by JA Huss
But first, the video.
“Smile,” I say. “We’re rolling.”
I do fuck her later. But only after I get a nice point-of-view video of her sucking my dick. Only after I gag her with it. Only after I come on her face. Only after I email all that beautiful footage to her husband.
And after that I send her home to deal with the consequences.
I have to admit—the whole Make My Husband Jealous game isn’t one I’ve done before. Never played one myself. Never facilitated one for someone else. Never even thought about it, actually.
I’m calling this game… the Divorce.
Which makes me laugh.
I know, I’m a heartless asshole, but I’m not the one who started this. I was perfectly willing to walk away from them. I was more than happy to let them live their lives without me.
They started this.
My phone rings so I reach over and pluck it off the bedside table. It can only be one person.
“Yes,” I say.
“Is this how you’re going to play?” Alexander growls at me. “Dirty?”
I laugh again. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“She told you then?”
“Didn’t you talk to her?”
“She’s with you.”
“No,” I say. “I sent her away about an hour ago.”
“She… she never came home,” he says.
I sit up in bed. “Well, where the fuck would she go?”
“I dunno.” And when he says that I can picture him. Like perfectly in my mind’s eye. The way he was back in LA. Younger, but really no different. He was always one of those broody assholes. Always aloof, and distant, and dark. “We’re… we’re not really close these days, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I swing my legs out of bed and put him on speaker as I find a pair of jeans and pull them on. “Well, there has to be some fucking place she’d go. A friend’s house? A hotel? Does she disappear often when you two play this fucked-up game?”
“It’s not like this is typical, Jordan. I don’t know. She’s never not come back before.”
“What do you mean? What’s that mean? Come back? Why does she leave?” For a second I picture him hitting her. Being violent and scaring her.
“We argue,” he says. “A lot. You know we were separated.”
“What kind of arguments?” I ask. “Violent ones?”
“No,” he says. And I believe him. Because there’s no defensiveness in that denial. No incredulous how-dare-you-accuse-me going on here. It’s just kinda sad. “I called her,” he says. “Before I called you. Just to see if she was coming home tonight. I think she’s got her phone turned off because it went straight to voicemail.”
“Hold on,” I say, pressing the screen of my phone so I can put him on hold and make another call. I find her contact, press it, and yup. Sure enough, it goes straight to voicemail.
I end the call and get Alexander back. “Alexander,” I say. “Where the fuck would she go?”
“I dunno… maybe a hotel?”
“What kind of hotel? Four Seasons kind of hotel? Or Motel 6 kind of hotel?”
There’s a difference and it’s got nothing to do with the cost of the rooms or service at the front desk. Four Seasons is an I’m-staying-put hotel. Motel 6 is an I’m-getting-the-fuck-out-of-here hotel.
“Something luxury. I guess.”
I look at the clock and pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s two-fifteen AM. “I have to be in court tomorrow at eight-thirty. I don’t have time to go looking for your wife. Now fucking think harder. Where the hell is she? Because I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know where she is.”
“I’m surprised you even care.”
“Don’t be an asshole. Of course I care. She’s not… she’s not nobody to me. OK? I’m only doing this because you two fucked-up assholes wanted it. And you have something I want. It’s a goddamned business deal, Alexander. That’s all. And when I get what I want I’ll leave you two. Disappear just like I did back in LA.”
“You mean leave us to pick up the pieces.”
I huff out a small laugh. But it dies pretty quick. “I said I was sorry for that. OK? And besides, I wasn’t the one who started this all up again. I walked away, you two came back.”
“Hold on,” he says. “I think she’s home.” And then I hear him call out, “August!”
And from some distance away, I hear her soft voice call back. “It’s me.”
“OK,” Alexander says. “She’s here. Go back to sleep.”
And then he ends the call.
There is no sleep to be had.
Not a wink.
So I get up early—like fucking four-thirty—and take a shower to wash her scent off me.
But the whole time, like from the moment he hung up on me to this moment right here, I’m thinking about all this.
Did they plan that? Was that Alexander’s counter-move? Did I just take a knight and lose a bishop?
What kind of game are they really playing?
All I know is it’s two against one here.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Bartos vs the state of Jordan Wells’ mind.
Which kinda makes me laugh. Because it’s stupid. But also because that’s how it feels. Like I’m on trial here. Like this is more than a game to be won, but a do-or-die last-chance attempt to avoid the death penalty.
I wish I knew their motive. Why they’re putting so much effort into this little scheme. How could me tearing them apart possibly save them?
And they have to know. They have to know that if they get me onboard, if I ever do really start playing for real, they’re never going to win.
I mean, I’m calling it the Divorce Game for a reason. Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen to them.
I get dressed, skip breakfast, and go to work early, stopping by my office first, before I have to be in court.
Today isn’t too difficult as far as work goes, which is good because I’m very distracted.
