Stitches

by Sam Mariano

  He should be thrown by the way I’m acting right now, but he’s not. He should have questions. His brow should be furrowed in concern as he tries to figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

  The fact that he doesn’t feels damning. It just makes my stomach hurt worse.

  My throat feels thick and I honestly don’t want to ask him a damn thing, but I need to. “What would you do for Moira?” I ask him.

  It’s a clumsy question without context, but he understands and answers without hesitation, “Anything.”

  That’s exactly what I expected him to say, so I nod my head. Then I force myself to meet his gaze and ask, “What would you do for me?”

  He holds my gaze, searching for the right answer, but after missing no more than a beat, he repeats, “Anything.”

  My stomach sinks with a whole assortment of fucking feelings. On some level, a sick level, that’s reassuring. I know he means it. I don’t doubt the look on his face or the inflection of the word. Seb would do anything for me. Hell, he already has. When I tried to leave him, he opened his life up to me and shared his beloved wife with me, for fuck’s sake. He’s already proven he would do anything for me.

  But this?

  I never asked for this.

  I want to look at his face when I tell him, but I don’t have the stomach for it right now. Staring at the wedding ring on his left hand instead, I tell him, “Ashley’s dead.”

  I think he understands there’s no point in putting on a dramatic show of surprise, because I wouldn’t believe it at this point.

  “Damn,” he says instead.

  That’s it. Damn. At least he says it in the way people do when something unfortunate happens, and not with the sarcastic inflection of someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck, but it doesn’t matter what he says or how he says it.

  He did it.

  Somehow, he did this.

  After a moment, he adds, “Are you okay?”

  “Am I okay?” I repeat, with surprising calm for someone sitting in a car with a fucking murderer. “You know the husband’s always the first suspect, right? If anyone else concludes—as I already did, in the last 20 minutes—that Ashley wouldn’t have shot herself to death even if she did commit suicide, which I also consider very unlikely… I’m her husband. Not just her husband, but her husband who was trying like hell to divorce her, whose prenup wasn’t going to stand up in court, who was set to lose half of everything… Jesus Christ, Seb, do you know how guilty I look?”

  Now I look at him, a different sliver of suspicion slicing through me. What if he does know that? What if he planned on it? He seems to like sharing Moira with me, but what if he realized he doesn’t and he needs me out of the way now?

  I search his impenetrable face for some sign of menace, some sinister flicker in his blue eyes, but nothing turns up.

  Of course nothing turns up.

  Fuck, I’m paranoid.

  Well, maybe paranoid is the wrong word. Maybe I’m justified in worrying about this shit, if he’s guilty of what it looks like he’s guilty of.

  “You’ll be fine,” he assures me. “When did it happen?”

  I cut him a ‘come on’ look.

  “Last night?” he questions, even though it feels like he already knows. “You have a solid alibi for last night. Gwen and Layla came over for dinner, Moira and I were there with you. Each and every one of us could attest, if we had to, that you could not have possibly killed Ashley because you spent the whole night with us.”

  “Gwen is Moira’s sister,” I remind him. “Since I’m fucking Moira, it’d be easy to say maybe she’d lie for me.”

  “Yes,” he allows. “But after Ashley showed up at our house, unhinged and attacking my wife, I felt she might be a danger to us and I put up surveillance cameras. The recordings are time stamped; they can verify our story.”

  “Our story,” I repeat, a bit cynically.

  “Let’s not be naïve; if there’s an investigation, yes, you need a story. As you said, you’re the husband. There may not even be an investigation, though. If it’s ruled a suicide, that’s that.”

  “Please, this fucking reeks of foul play, Seb.”

  Placing a hand I know he means to be reassuring on my shoulder, he gives it a squeeze and tells me, “Relax. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  I shrug his hand off, glaring at him. “You can’t fucking control everything.”

  Sounding unconvinced, he murmurs, “Well, we’ll see. I’m sorry you’re upset, but this isn’t worth getting pissed off at me over.”

