Invisible Husband

by Coco Pulliam

  Invisible Husband

  Coco Pulliam

  Copyright © November 2010, Coco Pulliam

  Cover art by Anastasia Rabiyah © November 2010

  ISBN 978-1-936110-89-6

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Sugar and Spice Press

  North Carolina, USA

  www.sugarnspicepress.com

  Prologue

  Maria being late isn’t out of the ordinary, Eric Coyer thought. But the hope of his bride appearing before him was disappearing with the sunlight.

  He had been at St. Edward’s Church much too early for the wedding—at least much earlier than was necessary. He had never been an early bird in his life. Rooming with his best friend and best man, Thomas Grainger, had ensured that his last night as a bachelor would be filled with partying and snoring loud enough to have a number on the Richter scale. But once everything quieted down, Eric had been left to his thoughts.

  It was something he had been avoiding for the entire night.

  He knew being someone’s husband was more than the simple act of saying, “I do.”

  However, the magnitude hadn’t quite hit him until that moment. He was going to be in charge of her well-being, the father of their children, the man to hold her close in his arms until death.

  It was a lot to take in. But he still managed to do it. Even before the first rays of sunlight peeked through the white hotel-room curtains, Eric was dressed and ready to be a husband… Or at least he was dressed well for the part. He checked himself in the bathroom mirror. His short blond hair was combed down while his green eyes showed a little redness around the edges. His suit was tight on his lean body, especially the pants, but he still looked like a model on a GQ cover. Maria had bought and chosen the suits for him and his groomsmen for that reason.

  Walking back to the bedroom, he looked down at Thomas, who was sleeping peacefully, and smiled. After carefully taking off his jacket and resting it on a chair, he walked over to his friend. He bent down on his knees, getting ready to jump.

  “One... Two… Three…”

  He jumped and landed on his best man in a football pile-on.

  “Wake up, sleeping beauty!”

  Thomas pushed him off the bed as soon as he woke up enough to understand what was happening. Eric’s good mood didn’t dampen as he waited for his friend to get ready, though the other man had promised him a broken nose after the wedding pictures.

  However, once they had gotten into his car to drive toward the church, his pleasant mood started to evaporate. The closer they got to the church, the more the dark feeling infested his body. It only stopped once it covered his entire self, from his feet on the pedals, up into the fingertips that controlled the car. The feeling intensified yet again as he walked toward the church. It was a familiar emotion, but he couldn’t place it until he had touched his forehead to the holy water at the entrance doors.

  He felt like he was going to a funeral.

  Not that he could tell from the decorations. Red and white rose petals lined the main aisle, with white ribbons ties on each of the pews. All of his friends had flown into Toronto, even those from as far as Scotland, while Maria’s friends came down all the way from South America to see the wedding. Everyone was seated, looking toward the door, while Eric took in the scenery. Everything was done to perfection as Maria had wanted it.

  Even six hours later, when all of the guests had apologized to the stunned groom and left, everything still looked magical. It still looked like a wedding was about to happen at any time. The only thing wrong was the scattered roses; Maria would most likely complain about them. Eric was trying to fix the roses when a tired Thomas came up to him.

  “No one can find her in the hotel, Eric…she’s not coming.”

  His friend put his hand on his shoulder to bring him up from the floor. But Eric was still on the floor picking up roses. Other than the priest, who had been persuaded by God and overtime money, no one else had stayed with him. Even his parents had left, angrily cursing Maria and her ancestors for ruining their son in front of so many people. Thomas hauled Eric up to his feet with the rest of his strength. Once he found the other man’s eyes, he shook him.

  “She’s gone, man. She’s…” Thomas trailed off as water pooled in his eyes. He took his hands off his friend and put them in his pockets instead.

  Eric looked toward the altar, feeling like collapsing, but instead he shook his head. The clothing on his body was the only thing paid for in full; the rest of the wedding would be on his next few paychecks. Maria had planned the whole production and singlehandedly gotten him to propose to her after three years of dating.

  And somehow she had found it in herself not to come.

  “Should we just go out somewhere and drink?” Eric offered weakly.

  * * * *

  Tammy Fraise couldn’t summon any fury for the scorn she’d received hours previous. She could only manage enough strength to nurse the drink she had ordered at the Six bar and lounge after she had taken the fastest taxi to the sparsely lit place. Fury had eluded her for the past three hours and counting as she reinvented the definition of drunk. Her skinny white dress straps had almost fallen off her dark brown shoulders, but she didn’t care to replace them. No one in the place was looking at her.

  Not in a sexy way.

  Over the speakers, a slow blues song played. She couldn’t remember the name of it but could feel the lyrics vibrating over her body and pulling at her memory. It was her and her college boyfriend’s third anniversary. He had graduated last year from college and told her to wait for him as he got ready to take his Masters in France. She’d thought he needed time to buy her wedding ring, not drag a knife over her heart by moving on to another girl.

