Love You Anyway: Our Second Chance at Love, page 2
I never cheated on Ashley. I never would have. I took my vows seriously.
I attended every function my children were involved in. I coached football and baseball. I was present in our seemingly perfect life. Ash and I had a good relationship, our sex life was consistent, we took time to go on dates, even when the kids were little. I told her daily that I loved her, and it was true. I told her that she was beautiful and constantly told her how much I loved parts of her that she took far too long looking at in the mirror that she apparently didn’t like about herself.
Her ass and tits were the parts she fixated on. I loved her ass, and I told her that every time I was in it. Her tits were a perfect handful and, even with age, I showed them appreciation with my hands, mouth, and words. When she started finding gray hairs at thirty-five, I pretended not to notice, sparing her feelings. To me, she was the woman I would share my life with. I had vowed to do so. And she is the woman who gave me children.
In the past, I lost three. One at seventeen, with my then girlfriend, Sadi, who had an abortion, and another with her when she miscarried a child that she had conceived purposely to trap me and tear me away from a girl who I knew I loved from the moment I saw her. The third child I lost was with Tessa. Another miscarriage. It crushed her and me. I built walls after that, sure that God was punishing me for all my sins.
I used to believe that Ashley and I were meant to be when she gave me her heart, knowing I was still healing from the self-imposed devastation caused by Tessa finally walking away from me. That belief was further strengthened when she and her new friend, Tessa Ross-Abraham, found out together that they were both pregnant.
The day she gave birth to Ava was truly the happiest day of my life. No other day compared. When I held my daughter in my arms, kissed her and the woman who gave me a child, I vowed to God I would never hurt them like I had hurt the many other women in my past. I was true to my word.
❖
I force myself to don a normal holiday smile and fill the house with Christmas cheer when Ava and Logan walk down the stairs at around ten in the morning. Ashley is still asleep, and I decide to steal this moment with the two people in the world who I love the most.
“Merry Christmas, kids!” I greet them each with a hug and kiss.
Logan grumbles, “Merry Christmas.”
Ava smiles as she looks at the tree and all the presents. “Santa came, Loggie!”
“Nice, Ava, but I’m not ten anymore.” He rolls his eyes.
“Well, then who could have brought all these gifts?” I play along with Ava’s loving teasing directed at my boy.
“Dad …” Logan yawns out.
“And Santa.” I laugh.
“And Mom.” Ava looks around. “Where is she?”
“Probably fucking sleep—”
“Logan, your language,” I warn. “I’ll go see if she’s up yet. Don’t even look in your stockings until I get back.” I give them a big smile as I turn away. Then I walk toward the stairs, feeling like I’m walking away from the sun—my children—and into the bowels of hell to wake the she- demon.
Bitch! Could she not participate? It’s our son’s last Christmas in high school, and she plays Sleeping fucking Beauty while I stick up for her?
As I push the door to our room open and see her sitting on the bed, her back to me, I see her shoulders slouch forward, her body shaking a bit, and I’m sure she is crying … again.
For a moment, I feel guilty about the anger that is now simmering, not quite a boil. This has to hurt her as much as it does me. How could anyone want their children to face the slaughter of their family unit?
I remember the darkness I crawled into when I was a cheater. The self-loathing that I numbed with booze, pot, and pussy. I had no one but a girl, whose heart I broke, to feel horrible about. She was breaking three hearts. Two of them were grown from her body.
Then she giggles. The bitch giggles and whispers, “I have to go. It’s Christmas … I know. Someday, maybe … I love you, too. I’ll see you in three weeks … Yes, the entire weekend …”
I knock on the door, and she jumps, her phone clattering to the ground as she spins around. “Lucas?”
I force a smile and act as if I hadn’t heard anything. “Merry Christmas, Ash.” I walk over to the bed and lean down to kiss her.
“Lucas, the phone.”
I reach down and see it’s still a live call.
