by K. L. Kreig
It’s stunning. A near flawless three-carat cushion cut surrounded by a carat of pavé diamonds, all set in platinum. The wedding band boasts another two carats of round diamonds that span the entire length of the circle.
It was bought with love. It was given with trust. Neither of which I deserve.
I stare at the expensive piece still in disbelief that I did this.
I’m married.
Married.
To Kael Shepard.
My best friend since I could walk.
Brother to the man I really want.
I am now Mrs. Shepard. Ironic. It’s the name I’ve always wanted. This just isn’t exactly how I pictured getting it.
I can’t recall a single second of my wedding day after I walked out on Killian. I don’t remember Daddy giving me away. I don’t remember the vows I recited or the cheer of the crowd as Kael and I walked out man and wife. The taste of our wedding cake eludes me, even two weeks later. The chords of our first song are just white noise. The feel of him moving inside me on our wedding night was as if it was happening to someone else while I watched, detached, from above.
This situation is so messed up, I struggle to get my head around it most days. I’m self-destructing. And I don’t know how to fucking stop it.
I haven’t stopped riding an emotional rollercoaster for over two years. Since the day Killian Shepard married my older sister. One second, I’m still in shock and the next, I want to die. Outwardly, I’m portraying the perfect, happy newlywed, but inside all I feel is desperate, lonely isolation. I think that’s probably called despair.
And I’m angry. So fucking angry.
All the time.
With Killian. With Jilly.
With Kael for marrying me, refusing to see what was right in front of his fucking face.
With this godforsaken town and life to which I feel chained.
But mostly I’m angry with me. Why can’t I cut a man loose who spouted his love through cryptic words but showed his true colors through real actions? Why can’t I return the love of a man who treasures me more than air or life or his precious restored 1969 Camaro? If I could, I’d go back in time and change so many things. The first being: I would never let myself fall hopelessly in love with Killian Shepard. Liar. Betrayer. Saboteur.
And guilt? God…the guilt. That emotion has this entire despicable scenario wrapped up in a nice, neat little bastardized package, tied up tight with a bright shiny bow of infamy.
Pining after someone’s husband is one thing. Pining after someone’s husband when you’re now married—to his brother—is taking immorality to an entirely new level. But that’s me. I always manage to find fresh and juicy ways to skirt around the edges of acceptable social behavior.
Sadness and regret envelop me. Completely. Thoroughly.
This ring represents my own betrayal. My own duplicity. My self-destruction. It should belong to someone else. Anyone else but me.
I love Kael. I do. I can’t imagine a day in my life without him. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, but I don’t know if I can ever love another person the way I do Killian. I have made a grave, life-altering mistake that will do nothing but bring pain to people I love. This time, I’ve gone too far, and I don’t know how to fix it.
I breathe out a long sigh, knowing there aren’t any answers to be found. None that I want to face anyway.
I glance at the clock. It’s just past 4:30 a.m. Shit, I need to get inside. Putting on my game face is tough sometimes, and after the last two weeks, today will be a true test of how well I’ve perfected my acting skills, because I’m back in bumfuck, Iowa.
Dusty Falls.
Population 5,339 according to the last census. We’re not quite like Cheers but pretty damn close. Everyone knows your name. It’s especially true for me, given who my father is.
Looking in my rearview mirror, I paste on a fake smile and test it out.
“Did you have a good time?” I mock play, watching my own reaction.
“So good!” I reply.
Ouch. That was terrible. I sound flat, like an out-of-tune piano.
One more time.
“Did you have a good time?” I try again.
“Oh my God, it was so fantastic!” I say to my reflection, injecting myself with faux enthusiasm.
Eh. Tone down the Valley Girl accent and I’ll give myself a pass. Barely.
Exiting my car, I head down the sidewalk toward the bay with a single light glowing from inside. The one that’s mine. I let myself dawdle in the quiet for just a moment. Taking a giant whiff of the sugary confections, I already smell baking. Pride swells for at least one thing in my life I’ve done right. I gaze up at the neon sign I designed, not yet lit for the day, and smile.
