One Day You'll Be Mine(22)

I looked at the clock. 11:23 PM. Hollis wasn’t home, but a man alleging to be his lover was. In my home, sitting in his chair that we’d gotten as a wedding gift, drinking sangria with my best friend, from cups I’d purchased just this spring. For our home. For our family and friends.

All I could think to myself was, how? Hollis and I didn’t keep secrets. We knew everything about each other. We’d been together since we were teenagers. There was never a time when Hollis ever expressed interest in other men. Ever.

Kelli and Presley re-entered the room, each holding a glass of sangria. Kelli brought an extra glass. She set it in front of me and said, “Here. You’re going to need this.”

Still at a loss for words, I stood there, drinking Presley in. He looked like a Greek god, chiseled arms and muscles all over.

Kelli stepped up to moderate the conversation. “Presley. Thanks for stopping by. Can you tell us more about your affair with Hollis? When did it start?”

Presley spoke as respectfully as possible. “First, I want to apologize to both of you for springing up on your girls’ night in. This isn’t the way a woman wants to learn her husband’s cheating. Natalia, I’d like to apologize to you for calling you a bitch a few moments ago. It was disrespectful of me to call you out of your name. I was just upset because I realized Hollis lied to me.” He motioned with his half-filled sangria glass. “But hell, I realize he’s lied to all of us.”

Presley confessed to meeting Hollis during PT. They were in different units, but those units shared gym time. Small chats in the locker room, and a few run-ins around town and on base led to them finding out they had a lot in common.

“And it went from there,” he closed.

“And he never told you he was married?” Kelli said. “You live on base housing too, don’t you? You’re not married yourself?”

“My best friend and I are married,” he said. “She’s lesbian, has two kids from a previous marriage. She needs the benefits.”

“Did you know Hollis was married?” I said, finally getting command of my faculties again.

Presley looked me straight in the eye. “Yes,” he said, reflectively. “I knew he was married. But he told me you two had an ‘arrangement.’”

“What kind of arrangement?” Kelli asked. She cocked her head, and crossed her legs, ready to hear the madness coming from Presley’s mouth.

“He said he told you he’d fallen out of love a long time ago. But you both decided to remain married for Jordan, because you didn’t want to break up your family while he was young, and didn’t have anywhere to go if you left.”

“The nerve of him!” I was fuming.

“Natalia!” Kelli patted my knee. “Calm down! Jordan’s asleep.”

My hands balled into fists as I attempted to control my emotions. I could feel my face burning from Presley’s allegations. I looked at the both of them. “Hollis and I have been together twenty years. He never told me he was gay!” Gesturing to Presley, I said, “You don’t even look gay yourself.”

Presley smiled. “Not every gay man is effeminate or flamboyant.”

Kelli cleared her throat. “Let’s get to the point. You said you knew about Natalia. Why did you make yourself known now? Why tonight? Fuck that. Why should we believe you?”

Now it was Presley’s turn to become emotional. “Because Hollis was giving me the runaround about spending the night. It made me wonder why a man who wasn’t with his wife anymore couldn’t spend the night with a man he claimed he loved.”

Pain etched across his face as tears started to fall. He explained that he was all right with Hollis pretending to be just friends in public, as the military was an unforgiving place for homosexual relationships. But as things grew, he wasn’t content with having him just in bits and pieces.

When Hollis resisted moving things along because of the marriage, Presley realized he was being lied to. He called off their affair, telling Hollis he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t going to be all in with him. That’s when Hollis showed up at his door one night, with a ring, and roses.

“He asked me to marry him after he retired. When he retired, he’d be able to divorce you, and we could live privately as civilians without military scrutiny.”

He looked down on his ring, fingering it as he spoke. “I was so happy, at first, but then I realized I’d be a fool to believe him at just his word. If you and he weren’t together, you wouldn’t need him to be home every night.

“I was going for a midday jog last week, and I saw your car outside her house.” He pointed to Kelli. “We actually live on the same street. I placed the flowers there because I figured it’d give me the answers I wanted. You guys would be happily holding hands in public or something, or there’d be no reaction.”