Page 27 of Vile Emotion
His eyes… There’s something there but I don’t reach out enough to figure it out. I don’t want to.
He slips into the booth seat parallel to Edwin.
“Give us a minute, darling. We need to figure out what we’re going to eat but you can go ahead and bring me my coffee. I need it.” He glares at Edwin then faces me. “Especially after last night.”
There is no sexual innuendo coming from his words but I can feel eyes on me. Eyes that used to follow me with fists.
“Go, Juli.” Alaric tells me.
This time, I moved. I’d rather leave than have to sit here talking to Edwin ever again. He’s the reason I’m Alaric Crowne’s prisoner.
20
Sitting across from this loser makes me realize that Juliana was like Carmen in the sense of dating someone that couldn’t reach my level until they met me. Juliana and I aren’t dating but we’re married. She couldn’t find a husband better than me anyway because unlike Carmen, I wouldn’t let Juliana enjoy life so easily with someone else.
The thought of Juliana even considering someone other than me makes me shift my eyes to find her in the damn diner.
She’s behind the counter, taking twice as long to bring a damn cup of coffee. She’s stalling because of Edwin. I’m not jealous of anything that has to do with him because if Edwin knew better, he wouldn’t have come out here to look for her, but he did.
Edwin is sizing me up as if he could ever fight me to begin with. I watch him as he does so with a smirk on his face. Maybe because he’s bigger in stature and I’m not, he thinks he cannot get put down.
Or it could be my status. The suit and the last name Crowne has people believing that I’m nice or I watch what I do. They’re not wrong but they are when they think I won’t do something about being wronged.
Swinging first was always the way I solved problems growing up and my father hated it but after I got old enough to tell him to fight me, he stopped.
“So you married the woman who killed your wife?” he asks.
“And you’re sitting across from me talking shit about my wife like I won’t reach over and choke you to death.” I shrug my shoulders. “Next time, say hi when Alaric Dean Crowne sits across from you.”
Edwin scoffs and his eyes go to my wife.
My wife?
No. Juliana.
Juliana’s hand shakes a little as she softly places the coffee mug right in front of me. “Ca-, ca-,” she clears her throat. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.
I can feel her damn eyes on me and when I turn to face her, her eyes widen as if I said something crazy.
“Ask me again.”
This isn’t a show of power, this is what Juliana needs to pay attention to.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks again with a weird expression plastered all over her face.
“Mrs. Crowne.” I call for her attention.
Edwin releases some sound that makes Juliana jump back but I do nothing else. Juliana looks down to her feet like a woman who cowers for some loser like Edwin and it angers me.
There’s this new type of rage that starts from my skull and travels all the way to my fist that I form without any added effort. My eyes deadpan to Edwin and he isn’t looking at me, he’s looking at Juliana waiting for her to say something, or rather do something yet she does nothing.
I can see from my peripheral that she’s just standing there, staring at her work shoes as if they’ll do something like will her to walk the fuck away. There was something about Juliana inthis moment that made me turn to her. I'm not sure if it’s the fact that she was calling my name more than once yet I couldn’t hear her because staring into Edwin’s cranium was much more enticing in a way that made me want to crack it open or the fact that I even heard her over the fog that my rage was becoming.
“Alaric.”
She calls my name again once I look her way. I tilt my head as the way to answer her and she takes another step back.
“What?” I ask her. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting the rest of my order, Mrs. Crowne?”