Cygne Noir Patisserie.
Black Swan Bakery. My brainchild. My baby. The one piece of solace I can completely immerse myself in. “I’ve missed you,” I whisper, holding the key to my business tightly in my fist.
Opening a business, a French bakery at that, in a small town that caters to modest people, was a huge gamble, but it’s doing well. Much better than anyone expected. Well, except Kael, that is. He always thought it was exactly what this stuffy town needed.
He was right.
I see movement inside and shake my head. MaryLou’s screeching voice grates—I mean greets—me the second I walk through the glass door. “How was it?”
I would say the turn of the lock or the sound of chimes bouncing against the steel frame gave me away, but that would be a lie. I bet MaryLou’s been here since before 4:00 a.m.—a panther waiting in the bushes for her chance to pounce.
I’ve been dreading this interaction the most. The twenty questions, the scrutiny, the knowing, hawk-like stare. She’ll watch every twist of my fingers, listen to every inflection in my tone, or track my hand as I tuck a piece of unruly hair behind my ear. She’ll read something into everything I do.
She’s too damn perceptive, but of course…she knows the truth. She’s always known the truth. She’s been my best friend since the first grade when I saved her life.
Well…that’s the way she looks at it. All I did was save her waist-length hair from being chopped off when Petie Marshall stuck not one, not two, but three giant wads of bubblegum in it, right in the roots. She was in the bathroom trying to rip it out, along with fistfuls of her strawberry-blond hair when I led her to the lunchroom instead, asking the lunch lady for some peanut butter. Half an hour and a few hundred strands lighter, she was gum free. She stunk of peanuts for days, no matter how much washing she did, but at least she held on to her beautiful locks. Ones she still has to this day. Exactly the way it was in first grade. Girl needs a makeover.
“Wow, a girl can’t even get a cup of coffee before the interrogation starts?” I say, throwing my keys onto the counter with a flourish. I guess I’m not quite ready to paste on my fake smile yet.
“Here.” She offers me a steaming black cup of life and manners.
“Kissing the boss’s ass?” I watch her over the rim of my mug as I take a nice long swallow of the hot, sweet brew. It tastes like a cup of sugar with a little coffee thrown in. Just the way I like it. Wow, I’ve missed this place.
She huffs. “I don’t like the taste of ass.”
I laugh. I’ve missed bantering with MaryLou James for the past fourteen days. “That’s why we’re friends.”
“So…how was it?”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘it’?” I ask, stalling for time. Kael and I returned two days ago from our two-week honeymoon on the exclusive Calivigny Island, just off the coast of Grenada. It was paradise. I should have enjoyed our private, luxurious, fully staffed home, fine sandy beach, and unmatched sunsets more than I did.
My chest clenches hard. It’s the exact honeymoon I imagined taking with Killian.
“Well, I’m not talking about the view from your private balcony.”
“Why not? It was spectacular.” I take another sip and wait for her to take
the bait.
“Was your husband’s tight naked ass framed in it?” she asks, her arched brows wagging.
“Maybe,” I tease.
“Do you have a picture?” Her voice pitches an octave higher. I laugh harder.
“Possibly.” I do.
“Oh fuck.” MaryLou fans herself with both hands and my entire body shakes. She’s had some unholy fascination with Kael’s behind since the ninth grade when she swears we were mooned by three seniors driving the loop on a Friday night. I keep telling her it wasn’t Kael. It was David Brandt. Kael was the one driving, but no matter what I say, she won’t listen.
“I think I just had a mini orgasm. For real.”
“Oh. My. God,” I squeal. I wad up a paper napkin and throw it at her. “That’s my husband you’re ogling over.”
“Hey, I can’t help that you married a ridiculously good-looking man. And that’s the most protective I’ve ever heard you get about Kael. Guess the sex was more than good, huh?”
“Hasius Crepes, bitch.” I may use fuck like punctuation, but if I so much as utter JC’s name in vain, I kid you not, the taste of Lava soap magically appears in my mouth. A bad side effect from my childhood.
