“It’s not that simple,” Michael paused, staring at his daughter. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “From what I’ve gathered Richard destroyed the evidence my wife,” He glanced to the woman bitterly. It was a wonder they were still together. “Sold to him,”
“So that’s it?”
“No, I’m sure there’s something somewhere—Christopher isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is,” He glanced at the teenager who looked about as confused as he would have thought. “Richard and Vincent were friends all throughout school, there’s a point where it all went digital and that would have had to be when they both seemed old enough to do it themselves,” she looked even more confused. “He can’t be framing children, Blue, why would a five-year-old commit fraud?”
“If the
“And you expect me to just trust you because...?” obscured by the hair that fell across Blue’s eyes with the tilt of her head, Marian looked quite young for a moment. If only a moment.“What do I have to gain from lying, Blue? My husband despises me, I’m a prisoner in my own home-”“Fine!” The moment Blue snapped, she felt rather guilty rather instantly. Slouched in her seat as the woman sent her a pointed stare. Curled her toes in her shoes. Out of shame? She wasn’t sure. “You can’t blame me for being cautious…”“No, I can’t.” Fiddling with her napkin, Marian cast her eyes to the table—feeling, too, something like shame. “But what other options do you have right now? Other than the obvious,”“Marrying Richard?”“Exactly.”&nbs
Vincent hadn’t said a word to her in a while. They had driven in silence. She had sat at the kitchen counter. Watched as he made her a green tea, eyes refusing her own. Admittedly, she felt rather nervous. Was her disappointed in her? A possibility she had only just considered. But he hadn’t even given her the time to explain. She knew that he was a grown man. Wondered if he wouldn’t care for the antics that had cleared his name simply because she’d caused a bit of a fuss with it all. And grown men didn’t like fusses. No, they’d much rather the quiet. And Blue, as it turned out, was certainly not quiet.Blue was guilty of assaulting a police officer, as it turned out. Something Vincent had paid the officer generously to forget. No, he was far more concerned with the fact she’d been printed in his morning newspaper proclaiming her guilt to protect her beloved fiancé—and the fact when he&rsqu
“For god’s sake, I’m pregnant with your child. Would you just listen to me?” Not caring much at all for the fact he’d swatted her away like a fly, she took the man by the face as she had before. Pressed herself up against him. Hoped he wouldn’t shove her away again and seethe something about how she’d betrayed him. “I love you; I wouldn’t do anything if I thought it would hurt you.”“You know Richard. Do you really think he’s innocent?”“No, of course I don’t think he’s innocent—I think that he slapped around his girlfriend, and he needs some help, but I also think that the only way to stop all of this isn’t by sending Richard to prison because nothing will stop them from blocking people’s payments after someone else has taken the blame.” He softened. Thought did struggle from his wife sl
She smiled a small smile. Rubbed her dampened palms across her jeans. “Fuck me, then.” She felt strange demanding it. A night in prison had her well-acquainted with her desire, it would seem. So much so that she was now unafraid of being rather crass about it. Fearless of whether she seemed juvenile or improper.“Not yet,” He met her with a gentle, brief kiss. Reached for her jeans again. Eased her onto the countertop. “I’ve been planning this for a while, you see,” Her heart jumped as he tugged her trousers to her ankles far too easily for her liking.“You have?”“I have.” He stood over her. Slid a hand inside of her underwear. Pressed his mouth against hers. Why did she feel like a patient on an operating table? She thought silently. Why did she like it?“What are you going to do?”She stared
Leg bouncing impatiently, eyes nailed straight to the same doorway, Blue hardly flinched as she spilled coffee all over her hand. It didn’t burn her. Rather, she pretended it didn’t burn her. Or, more accurately, she didn’t have the RAM to care. She wiped the soiled hand on her black jeans. Set her half-sipped coffee beneath her chair. Adjusted her grip on the spare. And her knee just kept on bouncing. Suddenly, the familiar thin man burst through the door. She smiled at his coffee-less hand. Had he come to expect her? She jumped up. “Detective!” Positively beaming to herself for absolutely no reason. Hoping he couldn’t see the blood pooling beneath her thumb nail where she had bitten it a bit too short. “Ms Pierce,” He forced a stiff smile as she thrust the coffee towards him. The lid had crusted over with spilt foam. But the paper body was still hot. “I appreciate the gesture, but servicemen drink free at the café next door—yo
