Page 58 of Assigned

Chapter Twenty-Six

Lucas

That’s it. Stick a fork in me. I’m done. Thoughts bounce around in my head like bullets ricocheting off steel walls. She said she was here for the duration, that she was in it for real. But bits and pieces of other conversations come back to me. That day in the therapist’s office when Dr. Stehman asked why Riley had joined the program and it took her a while to come up with an answer. Her insistence on finding a job as “a backup plan.” It wasn’t a backup plan. I was the backup plan, the stopgap she needed to have insurance until she got a job with benefits and the benefits kicked in. She wasn’t here for the long haul. She didn’t want us to be a family. She wanted fucking access to prescriptions she couldn’t afford on her own.

She didn’t love me. She didn’t love Mason. We were tools to get what she wanted, and I’d bet dollars to donuts she was planning to head out the door as soon as she got it. And I’d fallen for it, fallen for the sweet smiles and those sweet, sweet nights she spent in my arms.

She’d promised she wasn’t going to hurt Mason, that she wasn’t going to walk out. Yet, here she is, admitting that the only reason she’s stayed married to me so far is for insurance. Insurance!

I get in my truck and the tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. My chest heaves. I lay my head on the steering wheel, feeling the muscles of my chin tremble against my will. Static buzzes in my head, drowning out my thoughts. I straighten and look out the windshield, as if the sunlight can soothe me. It can’t. I’m not sure anything can.

I put the truck in gear and back out of the driveway. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I’m not staying here.

I’m losing my son and I’m losing Riley all over again. The two people in the world who mean the most to me. And there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Every way I turn is the wrong way. Every step I take mires me deeper in the mud.

I have never felt so completely helpless.

I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, to prove her father was wrong about me and what I could become. I can put food on the table and clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads and it means nothing because this is a problem I can’t fix.

I can’t fix her medical issues. Can’t make her love me. So, in the end, I’m still going to end up alone because all it seems I have to offer anyone is health insurance and a paycheck. And just look at my son—what do I have to offer him? Riley was the one who stepped up. Not me.

I shake my head. One thing’s for sure—what little I can offer my son, even if it is just financial security, I’ll do it. Because I know what it feels like to be the kid growing up in a family, worrying if we would have enough to eat for the week.

Softly splashing water droplets hit the windshield as my wipers whoosh back and forth. I don’t know how long I’ve been on the road because there was no destination in mind. But it’s been long enough that the gas tank starts to get low. Neither the rhythm of the rain nor the trip calms my nerves. And the roads are becoming slicker by the second, which means I need to find another outlet to help calm my emotions.

I tap the button on my steering wheel, which activates the hands-free phone connection. The cabin fills with the loud sound of ringing five times before Martinez picks up.

“What’s going on? Everything okay?” He sounds half asleep. Of course he does. Anyone who had gotten back from the training we’d just gone through and who had a lick of sense should be home and in bed after a home-cooked meal and a welcome-home fuck from his hot wife. That’s what I hoped I’d be getting for the nanosecond before my phone rang with Lisa’s name in the caller ID. Before everything when to shit faster than grease through a goose.

“Nothing good.”

“Speak to me.” His tone is louder and crisp, as if he’s been awake for hours.

“I... I...” I can’t. I can’t choke out the words.

A heavy sigh cuts through the speakers. “Pendejo, it’s raining and you are driving this upset. Meet me at Shaken & Stirred in twenty minutes before you get yourself killed.”

Before I can respond, the call disconnects. Of all the things I am grateful for, my best friend is one of them. We’ve been through a lot together, survived missions by the skin of our teeth together. So, if there’s anyone who might be able to guide me through this minefield, maybe Martinez can.

I beat Martinez to the whiskey bar and restaurant by five minutes. I nod to the hostess as I walk past the wall of polished whiskey barrels at the entrance and through the tables. Neither Taya nor Inara is working. They’re home with their husbands, the husbands that they’d been matched with, husbands that they loved for who they were, not for health insurance. I feel a stab of guilt about pulling Martinez away from Inara, but I know she’ll understand.

I find a place at the polished mahogany bar and already have two beers sitting in front of me by the time my best friend sits down next to me. He picks up one of them. “Thanks, man. I could use a drink.”

“Who said it was for you?” I say, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. Just seeing him makes my heart hurt a little less.

He punches my shoulder. “You sound a little better. You had me worried there on the phone. What’s going on?”

I tell him everything. All of it. For once, Anthony Martinez is speechless. Like literally gape-mouthed, staring at me like a calf that has been hit between the eyes with a bolt.

“Just like that?” he finally says. “Admitted it out in the open? She married you for the health insurance?”

I nod and finish off my beer. “Just like that.” I signal to the bartender for a refill.

“Dude, I had no idea. Hand to God, I thought the chick was crazy about you and about Mason. Inara thought so too.” He shakes his head. “Didn’t know I could be so wrong about a person.”

I should have known I could be that wrong. I’d thought she was the real deal back when I was in high school. Thought she was as crazy about me as I was about her. Then she’d left me. Turned her back. Sent me away. And I’d fallen for her hook, line, and sinker again. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Wrong, wrong, wrong. What was that old saying? “When someone shows you who they are, you should believe them.”

“What are you going to do?” Martinez turns his glass in slow circles on the bar.

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