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FORTY-TWO

April

MOIRA

Kira and I have lunch plans, but first, I want a reaction. A look . A well-placed, growled-out fuck from the man currently lurking somewhere in our apartment.

Bane is a lot of things—tall, broody, criminally good at ruining panties—but observant? Not always. Not about little things.

But he notices me. I know he does. He worships me. Other than that little blip last month with the week in bed, everything’s been going great with this whole marriage thing. Most days, I still can’t fucking believe I’m somebody’s wife .

Bane really does seem to want me here. And not just because he has to or because I’m an obligation he got tricked into.

And so what if some days I just want to see it? Want to feel it? I want?—

I step into the kitchen with a grin, ready to do something dramatic—maybe a slow, hip-swinging walk, maybe a little spin—but Bane is already moving.

Not toward me, though.

He’s frowning down at his phone, one hand adjusting his watch, the other reaching for the coffee pot.

“You’re up early,” he murmurs, still looking at whatever deeply important priest shit is happening on his screen. “I made your coffee how you like it.”

A steaming cup is pressed into my hands.

I blink at it. Then up at him.

I stand there, waiting.

Waiting for him to look .

For him to see .

For him to say something, anything.

A damn . A holy fuck, Moira, you’re illegal in six states . A get over here, you little brat .

Nothing.

He presses a distracted kiss to my hairline, mutters something about a meeting at the church, and then he’s gone.

The door shuts behind him. The house falls silent.

The coffee cup shakes in my hands, and I swallow back stupid, sudden tears.

Stop it. It’s fine .

It’s more than fine because it’s nothing .

He was busy. Late for a meeting. Jesus Christ, it’s not a big deal .

It’s just?—

It’s just?—

I look down at my reflection on the dark surface of the coffee. All that effort. All that energy. And he didn’t even see me.

My throat tightens. My stomach hollows out. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s small, but the feeling slams into me anyway. A ridiculous, overblown, shameful devastation that makes me feel like a wind-up toy running out of spin.

My fingers slip, and then?—

“Shit!”

The cup crashes to the floor.

Coffee explodes everywhere—on my shoes, on the cabinets, on my perfect fucking skirt . The sound of ceramic shattering echoes through the empty kitchen, and my body seizes up, my breath catching hard in my throat.

Oh.

That’s just fucking perfect .

Hot coffee seeps into my socks. My lip trembles. My stupid fucking lip trembles like I’m some pathetic little girl about to cry over spilled coffee , and I want to scream at myself. I want to shake myself.

It’s nothing. It’s just coffee. It’s just an outfit. It’s just a moment. It doesn’t mean anything. He still loves you, he still wants you, you are not being abandoned, you are not ? —

I swallow hard, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.

Get it together, Moira.

I take a slow, shuddering breath and force my shoulders back.

I’m still meeting Kira for lunch.

I’m going to clean up this mess, fix my makeup, and pretend none of this happened.

And if my brain decides to gnaw on this for the rest of the day, I’ll deal with it later. With tequila. Or bad decisions. Or both.

No . I don’t do that shit anymore.

I’m being good now. I’m married now. I feel a low, horrified drop in my stomach. I’m married to a priest , for Christ’s sake.

I grab a towel and fall to my knees to furiously wipe up the coffee, tears squeezing out of my eyes.

Kira looks annoyingly radiant. Not that I’m bitter. I mean, I’m a little bitter, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, we are at lunch, and I am on . Big, bouncing, shining like a goddamn supernova because that’s what I do.

That’s how I win at life. I perform until everyone believes I’m the happiest bitch in the room, even when my insides feel like a squeezed-out juice box.

“So, tell me.” I lean forward, chin propped on my hand, eyes twinkling like I haven’t spent all morning wrestling with the void. “How’s living with Mr. Silent I took the train. But I hang out there for five minutes, then peek around the corner until I figure she’s cleared out. I don’t see her anywhere.