“Dad and Audrey?”
She nods.
Fucking liar.
“We have two little angels down there waiting to open gifts.” She tries to stand, but I put my hands on the bed, keeping her in place. “Ash, I have a special present for you first.” I kiss the cheek of Empusa, and she pulls back.
“Lucas, they’re waiting.”
“I know. Let them. Give me five minutes.” I grab a tit, and she closes her eyes. “Your little tits, Ash.” I rub my thumb across Hantu Kopek’s nipple. “They fed our children and me.”
“Lucas …” she moans.
“I also miss that round ass, Ash.” I push her back and roll her over.
I reach under her panties and push a finger in her cunt, and she moans so I shove another in her.
“Your pussy is so wet.”
She pushes against my fingers, deepening them inside her.
“That’s it. Ride it, Ashley Links. Tell me what you want?” I ask as I finger-bang her into oblivion.
“Your cock.”
“Where, Ash? Where do you want it?”
“My pussy.”
“You can do better than that. It’s Christmas.”
“Fuck my ass, Lucas.”
I reach over the side of the bed, open the nightstand, and pull out the KY and a condom. No fucking way am I riding Lilith’s ass without protection.
I smile when I see the phone call is still active.
I grab it, push speaker, and then set it on the nightstand.
Fuck you, Senator!
“Gotta make this fast. Kids are waiting.”
It’s wrong on so many levels, but I don’t give a fuck. I am hard and, in some perverse way, harder than ever before because I’m gonna get off fucking my wife’s ass while her lover listens.
No one ever said I am perfect, not even me. But that fucker will hear what only I can do with Miss Priss.
Fuck her hard and nasty.
I rip open the condom and squirt lube on her plump ass.
“I’m going all in, Ash, hard and fast,” I say as I wrap my dick in latex.
Yeah, I’m about to bang my wife and have to use condoms because she’s a cheating ho.
“You can’t! You’re too big, Lucas.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheeks so that I don’t laugh.
Yeah, take that, Senator. I have a big dick.
“We’ll do what we can. You want this, don’t you, Ash? You want my big cock in your ass, right?”
“Yes, I love your cock.”
“Up on all fours. I’m gonna fuck you from the back. Then, when I’m done, you’re gonna swallow my cum.” I ram halfway in her, and she yells out. “That’s it, Ash. Halfway there. Now for the good part.”
I’m gentle now. I want our audience to hear his lover come on another man’s dick. Her husband’s dick.
“Good, Ash?”
“God yes. You fuck my ass so good.”
That’s it, Ash. Keep talking.
Bitch.
I move in and out with ease. Her ass is well trained and has been used plenty before I found out she’s cheating.
She moans, whimpers, and then she comes, and she does it loud.
“Okay, my turn. Turn around and suck my cock dry, Mrs. Links.”
I pull out, and she turns as I remove the condom and hide it behind me. Then I shove my dick in the mouth of Lilin and fuck it until it’s full and my cum is dripping down her chin.
“Thanks for that, Ash.”
I stand up and turn. Then I grab the phone—still a live call—and push end. When I reach down to grab my pajama pants, I discreetly put the phone back where it had fallen when I had busted my cheating bitch of a wife talking to her lover … on Christmas.
❖
When the kids go to bed, so do I. I don’t want to even look at the bitch that I have been smiling at all day. It’s only ten o’clock so I know I’ll be up at three in the damn morning, but that’s cool with me.
I wake to Succubus sucking me off and turn and eye the clock. I’ve only been asleep for an hour.
It’s the first time in years she’s done this. She looks up at me with a mouth full of cock, and there’s something different in her eyes.
I fuck her mouth much gentler than I did earlier. The attention she’s paying to every part of my dick is more than ever before.
I smile at her then feel the telltale sign of all the blood rushing down to my cock. “Ash, I’m gonna …”
She stops and sits up. The look in her eyes that I mistook for a possible spark of hope is really Yuki-Onna, the she-devil denying me a release.
