Just a Couple Ex's Blindsided (8 page)

When Liv entered the house she looked at everything inside it in a different light. She wondered if she could see hints of cheating there. Now that she knew. It was stupid, however everywhere she went; to get a suitcase, her clothes, and her bathroom supplies — she looked for evidence.

Was there something in Andrew’s tossed off dirty clothes she could find? She barely caught herself from rifling through them. Were there condoms in his bathroom supplies or sexy oils used for an affair? Could she check their phone bill for phone calls?

“God!” She used it more as a cuss word than a supplication as she threw clothes into her suitcases. She’d drive herself crazy with those thoughts. Should she search for evidence? She closed the suitcase and grabbed her cell thinking to call Axel. But as she held the cell phone aloft, she thought about what he was doing or had done. Looking at that video. She couldn’t heap this on him.

Biting her lip, she looked around the bedroom. She nearly cringed looking at the bed she and Andrew shared.

“Are you going to let him get away with this,” she exclaimed, with fury rising. “Walk all over you again?”

She grabbed her suitcases; she was going to throw them into her car, then come back inside and search for proof. Thinking ahead, like Axel wanted.

Axel sat in the same spot he’d sat in to watch the pornographic evidence of his wife’s infidelity. He sat in the same spot he was in when Ronan had left. Twenty minutes later, he was still sitting there. He scrubbed a rough hand over the wiry nap of his short hair. God, Ronan was good. Well what had he expected? Ronan had been good in the service; a talented spy. Of course, Ronan would get graphic proof. He must have used a long lens and there had to have been an open window at the hotel. Lucky them ... getting such solid evidence.

Infidelity was such a tame word for screwing, and that’s what he’d seen; Andrew Darwin screwing his wife. Doing things he’d dreamed of doing with her, but she’d refused.

Axel’s fist pounded the table. It was as if the limb was detached, because it surprised him, as if he’d been in a fog. Kiki never gave him the intimacy of oral. She would complain he was too big or he smelled funny or he had too much hair down there, and god forbid he couldn’t control himself enough that he might come in her mouth.

“But she was
giving
Darwin a blowjob,” he snarled, tightening his fingers into a fist on the tabletop. A wife couldn’t for him, but
would
for a lover? His brain had a hard time with that.

He’d expected to see screwing on the video ... flat out screwing. But not that! That blindsided him. He’d thought they had a good sexual life. He’d imagined even though they were at odds much of the time that he’d at least satisfied her in bed. Where it counted, right? Loving your woman’s body with all your heart.

He. Would. Not. Cry.

Axel stood. Took a deep breath. Then another. He unclenched his fists and shook them out. Looking around the kitchen. Anywhere but at the camcorder. He was going to go talk to his lawyer, and then he was going for a twenty mile run. Whatever it took to bleed this out of him.

A couple hours later, as he ran in the low hills outside of town, he went over what his lawyer had told him. There was no better or worse position in divorces nowadays. It was all no contest. That meant timing wasn’t necessarily an issue for him, except his lawyer said it always worked out better for the man if he filed as quickly as possible. Once filed, any debt incurred by either party would be theirs.

The lawyer told him to not empty the bank accounts, not to try to cancel credit cards, or do any creative bookkeeping on his business, because it would all come out at disclosure. Axel had asked if Kiki would get half of everything and the answer was, likely. The lawyer said he might be able to swing things more in Axel’s favor, but generally these things went half ... and did it through mediation. There would be that ... no getting out of mediation.

So Kiki could screw a guy and get half of what her husband had built. It didn’t seem right somehow. But he wasn’t going to get angry over it, he just wanted out with as little damage as possible. He could rebuild what he’d lost again. He liked challenges, and he might just sell the rental shop. What he’d always wanted to do was be a pilot, so maybe now he had the time.

Axel stopped at the top of a hill for a moment, blowing breaths as he looked over the panorama. The only timing he had to wait for now was for Liv, and then he could hit Kiki, bam-bam ... one, two and she’d be out. Hit her with the evidence, and then serve her the divorce papers. If he planned it right he might not have to confront her, just take her out with no battered words between them.