“Are you going to say anything?” Finally, Blue looked up. It was a reasonable enough question. She had been sat by her ex-fiancé’s side for a good few minutes at that point. Staring at the children thrashing about the playground like ants with oversize loads. How she wanted to run up to them with a bottle of hand sanitizer. Who knows what diseases bred in those sheltered, hot slides?“How’s therapy?” She stared into her ex’s bright eyes. Looked for something material to validate her hopefulness.“I’m still going, if that’s what you’re really asking.” She looked away, satisfied. It had been. Looked back up at him.“I saw your mother yesterday,”“You did?” Richard looked awfully hopeful. She felt badly for the man.“She was at the station,” That hope resigned
Laid out on the couch, a hand splayed across her stomach, Blue was sure all the roundness couldn’t completely be the baby. It seemed sealed behind a thick layer of fat. Squishy in her palm. Folded in a roll beneath her ribs. She ought to fix her posture. She looked like an eccentric armchair. Still, the tie of an empire waistline dress tight around her sides, she imagined the baby kick. Screwed shut her eyes. Fixed herself with a grimace of great concentration. Wondered if she felt the infant’s heartbeat of the pulse in her own fingers. And felt rather foolish for deciding she was emotionally ready for a child. At eighteen. How laughable. She stood. “Blue?” Her summons was muffled. Vincent would have been downstairs. Locked away in his study. Sat in the half-darkness. Surely, she’d imagined it. That shut door meant just that. She couldn’t go in. She had never tried to. She missed their apartment, knowing all too well only because he couldn’t escape her there.
Stiffly, she followed suit. Relaxed as he tugged her into his chest. Neck craning sideways as he leant over her, breathing into her skin. She wished silently he’d nibble at her skin. Slide a hand beneath her skirt. Rub his erection up over the back of her. But all he seemed to want to do was stare. “What?” She asked quietly. “You’re beautiful.” He spoke just as quietly, untying the woman’s dress without a word. So, she fixed him with a stare over her shoulder, sighing as his mouth pressed to hers. He’d opened the front of his wife’s wrap dress, fingertips creeping down her torso, stomach stiff against his forearm and his hand swiftly rooted in her panties. And as she sucked in a deep breath, the bulge of his child pressing into his arm swelled somehow further, he never wanted to fuck the mother of his child any more—or any less. “There are so many things I want to do to you right now,” He murmured in her ear, fingertips strummin
Staring out at the living room floor, Blue saw a sight she never thought she would live to see: Marian playing with her grandson on the floor. It was unsettling, in an uncanny-valley way. Something so close to resembling human but just short of enough. She spun her engagement ring back and forth on her finger. He slid his arm around her waist. “’You okay?” She glanced up to the man stood at her side. His dark hair gathered into a short, thick ponytail. Eyes as bright as ever. Smile as devilish. Would it be so wrong to fuck like animals with her mother in the room next to them? After all, to a married couple, sex was the most natural thing. Or so she'd heard. “Yeah,” Blue sighed. Hugged her arms around herself. “I think so,” “How long is she staying?” “Until she can get the settlement money from Bradley,” “I didn’t think he had any left,” “It’s all
It could have been hours by the time Blue came to. Usually, the state of her coffee would be a good indicator, but it had been stone cold for god knows how long. The sun was still up, if that counted for anything. She had left her phone at the house. Vincent was with the baby. She had stolen herself away for some quiet at the very café she had shared with both Vincent and Richard. Sat staring at her right hand where the engagement ring of the latter sat without a band. What was he doing? A thought that crossed her mind often. She hadn’t heard from him after the verdict, though still awaiting the sentencing. She had the thought that he was arrested for assaulting a police officer after his fiasco of escaping custody in the courtroom. Christopher wouldn’t have set any bail, would he? Not after he pretended to have been oblivious to his son’s sins. It would be hard to act surprised if he was actively helping his son as someone ought to. Vincent
Blue stared at the city; Vincent stood at the counter behind her. The windowsill seemed to share her most pivotal moments more than even the universe shared them with her. Though her grief was one of the poorer-kept secrets of the world she felt marginally better whispering her thoughts to the brittle pane. Just as she felt gratitude Vincent had kept the apartment they’d outgrown with the baby for nostalgia’s sake. Or to bolster his net worth. Either one.She was muttering the same three words over and over. Repeated hoping that enough times would unencumber her or the rage that swelled with each inhale to expel them. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate… The world?“I should write him a very strongly worded letter.” She glanced to her husband, the man fiddling with a steaming tea as though debating which moment would be safest to present it to his wife. “But
