Muscle

by Lexi Whitlow

  Skye sighs heavily, like she’s taken on too much weight. In a way, she has. There’s nothing good about her being involved in this—not for her. The benefit goes to me. At least I can keep her in bed, relieving her stress with me. That’s maybe the only thing I can do.

  “Well, I’ll be there with you. I’ll tell them it’s not true. They can’t really make that shit up, can they?” Her voice sounds small and fragile.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t dealt with CPS before. They both looked dumber than two sacks of hair, so they might not be the ace in the hole Marta thinks they are.”

  “We can only pray that they’re not,” Skye says. “That’s all we have—that hope.”

  The next days will spread before us with deep anxiety and worry, but we’ll get through them. I’m realizing more and more how indispensable this woman is. There may be nothing to be done about Marta and her plans—but Skye keeps me strong and steady.

  And perhaps she’s the missing piece I needed all along.

  I can only wonder if she knows how very important she really is.

  Skye

  It’s the day of the preliminary hearing.

  My stomach is queasy as I pull my hair up into a bun. Because it’s so straight, my hair won’t stay in fucking place. It never has—or it hadn’t until Liam’s aunt and Rhiannon got hold of it on my wedding day. There was enough AquaNet in that room to kill a cow.

  I smile as I think about it. The wedding. Running home in the rain. Liam, carrying me across the threshold, taking me to bed. Fucking me until I was sore for days afterwards.

  The water turns off in the next room, and I hear the shower door close. Liam appears at the door of the bathroom, watching me as I dress. I don’t say anything. Instead, I choose a blue pinstripe skirt and a white button-down shirt. Something feels different when I put the clothes on, like everything about my body has changed. It’s not surprising, especially. Everything has changed. Even the clothes I choose each morning are different. Even my boss has commented on it.

  “Do I look okay?” I ask. “I think we ought to go for professional.”

  “This is just the preliminary meeting, Skye. The real thing is tomorrow.” He pauses for a beat. “But you look beautiful. If your looks have anything to do with the decision, we’re going to win full custody.”

  I cut my eyes at him to see if he’s being sarcastic. He’s not. Instead, his face is serious, more serious than it has been since the day the women from CPS came. Since then, we’ve been able to see Brie a few more times. But now, the time has come. Decisions must be made. And I’ve become a part of all of this.

  “Okay then. Get ready,” I say. “We’ve got to go in an hour.”

  “That means we’ve got an hour,” he says, coming over to me. “I think that’s plenty of time for me to examine how these clothes look on you.” He kisses my neck, and a shiver runs down my spine. “And off of you.”

  “Come on. I’m nervous—and you should be too—”

  “I am,” he says. His hand cups my breast, pinching the nipple ever so slightly through the crisp fabric of my shirt. I whimper, because as much as I want to resist, I can’t. Even though he was inside of me last night and every day before that, I still want him. Want him to relieve the stress sitting inside of me, open me, remind me that I belong to him.

  Roughly, he lifts my skirt and pushes me against the dresser. As he pulls my panties down to my knees, the towel around his waist falls away. His cock is already stiff, and he strokes himself as he holds me. He groans.

  “You need some stress relief from your big man, don’t you?”

  “Yes, baby, I do,” I sigh. He hikes the skirt up around my waist and hoists my body onto the dresser, parting my legs. He doesn’t wait. Instead, he thrusts inside of me, taking my breath away. His cock fills me to the hilt, still stretching me open after all this time. I love how it feels—that mix of pain and pleasure that I can feel for the rest of the day.

  “You’re a greedy little girl, and you want my cum inside of you.”

  “Yeah,” I moan. He pins one of my hands against the dresser, using my body as leverage. He thrusts inside of me hard, slamming into me, hitting my clit with each thrust. The power and pressure build up in my core, tightening into a white-hot coil of need.

  “Tell me you need it, baby. Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to fill me up,” I whisper. “Come inside of me.” When I say it, my muscles grow tight and then release. The warmth and pleasure spread through me. My toes curl, and I cry out. My orgasm triggers his, and I feel him pushing harder, each movement bringing him closer. He comes, muscles tensing, a low growl issuing from deep inside of him, raw and animal.

  We stay like that, panting, and he puts his mouth to mine, kissing me hard. “We keep doing this, we’re going to end up getting you pregnant.”

  I feel myself growing pale, even though the thought has crossed my own mind. My arms are slung around his neck, so it’s easy enough to avoid his gaze. I don’t respond. Instead, I nestle deep into the crook of his neck.

  “I’m still on the pill—” I mutter.

  “I know. Maybe you should stop.”

  “Liam, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I’m a grown ass man, and I do know what I’m saying.” He pulls away and looks at me. “Skye, I want this for the long haul.”

