Go back to work.
I quicken my stride as I hurry down the hall to my studio.
He called it work.
I’m mortified when my vision becomes blurry, and I have to blink away the tears threatening to spill.
It’s such a little thing. Such a stupid little thing. But no one in my family has ever referred to my painting as work before. It’s always been viewed as a hobby. An immature whim. A phase.
It’s never mattered to anyone that I was able to support myself with it.
I know my parents think I was only able to survive without them because of the money my grandma left me. But that money just meant that I got to purchase a tiny, somewhat crappy house, rather than rent a tinier, crappier apartment. It gave me breathing room, but I’ve been paying my bills from selling paintings. And budgeting. Neither of which are skills I got from my parents.
Just as I’m shoving the door to my studio open, I hear a vacuum turn on, reminding me of the mess I left on the kitchen floor.
King is vacuuming the floor. King.
Feeling off kilter, and feeling the coffee grounds stuck between my toes, I make my way over to the chairs Val and I sat in last night.
Plopping down into the same seat I’d gotten drunk in, I stare out at the sun filled yard and contemplate what is going on with my life.
Groaning, I drop my hands onto the armrests, then jerk my right hand back when I feel something touch my wrist. Then I shake my head at myself, because it’s a gummy bear. A single sticky gummy bear standing like a sentry on the edge of the armrest.
“Well, which is it?” I say to the candy. “Are you on guard, or are you just squishy sweetness?”
He doesn’t answer.
I pluck him from his perch and stand back up, carrying him to the window and holding him up to the light.
A combination of simple and complex. Intimidating and cuddly.
Standing in front of the window, movement across the way catches my attention.
And I’m suddenly reminded of last night. Of the man I saw, who I think saw us.
I stare at the spot where I remember him being. But it was so dark, I couldn’t see…
Flashlights.
The other guards had flashlights, and he didn’t.
My pulse doubles.
What if he wasn’t…
More movement, and my eyes drag to a pair of large windows along the back of the house.
I lean closer to the glass, and I realize it’s King’s office.
He’s in there. I can see just the front edge of his chest, him in that damn white shirt, and he’s talking to a man who’s standing in plain view, in front of the window.
The man lifts his shoulders in a shrug.
I think this is the man that King ordered to his office, the one that let that bitch through the gates. I wonder what King will…
In one move, King steps into full view, and then, quicker than I can track, his fist flies out, striking the other man in the face.
The man stumbles back, falling down below the bottom frame of the window, and I watch, stunned, as King steps forward, probably standing directly over the man, as he shouts at him. Rage covering his features.
My eyes drop to the gummy bear still clutched in my fingers and we share a look.
King might be a lunatic, but he seems to take our marriage very seriously.
And I must be just as mentally unwell, because instead of feeling scared, I feel a twisting low in my stomach that has nothing to do with tequila and everything to do with the power inside my husband’s body.
