaving shiny, greasy trails on his cheeks.
"Tess, what… in the hell?" he says, taken aback.
"Stay away from me," I say, my face streaked with salty tears. "I know everything. How could you?"
He stares at me like an ox, a dumbfounded look on his face.
Right then, another Facebook notification goes off in the den. The timing couldn't be any more perfect. And then Roger has his "oh-shit" moment, his eyes bulging.
"I'm leaving," I say. "I'm leaving tonight, and we're finished." I storm toward the exit, but he blocks my trajectory, his eyes pleading.
"Wait," he begs, "This isn't what it looks like." I try to swoop around him, but he catches me by the shoulders.
I recoil, shrugging away from him. "Keep your hands off me," I say, slapping them away. "You made a promise. A vow. There's no coming back from that."
"I can explain," he says.
"No," I say. "You can't. And you'll never get the chance."
And in one horrible afternoon, my marriage comes to its conclusion. I file divorce papers the very next day.
A couple weeks later, I sit in an unfurnished apartment. I'm on the parquet wood flooring, cardboard boxes surrounding me. All my stuff from Roger's place. The apartment feels cookie-cutter, cold, and nothing like home. The single ceiling light isn't enough to really light the place after the sun goes down, and it casts a sickly yellow glow against the apartment walls.
Fortunately, I had enough money in my savings account to move out on my own. If there's one thing I can feel good about, it's that I didn't let Roger weasel his way out of this. Didn't listen to his fake explanations, his excuses. For days after I moved out of the house, he didn't stop blowing up my phones with texts and calls. It was sickening how he tried to explain everything away, how he tried to lie to me and tell me that nothing was really happening. And after he gave up on the excuses and lies, it was pathetic how he begged me to stay.
I don't feel like I can ever trust a man again.
Right now, I have to focus on unpacking and keeping my Etsy customers happy. As much as I'm tempted to sit around feeling sorry for myself and eating Chef Boyardee out of a can in my underwear, I won't do it. I've grieved enough for my marriage in the last couple weeks, and now I'm going to be strong and make the best I can out of the future.
Exhausted, I rise off the floor and navigate my way through the maze of boxes toward my new apartment's small kitchenette. I've only got a few things in the fridge. Tonight is going to be a PB&J sandwich and maybe a glass of milk. Cooking is normally my pleasure and my escape, but I'm not even interested in it right now.
For the first time in my adult life, I'm completely responsible for myself, and there's no one to take care of me.
I have a hard choice to make, now that my life as I knew it is over.
I can upend everything. Take out student loans and go into debt, and finally go to culinary school, the first step tow
ard opening my own restaurant.
Or, I can play it safe and keep paying the bills with my Etsy business.
The choice nags at me as I spread chunky peanut butter and cherry jelly on two slabs of white bread.
I'm 26 years old. I'm ready for a change. But is it too late to start over?
2
Hunter
I twist my bike's throttle, thundering into the open road ahead, savoring the feeling of the warm night air rushing past me. I'm wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeve flannel shirt that covers my tattooed arms, and a pair of goggles. My one duffel bag, which contains all of my worldly possessions, sits strapped to the bike behind me.
No riding jacket, no Kevlar pants, no armor, no helmet. After eight years of service in the Navy, including six long, dangerous years deployed as a SEAL, I'm not fucking scared of a little bike ride.
Shit, even if I wreck, who'd miss me? My mom ran away when I was just a kid. The only person who ever gave a damn about me was my old man, and him getting killed in a raid in Somalia was the reason I joined the SEALs in the first place.
When I left Maple Ridge, I was just a stupid kid who thought he was tough shit. The operative word being "stupid." I thought joining the Navy was my patriotic duty, my way to avenge my old man's death and find glory. I didn't know what tough was.
What I got was a hard-knock education in the world and in war. I don't regret a fucking minute of it, because it made me the man I am today. But there's nothing glorious about war. War is war. It never changes. And it taught me you better hang on to what you got here and now, because tomorrow it could all be gone in an instant.