  My heart skips, like they say in the movies, and my stomach feels like it’s dropping down to my feet. I move away from the dresser and pull up my panties. While I’m smoothing out my clothes, Liam comes to me and touches my back.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, Skye. I just want to let you know my intentions.”

  “You have before, Liam. I think we need to get through all of this first, and then we can figure out where to go from here.” My stomach turns when I say it. I’ve been fighting the words, willing them not to come. It all still seems like a fairy tale, like we’ve been conning ourselves and the world around us for this entire time. But if you pretend something for long enough, can it become real? Do I even want it to be? I’ve been over it in my head a thousand times since Liam started talking about it—and he was the one, the one who kept saying we could be a family. If and when, and us, and we.

  “I want to be with you,” he says. “A real husband. For the long haul. For Brie, and for everything else.” I look back at him, eyes wide. He’s pulling on boxers and a pair of wrinkled pants. Ordinary things, when he’s said something entirely out of the ordinary.

  I can’t respond—don’t know how to. The emotion surges in my body, roiling in my blood like a tempest. I want to, so badly. But I can’t believe that Liam Dougherty knows exactly what he’s saying, what he’s inviting me to consider. A life with him—no other women. No apartment in Manhattan. No girls. Nothing else, but me.

  I open my mouth to respond, but he puts his hand up to stop me. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it until after we’ve talked to the judge today. He’ll get us ready for tomorrow, and we’ll know more, okay?”

  “Okay,” I manage to say. “We need to go, anyway.”

  Liam takes my hand, and we walk together to the station. In silence, we ride to the judge’s chambers—a judge who, according to Marta, knows her family and isn’t such a fan of the Doughertys. He’ll be the same one seeing us tomorrow, the one who decides our fate, who makes this whole thing possible one way or another. The subway stops, and we exit the doors to the stale, humid air of the underground station.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen today, Liam,” I say as we step onto the escalator that takes us to the office. “But I’m with you.”

  The judge’s chambers are ominous—the walls are all exposed wood, and the floors marble. For a judge who sees family court and custody cases, it all strikes me as a little ostentatious. But that’s how the legal system is. Far more self-important than it should be. Next to me, Liam shuffles from foot to foot, more nervous than I’ve seen him in all the time I’ve known him
. With the CPS women at our house—funny that I think of it as our house now—we don’t know what today is going to hold.

  The family lawyer, Donnelly, walks in with Liam’s brother Finn and nods to both of us. Finn even nods at me and puts a calloused hand to my shoulder. “Thank you for being here. You know you don’t have to be,” he whispers to me.

  “Seems like this is what I signed on for,” I say. “Your brother wouldn’t let me get away with staying at home and painting my nails.”

  Finn smirks and cuffs his brother on the arm. “Looks like you got yourself a keeper, whether you meant to or not.”

  Liam looks over at me and grins. “Yeah, she’s all right.”

  “The judge is coming in just a minute. But where the hell is that bitch Marta?” Donnelly looks anxiously between the four doors that lead into the chambers. We’re the only people here, and the high ceilings and lack of daylight make the whole thing feel a little creepy—like we’ve walked into a trap.

  “That’s not the most professional language,” Liam says. “Especially not to refer to a woman who’s about to lose full custody.”

  “Don’t jinx it, brother,” Finn says.

  At that very moment, Marta walks in with Brie trailing behind her. Brie’s wearing her Catholic school uniform, but she’s pulled her shirt from out of the skirt and is worrying the bottom of it with her little hands. She looks up at me and smiles weakly. For a kid, this is all too much. Marta drags her around to parade her in front of all of us. Maybe to make us jealous, or maybe to prove some kind of point. If she were a real parent, she wouldn’t drag Brie along.

  But it’s very clear that she’s not.

  From the tight, angry feeling in my chest, I know the depth of my own investment. I hurt not only for Brie but for Liam, his brothers, his mom. Brie is a Dougherty.

  Marta’s lawyer enters behind Brie, and following him, there are two people I can’t make out.

  “Shit,” Liam says, spying them before I do. “It’s the women—”

  “From CPS,” I say. I groan and roll my eyes. “Fucking. Bitches.”

  Finn looks between us. “What happened now? Are these the people who came to the apartment to see how Brie was doing? I thought that was just routine.”

  “Nothing is routine when it comes to Marta,” Liam says, his voice a low growl.

  “Hey,” I say, catching his arm in my hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  The judge steps in, looking old and tired. His hair is slate gray, and he carries a sheaf of papers. It might be our case, or it could be a stack of unrelated emails. There’s no way to know.

  “I’ll see the case now,” he says, looking between the two groups of people. “This is for the Dougherty hearing tomorrow. And why is the child here? She doesn’t need to be around for any of this.”

