They both hung their heads shamefully.
"I will accept your apologies if you'll do two things for me," I said in a gentler tone.
"We'll do anything, Uncle G," Declan answered immediately.
"Yeah," Devlin added with an enthusiastic nod. "Anything."
"First, you promise not to be disrespectful in class ever again." I eyed each of them sharply as they vehemently nodded in agreement. "And you apologize to your fellow students before class next week."
Their eyes widened in dismay. "But-" Devlin began.
"Boys," Derek interrupted his son sternly. "What Uncle Gareth is asking for is reasonable. Be happy he's letting you stay in his class. Another teacher might have kicked you out for that kind of behavior."
The twin's mouths fell open in abject horror. Then they both turned to look at me with big sad watery eyes. The last thing I wanted was to make the boys cry. They were good kids. I'd known them their whole lives, and I loved them like family. I'd never kick them out of my class. They loved Muay Thai as much as I did.
"Come here," I said softly as I opened my arms to them. They both shuffled forward into my arms and collapsed against me, sobbing out more apologies. "It's okay," I murmured reassuringly as I rubbed their backs soothingly. "Just do those two things I asked and all will be forgiven."
"We will," Devlin said in a thick voice.
"We promise," Declan added through a hiccuping sob.
"I love you guys," I murmured softly.
"We love you too, Uncle G," Declan replied.
A deep pang tore through my chest. I should be saying these things to my own kids, but here I was thirty-five, alone and childless, with no hope of that ever changing. I shoved the feeling down sharply, not wanting those kinds of melancholy thoughts filling my head. They were pointless and accomplished nothing. I let the boys go and straightened on the bench in sudden discomfort.
"Alright, boys," I said in a business-like tone. "Time to get dressed so we can get out of here." I stood and stepped past the kids to my locker. I started pulling my shirt off, deciding I'd shower at home instead so I could get out of here sooner. I needed a damn drink.
The boys went to the other side of the room to get dressed, but I could feel Derek standing there watching me for several moments. I turned to glance at him after pulling my jeans on. His expression was concerned and far too knowing. He knew I'd always wanted kids, even if I lied and told Ryan I didn't when I left her. The truth, that took all five years of our marriage for me to figure out finally, was that I'd been putting off having kids with Ryan because I didn't want kids with her. I couldn't imagine her being capable of mothering any kids, let alone her own. I didn't want my kids to have an emotionally unavailable mother like mine. I guess I subconsciously knew my marriage was doomed to failure all along.
"What?" I asked crossly, not wanting to deal with his misplaced concern for me.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly as I put my sweater on. "You've been off lately."
"Derek," I answered in annoyance. "I'm fine. Not everyone is destined to have everything they want. Some of us have to make do with what we have."
"Why do you have to settle for that?" he asked with a deep frown. "If you put yourself out there, maybe you could have everything."
"Well, not everyone is lucky enough to have a perfect marriage and a perfect goddamn life," I said in a low bitter tone as I turned my back on him to sit down and put my shoes on. I was being a dick and didn't care at the moment.
"God, you're an asshole today," Derek said in disgust.
"I'm an asshole everyday," I grumbled under my breath. "What else is new?"
"Well, call me when you're done being a complete dick," he replied irritably before he walked away. He dressed quickly and ushered his kids out of the room without acknowledging me at all, even when the boys shouted their good-byes.
I sat there for a few moments, feeling like a piece of shit. My phone chimed a text message, and I eagerly grabbed it in the hopes that it was from Malory. I was desperate for something good to focus on. I frowned as I opened the screen. It was from Jane, my housekeeper. The message was short and to the point, but filled me with a wave of dread.
Your mother is here.
Fuck. Me.
**********
Melissa Caxton only truly loved one thing in her entire life. Herself. Everything and everyone else were a distance second, including her only child, me. It was that disinterest in her own son that finally prompted my father to divorce her and get full custody of me when I was two. She didn't even fight him to keep me. She was too busy trying to get her "fair share" of the marital assets to care about me.