  “Don’t tell me how to feel,” I mutter.

  “I told you I would handle it and I did,” he says, firmly. “It’s over now. We can all move on with our lives. We can live our life with no obstacles in our way. Ashley wanted to suck you dry, Griff, and for what? You never did a goddamn thing to her. She was a shitty person.”

  “That’s not your call to make. You can’t just play god like that, Seb. You’re not judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “I didn’t execute anyone,” he says, mildly. “I had dinner with my wife, my best friend, and my sister-in-law; I spent the evening playing with my niece.”

  “She was my wife, Sebastian.”

  “She was a leech,” he replies, dismissively. “You wanted free of her and now you are. I know you love to wallow in your unhappiness, Griff, and by all means, if that’s what you need to do, fine, but I’m not going to play the bad guy here.”

  A little laugh of disbelief shoots out of me. “Play the bad guy? I don’t know, Seb, I think you took it a step beyond playing. I think you owned the fuck out of that role.”

  “All right.” His patience clearly at an end, he pulls the latch and pushes the car door open. “I’m going back to the office. I’ll tell Moira the news, since I think it’ll go down easier coming from me. I’ll see you at home for dinner?”

  I don’t answer. I stare out the front windshield and wait for him to leave.

  Now he hesitates, ducking his head back into the car and saying, “Griff?”

  I turn my head to look at him.

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” he says, simply.

  29

  Sebastian

  It’s a long, stressful day after I leave Griff.

  The hours seem to stretch on forever and I’m not sure what to do with them. I pour myself into work as a distraction, but I beg off early and head home to Moira anyway.

  In a sense I’m glad I got home before Griff. I want a chance to tell Moira about Ashley. Between Griff and the stress of the day, my emotional stores have also been depleted. Moira fills them up as soon as I get home, greeting me with her warm blue eyes so full of love. A weight is pushed right off my broad shoulders as Moira secures her arms around my neck and leans in for a lingering kiss.

  I lock my arms around her waist a little tighter than usual and bury my face in her neck, inhaling her scent.

  She hugs me and kisses me, holds me close; for what must be the millionth time, I’m so grateful to have her to come home to.

  Not knowing where Griff is, though, there’s still a weight on me. I didn’t think he’d figure it out, and if he did, I definitely didn’t think he’d figure it out so fast. Since he knows I have an alibi, he must also know I had help, and if he knows that, he can guess whose help I had. Knowing that, he has to be smart enough not to go to the cops.

  I could see the doubts in his eyes, though. That stung a little. I did all this for him, and he looked at me like he didn’t trust me. After all I’ve done, after all I’ve given him, he still found a reason to doubt me.

  Asshole.

  Moira’s brow furrows and she kneads my shoulders, still securely in my arms, her chest flush with mine. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “There’s something I need to tell you, and I’m not sure how,” I begin.

  Her face etched with worry, she asks, “Something bad? Where’s Griff? Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, no,” I say quickly, s
haking my head. “Griff’s….” Actually, I guess Griff isn’t okay. I got a little defensive earlier and I probably shouldn’t have, but he was pissing me off. I don’t even know exactly how to help him through this. My instinct is to offer up Moira, to remind him what he has now that Ashley’s out of the way. I could use her to help him through it, but now I’m a little worried what he might say to her.

  I didn’t even want Griff to know I had a hand in this, but I damn sure don’t want Moira to find out.

  I don’t make a habit of keeping secrets from my wife, but this is one truth she doesn’t need to know. This was an isolated incident, a one-time solution to a very big problem. Regrettably, this was the only end Ashley left me with. Griff tried to pay her off, and she wasn’t even willing to take that. She had no right to try to ruin my life, but because of her blatant greed, she would have. She would have settled for nothing less than total destruction, and our money would have gone straight into Danny Long’s pocket. That asshole wouldn’t bat an eye at what I’d done, so I’ll be damned if I do. I’m not going to let Griff’s Boy Scout bullshit get under my skin.

