Three days.
Three days, and she somehow hadn’t left my mind. I’d had my fill of her, and she should have been erased — she shouldn’t have lingered in my thoughts the way she had been. But she’d been exhausted after and although I’d offered to let her stay the night, she’d left after signing her name where I needed her to.
The moment she went out my door should have been the moment I felt satisfied.
But it hadn’t, and so as I stood in the middle of the room at the vintage watch auction thoroughly unimpressed with the selection this time, I couldn’t help but imagine how she’d felt wrapped around my cock. I couldn’t help but imagine all the ways I wanted her to do it again.
The man behind the podium read out words at a fairly normal pace this time, giving my mind room to wander. Fifteen thousand, do I hear fifteen thousand? Fifteen thousand. Going once, going twice. Sold! It blurred into the background as she filtered in, that fucking look on her face as she watched me in the mirror, her features contorting as her walls collapsed so fucking heavenly.
Three days of this torment, on top of the ones I’d spent pining after her since Vegas.
I’d gotten my work done. I’d given our signatures over to Ethan. But I hadn’t done a damn thing about Noah.
I was a week and three days out from his arrival, and yet, I’d bought nothing. I hadn’t prepped. I hadn’t even Googled how to be a fucking parent. I’d been so caught up in Olivia that I hadn’t even focused on my now-confirmed son — I hadn’t even given myself space to process the fact that he truly was mine. My schedule had taken control because I couldn’t police myself on it, and so I stood at the vintage watch auction, not even bothering to place any bets because none of them truly called out to me, because it was something I’d added to my calendar.
I need to add an hour somewhere for processing a child and another for online shopping.
I left empty-handed, my mind filled with white noise and indifference. The setting sun between the reflective buildings in Mission Bay made me squint, the warm, golden hue almost too much after being cooped up in the auction house for hours. The cool breeze carried the scent of salt from the nearby harbor and the hum of city life, honking cars and shouting voices, but beyond that, wrapping around the buildings as I turned the corner, the laughter of children.
Across the road from me, alight with the buzz of excitement that a Friday evening brings after school, the Mission Bay Kid’s Park was full to the brim with exhausted parents and energized kids. As a man, I knew it wasn’t ideal for me to stop, to take in what would likely become my life soon — but I found myself leaning against the fencing anyway, my arms draped over the rail, absolutely fascinated.
Parents from every walk of life either held their child’s hand as they went down the slide or stood off to the side with their arms crossed, eyes glued on the energetic mini-me’s they’d created, watching them like hawks as they climbed and swung and see-sawed. Some looked genuinely happy to be there, their faces lit by the joy they saw in their children.
Others, though, looked as though they just wanted to be in the college years already.
I couldn’t help but wonder which one I’d be. I’d never been particularly great with children, but I never disliked the idea of having one myself. Taking in a five-year-old I’d never met could swing me in either direction — hatred for the way it changed my life, or a deep appreciation for something I hadn’t asked for but received on a silver platter. But I hoped it was the latter. I hoped that I did not wish he’d grow up as quickly as possible.
My life was messy, though. Full of too much time and yet not enough, with a wife I’d married on a whim and a business to run. And as much as I wanted to see Olivia again, as much as I’d been tempted to call or text her the last three days, involving myself with someone who I was actively trying to legally remove myself from felt like a bad decision, especially when I considered a child being a part of that. I needed to make as much space as I could for Noah, and letting this woman consume my thoughts didn’t exactly allow for that.
————
With the sun entirely below the horizon and the stars out in full glory, I lounged on my veranda, the low hum of cars on the streets around me fading into the background. I knew what I needed to do — I’d known it for a few hours now. I just hadn’t worked up to it yet.
It was nearly nine in the evening when I finally decided to call her. She answered on the third ring, and hesitant, non-committal hello? creeping down the line of the phone.
“I need to be honest with you,” I sighed. I looked up to the night sky as I rubbed at the corners of my jaw, desperately trying to release the pounds of pressure in my muscles from being tensed all day.
“Honest how?” Olivia asked. I could hear the shifting of her phone, and a second later, the background noise amplified as if she’d put me on speaker. The unmistakable sound of the unscrewing of a cheap bottle of wine filtered through.
“My life is about to change. Drastically,” I explained. “And although I appreciate that you weren’t exactly looking for a relationship with me, I need to… draw that line in the sand. From my end.”