I just can’t get the idea that they’re setting me up out of my mind. Like… all this bullshit about them loving me is just that. Bullshit. And they’re actually holding that grudge even tighter now than they were before. This is some elaborate plan to take me down from the inside.
That’s how I’d do it. That’s how I’d ruin someone’s life. From the inside.
And look, both of them went from not-even-friends to instant lovers in the span of three weeks.
I’m in court until noon. I meet with three clients and have lunch afterward with my father—I texted Alexander during a break in the morning letting him know so he didn’t just show up at my fucking office.
“So what are you working on?” my father asks.
We’re eating lunch at his club. No, not a sex club. Just a regular private eating place, I guess. I mean, if we were down in Greenwood Village it’d be a proper country club. With a golf course and riding stables. Tennis and racquetball courts. Shit like that. But this is downtown Denver so it’s basically like a… you know, one of those really nice first-class airport lounges.
They have lots of leather couches and massive chairs with nailhead details. There’s a bar on one end and a buffet of snacks and non-alcoholic drinks on the other. They have a full menu, but it’s not a restaurant. Not exactly.
It’s just a club. A very boring one. But it’s the only one I have right now.
“Nothing very interesting,” I say, studying him carefully. “I got a woman facing a felony trespass charge that will probably get dropped down to a misdemeanor. One asshole who just got his sixth DUI and who totally deserves to go to jail for that, but I took it anyway because his father works for the governor and”—I hold out my hands, palms up—“what choice do I have? And then I have this other asshole. A professor at CU who got caught doing the dirty with a student and is about to lose his tenure. The usual,” I say, trying not to sigh. “How about you?”
“Swamped,” my dad says. But he’s smiling. “Totally
and utterly swamped.”
“And you love it,” I say.
“You know I do.”
I worry about him. He had a heart attack last year. We really thought he was gonna die. Triple bypass surgery and three months of recovery later and he was back in the office. My mother protested, as did his doctors, but you know my father.
“You should slow down,” I say.
“Why? So I can die bored?” He smiles at his joke.
“Take a vacation,” I say. “Go somewhere nice.”
“I’ve been everywhere nice.”
“Then go somewhere shitty.”
“Son, I’ve seen what I’ve needed to see. Now I just want to do what I was meant to do.”
Which means work. Being a lawyer was always a calling for him. Like the priesthood. No, that’s a bad example. Like… a soldier. Yeah. Like a soldier. He’s part of the army of justice.
I think he’s actually used that metaphor.
Law was never my calling, it was just my inheritance. He wanted me to be a lawyer so I became a lawyer. I don’t hate it. I don’t wish I’d chosen something else. Not really. What else would I do?
I’m just… “I hear you,” I say, replying to his statement. “Sometimes I feel like that too. And I’m only thirty-one.”
“You are the one who should take some time off to see things. I never spent so much time stateside when I was your age. I was always off doing things.”
By things he means Peace Corps and shit like that. Volunteer things. Good works.
“In fact, by the time you were born your mother and I were tired of traveling. Which is why we didn’t take you many places when you were young. I think that’s why you don’t have an interest in it now.”
That’s not why. But I don’t say that. I never followed in his humanitarian footsteps because… well, I’m selfish. I grew up in the Country Club neighborhood surrounded by other Country Club brats, went to Country Club private schools, and played on Country Club sports teams.
“I saw Chella Walcott the other day,” my father says.
Just hearing her name come out of his mouth kinda startles me. “She’s Baldwin now,” I say, just out of habit. “She got married to Smith Baldwin.”
My father nods, like he knew this but can’t quite get the name right. “Now that girl, she did things as a youngster. Her parents took her all over the world.”
I almost laugh. Because yeah, she did do all kinds of good works as a child. And it fucked with her head so bad, she ended up in a quad relationship with Smith, Bric, and Quin at Turning Point Club trying to put it behind her.
“So sad about her father. Did they ever figure out what happened to him?”
“They found his body up in the mountains,” I say. Without emotion. Which should make me pause and reflect on what kind of man I am, because I was the one who had him killed. But it doesn’t. Senator Walcott was a truly evil motherfucker. Taking him down was the least I could do for Chella.
And that reminds me of the check Smith slipped me. He gave me a million dollars.
One. Million. Dollars.
I didn’t cash it. I’m not going to cash it. I don’t even know how to begin explaining that money to my accountant. Besides, I didn’t have the senator killed because I wanted to profit from it. He just needed to die.
That thought makes me look at my own father. Who is still talking about Chella.
He doesn’t need to die. I don’t want him to die. He’s one of the good ones. He’s someone who came into this life with more than he should and used it to make a difference. He’s kinda like Smith, I decide. Ironic as that is.
And I am nothing at all like either of them.
“So…” My father starts to change the subject. I wince a little, wondering what he’s going to say. Maybe something about the games I’m playing. Maybe something about how distracted I’ve been lately. Maybe something about—
“Alexander Bartos,” he says.
“What?” I wasn’t ready for that.
“He comes to see you often. What’s going on with him? Is he in trouble?”