“It is found,” Blue glanced up at her husband, her arse feeling rather sore from the wooden bench. They had been sat in court for what ought to have been five hours at that point. The room smelt of wood varnish and stale air, having the look about it of a church with generous natural light and the buzz of Catholic choir. Only the silence rattled through much the same way any prayer would. “That the Commonwealth has proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” She had stared at the back of Richard’s head the whole time, if only hoping he would meet her eyes for just a second. She feared he thought no one in the room was on his side, a feeling she had become well-acquainted with over the years. Nothing seemed more dreadful than being carted off to prison with that same feeling. How strange it was to think that the man she was so sure she would murder given the chance had sat on the living room floor playing with her son just a day or two before. Staring into her husband’s deep green eyes, she w
“So, I have a question,” Blue reached for her coffee, eyeing her maid. Well, she wasn’t her maid anymore. She was her mother-in-law. It was complicated. Pregnancy had somehow made her even fonder of coffee, maybe because she hadn’t had it. “Why did you tell me not to stay with Vincent when I told you I was pregnant if he was your son this whole time?” She couldn’t help but smile at her own sentence, taking a long gulp of the latte that had since gone flat. Vincent stared between the two silently. It was news to him.“I thought he was going to prison,” She simply shrugged. It was a good enough answer. Blue wasn’t sure whether Anya—Alfonza, as she had come to know—liked her all that much. “I thought I was doing what was best for everyone,”“So, you tell my wife to leave me?” Then came her husband’s booming voice, deep and accented. Ho
Blue stared at the deep purple wrap dress in the mirror, sleeves to her elbows. Loosened the strings around her waist and tightened the knot again as though it would magically make her thinner. She was yet to properly mourn her pre-baby figure. She looked like a rectangle. A bloated, lumpy rectangle. Or so she thought quietly to herself. She tore the dress over her head.“I think we’ve found a winner,” Vincent entered the wardrobe quietly. Tried his best not to gawk at the woman in her underwear as though he’d never seen her half-naked before. Failed miserably. Wrapped his arms around her middle instead and pressed his mouth to hers. But she shoved him away. Turned back to the clothes instead.“We can’t do this, we’ll be late,” though she spoke as firmly as she could, she couldn’t help but smile softly to herself and blush as she leafed through her clothes without looking. The idea of let
“It’s not fair, why can’t I go with Richard?” Vincent dug his heels in as he stopped behind his mother. Hoped a childish frown would move her enough to let her son be with his only friend. “I’m not a child anymore,”“I’ve seen the awful lot Richard hangs out with, you can either help me out for the rest of the day or go to the deli with your father,”“I’m a vegetarian.” He spoke expressionlessly.“Housekeeping it is!” Alfonza sounded a bit too cheerful for Vincent’s liking. Was it too late to call back the Taxi that had brought him straight from school? “Now find somewhere quiet to sit, I shouldn’t be any longer than an hour,”“I’ve got homework tonight, Ma.”“Then do your work here,” She smiled again. A bit too cheerful. Aga
Her skirt was over her stomach in a matter of seconds, underwear kicked beneath the bed. Heart racing, fingertips beating in the tips of her fingers curled up into her palms, Blue spread her legs with no further instruction. Released a long, shaky breath as her husband hooked her legs over his shoulders and breathed into the inside of her thigh. But she stared at the roof. Watched the shadow cast by the lamp behind him loom over her, growing in size as he neared. And all she could feel was his hot, damp exhale fanning her center; his opened mouth quick to follow. “I still can’t believe I’m your wife.” She grumbled the words quietly, arching her back as his lips closed around her and his teeth grazed her labia. “I’m a lucky man.” He grumbled back, his voice twisting through her and carrying its echo deep into her stomach. “I can’t believe that you were so adamant you never wanted to see me again after your birthday party and now you’ve got your pussy i
“Are you joking?” He had his wife’s face in his hands again, staring between her narrowed eyes with a look of expectation now not quite as well-hidden. “You actually went to the police?”“Of course, I did, all the love I had left for him went when I found out how much my mom actually cares.” She looked like she’d thought it rather obvious. Despite the fact she’d been defending him for so long. “He could be sentenced to death, and I’ll be happy to do it.”“You don’t mean that,” he’d released her, sitting back on the edge of the bed, hands on his knees. But she’d rocked forward. Wrapped her fingers through the sides of his hair. Met his eyes with a stare he wasn’t quite so daffy to break.“He told me it was my own fault Richard hurt me.”“But Richard’