Page 23 of Marked by the Demigod

Her heart’s pounding, a dull thud thud that she can feel in the back of her head, and it's not the tequila from last night.

It feels like someone is looking down upon her from afar and deeming her actions inexcusable. As if showing up to coffee with an ex is the worst thing anyone's ever done in the history of humanity.

Must be this marriage nonsense.

She settles back into the couch, determined to find it comfortable.

If she is somehow married to this random asshole, what does that do to her clusterfuck of romantic attachments? Is she somehow to be beholden to this random guy who didn't even tell her what she was going in for?

She sips her drink, and it's just like they’ve always made it; warm and bitter and exactly what she wants.

The bells tied to the door jingle, and Rocky steps in, dressed in his everyday suit and his short hair slicked back so he looks like a bulldog; wide-shouldered and squished face.

He came in full lawyer.

He spots her, and his face doesn't change at all, just strides over and settles on the chair opposite her.

It's not as pleasing of a sight as it used to be, like a chord has been strung deep within her and her entire body is vibrating on the wrong frequency to find him appealing.

He leans forward and puts a confident, commanding hand on her thigh. "Aimes. You look good."

The hair on the back of her neck prickles up as his hand remains steady. "Thanks. You too."

"Have you been okay?" He gives her thigh a quick squeeze, like he used to do when she was having a bad day and he thought she needed to calm down.

She shifts back and crosses her knees, breaking the grip on her leg. "Mostly. They've been giving me more conventions, so lots of travel." And he hated her travelling, when they were actually together. Hated hated hated it. Thought she was going off and cheating on him at every hotel and --

"Do you have many coming up?" And his voice rasps, like there's a harsh acid there at the even thought of her traveling without him, and it's unfair. It's unfair, he was the one that cheated on her, that slept with the receptionist, that broke it off and kept on doing these texts and meet ups and stringing her along with these maybes.

She straightens. "Yeah, actually. One in New York and three across the Midwest this month."

He sits back, as if her body language takes him aback, his eyes wide. "And you just...go on them? Without complaint?"

"They're a lot more fun than sitting at home alone."

There's a long silence, with his eyebrows raised, as if this is the last thing that he expected from this coffee.

He clears his throat again, leaning forward. She's seen him play lawyer enough to know that he's gonna try to negotiate with her and that is the opposite of what she wants.

"If, if we try something," and his voice even sounds vulnerable, as if it isn't a technique he uses on clients all day long. "Would you be able to talk to your boss about scaling it down?"

It's like a punch to the gut, a punch that twists around her, as if her career stuff is simply less important.

"No," she says. "I like where my career is headed."

"It's not a career, it's a job." He's said that so many times it's like a mantra. "If you're going to start being ambitious about it, you'll be disappointed."

And even though he was the one that dumped her, and even though she was the one pining after him, this, this right here was the sort of bullshit that she hated during their entire relationship, and hates right now. "Yeah, no, you don't get to say things like that and --"

"--I just hated the idea of you that far away all the time and --"

"And you're the one who slept with your receptionist."

It stops him dead, and his jaw twitches. "That's not fair," he complains, "I thought you were sleeping with people out there."

The image of Jake, against the bed with his eyes closed and mouth agape crosses behind her eyes, and it's a far better view than the one in front of her.

"Rocky, that sounds like a personal problem."

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