And she flushed again, taking a deep breath before turning to me with pain in her eyes.
“It’s a long story,” she said quietly, “but the fact is that my ex, Gary, never intended on being a husband to me. He walked out the day after our wedding, walked out of our honeymoon suite and I haven’t seen him since,” she admitted slowly, painfully.
“But why?” I shook my head, bewildered. “What fucker goes and gets hitched only to beat feet the next day? What the fuck? I would have fucked you on your wedding night at least.”
And she turned beet red then.
“Gary was too drunk,” she said, her voice wooden. “He passed out and I couldn’t wake him up no matter how hard I tried.”
I just shook my head. This guy was the biggest douche ever, what the fuck, was he gay? That was the only possible explanation. But Laurie read my mind and shook her head.
“There’s nothing physically or biologically wrong with him,” she started.
I cut her off with a sharp slash of my hand through the air. That was impossible.
“No way,” I shook my head. “That dude’s either gay or has some problem, it’s the only answer. He’s probably got no testicles,” I snarled.
But Laurie actually responded.
“No, he has his testicles, or at least one,” she said slowly.
“So you’ve seen them?” I said sharply, more rough that I intended.
And she shook her head again.
“No … I’m just saying because there’s another woman pregnant with his child.”
My eyes bugged out at that.
“What. The. Fuck,” I growled. “The man who married you had a mistress on the side? Who was pregnant this entire time?”
And she nodded miserably, ducking her head down, a fall of brown curls hiding her face.
“I only found out after he took off,” she whispered, shamefaced. “After he left, word on the street was that Gary,” and here she choked, “Gary,” she started again, “was keeping someone on the side. Had been with her for years,” she said. “Years.”
And I sat back flummoxed. I can be a shit, I can run over women, use them as fuckdolls, toss them once I’m done, my sperm spent. But I’d never even come close to this fuckhead. Getting married to one woman with a pregnant mistress on the side? That was seriously fucked up shit, this fucker had to be a sociopath.
“So dude has a new woman now,” I said slowly.
And here, Laurie took a deep breath.
“She’s not a new woman, she’s been his woman all along,” she said, her voice stiff. “I was the new woman, I just didn’t know it.”
And I shook my head, my heart going out to my best girl, taking her hand in a big palm.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” I rumbled quietly, looking her in the eye. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
And the little girl drew a shaky breath then, forcing herself to sit up straight and look me in the eye.
“It hurt when it happened, I won’t lie about that, but I try to see it as a stroke of good luck. At least I found out sooner rather than later,” she said with a rueful smile. “I could have been married to this guy for thirty years and known nothing, my entire life a lie.”
And I squeezed her hand encouragingly.
“That’s my baby,” I rumbled approvingly. “Keeping it real.”
And she smiled at me again, her eyes still a little watery, lips twitching a bit at the corners.
“So tell me Tucker, since we’re baring our hearts right now, where do you see yourself going? Not that the delivery business is bad at all,” she corrected hastily, “Just where do you see yourself in five years?”
Usually I get nasty at this line of questioning because most women are just fishing for my balance sheet, scoping out my prospective earning power. But with Laurie, it was different. It felt right to share something about myself, let her into my private world.
“I dunno,” I said slowly, our hands still entwined on the bedspread, lying next to one another nude, our juices drying on each other’s bodies. And yet it felt so right, completely comfortable. Despite the fact that we’d known each other less than a week, lying here, with her, was exactly where I wanted to be.
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly, with more feeling in my voice. Because that was the truth. Hunter and I are working on a dream and there are no promises, no guarantees in the wild west of start-ups. We’d devoted all our energy and countless resources to NYC Concierge, it was our baby but we were far from stable. Shit, we were still in beta stage, implementing all sorts of changes, hiring new folks as fast as we could, desperate to get warm bodies in the door for our booming business. And so it was impossible to answer the question with any accuracy, any assurance. But I had to try for Laurie, she was important enough to me that I couldn’t just feed her some bullshit.