Page 81 of Succeeding Love

Vin was exactly what my mom needed. She could be herself with him, and he seemed to like every single one of her quirks. I was worried dad would sneak back into mom’s life, but I don’t think Vin would let him. Vin himself said that he wanted to punch dad in the face, and mom didn’t seem opposed to the idea.

I might punch dad in the face next time I see him. Vin probably can’t, but dad couldn’t do anything to me.

When I got back to the house with my full, clean laundry basket, Jessie shushed me right as I was walking through the door. She was hiding around the corner of the foyer with a mischievous smirk on her face. After jerking the basket from my hands and setting it on the ground behind her, she grabbed my arm and yanked me to hide behind the wall, too.

“Shh,” she pressed her finger to her lips, then pointed around the corner towards the kitchen.

Music was softly playing, as it usually was when mom did dishes, but then I noticed that, other than the music, it was completely quiet. I hesitantly looked around the wall, peeking into the kitchen, and that was when I saw Vin and my mom dancing. Her arms were stretched up to wrap around his neck and he was bent over to rest his face against her.

When they passed by the entryway gap, I saw my mom’s feet on top of his, like a toddler dancing with an adult.Considering how tall he was and how short she was, it worked. It almost made me laugh out loud. I had to quickly cover my mouth with my hand to stifle it.

“That’s so sweet!” Jessie whispered right in my ear. “Do you think he will let me dance on his feet, too?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “I totally think he would.”

Every Woman’s Type

Nick

I groaned, parking my car in the garage next to the courthouse. I still had a splitting headache. The aftereffects of drinking myself to sleep every night and then waking up after just a few hours of fretful sleep.

I keep having horrible dreams. Dreams that start out as memories from the past that shift into nightmares. Those memories slowly transform until it’s no longer me with my wife in them, but her new boyfriend instead.

Last night was worse. It was the first time I picked Jessie up after school all week, the first day I felt like I could hide my pain from my daughter. That was until she asked if she could dance on my toes.

I had no earthly idea what she was talking about until she described it to me. The way she talked about it, I knew she had seen it done recently. Foolishly, I thought maybe one of her friend’s little siblings danced on someone’s feet and Jessie saw it, or maybe she got it from a movie.

When I asked, she suddenly got nervous, biting her lip and looking guilty. I knew I shouldn’t have pushed further, but there was some deep part of me that was just begging for punishment.

She confessed to seeing Fay’s new boyfriend dancing with Fay like that. In my kitchen. In the home that I built with her.

That sent me into a downward spiral again.

I tried to keep it together, hiding my depression from Jessie throughout dinner, but I could hide the pain I felt when I dropped her off at home and I saw Fay with the bastard. He had that dogIbought for Fay on a leash in one hand, and his other arm wrapped around my wife’s shoulders.

When he kissed her right there on the street for anyone to see, both of them lost in their own world, it felt like a knife in the gut. I couldn’t even breathe. I could barely wish Jessie goodnight, sending my worried-looking daughter inside with a forced smile before I broke down. I pulled off down the street, parking in front of a vacant lot with overgrown shrubs along the street to give me some cover as the waterworks started.

So many thoughts went rushing through my head, so many guilt-filled memories. The last Christmas party I threw in our home before the divorce, where I snuck outside with Arlene while my wife was waiting on guests and being her normal, wonderful self. She was the light of the party, but I set my sights on my affair instead of her.

There were so many late nights I spent with Arlene telling my wife I was working instead. How did Fay feel waiting up for me all those times? I could still picture her numb expression every time I came home and headed straight for the shower.

She knew. I tried hard to hide it, but looking back, I could remember her expressions so clearly. At first, she would look pained, but over the weeks, then months of my disloyalty, she detached, going numb.

Fay said her love for me died when I admitted to the affair. That’s not true. I can see that now. She had months to stifle her love for me. I killed it, slowly and painfully. She cleared her heart completely of me, and now she was replacing me with someone else.

I don’t know how I can ever forgive myself for what I did to her. Feeling this pain now, I can’t even imagine how much worse she felt.

Staring up at the roof of my car, sinking into my own despair, a familiar giggle sounded outside the window. I looked over to see my wife and her boyfriend walking down the street, oblivious to my presence. Or, I thought, they both were.

Only one of them was oblivious. As I sat staring, glaring, wishing the tattooed asshole kissing the back of my wife’s to drop dead, he glanced over, and his eyes met mine. It should have been too hard to make out the features on my face because of the tint in the windows, but that asshole managed it somehow.

He smirked, then bent down and kissed my wife right in front of me. Right there outside my damn window. Her dazed expression, eyes fluttering, lips puckered and red as she stared tenderly up at him, almost sent me into a rage. I’ve never been a violent man, but I considered it at that moment.

When I got back to my condo, I downed half a bottle of Johnnie Walker. I passed out in my recliner, then jerked awake a few hours later when my dream of the last time I made love to my wife turned into a nightmare of that bastard taking my place. In my house. In that home I had built with my fucking wife, then threw away for nothing. For a momentary lust that I thought was genuine affection. It was nothing but a fleeting passion that dwindled into guilt and sorrow.

I couldn’t sleep after that. Fear of that nightmare coming back kept my dreary eyes from closing until the sun came up and I had to get ready for work. I drank half a pot of coffee before leaving, after getting sick twice, but the exhaustion and headache remained.

To complicate things further, I am now heading to a case that Arlene and I were partnered on.

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