Then I book it across the street, ignoring a car that honks at me, and slip into the bar.

I’m huffing for breath as I land on a barstool.

There’s barely anyone else in here. Probably because, yeah, it’s one p.m. on a Tuesday. But it’s five o’clock somewhere, yada yada, and the tequila in my bloodstream hasn’t nearly got me numb enough to handle this fucking bullshit day yet.

For fuck’s sake. For a second back there, I was actually contemplating motherhood . I shudder.

“Two shots of whatever will have me unable to feel my legs the fastest.” I wink at the bartender.

He’s a guy in his fifties who brightens as he tosses a bar towel over his shoulder and starts my way. In the old days, I would’ve started immediately flirting and trying to get him to abandon his bar for five minutes to fuck me in the bathroom.

Once, when a steadfast bartender refused to abandon his register and top-shelf liquor, I snuck around the bar top and gave him a blowy while he kept working.

I stretch my neck against the itch working its way underneath my skin.

Bane might’ve given me permission, as it were, to get it outside our marriage, but knowing how good it is with him, I don’t see how trying to get fucked at some ratty bar by some shitty old bartender or another dumb fuck also getting drunk here at this time of day would feel like anything but cheating. It’d be cheap and stupid and make me feel worse than I already do.

You’re gonna grow up ‘n be a slag just like yur mam, ain’t ya, Moira? C’mon, flip up your skirt and show us your fanny!

Nothing but a two-bit slut.

I could never be a mother. Why would I ever pass down this curse to a kid? I’d be an embarrassment to them. What would their pious father tell them when I ended up in a place like this, fucking around again? Because I always will end up back here. Who the fuck am I kidding?

“Gotta say, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” the bartender says, pouring my shots and placing them on the bar in front of me. “What brings you in, beautiful?”

I down the shots, one after the other, ignoring him. Fire burns my throat as my eyes water and my thoughts spiral darker.

I ruin everything.

It’s what I do.

I look around the bar. There’s a younger guy who looks about my age in the back corner, nursing a beer with several empties on the table, thumbing through something on his phone.

My stomach feels sour from the shots. It would be easy to walk back there and sit across from him. Make small talk until he got in a better mood, then ask him if he wanted a good time. I could probably get it done before Mads even showed up.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pull out my phone, staring at her message.

Why does she want to even meet, anyway?

I didn’t know she could be out and about in the daytime. That’s new. I try to distract myself by wondering about it, but my eyes keep sliding toward the guy at the back table.

I jerk my gaze back to my phone and text Bane instead.

Me: What are you wearing?

Me: I’m dripping wet, thinking of your huge cock. I want to tie you to the bed and milk you until you beg me for mercy.

I hit send and smile. It helps a little to think about how in control I am in those moments he lets me take the reins.

But it’s a short-lived feeling.

Because he doesn’t text back.

I just keep staring and staring at the phone and…

Nothing.

It’s just like when he didn’t look up at me this morning when I dressed all pretty.

Like an empty gulf is opening up in my stomach where moments before I felt full and happy. But now there’s just nothing but unbearable, crushing sadness.

And the itching. I slam my phone down on the counter.

“That kind of day?” the bartender says sympathetically, pouring me another shot. His sympathy’s not real. I know the look in the eye of a man who’s hoping to get laid. He probably gets off in an hour and is hoping to take me with him.

Bane’s the only man who’s ever looked at me with anything real.

Except he didn’t look at you this morning, did he?

He thought you were exciting at first, just like they all do. But you’re starting to wear on him. Maybe he’ll keep you around because, like a fool, he went and married you, and he’s an honorable man. He just feels bad because he fucked up when he was still just a kid, and like a good man with a conscience, he can’t let go of it.

But he’s good, loving, and caring, and I’m…

Thinking about fucking some drunk rando in the back of a dive bar off Main.

“Moira.”

My eyes close in relief at Mads’s voice.