“I hate it when you say that. You’re a grown-ass woman now.”
“Well…I hate your face.”
She grins widely, showing off her slightly crooked two front teeth. “That’s lame, Mavs. You can do better than that.”
I flop onto the wooden stool behind the counter. “I know. I’m tired. I haven’t been up this early in two weeks.”
“Yeah, you’ve been in a sex coma for a straight fourteen days.”
That’s not exactly true, but I don’t correct her. I feel guilty enough as it is. Believe it or not, while Kael and I had done plenty of fooling around, we hadn’t slept together before we were married. It’s not that I’m old-fashioned or was saving myself because I certainly wasn’t a virgin. It’s just that a large part of me wasn’t willing to cross that line with him, hurt him even more if I didn’t walk down that aisle. And it was just so…weird to have sex with my very best friend, a boy who used to sneak toads through my open bedroom window at night to scare the shit out of me. But thankfully, Kael was understanding, the way he always is. He assured me that we’d have a lifetime to get to know each other “that way.”
Besides, we threw the wedding together on a wing and a prayer, married only six weeks after we got engaged. I didn’t want anything fancy and I certainly didn’t want a long, drawn-out engagement. Although if I had, maybe I’d have come to my senses before it was too late.
“Is that all you think about? Sex?” I ask.
“Says the woman who’s probably been banged day and night since she left. I know if it were me I wouldn’t let that hot piece of ass out of bed even to eat. Well…except if he wanted to eat—”
“Okie dokie, then.” I stop her before she digs herself any further into a hole. Then I shift subjects, not wanting to dive into my lame honeymoon, sexwise anyway. “What happened to Fifty Shades night?” I ask, genuinely wondering if she actually went through with letting her husband, Larry the plumber, flog her with the cat-o’-nines she bought from an online sex toy store.
And by the blush I see, even in the dim lighting, I’d say she not only went through with it, she enjoyed it. “You slut.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try it.” She laughs, throwing the napkin back at me, which I successfully dodge.
“What else did you do?”
MaryLou’s shoulders rise and fall quickly. Too quickly.
“Come on,” I whine. “Don’t leave me to my imagination.” When she bites her lip and looks away, I can’t resist. “Nipple clamps? Some anal beads, maybe?” Her eyes snap back when I mention the anal beads. “Anal beads?” I practically scream in disbelief.
MaryLou James is about as tight-laced as they come, and up until I plied her with enough alcohol so she’d watch Fifty Shades of Grey with me last month, she’d never been exposed to anything other than vanilla.
“You go from missionary sex and sweet nothings to floggers and anal beads in the span of two weeks? What the fuck, MaryLou? Next, you’re going to tell me you ordered a sex swing.” Her eyes shift. It was slight, but I saw it. “Oh, hell. Just stop. I don’t want to know any more.”
I may have forgotten to mention that Larry the plumber is also my cousin and is like a brother to me. In retrospect, I should have never gone down this line of questioning.
I push myself up and head through the swinging doors into the kitchen. In short order, I have all the supplies I need to start the chocolate croissants, one of our best sellers. MaryLou has already made two batches of brioches and I smell the baguettes baking that we’ll use for lunchtime paninis.
“Napoleons and apple tarts are done. The apricots didn’t come in, so I tried that organic farm in Greenwood and they sold me twelve flats of gooseberries at a steal.”
“Really? We’ve been trying to negotiate with them for decent prices for the last three months. They wouldn’t budge.”
“Well, turns out Larry’s boss’s sister, Patty O’Shea, is married to the owner’s girlfriend’s son, Burt Leeland. She didn’t take his last name, though, so we never connected the dots.”
I chuckle. That’s rural Iowa for you.
“Well then. Glad we got all that worked out. I’d love to buy more ingredients locally if we can. How are they?”
She stops filling the coffee filter with our flavor of the day, which smells like Snicker Roo, and stares at me. “I’ll tell you if you tell me how your honeymoon went. And no bullshit this time. Don’t think I didn’t know what the hell you were doing out there with your little diversion tactic.”