  “There’s a childcare issue, Judge Brockner. Mr. Dougherty hasn’t provided enough monthly income for a babysitter during these meetings. I’ve told Brie that her father doesn’t care enough about her to provide extra money—just the bare bones and nothing more—”

  “Mrs. Maguire, there’s no call for that kind of language in front of the child,” the judge says, looking over at Brie. Brie is still looking down at her feet, even though she’s sitting now.

  “She’s baiting you Liam,” Finn whispers. “Don’t take it.”

  I hold onto Liam’s arm where we’re sitting. I never realized that I’d be so invested when this day came. Liam clears his throat, but it comes out sounding like a growl.

  “I see this case is complicated,” the judge says, refusing to address Marta’s allegations out of turn. “It looks like Mr. Dougherty had sole custody of the child until the death of the mother and his subsequent imprisonment, at which time the grandmother assumed care of the child. Is that correct?”

  Donnelly looks to Liam, who swallows hard and nods. “Marta used to split custody with my mother until her health started getting worse. We’re petitioning for full custody at this time.”

  “‘We’ meaning you and your new wife, Mr. Dougherty?” The judge looks directly at me. I wonder if my outfit is conservative enough, or if this is all see through. If it seems as flimsy to him as it does to me.

  “Yes,” Liam says. “That is correct.”

  “We’re having this preliminary hearing today to discuss if the guardians wish to discuss joint custody or sole custody.”

  “Sole custody, your honor,” Marta chirps. “That place he lives in isn’t fit for Brie—and we have witnesses to prove it.” She sounds self-satisfied when she says it—disgustingly so.

  “Please, let’s save that for later,” Marta’s lawyer says, facing the judge. “But Mrs. Maguire is correct. There’s also the issue of the falsified marriage.”

  My heart rate quickens. It was false—a fake relationship, fake wedding, all of it. But we’ve kept true to our vows, and we’ve made it real for Brie. There’s more stability now than there’s ever been. And I’ve been the one to see the changes in Liam. I want to shout all of this out, but I clamp it down inside.

  “Falsified marriage? That’s a hefty accusation. One worth looking into. I’ll expect evidence on that tomorrow. Any documentation that you can provide. And we can get testimony from both Mr. and Mrs. Dougherty on that. What’s this about the house being unsuitable?”

  “My client’s friends at Child Protective Services went to visit Brie last week, noting that she was given unhealthy food and an unlimited access to screen time during her stay. She was also forced to bear witness to the false relationship between Mr. Dougherty and Ms. Williams,” Marta’s lawyer adds.

  “Ms. Williams?” the judge asks.

  “Yes. She chose to keep her maiden name because she intends to get divorced and take her reward from Mr. Dougherty as soon as he gains custody. We intend to prove that she never intended to stay married to Mr. Dougherty. She was in it for a significant payoff from the client, from money that should have been going to child support.”

  I stiffen in my seat. “That’s not right,” I whisper to Liam. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  His skin turns pale, and he puts his hand to his face in a gesture of exasperation. “They know,” he says, whispering to his brother, Finn.

  Finn groans. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says.

  The judge rambles on, and the words become a low buzz around me. From the look on Liam’s face, there’s something I don’t know. And it’s big.

  Liam

  The ride back to our apartment is silent. Skye stares out of the window, and there’s a light rain beginning to fall. It’s not like that hopeful spring rain on the night of our wedding. Everything in New York is aggressively green now and totally covered with pollen. It’s that depressing part of spring where the air begins to get thick and humid, a reminder that summer is lurking around the corner. And there won’t be many days before the heat starts seeping in, before the air conditioning units begin humming in windows all over the city.

  “It’s nothing that hurts our case,” I say, reaching out for her hand. She pulls it away and stays silent. “It’s about the money I have put away. Marta wanted it—she always has.”

  Skye sighs heavily. “I’d thought you told me everything. But I should have known better. The wedding. The apartment. Brie. It was all too good to be true. Or—maybe it wasn’t. I can’t tell now.” Her voice is soft and solemn, like she’s thinking out loud. “Now we’re at the end of it, and I’m being made to look like a fool. Or I will be—tomorrow.”

  “It’s not like that.” I sigh quickly. “There’s money, and it’s put away. I have it in your name so that Marta can’t get to it.” I look away when I say it. Even at the first, the plan all seemed so simple, so easy to pull off. It seemed like I could make it all happen, make it all so that Marta would lose custody. I’d had it all worked out, bit by bit, as things fell into place. When I got the idea to marry Skye, when she signed on to be part of my life. What I hadn’t considered was her—and how she might feel
about all of this.

  She groans slightly. “You realize what this looks like. Whatever she found out—it’s going to look like it’s true. Even if the judge isn’t your typical old school Irish guy or whatever, he’s going to side with the woman who’s held custody for the better part of two years. Because we look ridiculous. How could you do this—”

  “I didn’t do this to you, Skye.” Even as I say it, the words sound awful coming out of my mouth.