Page 99 of Fire for Effect

She reached out and grabbed my hand, scraping my bracelet across the linoleum breakfast table. She looked at the silver jewelry, tilted her head and grinned.

“Oh! I see he took out the clasp! So, you’re serious!” She started bouncing in her seat in excitement. “Wifey! We’re going to be so happy together, I promise.”

I balked, looked at Griff, and deadpanned, “Is this like a polycule thing.”

Griff’s face soured, he wrinkled his nose, and then shook his head. “Fuck no.”

“Please!” Sierra - or Daria - said, throwing up a hand. “I am his work wife; you are his actual wife. This makes us sister wives, but without the messy squishy parts.”

“Squishy… parts?” I said, trying to hold in a laugh. I looked at the two of them and smiled. “I get this pairing, and why it works.”

“What do you mean?” Griff asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me in close.

“She’s the way VD used to be before the incident,” I said, idly, then instantly regretting bringing it up.

“You mean when he fucked my wife?” Griff’s words… stung.

He still thought of Kristin as his wife.

That knowledge sent a jolt through me, sinking my heart into my feet, as I flushed. I was mortified that I had let myself get so caught up in the bracelet, the wedding talk, and… everything.

“Okay, broken record,” Sierra rolled her eyes. “You don’t even give a shit that it happened anymore.”

“Of course I do!” Griff scowled.

I slid down the seat, trying to get a little space to breathe. I didn’t want him to notice the way my heart broke. I turned away from him, a little, to hide the sudden water that pooled at my lower lash line, as I fought the jealousy and sorrow that made me reframe the last few hours.

That made me re-consider the bracelet on my wrist.

It wasn’t what I thought it was. He had probably done something like this before, with someone else.

Griff noticed me pulling away, and his features darkened even more, as he grabbed me by the waist, and slid me back across the bench, into his side. I tried not to react to it, because any response could be catastrophic, and embarrassing for me.

“Oh? You’d rather you were still married to Kristin, right now? Instead of…” Sierra tipped her head to me.

I swallowed.

I couldn’t look at him. I knew the answer – it was obvious. I knew it all along, but I let myself think that this was real. That something was happening… but…

“That’s what I thought,” Sierra said, slamming her hand on her knee.

I stared at some kind of stain on the table. It looked like a bit of dried egg yolk. I took my nail and began to scratch it off the surface.

“Taz?” Kai said, quietly.

Unable to look at either of them, I set out to diligently clean all the little water spots on my kitchen table, and wondered if it would be strange to pull out cleaning products.

“Hmm?” I responded, after he called my name again.

“She’s right, baby,” Kai said.

I stared at the fraying edge of the label on the beer bottle. I started to pull it off, wondering if it would peel off perfectly. I could reuse the bottle for something. Maybe I could put a light in it? Turn it into a light bulb? It’d be cool to string up a line of them around the fire pit.

Kai’s finger traced over my temple, and I flinched away. He didn’t let me go far, because he grabbed a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear, before cupping the nape of my neck.

I kept on working on the label.

“I don’t care,” he said, cryptically.

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