  The bartender looked over at her with a small smile. He had been throwing worried glances over to her for the last hour, but she didn’t look up to meet them. She didn’t need anyone pitying her.

  “Keep pouring drinks into my glass, Jason. Once the glass gets half empty I want you to start pouring. It doesn’t matter which drink you put in. As long as I’m paying, you can experiment all you want.” Tammy gave the bewildered man a bright smile.

  It wasn’t her first fake smile of the night, but it worked better than the last one.

  She had gotten ready for hours at the beauty salon, straightening away her curls so her hair would be the way her boyfriend Marcus liked, and waited at their favorite restaurant for him. But once he had appeared in the place, her eyes had gone crisscrossed at the sight of him with a woman who might have had been albino for all the melanin she had in her skin. Tammy knew Marcus’s mother had a little trouble with the dark color of her skin, but she hadn’t thought he would agree.

  She could only listen to half of the wedding invitation before she ran out of the restaurant and into her car. Moments later, she found herself in a bar she had frequented with friends that she once would have lived and died for. When she had gotten together with Marcus, however, that closeness had disappeared.

  The bartender still knew her name and still watched her the same way he did when she had first come. But now it was more with anxiety than with amusement.

  “I’m not serving you any more drinks tonight, Tammy. Let me just call a friend to pick you up. What was the blonde’s name again? Christina?”

  Tammy hiccupped. She patted her chest to keep the sobs from climbing up her throat.

  “I don’t talk to any of them anymore!” she yelled.

  Tammy knew she was getting too loud, but she couldn’t hold herself back. She wanted to climb over the bar
table and drown herself in all of the alcohol. She had focused her entire life on her future with Marcus. No matter how insignificant his promises had been to him, she had weighted them all, every syllable precious, every single sentence repeated to the point of nausea. Now that it was taken away from her, she didn’t have anything or anyone to grab onto.

  Jason reached over the stool for her purse. As he emptied the contents of it on the table, she rolled her eyes in a tired manner.

  “Now I’m going to be robbed on top of everything.”

  “I’m looking for your phone,” Jason said. He looked more harassed than worried at this point. More people had been looking over in Tammy’s direction, wondering what was going on with the lone woman at the bar. “Someone needs to come and get you.”

  Tammy couldn’t focus on his words. She had rested her hands on the bar and looked at the top of his head. He was an attractive Indian man with a shiny shaved head. Even in the dim lights of the bar, she wanted to see herself in that silly drunken way—she wanted to know for sure how far she had fallen.

  “What’s with all of these sad songs? Put on some dancing music!” a voice called.

  She turned to see a white man walk up to the bar in a suit. He already looked drunk, though the loudness could just stem from his personality. He met her eyes and gave her a wink before turning his attention back to Jason.

  “Hey! We just came from a wedding that didn’t happen. The bride left my drunken buddy here at the altar. Can we can have some free drinks on the house?”

  Tammy thought she would be safe once the men started talking, but Jason nodded his head and turned to the drinks. The man with the build of a football player pulled up a seat right next to her. His thigh pressed against hers as he sat.

  “Hey darling, why are you drinking all by your lonesome? Are you waiting for a gentleman to offer to walk you home?”

  She didn’t have to turn around to see the cheesy smile on his face. Years of women throwing themselves in front of him must have solidified his lame pick-up lines. But she wondered if his looks compensated for anything else…as she looked him up and down. There was no mistaking that he wouldn’t charm her into his bed with his words, but his smile was laced with a promise that he could make her come until the bed broke.

  If only she was single by choice and not by hostile takeover…then she would be curious enough to take him up on his offer.

  “I don’t need a man, sorry.” She turned back to her drink, but he wrapped a heavy arm around her shoulder.

  “Darling, don’t tell me you’re not into vanilla. I just want to put some crème in your delicious coffee, love.”

  Before she could respond with words that would feel like a smack down, he was dragged away from her. Tammy looked behind her to see a blond man who looked worse for wear. He had bags under his eyes and his skin was ghostly pale.

  So that’s what it looks like to be stood up at a wedding, Tammy thought.

  “Tommy, shut up, you’re completely drunk. How do I know? You have to be drunk to say such a crappy pick-up line.” He turned to Tammy with a small smile. She recognized her own fake happiness mirrored in his face and patted her chest to keep the sobs down again. “Excuse my friend. He doesn’t know what political correctness is. Not even how to spell it.”

  Jason came back with two drinks: one for Tammy, after giving a dark look at the flirting man who now sat two seats away from her, and one for the groom. She watched as the blond man downed a full glass of whiskey in one shot and almost smiled for real.

  “You need this more than me.” She passed her drink to the blond man. “Love fucking sucks.” Somehow her lips found their way to his cheek. There was light stubble on it that tickled her as she backed away from him. Before she knew it a smile had broken out on her face—a real one. But as soon as it had happened, the smile disappeared while the feeling in her chest tightened. Tammy turned to gather her bag and her items on the table.