It wasn't until I was older that she showed any interest in me. My father, being the good man he is, started letting her keep me one or two weekends a month when she asked for it. She led him to believe that she had changed and wanted to spend time with me. He didn't realize her ulterior motive. She wanted the attention a cute little boy could garner her. She dressed me up and paraded me around for her society friends like her own little dress up doll. She would ignore me once she lost interest, and subsequently get angry with me for embarrassing her in some way when I acted out to get her attention. Then when I cried, she told me that boys didn't cry, unless they wanted to be little babies forever. I was a five-year-old boy. I don't know what she expected.
When I came back home after my weekends with my mother, I was wild and out of control. I was already an impulsive and sensitive child, and after a whole weekend of being ignored or completely overstimulated, it took my poor father days to get me to behave normally again. The man had the patience of a saint for dealing with that every time my mother kept me.
After a few years, when I wasn't quite so cute anymore, she lost interest almost completely and stopped keeping me on the weekends all together. She would only show up a few times a year to see me and mess with my head. She'd continued showing up like that ever since, and even now as an adult she still randomly showed up in my life to vex me. Each time was a practice in futility to get her truly to connect with me, or listen to me, but she was still my mother, so I tried to tolerate her occasional visits as much as I could.
When I finally made it home and walked in, I could feel the tension in my apartment. Jane was in the kitchen preparing dinner as my mother stood nearby watching her like a hawk with a haughty expression. Jane's pained uncomfortable look turned to relief when she met my eyes. I felt bad that Jane had to deal with this by herself until I got home. I gave her an apologetic look that she acknowledged with a slight nod.
My mother was dressed in a tight fitting white blouse, black skirt, and stiletto boots that would have looked more appropriate on a woman half her age. Her long dark hair was flawlessly styled in soft curls around her face, and her makeup was skirting the edge of being overdone as usual. My God, she was always trying to impress someone. It seemed like it would be exhausting trying that hard everyday.
She turned and her dark eyes, that were identical to mine, focused intently on me. A wide exaggerated grin spread across her face. I swear her cheek bones looked more prominent than the last time I saw her. I suspected she had work done by a plastic surgeon yet again. What was wrong with aging gracefully?
"Gareth, darling," she announced in her elegant lilting voice as I stepped into the kitchen. "There you are. I was beginning to think you were going to leave me here all alone."
"You're not alone, Mother," I replied irritably. "Jane is here."
She waved a dismissive hand in the air. "She's the help." As if that explained her refusal to speak to Jane unless she had to. She walked up to me and patted my cheek. She'd been doing it my whole life, and I hated it. "How's my handsome boy today?"
My God, she never knew how to relate to me as a child, and now as an adult, she still didn't have a clue. I didn't like being patronized by anyone.
"What do you want, Mother?" I asked in resignation as I stepped out of her reach to set my gym bag on the floor and
my keys on the kitchen island.
"Can't I just want to see my own son?" she asked in a wounded tone that I knew was meant to make me feel bad.
It didn't work. I knew all her tricks now. I gave her a sharp look that spoke exactly that. She let out a imposed upon sigh.
"Very well," she said with a frown. "I wanted to invite you personally to my wedding, darling."
"Really Mother?" I asked in snide incredulity. "Another marriage? Are you running low on your last divorce settlement?" I'd lost count of her marriages at this point, since it'd happened so many times over the years.
Her face hardened. "You never treated me like this before your father married that horrid Vivian woman." Her voice dripped with disdain. "She always poisoned you against me. I knew that woman would be a bad influence on-"
"Stop!" I snapped out as sudden rage surged inside me. I stepped toward her, and she shrank away a step. "You will not speak ill of her in front of me. You know I won't tolerate it. She was always there for me when you weren't."
"But darling, I only meant-"
"I don't care what you meant, Mother," I snarled through clenched teeth. "I don't want to hear it, and I'm not going to your joke of a wedding."