  So I did a bad thing.

  People do bad things all the time.

  Pushing my fingers through Moira’s carefully styled curls, I smile tenderly and lean in to brush my lips across hers. She must understand I need to get lost in her for a while, because even though I just told her I had news, even though I only started telling it then stopped, she lets me haul her little ass upstairs and fuck my frustrations out.

  Afterward, as she lies in my embrace, her hand resting over my heart, all I can think is, I love her so fucking much. I won’t lose her, not for anything. Not even for Griff.

  Maybe Moira is the only person in the world I can count on. Maybe Griff would rather hold onto his principles and wallow alone in his unhappiness than get over it and have a life with me.

  He’s the reason we were in this mess to begin with. He’s the one who couldn’t just tell me years ago he wanted my fucking girl; instead he went out and made a mess. Created all his own problems, writing legal documents with his fucking heart instead of his head, marrying someone when she wasn’t even the woman he wanted…

  Griff got us into a shitty situation and I got us out of it.

  Now all our heads are above water, and he wants to bitch about the life raft I employed.

  Well, not to be a consequentialist, but yes; in this scenario, the end justified the means.

  Thankfully, Griff comes home.

  He’s a little drunk and a little ornery, but he shows up. That has to be a good sign.

  I broke the news to Moira about Ashley’s “suicide” while we were upstairs in bed together, so as soon as he comes through the door, my big-hearted wife fills up with sympathy. She throws herself at him, wrapping him up in her loving arms; he holds onto her like she’s all he has left in the world.

  It hurts a little.

  I hear her whisper, “I’m so sorry, Griff.”

  Tension knots my shoulders as I await his response, but he doesn’t say anything back. He just holds her.

  Moira fusses over him now that he’s here, lavishing affection and attention on him, asking if he’s all right—just generally trying to ferret out what he needs so she can give it to him. He doesn’t talk much. He’s so fucking dramatic. It’s not like he had any love left for the fucking woman; he wanted her gone nearly as badly as I did, he just doesn’t have the balls to make it happen.

  He’s starting to piss me off, but when he finally cuts a cold look my way, I see just as much anger reflected back at me.

  Ignoring the strain would be a Herculean effort, so Moira picks up on it. She doesn’t know what to do with it, though, so she does her best to pretend there isn’t a tight rope of tension between the two of us as she ambles across it. She takes Griff’s hand and brings him into the living room. She sits him down on the couch and he takes the end furthest from me, like I’m a disease he’s afraid of catching.

  When she sits down and snuggles up against his side, resting her head on his shoulder, it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to reach over and yank her over to me. If Griff wants to be an asshole, maybe I should remind him who the king fucking asshole is in this relationship. I’ve given him everything, and I can take it away just as fucking easily.

  Before I can respond in anger, Moira’s gentle hand claims mine and she tugs me close. She wants me with her, too. Since something is clearly wrong with us, she must want to snuggle out our aggression.

  It doesn’t take any added incentive for me to cuddle my wife, though. Fuck Griff and his shitty mood. Resting my hand on her hip, I move up behind her. With her head on his shoulder, her neck is exposed to me, so I leave a trail of kisses there. When she sighs with pleasure, Griff’s jaw locks with annoyance.

  I smirk. That’s fun. I want to fuck with him some more, so I reach a hand down inside her dress and cup her breast as I kiss her. Even if Moira knew he was definitely mad at me, she wouldn’t hold back from me, so just like she would if we were all on good terms like we should be, she responds. Griff has to feel her writhe on his body under my ministrations, and where most nights it would be fine, maybe even hot, right now it makes him mad.

  Eventually his body is so taut with anger that I wonder if he wants to hit me. It’s almost like old times, before I shared her with him, if he felt anger at me over it back then. Maybe I’m not using words to remind him how much I mean to Moira, but I’m using something much harder to ignore—a visual. I’m no fool. I know he’s probably considered telling Moira what an evil bastard I am today, turning on me, taking her and running. Even if only for a minute, if only in a fit of anger, I know Griff. I know how he works. I know he has that pain in the ass white knight streak.