“Sorta,” I say, sighing. “He and his wife are…” I shrug. Not that I’d tell him the truth, but I don’t even have it in me to lie right now.
“Another divorce?” My father is frowning right now.
“What?” I ask again.
“That couple you had in your office about a month back. You were doing a divorce for them?”
“Oh,” I say, remembering my lie about Lawton Ayers and Oaklee Ryan. “No, those two are actually back together.”
“I knew they would be,” my father says, little gleam in his eye. “So… what’s going on with this Bartos man?”
“Just a favor. That’s all. Nothing important.”
“Are you thinking of going into marital law?” he asks.
I actually laugh out loud at that. “Absolutely not. It’s just a favor.”
“Are they divorcing?”
“They’re not sure yet. I’m just…” What the fuck am I doing? “I’m just, you know, filling him in on all his options. That’s all.”
“Well, I’m very happy you had time to have lunch with me today.”
“Of course, Dad.” I smile at him. “Alexander Bartos can fuck off. I always have time for you.”
I mean that. Like there’s no word strong enough to stress how much I mean that.
“I went to the doctors last week.”
“Oh?” I say. And suddenly my heart is beating too fast.
“Yes… there’s… a small problem.”
“What kind of problem?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet. I go in for more tests tomorrow.”
My world is suddenly small. Sound stops. I look at him as my vision becomes like a tunnel and everything else fades to black around the edges.
When I get home after work Augustine’s car is parked on the street in front of my stupid mansion. I ignore her as I wait for the gate to open and pull in the driveway. But she pulls in after me.
We get out of our cars at the same time. Staring at each other.
This morning all I was thinking about was winning their stupid game.
But tonight… all I want to do is forget.
So I say, “Wanna come inside?”
And she says, “Yes, thank you.”
I wave her into the foyer. We don’t even get three steps inside—we barely manage to close the front door—before we are tugging on each other’s clothes.
She wants to be fucked.
I want to forget this day ever happened.
Turns out fucking is a good way to do that.
She’s on her knees. I bend her over the couch. I press her back up against the window again. I fuck her on the stairs, and in the office bathroom, and then again in the bed.
I don’t make her leave this time. We fall asleep holding each other. Her dreaming about… I don’t know. Saving her marriage, I guess.
Me having a nightmare about what the world will look like without my father in it.
In the morning she’s already gone when I wake up. And the surprising thing about that moment, the one when I realize I’m in bed alone when I didn’t go to sleep that way… isn’t that I’m alone.
It’s that I slept at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I spend the morning trying to convince myself everything is fine. I watch my father leave for his doctor’s appointment around ten-thirty, then take clients, then wait.
I’m just not sure what I’m waiting for.
My father? To come back from the doctor’s?
He won’t have any news. It’s just tests. They don’t tell you anything when you have tests.
But at noon—exactly noon—Eileen buzzes my phone. “Mr. Bartos is here to see you, Jordan.”
“Send him in,” I say, pressing the intercom button and then releasing it.
He knocks on the closed door, then enters, like he took a lesson from my father. He’s wearing a very nice charcoal-gray su
it with a silver tie. His sandy blond hair is just the right amount of messy and his jaw is unshaven.
He looks like every bit the part he’s playing. Successful, handsome, deviant.
“Come on in,” I say, leaning back in my chair to appear casual. But the truth is… I have no interest in this game they’re playing right now.
Alexander leaves the door open, unbuttons his suit coat as he walks across my office, and takes a seat in the left-hand chair in front of my desk. He steeples his fingers under his chin, staring at me. Our eyes meet, hold there, then both of us look away at the same moment.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Augustine didn’t come home last night.”
“No shit. She was at my house.”
“Ah,” he says, playing coy.
“You knew that,” I say. Irritated. Suddenly everything about him irritates me. And not in the usual way, either. “So just stop playing.”
“She wants me to invite you to dinner tonight.”
“I don’t think so, Alexander.” Then I sigh. “I’m tired, OK? I’m just gonna go home tonight and do nothing.”
“It’s at our house,” he adds. “She wants you to come to the house.”
I don’t even know where they live and the thought of fighting traffic tonight just annoys me further. Especially when I know how it’s gonna end. They’re gonna do something weird, I’m gonna decide I’ve had enough, and then I’m gonna walk out. And that’s probably all going to happen before we eat, so I won’t even make it to dinner. Then I’ll have to stop somewhere to pick up food, or order delivery, or go hungry—and honestly, I’m just not up to it.
“My answer is still no,” I say. “I’m just tired. Just tell her I’m tired.”
“She wants you to come to dinner,” Alexander repeats.
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, sighing. Why can’t they just go away? Why can’t they just leave me alone?
“It’s just so much bullshit,” I say. Eyes still closed.
“What is?” Alexander asks.
“You two,” I say, opening my eyes back up to look him in the eyes. “Both of you. You’re more trouble than you’re worth right now. I’ve got… I’ve got things on my mind.”