  “Thanks, Jas, but I don’t need anyone to pick me up.” She dropped money on the table and turned immediately. She was too busy to notice the fact that someone had slipped her money back into her open bag and replaced it with his own, because she had knocked into her younger half-sister.

  The other woman was in her pajamas, a loose T-shirt dress and leather jacket over them. The woman’s caramel skin was washed in a deep red.

  “Tammy Fraise! What’s the point of coming out in public to shame yourself when you can come over and drink soju in private?”

  Monica was three months younger than her but acted like a mother to the more reserved Tammy…well, reserved in all moments aside from this one. Tammy relented as her arm was grabbed and she was pulled out of the bar. She could feel the tightness in her chest releasing as she walked away. But her white dress was wet. Raising her hands to her face, she finally noticed her tears.

  “How could he?” Tammy cried out. She was shaking but she couldn’t stop. She leaned into Monica as the night air hit her face.

  She understood in that moment why she had given the blond man her drink. Though Marcus had broken her heart in that moment, it was better that it was now and not during the wedding she had been anticipating with him. But even so, she was still hurting. Though people were passing them in the parking lot with worried looks and concerned questions, she didn’t want anyone to see her.

  She didn’t want to disillusion anyone else with the truth. She wanted them to find out on their own how much love fucking sucks.

  Chapter One

  “Only one more year of this and I’m done,” Eric whispered to himself.

  Though it had been three years since Maria stood him up at the altar, it had taken everything in his power to keep sane. But it hadn’t helped. There was no moment in the day where he felt comfortable with his current life. He would always slip back into thinking about Maria and where she was and how she was doing. He had almost gotten over her last year, but he had finally gotten a phone call from her parents. They had assured him that she was fine; they just didn’t know her exact location.

  That had given him too much hope for her return.

  He figured that if they couldn’t locate her, then maybe she was trying to get herself straightened up before coming back to him. So he returned to St. Edward’s church every year to see if she would somehow find her way there to him. Thomas had dropped his job as his best man after what happened last year. The phone call from her parents had come before he went to the church to meet her on their wedding anniversary… But when she hadn’t shown up, Eric had broken down. At the end Thomas cited mental anguish beyond the duty of friendship as his reason for leaving. He promised to offer his services as a police officer if he wanted to press charges or send someone after Maria.

  “Don’t worry, man. If it’s illegal, I’ll make it legal,” Thomas assured him.

  Eric had refused any of Thomas’s “services,” though he had allowed him to drop the role of best man at his wedding-in-waiting. He didn’t need anyone there but a priest who was guaranteed by God and a third year of overtime to be there with him. This year he couldn’t afford to decorate the place, but it was January twenty-eighth and he was there to get married.

  It was now past noon, their original wedding time and, like the previous years, Maria hadn’t shown up. During this time last year, he had been bawling while Thomas held onto him. Now he was just filled with anger instead of sadness. He couldn’t believe their relationship had meant so little to her. That it was something she could turn her back on so easily. He was falling apart thinking about the future.

  He couldn’t imagine one where he had to be alone.

  “Are you sure you want to wait until midnight again, my son?”

  Father Logan was sitting in the first pews watching the time. The priest had gotten comfortable with his role of collecting more money for the church by waiting to perform a nonexistent wedding.

  Eric nodded.

  He had gotten past the point of waiting for Maria to come back to h
im. He was a single thirty-four-year-old man who owned his own home and had a steady professional job. He would be married by the end of the day. He knew it.

  “A wedding is going to happen today. I’m sure of it. One way or another I’m going to—”

  A small creak in the door cut off his words. Eric looked at it with a pounding heart. His words had come out as an answered prayer in the church. He couldn’t run away now. The next woman to walk through that door would be offered the proposal of a lifetime.

  * * * *

  “Just walk one foot in front of another until you get there…”

  Tammy coached herself under her breath, though she knew courage wouldn’t come to her at the moment. Ignoring the pounding of her nerves, she walked down the aisle in a white dress. Attire which would be completely appropriate if the wedding day was hers.

  After years of crying Marcus out of her heart, he had pushed himself back into it again by sending an invitation to his wedding. For the past six months, the date had been etched into her mind, messing up her sleeping patterns. The moment she had seen his new girlfriend the truth had come to her. Marcus had broken up with her because he couldn’t see himself having children with a woman…so dark. He blamed the way his mother raised him. He gave excuses of being bullied in school and not wanting his children to go through the same thing. But she could see through his lies.

  He just saw light skin as beautiful and darker skin as ugly. It didn’t matter how dark his own skin tone was…her skin color was just overkill for him.

  Tammy finally took a seat in an aisle pew. Her eyes traveled to the front of the room toward the bride. The other woman was beautiful, of course, and looked like she was half of everything but black. Marcus looked adoringly down at her. Tammy let her mind drift to the people around her. She could heard them cussing under their breaths at her for wearing a white dress. Rolling her eyes, she smiled insolently back at them. The bride had taken her place with Marcus, so wearing white made things even.