So, I maybe got one regret. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Tess Cassidy, the girl I skipped town on so long ago. That firecracker personality, those curves that went on for days, those gorgeous, round tits that I could hardly keep my eyes and hands off of. Shit, that whole last year of high school, I think I fucked her more than I've fucked every other woman in the last 8 years combined. And I'd do it all over again a thousand times.
And back then, she was more than just a hot-as-fuck plaything. She was the only girl who ever made me want more.
Of course, that's a long time in the past now.
And word got to me that she married some white-collar asshole. Last I heard of her and tightey-whitey, they were shacked up together in the suburbs.
She's out of sight, out of mind, and won't cause me any fucking sweat while I'm here. I won't even have to think about her. I'm going in, handling my shit, and then getting the hell out. Easy enough, right?
I'd probably fucking tear tightey-whitey's organs out of his body if I saw him with Tess, but hey. I hope they're real happy together. Really.
Now, it's just me on my own. And that's the way I fucking want it. No one to bother me. My plan is to get to Maple Ridge, take care of old business, then ride this bike up to Alaska where no one can find me for the next few years. A long-needed break after my military service.
I squeeze my legs against the beast beneath me. It responds well to each adjustment of the throttle, brimming with power. It's the kind of bike that gives a man an extra edge of confidence out here on the open road. The highway is empty of other vehicles right now. It's just me, the road lights, and the walls of green on either side of the road, rushing past me as my bike hums faithfully between my legs.
As I round the big bend on US-456, the Maple Ridge exit comes into view, and memories flood into my mind like water surging past a dam. I push on my bike's handlebars, cross-steering to take the gentle, sloping turn into the exit.
I need a fucking drink, so I head to Red Lion Tavern. The town's one and only bar.
Time to see which of my old buddies are still in this little town, and to find out what I've missed these past eight years.
The Red Lion is dark and damp, tiny and crowded like a cave. Rows of liquor bottles stand behind the counter. Vodkas, gins, and whiskeys. The aged, varnished wooden counter is scratched and swollen from absorbing decades of abuse and gallons of spilled liquor. Patrons huddle around square tables, the room buzzing with conversation. The joint is well-worn like a good dive bar should be. Frankly, it's a real shithole, exactly the way I remember from when I used to be a delivery boy.
Just my kind of place.
Eddie Valenzuela recognizes me first, and he claps me on the back as I sit on one of the bar stools.
"Eight years. You motherfucker," he says, grinning at me.
I can't help grinning back when I realize who it he is. One of my best buds from high school. We caused huge mayhem together, including our all-time best prank: disassembling the principal's VW Bug and re-assembling it in the lobby of the administrative building, all in one afternoon. Nearly got expelled for that, but it was worth it.
I set down my Guinness and rise to meet Eddie with a bear hug. "I'll be damned," I say, grinning. "You handsome son of a bitch." Eddie's turned from a gangly kid into a burly, good-looking brick wall with thick, buzzed black hair. It's like hugging a grizzly. "How you been, man?"
His grin cracks even wider, and his jaw looks completely unhinged. "Opened up a Chinese joint down at the Valley Strip Mall," he says. "Got married to a sweet young thing straight out of Asia, and we opened up shop."
I chuckle to myself. Eddie and political correctness don't go hand-in-hand.
"Good for you, man," I say. "She here?"
"No, bro. She's working at the shop."
I roll my eyes. "And you're getting wasted at the bar."
"Man, I busted my ass all day today, and all this week. Been slaving over beef and broccoli and—"
"Relax," I say, winking at Eddie. "Busting your balls, you big softie."
Eddie roars with laughter and his face reddens. "Man, you don't know shit about marriage. I get so much hen pecking from her, bro, I'm literally on edge all the time." I smirk. Eddie turns to face the room, slinging his arm around my shoulder. "Yo, everybody," he bellows, "Look who's back!"
