Stitches

I drop into a chair in my living room and watch as Seb takes a seat, leaning forward and pouring alcohol into a glass for himself. “What can we do?”

My irritable gaze lingers on the glass as he brings the strong liquor to his lips and takes a sip, but it’s not him I’m mad at. It’s not Carrie. It’s not even Ashley. It’s me. I was trying to be nice and I put myself in a vulnerable position. No way I could have ever foreseen these recent events, no way I ever thought there was a chance I would do anything that could even be technically manipulated to look like cheating. That’s why, in all my fucking idiocy, I made the agreement. Ashley was insulted that I wanted her to sign a prenup to begin with, so I wanted to show her I was decent, that I wasn’t trying to fuck her over.

I was too fucking considerate. She actually cheated; she actually did something wrong. The honorable thing to do would be to accept that she fucked up her golden opportunity and retreat quietly. But no. Of course that’s not how it goes.

“Huh?” Seb prompts, since I haven’t answered.

“I don’t think we can do anything,” I tell him. “Seems like all I can do now is wait.”

“You’ll be all right,” Seb assures me, taking another sip, then balancing his drink on his thigh.

“I can’t take Moira out. Not without you, at least. Not until the divorce goes through.”

Unsurprised, he nods his head. “Well, I told you I didn’t think you should do that from the start, but yeah. Ashley wants your blood and I’m not letting Moira get pulled into this bullshit. I’ve kept my nose out of it as best I can, but the minute Moira gets caught under the tires is the moment that ends. You play as nice as you want with Ashley; just keep my wife out of it.”

“I wouldn’t let her hurt Moira.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t think you were gonna let her hurt you, either, but here we are. You try to be a nice guy, you try to be fair, and that’s not how life works. Only the strongest survive—and the people under the protection of the strongest. People who play nice will always end up getting fucked, Griff. Now you know.”

He’s so fucking cynical sometimes. He’s not altogether wrong, though. “Do you and Moira have a prenup?” I ask, out of curiosity.

“Of course we do,” he replies, like he can’t believe I’d ask such a stupid fucking question.

“And you didn’t put a thing in it to protect her? We all know you protect your own interests, but what if you were the one who fucked her over?”

“I wouldn’t,” he says, simply. “It’s enough that I know that. I don’t need to put it on paper and get the courts involved.”

I shake my head, throwing back my own drink. “Yeah, well, Moira treats your word like fucking gospel; I’m not surprised she didn’t push back. Ashley wasn’t so agreeable. She was insulted I asked her to sign one in the first place. She wanted to know if I became an asshole like so many other men in the world, I would have to pay for it. I thought that was fair.”

Seb is not impressed. “Yeah, well, that was your mistake. If you fell in love with someone else, you could have just given Ashley a pay-out. It didn’t have to be in the paperwork.”

“I wasn’t worried it would happen, she was. Weirdly enough, I didn’t think I had to worry about it. I’m sorry I tried to be a nice fucking guy.”

“You should be,” he states. “Nice guys finish last, Griff. We don’t finish last.”

I lean forward and put my empty glass down on the coffee table. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“I’m sorry she’s giving you such a hard time, I really am. Stupid bitch should be grateful you forgave her the first time.”

“I’m not sure I did,” I admit, shaking my head. “She said a lot of shit to me, but it wasn’t all wrong. I never should’ve married her in the first place. I didn’t do it for the right reasons. I didn’t have the feelings for her I should’ve had.”

“She didn’t marry you for the right reasons either,” Seb points out. “Hardly matters now. All you can do now is get the hell out of this thing and never make this kind of mistake again.”

I have half a mind to tell him the rest of what Carrie said, about how if Ashley can get the prenup thrown out, that’s going to have blowback on our business interests, too. I don’t, though. I don’t want to give him another reason to tear me a new asshole. He may be inconvenienced and sympathetic about my situation now, but if Ashley’s greed extends that far, if my bad decisions start to cost him, he’s going to have a big fucking problem.

That’s the last thing I want. I love Seb, I respect the hell out of him, but he’ll play dirty if someone throws a sucker punch first. You may hit him once, but you best believe he’ll win the fucking fight. Ashley is used to pushing me around, but she’s never dealt with Seb before—and she doesn’t want to. He’s worked entirely too hard to build all this shit to let some gold digger take any of it away from him. He even has a prenup with Moira, and he loves the hell out of Moira. He doesn’t give half a fuck about Ashley.

I don’t even want to alert him to the possibility. It stresses me out just thinking about it.

I tell myself it won’t come to that. He pours me another drink and hands it to me, smiling faintly, trusting me to take care of my own shit. I can do that. I can control this situation. I can deal with Ashley and get this matter resolved.

All I have to do is keep my distance from Moira. I can see her when Seb is home, of course, but overnight visits are probably out of the question for a little while.

We can be friends, we just can’t be lovers—not in public, at least.

17

Moira