I let a curl turn a corner of my mouth. “I can just try it, you know. Answer my own question.”
“Mavs.” That’s all she needs to say. My name in that tone of hers.
I flip off the industrial KitchenAid and take a deep breath before I say, “It was…nice.”
“Nice?” Her voice positively drips with incredulity.
“Yeah. Nice.”
“Sex with the hottest guy on the planet was just…nice?”
I know why she’s acting like this. Kael Shepard is stunning. Tall. Lean but buff. Soulful eyes the color of well-aged Scotch, thick lashes, cut cheekbones. An ass you could bounce a quarter off of. Big hands and thick fingers, which I’m a total sucker for. But his devastatingly good looks don’t change the fact that he’s still my best friend and that my entire sexual appetite has been elsewhere. Namely his brother.
I shrug one shoulder. “It was strange, you know.” She blinks, so I elaborate. “I guess it’s what I imagined sex with my best friend would be like. It was pleasant, but I don’t know…”
…he’s not Killian, I leave unsaid.
Her sigh says it all. She’s disappointed in me. Well, the fuckup club is accepting new members. One is an awfully lonely number. “So, pleasant and nice, huh?” she injects with sarcasm.
“I’m trying, ML,” I tell her quietly. “I’m just not sure how to fix this mess I’ve made.” My eyes sting. I blink the feeling away. If I let one tear go, a whole waterfall will gush. It might not stop.
“Maybe it doesn’t need fixing at all, Mavricky,” she replies just as softly. “Maybe it just needs nurturing.”
If only it were that easy.
I don’t respond and we both fall quiet, prepping for the day ahead. But I can’t seem to get her words out of my head.
It can’t be that easy…can it?
Small towns. They’re incestuous, some say. Lives intertwined, pasts linked, destinies already determined.
In some regards “they” are right. Not the incestuous part, of course, but there is no such thing as anonymity, even if you want it. Everybody knows everybody. People are up in your business. They gossip. Judge. They formulate opinions of who they think you are simply because they sent flowers on the day of your birth and heard “rumors” of when you lo
st your virginity in Harbor Park (untrue, by the way).
You can’t drive a mile down the road without waving at a dozen people you know. You can’t make a quick run for milk or eggs without bumping into a distant cousin or someone from your graduating high school class you never even liked but who will talk your ear off for thirty minutes about shit you couldn’t care less about. Your Auntie Marge has a big-ass hemorrhoid? Nice. A visual I didn’t need, but thanks for sharing.
You learn secrets and shames about your friends, neighbors, and community you never wanted to know.
And they learn yours.
My first day back in a place that generally fills me with pleasure and accomplishment was anything but comfortable today. I felt like a bug being studied under a microscope. Spread apart. Pinned down. I was sure I was the topic of gossip on every single street corner and in Big Stan’s Diner two blocks over.
But the more I recited my lies, the easier it got. With each story I told about romantic moonlit dinners or the best rum cocktail I’ve ever tasted or even the spider bites I woke with one morning, the more I began to believe that I had had the honeymoon of my dreams. With the man I’d dreamed about having it with.
That is until Samantha Humphries strolled in.
Sam, or Hamhock as she’s known in certain circles due to the shape of her nose, has always had the hots for Kael. The feeling was not mutual, but that didn’t stop Hamhock from living pretty in her little delusional world.
I’ve known Hamhock, as well as most of my fifty-nine Catholic-school classmates, since before kindergarten. But we were the furthest thing from friends. Her envy of my family’s wealth has always been a sore subject. Grants, funded by people like my father, paid for her parochial education. Her family struggled to make ends meet while mine went on exotic vacations every summer. She shopped at the Pretty Nickel, a local thrift store; I had designer clothes (which I rarely wore, for the record). In fact, she was so poor that people in town renamed pennies “Humphries” and when they drove by her house, they’d throw the copper coins in her yard. I did it once. Couldn’t sleep that night, I felt so bad.