She huffed melodramatically with an indignant expression. "You've always been so over-sensitive, Gareth. Just like your father."
I clenched my fists and fought for self-control. Now she was insulting my dad too. It pissed me off even more, but I was not going to have a shouting match with my mother. It never accomplished anything since she was incapable of admitting she was wrong about anything. She had denial and obliviousness down to a damn science.
"We're done here, Mother." I ushered her toward the door with a firm hand on her back. "It's time for you to go." I opened the door and pushed her quickly through the doorway.
"I just don't understand why you're getting so upset," she said crossly. "You're so over-dramatic." I hated her passive-aggressive bullshit. It had taken me years not to fall for them anymore, but they still managed to infuriate me.
"Good-bye, Mother," I said with finality and closed the door in her face. I leaned my head on the door and sighed as I took a few moments to calm myself down. A cold nose touched my hand, and I opened my eyes to see Reggie right next to me with worried eyes. He whined softly. He tended to get scarce when my mother visited, and I knew he'd been hiding upstairs until she left. He was a smart dog.
"Gareth?" Jane called out worriedly.
I straightened and turned to walk back to the kitchen. "I'm going out," I announced grimly as I picked my keys up off the granite counter top.
She nodded in understanding. She'd witnessed enough of my interactions with my mother to know how badly they affected me. I returned to the door and grabbed Reggie's leash off the hook on the nearby wall, then walked out with my dog hard on my heels. When the elevator returned from the lobby, I took it down to my garage, loaded Reggie into the back of my Range Rover, then climbed into the driver's seat and took off.
The drive calmed me somewhat, and by the time I reached my destination, I felt a little less angry, but no less out of sorts as melancholy fell over me. I climbed out of my SUV, and got Reggie out of the back of the vehicle. Then we made our way through the snow-covered cemetery, our steps crunching across the snow. We stopped in front of a familiar headstone, and I stared down at it. The sun was just setting, but the snow made up for the lack of light, and I could just make out the name etched into the stone. Vivian Caxton, the woman who'd been my step-mother and my friend.
Dad married Viv when I was twelve. She'd made the rest of my childhood happy and helped me see what a real mother was supposed to be. She'd helped me learn to focus my easily bored mind, and to be a better person. Muay Thai classes were her idea to teach me self-control and respect. She'd been gone for eight years now, but I still missed her fiercely. It wasn't fair that the only woman I ever completely trusted and counted on was stolen from me. All because I was a selfish asshole when she told me things I didn't want to hear. I still remembered that day vividly.
I went to check on Viv a few days after her knee replacement surgery. We were chatting over coffee, when Ryan called and started in on me. Toward the end of our marriage, Ryan became paranoid, constantly checking up on me and accusing me of cheating on her. She was jealous and suspicious of any time I spent away from her. No matter how much I reassured her that I was faithful and loved her, it wasn't enough. She even began badgering me to quit Muay Thai, the one thing I was passionate about and defined me beyond being a lawyer. To avoid conflict, I started telling her I was working late when I went to the gym. Of course that led to more accusations of infidelity. Like a pathetic fool, I put up with all of it. I was such a coward back then.
That day Ryan went to my office to visit me, and my assistant told her I had the afternoon off, but didn't know where I was. I didn't tell Ryan about my plans because I didn't want to deal with the backlash. I ended up having to put Viv on the phone to convince Ryan that I wasn't with another woman. It was humiliating. Viv had never seen that side of Ryan, or the pitiful man I'd become for putting up with it. I was completely pussy whipped, and had given up on even trying to assert myself in my marriage anymore. It was easier to let Ryan have her own way to keep the peace. I'd tried to hid how bad it was from my family and friends out of embarrassment.
