I found an open seat at the bar and heaved a sigh of relief as I settled on a stool. Just being among people felt good. The bartender, an attractive guy around my age with olive skin, dark eyes, and a nose that looked like it had been broken one too many times came over and placed a napkin with the bar logo in front of me.
“What can I get you, ma’am?”
It had to be said that there was something panty-melty about being addressed as ma’am in that sweet drawl. The big smile didn’t hurt either.
“What do you recommend to take the edge off as quickly as possible?”
Attractive bartender nodded. “I have just the thing.” He started grabbing bottles. Meanwhile, the guy sitting in the stool next to me, a big burly redhead with bloodshot blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, tipped his chin in greeting while he unapologetically checked me out. His gaze paused on my diamond wedding band while he brought a bottle of Budweiser to his lips and sipped.
“Randy––” he said by way of greeting. “How long you been married?”
Smiling tightly, I gave him the only honest answer I could. “Not long.”
Enough to be sitting here with you, I thought to myself.
In an alternate reality I had a real husband who couldn’t keep his hands off me or my privates and we had great friends and took fun vacations. Not in this one. In this one my husband had orgies that didn’t include me. He touched other people’s privates.
Whatever. Randy didn’t need to know there was trouble in paradise.
An hour later, after getting a detailed blow-by-blow of all three of Randy’s divorces, I was starting to regret ever coming out of the cabin.
“I woulda gone to counseling….” Randy croaked, expression completely befuddled. “I woulda if she gave me half the chance…” Burp. “…but she didn’t, said she needed someone that shared her interests…” He air quoted. “Maybe she coulda shared that her fucking interest was gettin’ double teamed before she decided to marry me…” Burp. “Bitch.”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Glancing to my right, I found a cowboy staring right back. And not just any cowboy, nooo, this was the kind of cowboy a bad, lonely wife could drown her sorrows in. In theory, I mean. I could indulge in fantasies of playing bad lonely wife, but in real life I could never betray anyone––not even a man I had no claim on and who didn’t want one on me.
Principles are a bummer. Stay away from them, kids.
My eyes widened as I took in impossibly gorgeous cowboy’s face. Tilted green eyes under winged dark brows, a deep tan, a jaw that could cut diamond into ribbons, and a mouth made for sinning. How this guy’s face wasn’t on a Times Square billboard was a mystery. He was young too. Early twenties, I estimated by the fresh face and tall lanky build. As my gaze ran down his body, I took back every disparaging remark I’d ever thought about checkered shirts and tooled belts.
Impossibly gorgeous cowboy pulled out his phone and typed. Then he showed me the screen.
How’s the water heater working?
The guardrails went up. “How do you know about my water heater?”
He typed again.
I’m Drake Wayland
Drake. An uncommon name that sounded familiar. Then I recalled Scott mentioning a Drake.
“Yes! Oh my God, thank you so much for fixing it.” He stared at my mouth as I spoke, which got me thinking… “Are you deaf?”
He nodded, then typed.
I can read lips. You should take my number in case it breaks again.
And then he smiled, a wicked smile. One that could wreck a woman or two.
Scott
“I’m already at the end of my rope and I’ve only been married three weeks.” I glanced up from my tumbler of whiskey at Ryan who looked distracted, his gaze aimed over my shoulder. I was sick of sitting at home watching games and thinking about my wife. Correction: thinking about what I wanted to do to my wife. So I’d called Ry to grab a beer and Ry seldom went anywhere without his adopted little brother in tow. “I’m leaving. Where’s Drake?” I checked my phone. Was it late enough? Had Sydney gone to bed? I couldn’t risk seeing her walk around half-undressed again. I couldn’t risk seeing her at all.
“Trying to pick up a smoking hot blonde, I think,” Ryan absently answered.
“Good. She can drive him home.” I downed the last of the Macallan 12 and pushed the glass forward on the table. That’s when Ryan gave me a look I didn’t like.
“What has Sydney been doing while you’ve been hanging at your place?”
“Working. Making plans to take over the world…” I shrugged. “Perfecting her ice princess expression in the mirror.”
Reading cookbooks and figuring out new ways to make my dick hard without even trying, I mentally added. It wasn’t for Ryan’s consumption. Nobody needed to know that I was softening toward my fake wife. My heart was––everything else was as hard as steel.
“She talks to the dogs a lot.” Was it weird that I envied the dogs? Probably.
“I don’t think she’s cold.”
“Yeah, maybe you could stop having a thing for my wife.”
“Can’t help it.” Ryan raised his beer bottle to his lips and stopped short. “Have you even considered that maybe she’s cold to you because you’re a dick to her?”
“No. I haven’t.”
That was a lie. Sydney wasn’t half as bad as I wanted to believe. Save for the cabin being clean and the aroma of food worthy of a five-star restaurant permeating the air, I wouldn’t have known she was there. Well, that and the perpetual erection. Can’t forget that. Worst case of blue balls I’ve had since I was thirteen.
Which I chalked up to not having gotten laid in far too long. And yet I felt disinclined to go looking for it––a sentiment I wasn’t ready to examine because entertaining the idea that my vanilla wife was the only woman that did it for me was out of the question. That would make me screwed and not in the way I wanted to be.
Needless to say, I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Every night I went to sleep hard. Every morning I woke up that way. I was a thirty-eight-years old, grown-ass man. I paid my taxes on time. I’d slept with models and movie stars in my sordid past, even a genuine princess once. And I couldn’t even jerk off in my own cabin because I didn’t want my fake wife on the other side of the wall to hear me. Three weeks and this arrangement had already become unsustainable.
Also, it had to be said that she had terrible decorating skills, but I couldn’t hold bad taste against her. I wasn’t that petty.
“You sure she hasn’t been out?” Judging by Ryan’s flat expression, something was up.
“Sydney? Out?” A bark of dry laughter shot out of me. “No. Even if she wanted to, I’ve got the truck.”
Ryan nodded, his mouth twitching. “So she couldn’t…let’s say, go to a bar if she wanted to?”
I didn’t like this line of questioning. Whether it was bogus or not, Sydney was my wife, my wife, carried my name, wore my ring, and I didn’t take kindly to anyone speaking ill of her. Even my best friend.