Silence. Silence, and the harsh sound of wine being poured into a cup.
“I know we’re getting an annulment. I know that’s what you want, and don’t get me wrong, I want that too. But I need to put all of my focus into handling this, and that means I need to cut this off before it turns into anything else — whether that’s a casual thing, something entirely different, or even nothing at all once the annulment goes through.”
A beat of quiet passed before she spoke. “And you didn’t consider this before having me over the other night?”
Shit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come over. I shouldn’t have initiated it. We shouldn’t have done what we did, and that was on me.”
A click from her tongue was silenced as the sound of her sipping her wine filled the line. “We shouldn’t have done what we did is a funny way of saying you shouldn’t have taken my virginity.” I could hear the little clips of anger in her voice, could feel the small stab she made with each word. She was right though — she deserved for me to be upfront.
“I shouldn’t have taken that from you,” I offered. “Not when I have other things going on. Not when I need to put whatever would happen here on a back burner. It wasn’t fair, and I genuinely apologize.”
“It’s fine,” she said, the tone indicating anything but. I’d been with enough women to know that tone anywhere. “I get it. I assumed it would happen, anyway. I mean, that’s what they say, right? He’ll lose interest the moment he gets what he wants? Pretty sure that’s in every abstinence campaign I’ve ever heard.”
“Olivia—”
“No, no, it’s on me. I should have known better. I did know better,” she laughed, the sound raw and not at all from any humor in the situation. “I didn’t hold out like I should have. You can be my eternal fucking consolation prize.”
Ouch. I deserved that. “Can I explain, at least? So you don’t fucking hate me forever?”
Another quiet sip, and then another, and then the tink of a glass meeting some kind of hard surface. “Is it a good explanation, Damien? Or is it just to make you feel better?”
I… hadn’t even considered that. Was telling her even a good idea, or was it just for my gain, my own peace of mind?
No. It wasn’t for me. She was my wife for the time being, and if any of this came up, if any of it needed to be assessed in the annulment, she had a right to know in advance.
“I have a son,” I said, the words feeling wrong and otherworldly as they left my lips. She was the first person who wasn’t immediate family that I’d told — not counting Ethan, of course, because he brought it to me in the first place. It felt clunky in my mouth to try to speak about it. “He’s five.”
Silence.
“His name is Noah,” I offered.
Again, silence.
“He’s—”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before you married me?” The words felt almost like knives despite the confused tone of her voice.
I hated this. I barely knew the girl, and I’d flung her into chaos unknowingly — and I’d fucking doubled down after I’d found out. “I didn’t know,” I sighed. “I only found out about him a few days ago. His mother, my… ex, left him to me in her will.”
“Her will?” I could almost hear the cogs turning in her mind.
“It’s been a lot to take in. And in my desperation to make myself feel somewhat normal, I tried to forget about it for a few days, and that led to… well, you. Here.” Even with the light pollution from the city, I could just barely make out a passing satellite in the sky above me, blinking white as it traveled behind a cloud. “He arrives next week. And if I’m being honest with you, Olivia, I’m so fucking unprepared for it that I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
More sloshing of wine filled the line as she poured another glass. I couldn’t help but wonder where she was, if she could see the satellite I was watching, if it had come out the other side of the cloud from her perspective. “Will this affect the annulment?”
I let out a breath. No hope of finding comfort in her, then. “Ethan said it shouldn’t. It’s not a divorce, so it’s not like we’re splitting things down the middle here. But you deserve to know in case it comes up.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll have Ethan bring you the papers to sign when they come back,” I added.
“Okay.”
“And I’ll keep my distance from you at the office, but we’ll likely still be around each other.”
Again, an upsetting, disillusioned, “Okay.”
“You sound like you hate me,” I sighed.
A beat of silence passed before she exhaled. “I don’t hate you, Damien. I’m just upset with myself. Your reasons are valid and I understand, I just wish I hadn’t…”
I gave her the space she needed if she wanted to elaborate, but she didn’t.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. Neither of us wanted to be where we are now to begin with, so this really shouldn’t have hit me out of left field. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” That’s all I can say?
“Good luck with Noah. And I’ll sign the papers when I get them.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but the three little beeps through the phone cut me off, and the line went quiet. She’d hung up.