Viv stared long and hard at me after she gave me my phone back, watching as I kowtowed to Ryan in an attempt to placate her. Those phone calls were always so exhausting as I futilely tried to make my wife happy while losing myself a little more each time. I didn't want to give up on my marriage. I didn't want a string of exes like my mother. I didn't want to be a failure as a husband, but I was miserable and in complete denial. I couldn't meet Viv's gaze after I ended the call, feeling chagrined to have her witness my weakness.
"Gareth, are you happy?" she asked knowingly from the recliner she was sitting in so she could elevate her knee. Heartfelt concern filled her keen blue eyes as she frowned at me.
"Of course, I'm happy," I immediately answered with the same trite words I told Ryan whenever she asked me that herself. "Why wouldn't I be?" My denial was my only defense against the painful truth of my hemorrhaging marriage. I poured myself more coffee from the pot on the nearby coffee table, hoping she'd let this go. "Dad says your physical therapy is going well. I bet you can't wait to get back up to full speed again." Viv was an active woman and hated being laid up.
"Gareth," she said scoldingly. She knew I was deflecting. "I've known you long enough to know when your full of shit."
"I'm not full of anything," I defended myself. "Compromising is part of being married. You know that."
"That's not compromising, honey," she replied with a gentle shake of her head. "That's giving up. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your happiness for someone else's."
The truth of her words bit into me sharply, and it shook the walls of my denial. I didn't like it. I set my coffee cup down roughly on the coffee table, sloshing liquid out of it and abruptly standing from the sofa I was sitting on.
"I don't have to sit here and listen to this bullshit," I snapped out sharply as anger surged up inside me. I was really angry at myself, but it was easier to take it out on Viv. "You don't know a damn thing," I growled at her. "And this is none of your fucking business anyway, so butt out." I turned and stormed across the room in my haste to leave this uncomfortable conversation behind.
"Gareth," she said in a soft yet pointed voice. It stopped me in my tracks, and I turned back to look at her. "You deserve to be happy. You don't have to live like this for the rest of your life. Admitting it doesn't mean you're a failure. You can decide if you've had enough. It's okay." Her words cut too close to the bone again, and I lashed out.
"Right now, I've had enough of you and this goddamn conversation," I bit back with a sneer. I ignored her hurt expression and left without another word.
Later that evening, after an afternoon spent getting punished yet again with
the silent treatment from my wife, I got the call from my distraught father that changed my life forever. He came home from work to find that Vivian had passed away in her chair, right where I left her. She'd had a blood clot travel to her lungs called a pulmonary embolism, and died all alone.
Apparently, it wasn't uncommon for that to happen after any surgery, but this one had been massive and catastrophic. The doctors reassured us that it was painless and quick, and that there was nothing anyone could have done, but I knew better. If I had been there, if I had just stayed with her instead of being an asshole and walking out on her, maybe I could have gotten her help in time to save her.
Not too long after that my marriage finally breathed its last. It took Viv dying for me to see the truth and slip the chains of my denial and my soul smothering marriage. It took the guilt and shame of letting Vivian down, and the longing to honor her final words of advice, to decide that I'd had enough.
I stood there in the cold cloaked in my painful memories as I stared down at Viv's grave with burning eyes that I wouldn't allow to progress to actual tears. Reggie whined and leaned against me, his cold nose nudging at my hand. I stroked his soft head and took a deep shuddering breath as I regained control of my emotions. I turned and walked back to my vehicle then, my melancholy only strengthened and deepened by the self-indulgent torture I'd just inflicted upon myself. It was far less than I deserved.
12
MALORY
"Do you think he's going to spank you again?" Willa asked as I pulled my car to a stop in front of my sister's house, her voice coming from the speakers through my phone's Bluetooth connection. "Maybe he'll use a paddle or a flogger this time," she added impishly.
"Oh my God, Willa," I said as I blushed furiously. "Stop it." I'd just finished telling them about the sexy suggestive texts I'd been getting for the last three days from Gareth about our date tomorrow night.
Dark Dominion: Dangerous Desire Book 1 Page 12