He wiped sweat off his brow. He liked that idea. Then he turned to run back down the hill, wondering what excuse he could use for not coming back home, until he was ready to deliver his punches.

By the time he’d run over ten miles, and decided to give it up, he was one hundred percent calmer. When he reached his aunt’s house in the late afternoon, he felt pleasure grip him at the sight of Liv’s car in the driveway. He’d left her a key under the mat and text her it was there, but otherwise they’d not spoken all day.

He couldn’t believe how good it felt to have someone waiting that he could talk too about everything.

“Except keep a lid on it about the video,” he muttered, as he shut off his car. He would have to keep circumspect about that video, because Liv didn’t need to know the full of it. She’d made her choice not to see it, and now he was glad she had. She’d been right ... he’d never needed to see that.

Axel sat in his car looking at the house. He’d put it off all day ... finally he picked up his cell and he called Kiki.

“Hey,” she answered.

“You back in town?” he asked.

She sounded distracted. “Just coming back in and I didn’t get any more formals.”

He knew why she didn’t and he almost made her lie about it by asking. But he was holding onto it by a thread keeping his voice level.

“Ace is in a bad way, Ronan and I are going to go check on him.” She didn’t say anything. He huffed under his breath, then said, “I’ll be gone for a few days. Jax has the store, just leave him to it.”

“Oh I get off the leash, then?”

Axel blinked hard.
What the hell did that mean?
“I’ll text you,” he said quickly, before his voice rose in anger. “Bye, Kiki.”

He thought she said one more thing but he disconnected, not catching it. He stared at the phone, wondering what she meant. They worked together, sort of, Kiki only worked when she felt like it. She mostly wanted to buy, not really tend the store. Hell, half the time he didn’t know where she was at.

He cussed under his breath. If anything they were apart too much for a married couple. Shaking his head, he decided she was just trying to get under his skin, and he climbed out of his car, shouldering his duffle bag. Going around to the rear of the car he pulled another satchel out of the trunk. He planned to have the most important things he wanted, that were rightfully his, over to his aunt's house before he informed Kiki of their divorce. The sad part was he didn’t think Kiki would even notice his things were disappearing.

Moments later, he was looking forward to getting a shower and seeing Liv. He set his bags down in the hallway and he looked in both the living room and kitchen. He didn’t see Liv, but saw grocery bags on the kitchen counter as if she’d just been there. Something bothered him and he turned to look back into the living room. His gaze landed on the camcorder, lying on its side, on the couch.

“Hell,” he cursed. Instantly, he knew Liv had looked at it. He stood for a moment fighting his emotions as though he’d just looked at the video for the first time. But the rage and outright hurt were easier to subdue this time. “Bastards,” he ground out, going to look for Liv.

It took him a few minutes to find her out back, crying, while sitting on a wrought-iron patio chair. She had her head down, rocking her body. He slowly closed the backdoor and walked toward her.

“Liv, I’m so sorry.”

He felt the need to apologize, and he watched her flinching at his words and the realization she wasn’t alone. She didn’t raise her head as he crouched beside her, touching her hair. Her sobs grew harder as he felt pain fill him with each sound of anguish she made, then he did the only thing he could think of, he tugged her into his embrace. Her face landed against his shoulder, quickly wetting his tee shirt as he held her, then turning them both, until he sat with her in his lap.

“Axel,” she sobbed, and he ground his eyes closed, holding her tight.

L
ater that afternoon, Liv was embarrassed about Axel seeing her breakdown. He’d handled it well, getting her tissues and staying with her until she’d calmed down. After a while, she broke away from sitting in his lap, to pace in front of him.

“I see you bought some groceries,” he said quietly. He was completely avoiding her sniveling, and she cast him a sideways glance.

“Yes.” She hiccupped right in the middle of her answer.

His gaze looked worried, but he smiled. “How about I fix something for dinner and you sit out here and relax.” He said this while standing. “I can bring you some wine.”

She nodded while her head was down, not looking at him, as she muttered, “I didn’t know if your aunt had a grill. I got some small steaks.” She felt his hand clasping hers, then giving an intimate squeeze.

