A Secret for a Secret (All In 3)

“I shouldn’t be. I’m not supposed to be. Married to Corey. I’m not supposed to be married to him.” I take a deep breath, trying to manage my anxiety and my mortification over the fact that I’ve been painted as a home-wrecker on some horrible third-rate tabloid show. “It’ll make more sense when you hear the whole story.”

“Can you explain then, please?” he says, his voice shaking.

“We met in my first semester of college. He pursued me, invited me out with him and his friends all the time. He played hockey, and I knew a lot about it. I was eighteen. I had decided I wanted to wait to have sex. I mean, I don’t think I necessarily planned to wait until I was married; I just . . . my dad and I talked about the importance of making sure I was ready for the consequences and the responsibility, and for him, that had been me.” There’s more to it than that, obviously. So much more, but I figure I’ll give King the abridged version before he cracks all his teeth from grinding them together.

“Anyway. I’m impulsive and Corey isn’t super smart. I was even more impulsive then than I am now, which I know might be hard to believe.” I laugh nervously, but when Kingston doesn’t join in, I clear my throat and barrel on. “We’d only been dating for a month when he proposed.” With a twist tie.

“And I stupidly said yes. We went to a justice of the peace, got married in secret, and figured we’d wait until the holidays before we told anyone.” That was Corey’s idea. “I moved in with him, except he lived in one of the off-campus frat houses. It was a constant, unending party. And disgusting, because college boys don’t clean anything, especially not bathrooms.”

I wring my hands, remembering how awful it had been. “I’d realized pretty much right away that it was a mistake. He’d proposed on a Friday night, and he’d been doing keg stands.” I’m pretty sure we were both either still half-drunk or at least very hungover the next morning when we took the trip to the justice of the peace. “None of my friends were there. He asked two guys on the street to be our witnesses for fifty bucks.”

“Jesus, Queenie. What were you thinking?”

That if I was married, then my dad would stop worrying about me. That he’d start living his own life. That I would have my own person. And I was hungover, so that didn’t help. “I don’t think I was” is my stellar reply.

He scoffs and shakes his head.

I don’t tell him the worst part. That we stopped at a drive-through burger joint on the way back to the frat house after it was done. And then he took me up to his room and “made love to me.” His breath tasted like onions and beef, which he panted all over me between sloppy kisses. It lasted three minutes. At least it wasn’t painful, because of his pencil penis.

“Two weeks after we tied the knot, I came home from the library, because studying in a frat house is impossible, and found him screwing one of the bunnies who was always hanging around.” She was pretty much their communal fuck toy. Which was horrible, but then, they were not a nice group of guys.

“He cheated on you?” I love that he sounds appalled, likely because it’s something he would never even consider.

“I don’t know why I was surprised at the time. I should’ve expected it, but I made a reckless, impulsive decision, and those have consequences.”

“Was he even sorry?”

“No. He wasn’t.” He’d told me I should’ve knocked first, and then he told me to get out. Get the fuck out. Like I was nothing. Because to him I was.

“So I consulted a lawyer about getting a divorce—we didn’t qualify for an annulment—and got all the paperwork together, which is a huge pain in the ass, by the way. All you have to do is sign a few papers to get married but to undo it is a giant headache.” I rub my temple, feeling one coming on. “Everything was signed. All he had to do was pay his half of the filing fee and it would’ve been done. I thought it was taken care of. But he told me today that we were still married, and he doesn’t remember if he paid the fee. So here I am, six years later, still married to the biggest asshole I’ve ever had the misfortune of dating. All this for the hundred and fifty dollars he didn’t pay. I don’t know why I didn’t just pay the whole thing.” Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. “I was going to tell you tonight, when we got home after the game, but his stupid fiancée had to go and broadcast it to the damn media.”