  I don’t.

  And Moira likes that I don’t. She doesn’t need me to be a white knight—she likes me just the way I am.

  Moira’s breasts are bare now, her dress pushed down. I can keep pushing Griff, or I can offer an olive branch.

  “Care for a taste?” I ask him, nodding toward her breasts.

  He looks over at me through narrowed eyes. I cock an eyebrow and bend to take her left nipple into my mouth. Moira’s head drifts back against the couch and she reaches for Griff, giving him the last nudge he needs. Glaring at me in frustration, he nonetheless joins me in feasting on my wife’s breasts. I feel victorious as Moira holds us both close, one hand in his hair, one in mine; she brings us together, even if only temporarily.

  Since I’ve been rubbing in how much she wants me, he leaves her breast after a moment and shoves me off her, swinging his thigh across her body and straddling her. A little breathless, she looks up at him uncertainly, then he gives her a searing kiss he surely hopes I’ll hate.

  I don’t, though. It’s hot. I like to see him dominate her; he doesn’t do enough of it. He’s only doing it now because he’s pissed at me, and the only weapon we can use against each other right now is Moira’s body.

  That gives me hope. He’s angry, but he’s still playing within a set of rules. He’s still respecting limits. Maybe he thinks he can annoy me by angrily fucking what’s mine, by showing me my wife wants him, too, but he’s not crossing the line. He’s not bringing the ugly truth into my house and poisoning my wife with it.

  Not yet, at least.

  Instead, he pushes my wife down on the couch and frees his cock. He watches me instead of her while he pins her down and shoves his cock into her mouth.

  I smile.

  His eyes narrow and he thrusts harder.

  I like that even more. It’s hilarious that this is how he thinks he’s going to piss me off. I’d be more pissed, more afraid, if he didn’t want to touch her. If it seemed like he was turning away and I was losing my hold on him.

  I’m not. All the evidence is right here on the couch, in the tension in his body, in the sounds my wife makes as she takes every generous inch of him. And then afterward when she’s sucked him dry and he comes ba
ck down, when he realizes he’s using her as a weapon so he pulls her close and snuggles her, kissing and caressing her, trying to make it up to her.

  He doesn’t need to; Moira’s perfectly content. He’s still not used to her, though. Despite all the evidence that should have shattered it, there’s still a part of him that refuses to let go of his image of her as his Madonna.

  After snuggling for a little while, Moira tilts her head up and looks at him. “Are you hungry? I can warm up some dinner.”

  Griff shakes his head, looking down at her with so much tenderness, I almost feel like an intruder. “I just want to hold you.”

  Moira smiles softly and leans up to kiss him, then she settles back into his embrace and gives him exactly what he needs.

  Griff goes upstairs to take a shower, so I get my wife back for a little while. She curls up beside me and rests her head on my shoulder. I think she’s waiting for me to turn on the television, but I don’t want to watch anything. I don’t even want the background noise. I want to know the perfect way to explain to Moira that I need her to handle Griff, remind him the chain of command, and oh, by the way, he might try to convince her I killed Ashley—or at least contracted her death.

  Turns out I don’t have to bring it up, because Moira does.

  “That’s so awful about Ashley,” she says, shaking her head.

  “Yes,” I murmur, not bothering to muster much fake sorrow.

  By the end, Moira didn’t like her either, but she still feels bad. “Poor Griff. I can only imagine what he must be feeling.”

  “I think he’ll need you tonight,” I tell her.

  “I figured.”

  “Maybe you alone,” I specify. “Tonight might be a good night to spend in the guest room with him. In case he needs to talk to you and he doesn’t want to do it in front of me.”

  “He could talk in front of you,” she says, a touch dismissively. “I’d rather sleep with both of you in our bed. That could be just as good for him.”