“You can finish it up yourself.”
“Really?” I push out a laugh.
“I don’t appreciate you toying with me, Lucas.”
“I don’t appreciate you lying to me, wife.”
“I won’t live like this.”
“You walk when he has five months left of his senior year, and I will not have one ounce of respect for you.”
“Who says I’m walking? I will still be living right here.”
“You can have the Jersey house, Ash. That’s where you run to every other fucking week, anyway. That’s where your family is and—”
“I will take this house. I will take from you what you love.” I pull her up so she’s facing me. “And let me tell you something. You will play real nice, or I will share over a years worth of pictures that I have of my wife’s infidelities with the media. Your little boyfriend has higher hopes than State Senate, and you’ll be single-handedly crushing them. I have no problem going on talk shows and doing interviews about how crushed I am about it.”
“The world will think you’re a pussy, Lucas.”
“No, Ash, ’cause when I’m done here, I have years’ worth of missed pussy to make up for ’cause I was dumb enough to believe in this marriage shit.” I let go of her arms and lie down, rolling to my side so that my back is to her. Bitch!
“I agree, Lucas. I was never yours to begin with.”
“Whatever excuses you need to give yourself, go right ahead. But you will play nice when it comes to our kids, or I will make you pay. They are my only priority now.”
❖
I wake up when I hear my phone vibrate.
I see a text message.
911. Call me back now … JB
I rub my eyes and read it again. What the hell is going on? Jade would never send a message at four in the morning if it wasn’t a real emergency.
I sneak out of my bed, walk down the stairs to my office, sit at my desk, and call Jade.
“What’s going on, Jade? Is Luke all right?”
“Lucas,” Jade sobs out. “Collin was shot.”
Through her sobs, I think I hear “dead,” and bile rises in my throat. And my heart, I swear it fucking stops.
“Links.” Her husband, Ryan, my best friend, is on the phone now.
I manage to form a sentence, even though my fucking chest is killing me. “What the hell happened?”
Ryan tells me the only details he has confirmed — Collin was shot and killed.
After a long pause, as I listen to him comforting Jade, Tessa’s cousin, I clear my throat. “Are Tessa and the kids all right?”
“Physically, yes. CJ was the one who called Jade. He’s pretty shaken up, but he said his father died and that everyone else was okay. We should know more tomorrow.”
I hear a blood-curdling scream, followed by, “Daddy!”
I push up from my chair. “Ryan, we’ll talk when either of us knows more,” I say, hurrying to the stairs as I hear Ava sobbing. “I think Ava just found out.” I end the call as I take the stairs two at a time and run to Ava’s room.
When I enter, she has her suitcase and is throwing clothes in from her closet.
“Daddy! Collin is dead, and Harper—oh God, Harper—was taken, and he tried to save her, and now he’s dead, and—”
I grab her and hold her as she sobs. “Harper, CJ, Matthew, and Tessa are fine. I just talked to Ryan, and he—”
“What is going on?”
I look to the door and see both Logan and Ashley walking into Ava’s room.
“Collin was killed.”
Ashley’s first reaction will haunt me for the rest of my life. She looks at me as if she has no soul at all. She’s pissed, and then a smug look crosses her face that makes me want to throw her the fuck out.
Ava’s face is plastered against my chest, so I know she’s not seeing it, but Logan … he is studying her face, and my boy is seriously fucking confused by her reaction.
“You okay, Mom?”
Ashley nods and swallows as she pulls him into a hug and looks over at me with a look that is cold and unfeeling.
TWO
MEMORIES
When Ava walks down the stairs, I look up.
“I need to see Harper.”
I walk over and pull her into a hug. She looks like she hasn’t slept at all. “Okay. When they get home, I’m sure she’d love to see you.”
She looks up at me, anger in her eyes, “Mom wants me to go to Jersey.”