All heads swivel to us, and a wave of excitement ripples through the room. "Holy shit. Thorne's back!" someone exclaims, and all of the sudden I'm surrounded by people chatting me up, trying to buy me drinks.
Suddenly everybody wants attention from the guy who left as a kid and came back as a ripped, rugged, tattooed Navy SEAL veteran. The women want me, the men want to be me. Go fucking figure. It reminds me why I'm getting the fuck out of here as soon as possible, and going to Alaska where nobody can bother me.
Me, Eddie, and about a dozen other people are about to put down a round of Irish car bombs when a blonde broad snakes her way into the circle of people around me.
"Damn, honey," she says, "Aren't you something?" She presses her tits up against my shoulder. She's skinny, her face caked in makeup, her chest unnaturally big. All the guys at the bar can't keep their eyes off her and she obviously thrives on attention.
She's exactly the type I'd have ogled back when I was a complete dumbass middle-schooler jacking off to Sears catalogs. Before I met Tess and discovered that real women have curves.
I study her features, trying to put a name to her face. She has some big fucking tits underneath that skintight black dress, but my cock is out of the office. It doesn't so much as fucking stir. Unfortunately for blondie, her matchstick body just doesn't do shit for me.
My eyes must be glassing over, because she gives me a head-wiggling "is anybody home" look. "Don't you remember me?" she says. "Brooke?"
Holy shit. As soon as she says her name, I place her. She was in my home room in high school, always trying to play footsie with me. And always annoying the fuck out of me.
"Oh wow, Brooke," I say, trying to feign some excitement for the sake of politeness. I mean, I'm not a fucking savage who hurts people's feelings on purpose. "Long time no see."
She puts on a smile. "You came back to see me, huh?" She winks. Eddie roars with laughter, setting off a wave of guffawing and wolf-whistling among the crowd surrounding me.
I smile but I pull back, putt
ing some breathing room between us. "I'm seeing you now, aren't I?" I say. I know I'm being patronizing, but honestly, I just don't give much of a fuck. I definitely did not come back to Maple Ridge to see Brooke whoever-the-fuck.
"Burn!" quips Tom Fairing from the crowd. Tom was a high school jock. Now he's thin up top and thick down around the waist and way past his prime, and probably wishes Brooke was hanging off his arm right now. Me, I just want her to beat it already. Brooke shoots him a dirty look.
"Huh," she says, pouting, "Well you were always—"
Her voices fades out as I catch a familiar face in the corner of my eye.
Holy fucking shit.
In walks the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen in my entire life. I almost drop my shot of Bailey's all over my fucking dick, which is hardening in my jeans.
It's her. Tess Cassidy. She's wearing a western-style lace shirt, tucked into bright blue jeans, tucked into a pair of black cowboy boots. She's just as gorgeous as the day I left eight years ago. I've been all over the world, and there's still not another damn woman on this planet who has the same effect on me. She beelines straight for a corner booth, barely glancing at the crowd of bar patrons surrounding me at the counter. She sits at an empty booth in the corner and withdraws a book from her purse.
My dick suddenly remembers it's alive. Brooke's pouty speech crackles into background static. All my senses recalibrate on Tess, and it's suddenly impossible to think about anything else.
She hasn't noticed me at the bar yet. At least I don't think. Good thing, too, because if I stood up right now, I'd probably knock everyone off their barstools with my raging hard cock.
I spread my legs on my stool, giving my engorged unit some extra space. I reach down to make an adjustment, and Eddie elbows me in the side. A few people cock their eyebrows, and Brooke's eyes drop down to my package.
I cough awkwardly, and Eddie elbows me in the side. "S'matter with you? You got crabs on your dick back in Iraq?" The bar howls with laughter and I chuckle. I guess us guys aren't as stealthy as we think when we make adjustments.
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