Truths and Lies Duet

I gape at the destroyed table, my eyes fixated on the red sauce that will stain the wall it’s slowly trekking a path down. The entire meal I just spent hours making is completely ruined.

Kostas’s eyes meet mine, and he looks around, as if now realizing what he did.

“Talia,” he breathes.

“My mom’s watching Zoe for us… I made you dinner,” I choke out. “And it’s ruined.” I don’t have to feel my cheeks to know I’m crying. I know it’s just food, but I worked hard on it to make him feel better and with one swipe, he destroyed it all.

“Shit.” He scrubs his hands over his face in frustration. He’s always frustrated. Always mad. When he found us, it was supposed to be the beginning of our life together, but instead, because of Aris, it’s as if our life is on hold. Kostas tries so hard not to let this side of him show in front of Zoe and me, but I’ve been watching it build and build, and he’s finally reached his boiling point.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, stepping toward me, his brow furling and his eyes shining with remorse. “It’s just…it’s been a bad fucking day.”

Kostas

Talia rushes off and I feel like a fucking animal. I scrub my palm over my face and laugh bitterly. Aris has infected every part of my relationship with Talia straight from the beginning. He’s like a bite from a zombie and as time passes, I’m becoming infected too.

I want to hack him away from me.

Sever him like a diseased limb I’ll be better off without.

We’re at war, my brother and me, and it’s fucking bloody.

But I will win.

Winning means keeping my wife happy. Because when we’re happy, Aris has lost. The loser in a game where he didn’t get the girl. Even when he stole her, she was never his. She will never be his.

I can be pissed as fuck at my brother, but allowing him to creep into our evening time alone and ruin our dinner is too much. He doesn’t deserve that win. And my wife deserves more than that.

With a heavy sigh, I clean up the mess. Sure, we have people to do this, but I need to be the one to do it. To smell the heavenly sauce I won’t get to eat. To curse over the expensive bottle of wine that’s ruined and never tasted. To face the consequences of my destruction. And to clean it all up.

Talia is next.

I’ll kiss her and make it all better.

Once the dining room is cleaned up, I grab a bottle of vodka from the cabinet and set it on the counter. Then, I pull out some salami, several cheeses, crackers, and grapes. After arranging them on a giant plate, I locate the can of leftover frosting in the fridge. Shoving a spoon into the top, I then place it in the center of my plate of apologies. I tuck the vodka under my arm and grab up the plate. I don’t find her right away because she’s not in our bedroom. Eventually, I locate her in the theater room. Sitting in the dark. Crying. Fuck.

I turn on the lights and she buries her face in her hands. Setting down the plate and alcohol on the table beside a vase filled with fresh Gerber daisies, I pick up the remote to turn on the giant eighty-five-inch screen. It takes some scrolling through Netflix, but I find a version of Romeo + Juliet I can handle. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. I kick off my shoes and sit down beside her.

“I know you don’t want to hear me tell you I’m sorry again,” I say softly, gripping her thigh and squeezing. “So I’m not saying it. You don’t respond to that shit anyway.”

She hisses at me. “Fuck you!” she bellows, kicking out and sending the goddamn vase on the table flying across the room. Her fucking periods will be the death of me.

“What I mean,” I growl, staring at yet another broken vase, “is you do better with actions. I made you a charcuterie board.”

“You can’t win me over with your fancy cheese plate,” she bites out. “Not after you threw my dinner to the floor, Kostas Demetriou.”

I snort, which earns me another hiss from her. “You didn’t even look at it.”

She peeks out between her fingers that still cover her face. “Is that chocolate icing?”

I’m a smart fucking man.

“I bet the grapes taste good dipped in the chocolate icing,” I offer, reaching over to pluck a grape from the vine, and then run it along the fudgy sweetness. “Should I taste it first?”

She pops her lips open like a petulant toddler finally giving in to receiving her medicine. I pretend to put the grape to her mouth, but then replace it with my lips at the last second. Her gasp is one of surprise, and before she can push me away, I nip at her bottom lip.