I shake my head, but then I see Ashley and Logan walk down the stairs and notice they both have overnight bags.
Pissed, but used to hiding it, I ask, “You going somewhere?”
“To visit my sister.”
“Logan, you want to stay here, or go with Mom?”
Ashely wheels her case toward the door. “I know you’re busy with work, or I would’ve asked you to come along. The kids are going with me.”
Ava steps back and shakes her head. “I’m not going. I’m staying here so I can see Harper as soon as she gets home.”
“Logan, you can stay, too,” I tell him.
He lifts a shoulder and looks between us. “Nah, I’ll go with Mom.”
I see a smug, cold look in Ash’s eyes, but I keep my shit together and give an Oscar-winning performance a-fucking-gain.
“Thought we were hitting the gym during your break? Lifting weights, keeping in top physical shape. You have colleges interested and—”
“Leave him alone, Lucas. He’s on vacation.” Ashley laughs … fucking laughs, as Ava is falling apart. “Ava, you sure you won’t come?”
“I’m sure. She’s my best friend, Mom.” I see my little girl’s temper flare as she snipes, “I thought you’d want to be here for Tessa.”
“I’m sure her family will all be there to help her. We won’t be gone long. I’ll see her when we get back.” Ashley doesn’t even give her time to speak when she looks at Logan and says, “Let’s go. You can drive.”
“The roads are shit, Ash—you should be driving. I should be driving.” I’m not liking this one fucking bit.
“He’s eighteen, Lucas. How old were you when you were driving to New Jersey alone? I’ll be with him.” Ashley steps back, apparently realizing she’s Ava’s mother, and gives her a one-armed hug before she all but runs out the damn door and into the attached garage.
Once they’re out the door, Ava looks at me. “What’s going on, Daddy?”
“Apparently, she misses her family.” And your mother has been fucking around for years now, I want to say, but I don’t. I redirect, “Do you know when they’re supposed to be in?”
“No.” Ava walks over to the couch and grabs a pillow before flopping down on it.
I hate seeing her like this. Hate seeing her struggle, and I can’t do anything about it.
“You want breakfast, baby girl?”
“No, Daddy … I just want to cry.”
I walk over and plop down next to her, wrap an arm around her, and tell her, “Then cry.”
She snuggles into me like she did when she was a little girl—hell, she is still my little girl—and falls asleep, crying.
❖
With her asleep, I decide to go dig through some boxes in the basement. I look at the shelves that hold our memories in plastic totes. I decide I might as well start going through them. If Ash thought she was taking the house I built for my family, I’ll be damn sure to keep some of the memories.
The first box I grab off the top shelf, I set it on the floor then grab the other five. I start going through our life, one tote at a time.
Looking at them all lined up, anger turns to a feeling of disbelief that this shit is happening to us, but also a feeling that it could be worse. I can’t believe this shit is happening to us … but I accept it and feel that pain again in my chest for Tessa and her kids.
I open the first tote, finding it’s full of wedding memorabilia. You know all that shit girls have to have. The champagne glasses with your names in pretty script and hearts.
I move to a workbench, grab a construction-grade garbage bag, and throw those bitches in there. Next, I grab a bag of potpourri wrapped in tulle and ribbons. “Fucking lame.” I throw them in the trash, too. Invitations, rehearsal dinner programs, wedding programs, and flyers from the Dominican Republic where we went on our honeymoon. A binder for planning every event of our big fucking day. I throw out every piece of shit memorabilia that she had to keep except for the document we signed, a fake license, one for the bazillion photos that were taken that day. I’d love to super glue that to her forehead so, when she looks in the mirror, she sees it and so does the senator … while he bangs my wife.
The only thing I keep is the photo album and the case of wine without labels on them. The photo album because, let’s face it, I looked fucking good. The wine because I’m going to get fucking ripped the day I sign those other papers, the divorce ones.
