Thankfully, he had lost all his senses when he had his night of fun and decided to settle things today.
“Yeah, alright,” Caleb grumbled out. He looked defeated, and in that moment I saw the boy I fell in love with. The one who made promises and painted a beautiful future for us to live in. I saw the boy who was too nervous to say ‘Hi’ to me first. I felt my nose tingle the familiar burn as I swallowed thickly, already trying to get rid of the tears that were coming.
He was finally giving me the divorce.
It had also been confirmed within the last two weeks that the babywasindeedhis. He was suing Becky for full custody of the baby once it was born. He was working on proving she was unfit, a danger to herself and others. He had also working with the police to press charges on her for rape, drugging him, and for something to do with reproductive rights. Amber had the ‘in’ with the prosecutor and loved spilling the tea. Becky was almost halfway to the nut house by the time her attorney said he needed a psychological evaluation on his client. As far as I knew, they were thinking her trial was going to be starting in a few months if she was found competent to stand trial, that is.
Clint, Amber, and I had become better friends over the last two months. Even Emilia and Eddie became better friends with them and their circle. It was nice being welcomed into the fold. Clint let me stay with him when my real estate agent was showing my apartment and the double deep cleanings. I hated to admit that I didn’t want to continue to live in my apartmentanymore. I hated that I couldn’t stomach a night at the place that once brought me so much joy, comfort, and safety. I couldn’t take too much more of the memories that assaulted me at random times, making me burst into tears in the middle of putting the groceries away, or when I was folding laundry.
I needed a whole new florist for my weekly flowers. I did not need to keep frightening people when I would burst into tears when she asked where Caleb was because he hadn’t come in, in a while.
I was working with a therapist too, and had been since shortly after my hospital stay the night I found Caleb fucking that nasty-ass psycho. I’d had seven sessions, one a week, so far and I was feeling like I wasn’t crying as often or as much as I did when all this first happened. I knew I needed to keep my tools handy until I could look at or do something I used to do with him without crying.
I took the lessened tears, and the fact I can be in the same room with him and not feel pain and repulsion, as a positive sign that all the talking and processing and thinking was working. I did have bad days, as most people do, but on those days, I had Eddie and Emilia, as well as Mam and Pa.
And now Clint and Amber.
Clint had finally opened up to me about why he decided to step in when he heard about what was happening on the balcony, and told me why he usually stayed out of the gossip mill around the office. He shared his past with me, and it sounded familiar, similar to my story. The more I got to know him, the more I was sure that he was a great, funny, kind, considerate guy. The kind of guy I could see Eddie with forever.
But I’d let them figure that out themselves.
They’d been tip-toeing around each other the last couple of weeks, like they had secrets that would slip out if they acknowledged each other too much. You could see it though. Every time they looked at each other, the way their eyes darted away, their heads turning, faces flushing bright red. The little glance back at the other over their shoulder when one of them thought the other wasn’t looking.
It was hilarious to watch, but also so wonderful. I got to see my brother fall for someone, slowly, on purpose, and with a gentleness that almost startled me.
At least one of us was having good luck in love, between all three of my parent's ‘kids’, as they referred to Emilia, Eddie, and me. Emilia had been dodgy about who she was sneaking off to see every night. Orifshe was even seeing someone! It was weird. I let it go, but Eddie was relentless.
Clint had started inviting me out with his group of friends for whatever they got together to do for their monthly gatherings, as well as some informal hangouts. I brought Eddie with me several times, including the first night, and someone asked if we were together. We burst laughing, and took turns explaining as briefly as we could that we considered ourselves siblings by choice after my parents helped emancipate him from his hate-filled home life with his bio-family. Everyone was sympathetic and some even had similar stories that they shared.
I noticed Clint standing nearby as he listened to everything we had said about our past, diligently. Watching the way he listened, I half expected a notepad to come out at some point. After chatting with a few people, Eddie and Clint ended up walking off together and chatting in a corner just the two of them. Later, I saw them talking in a corner of the patio. Eddie put his hand on Clint’s and they smiled at each other.
They made my heart happy.
*****
This particular night, marked the almost third month from separating from Caleb, two weeks of being divorced. I’d been hit on as soon as the ink was on the papers, but I was nowhere near ready for that. I wasn’t fully ready to dip a toe in, but based on the things I’d heard, it was less of a dating pool and more of a cesspool.
I turned back to the crowd of people that were currently scattered across Clint’s living room. He was having an Anti-Valentine’s party, black dress code and all. There were tons of people here, flitting around all over his penthouse. The living room, kitchen, every communal place had bodies all over. They were all friends, or friends of friends. Everyone was having a great time, like they weren’t alone on Valentine’s.
I tried to weave my way through the crowd to get myself another drink from the kitchen.Thatwas the trick, just making it to the kitchen without getting pushed further back with each step I took.
There were so many people here that getting from the patio to the kitchen, and back out to the patio, where I could get a little reprieve from the loud music and bodies pressed against each other, proved more challenging than I’d initially thought. I’d just made it to the kitchen and found the small cooler Eddie and I had brought with our mason jars of pre-mixed drinks.
Emilia was on anactual dateon Valentine’s instead of being a dateless pariah like the poor lonely saps here. I grabbed one of the drinks, trying to do anything to distract myself from the fact that I knew hardly any of these people. Thankfully, ours came with lids, because no way was I getting date raped.
Not that I think that would happen, but you could never be too careful.
As I looked around the kitchen, I was alarmed for point-two seconds. It felt like time was slowing impossibly still, almost to a complete standstill, then I noticedhim. There, across the kitchen, smiling in a group of men, stood possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Like, hands down, jaw-dropping, finger-lickin’-good beautiful type of man. He was tall, close to Eddie’s height, if I had to guess, with a dirty-blonde, almost light-brown, hair that was short on the sides, and longer on top. He had it slicked back. You could tell he worked out by the way that black V-neck shirt clung to his thick biceps, muscular chest, and…oh god!
Those abs!
You could see the outline of them through his shirt! That shirt was clinging to him the way every straight woman in a two-mile radius wanted to drape over the stunning statue of a man that stood before me. He was partially facing me so I got a good look at that figure he kept. I took a long sip from my jar as I drank him in with my eyes.
If those thighs were anything to go by, it looked like he’d never missed leg day, that’s fordamnsure!
My breath hitched in my throat as his gaze moved to mine, caught gawking at him from behind the rim of the jar. When his light grey eyes connected with mine it was like, suddenly, the twinkle in them shined brighter; like it was just for me. I smiled back, but his face froze. He stared at me for a while, almost like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie box. I started to feel quite awkward so I hurried and turned, getting out of there like my ass was on fire!
To the patio! Where I can do weird all by myself.
