To wanting a real family.
I should’ve had a family, but Felice decided my stepbrother was more her speed.
She wanted me to leave the military and move back home.
She wanted to get engaged, but then couldn’t pick a wedding date.
We finally picked a wedding date, and then she couldn’t find the right venue or the right flowers or the right cake.
But it wasn’t the wedding.
It was me.
She didn’t want me.
She wanted my stepbrother.
The stepbrother she’s already married to, barely a year after she was supposed to finally marry me. The stepbrother whose baby she’s expecting early next year.
The stepbrother she was probably cheating on me with for most of our prolonged engagement.
Margie and the triplets shake their fists three times before picking their plays, and then Decker, Lucky, and Margie all play paper while Jack plays rock.
Jack howls in outrage while Decker, Lucky, and Margie dissolve into laughter.
“You planned that!” Jack bellows.
“Dude, no,” Decker gasps.
“Couldn’t have—not that good,” Lucky agrees.
“I’ll still go get the Chex Mix,” Margie says. She’s laughing so hard she’s wiping her eyes.
And she does exactly what she’s offered.
With a smile on her face still, even when she gets back twenty minutes later.
Glowing.
Happy.
With a bag of Skittles that she offers to me, like she’s noticed that I always grab myself a bag from the staff vending machine to eat on my way home.
Fuck me.
I know it’s equally likely that she ran to the store herself, or that she had her security guy bring her the Chex Mix and the Skittles, but the way her entire body softens as she watches the triplets grab their own bags, and then the way she includes me in her smiles when I take the bag of Skittles—I can’t deny even to myself anymore how much I think I like this woman.
Lies and secrets and complications and all.
11
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE EVIL
Margot
Aside from Rhys’soccasional little murmurs or pauses or looks at opportune times to remind me that he could destroy me at any point if he decides he no longer wants my endorsement, this evening is everything I’ve wanted.
Needed, if I’m being honest.