“She does. I will drag it out. You can see the hills from here.”

Then he was gone back inside, and she sighed. “At least he didn’t make me talk about it,” she muttered, dabbing her eyes.

Seeing the first parts of that video had rammed home the death of her marriage. “Annihilation, obliteration,” she paused. “
The
end,” she finished.

Maybe the fury had made her cry so much, but at the moment she wished she was able to punch Andrew in the nose. Give him a good down home beating. How dare he!

Liv sat, with a plop, on the lawn chair. She grabbed her wedding ring finger. The ring was just a simple gold band. No buying his wife diamonds with any of that money he had. Oh no, not for Andrew Darwin the Third. Liv gripped the wedding band on her finger and tugged it off, then she raised her hand. She took a big swing backwards, then forwards and she let the ring fly out into the grass.

“Was that your wedding ring?” Axel’s voice sounded behind her.

She peeked over her shoulder at him. It looked as if he’d taken a quick shower. She nodded, not saying a word. He walked to her carrying a glass of wine. “Way to go, Liv.”

She nearly smiled. She took the wine glass and thanked him for that. He looked good in jeans and a white tank top that showed off his muscular upper arms. The white against his dark bronze skin was riveting as she watched him go and get a grill out of the back door of the garage.

For some reason she was thinking that just jumping Axel, and having hot sex with him, would make her feel better. A new man, new feelings ... could they wipeout the old bitter feelings? Liv turned her gaze away from Axel and toward the hills. That would be using him and she didn’t want to think of Axel that way.

She drank half her glass of wine, while sitting looking at the hills. Every time her mind drifted toward that video, she forced it back. She heard the screen door open and close behind her.

“Nice steaks, Liv. I made a salad too. Do you want to eat out here?”

It was time for her to stop being a slug, Liv thought, setting her glass of wine down. She stood, turning to look at Axel. “Out here would be nice, let me get the plates and stuff.”

He looked her over as though judging her condition, then nodded and turned to start tossing the steaks on the gas grill. “I’ll take whatever dressing you are using,” he said.

She wanted to hug him for making it all so normal. When she scooted inside, she stopped in her room to fix her makeup a bit. Then when she went to the kitchen she noticed the camcorder was gone out of the living room. She immediately turned her mind away from that.

Over dinner, she and Axel had another silent agreement not to talk about their soon to be ex’s.

“Seems we should have known each other in high school, Liv,” Axel said, sitting back after they finished eating. His temple scrunched a bit as he studied her. “I know I would not have forgotten seeing you.”

Warmth spread through her and it was the pleased kind, not the embarrassed kind. “I went to high school a couple towns over because my mother worked over there and stayed during the week. My dad was trying to help Gran with the rose farm by then, because he’d lost his job when the mill shut down.” She paused looking through her glass of wine. “He hated working the rose farm though. I think that was why Gran left it to me.”

Axel turned in his chair toward the hills. “Still, we could have met at any of the football or basketball games.”

She smiled at him, relaxing more. “I did go to some games and sit with the pep rally. Did you play either?”

He shook his head. “My aunt was a single parent trying to raise me. She couldn’t swing getting me to and from practices. Besides, I needed extra help with the school work.”

“I can’t imagine that,” she said.

He shrugged looking at the hills, then back at her. “I couldn’t sit still back then. My concentration was crap. Oh sorry, I mean it was bad.”

She laughed a little. “I was pretty crappy at math and science. I nearly didn’t graduate.”

His nice mouth turned into a smile. “You don’t get fussy at a little word like crappy?” She shook her head, swinging her hair.

“And now you use a tax accountant for the math stuff?” he surmised.

Liv chuckled. “Yep. Maybe we use the same one?”

They discovered over some more small talk that they used the same tax guy, the same auto repair guy, and they both went to the same dentist; a lady this time. An hour later when she was taking the dishes back into the kitchen, she heard her cell beeping from inside her purse in the living room.

She was just looking at the text messages from Carlos saying, the fertilizer was spread over a fourth of the rose field and he thought he could finish it by the end of the week, when it rang.