Page 76 of Asher

I stood there as I took in exactly what I just did. Then I ran my hand through my hair and said, “Well, shit.”

The man laughed, “I don’t envy you. Tell me, would you do it all over again if it meant you got even a minute of her time?”

I looked at him and did one thing: I nodded.

He smiled, “Well, at least you didn’t claim to love your wife and then ended up knocking four different women up.”

I scoffed, “Damn, man. Nah, I even get around another woman who isn’t Chloe, feels like my dick tucks itself into a deep corner and hides.”

He laughed.

I sighed and asked, “Anything I could get you to do to go with Chloe and her firm?”

He shook his head, “My mind was already made up before this meeting. This was only a formality. They just didn’t know it.”

I nodded.

Then I stood up, grabbed my wallet, and tossed some cash that should cover her meal, then looked at the man and said, “No one pays for my woman but me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.

Then I tagged the divorce decree and the medium sized black box.

Once I got on my bike, I thought about where I needed to go. Where would Chloe go?

But after an hour of looking everywhere for her, I headed to my house.

Only to stop my bike beside her little Honda.

I grinned, I should have known.

And there she was, sitting on one of the rocking chairs, curled up under a red blanket she keeps in her car.

Walking up the steps, she said, “I want to know everything.”

I looked into those eyes of hers I wanted to stay lost in.

Then I leaned back on the railing, crossed my arms over my chest, and told her everything.

“So, why did you stay married to her all this time?”

I sighed, then ran my hand through my hair, “She was a vindictive bitch. Told me that if I ever tried to divorce her, she would take the evidence she had of what I did to the feds. Believed her. So, I stayed the course. Allowed her to basically keep hold of my balls technically. Until you were sixteen.”

She tilted her head, “Why when I was sixteen?”

“Cause I realized you were the one I had been waiting on all my life. Realized that if I didn’t see you, then the sun didn’t rise for me. Lived in darkness ‘til I saw your eyes.”

“Evelyn might have held my balls, but I didn’t want her to. I wanted you to be the one. ‘Cause if you told me to go jump off a bridge to make you happy, I’d do it. Just to see your smile one more time.”

I watched as a tear trailed from the corner of her eye.

I had to beat back the need to move in and wipe it from her cheek.

She sat there, using one foot to rock back and forth, and then she stopped and asked, “You killed your so-called uncle because he slept with your wife?”

He shook his head, “No, I killed my so-called uncle because he thought that if he slept with Evelyn, that meant he could also sleep with Stella when she was old enough.”

Vehemently, she gasped then furiously; she shook her head, “Well then, he deserved everything he got.”

---