Mr. Winterborne took a deep breath. “Well, I’m done here,” he said, standing up.
“Are you going to sign off on everything?” I asked.
“Well, if you’re telling the truth about everything, you have nothing to worry about, right?”
“I’m just wondering if there are next steps from here,” I rephrased.
“No next steps for now. And don’t bother coming in tomorrow. I’m going on vacation. That’s why I came by tonight,” he said as he put on his coat. “I’ll leave the case open just incase you give any trouble. But I was impressed with what I saw tonight.”
“Mr. Winterborne,” Cat asked. “With due respect, was coming over tonight ... legal?”
He shrugged. “It is, especially when we have reason to suspect fraud. Anyway, you two have a nice night now, ya hear?”
Cat opened the door and turned to me, and we watched him get in his car in the front of the street, then pull away.
“So, uh, that was interesting,” she said. “You told himyouput the bunny costume on?”
I wrapped Cat up in my arms from behind. “It just came out. So I went with it. Seemed like it made a good distraction.”
She flipped around to face me, looking up at me. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Dustin? Because it’s cool if you want to, you know, switch roles.”
“Is there somethingyou’renot telling me?”
“Maybe.” She laughed as I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.
I stripped off her clothes and she mine. I was hard and she was wet and ready for me too fast. We really were getting efficient at this like a normal married couple.
CHAPTER 28
CATARINA
With the passing of March,my anxiety levels gradually decreased. We hadn’t heard from Mr. Winterborne or anyone in the immigration office, and I figured we were off the hook. I stopped giving my mental energy to that possibility and started enjoying my life.
Because life was good.
Great, actually.
The down-in-the-dumps feeling I had back in January had been replaced by a feeling that until now had been quite foreign to me: contentedness.
I was back full time at the hospital, and of course, my job was tough as always, but several patients had had breakthroughs recently. It really seemed like there was positive energy in the air this spring.
Oddly enough, having to go through the mental exercise of losing my entire life here made me grateful for every single day I had. I got back into the swing of things at the hospital, and I seemed even busier than Dustin.
It was an irregular relationship, but we made it work, and we saw each other at least every weekend.
Honestly, for me, it wasn’t enough. Yeah, I surprised even myself.
As much as I couldn’t stand him sometimes, I wanted more Dustin. So for the first game of the playoffs, which was ominously Friday the thirteenth in April, I flew out to Chicago to surprise him.
I knew if I let him know I was coming, he would instantly roll out the red carpet for me and put me in a suite. But I didn’t want to distract him from playoff preparation. The voyeur in me also wanted to watch him up close on the ice during a game and see how he acted when he didn’t think I was anywhere near him—not that my presence was some golden ray of sunshine that would change how he played. I was sure he would play just as hard with or without me there, especially considering the winning streak the Tigers had been on lately. Clearly, he didn’t need me there to win since I’d still never seen him play live.
Yes, I was a bad wife in that way.
But I was going to make up for it tonight.
And he was going to be blown away by the coyote costume I brought for tonight, to surprise him. (They were playing the Houston Coyotes.)
Kidding. I’m joking.
