Chapter 27

I drove home and parked the new truck in the garage for now. Jane met me at the door and kissed me as I carried her inside. “That was a weird talk,” she admitted. “I was surprised that she gave up his name like that.”

“Me too,” I said, but shrugged. “I had a little talk with her before I got behind the wheel. I think she’ll actually keep her word to not tell Brad about it and I told her that I understood what she meant about feelings being wrapped up in sex. I told her that the last time with her had done nothing for me. She noticed that you were walking carefully today. I’ll bet your mother did too.”

She laughed at that and we went to email my mother with the picture of the two of us together. I’d had Janice take one after dinner and we were obviously in love. After that, we took it easy. I started putting my gifts away in my jewelry box and watch box respectively. I also deliberately took off my wedding ring. I did that for training or before a fight so that I wouldn’t damage it, but I put it into the box this time and left it there.

Jane noticed the difference and came to hug me. “You okay?” she asked sympathetically.

“Absolutely,” I told her. “Barb knows the papers are coming. She knows that there’s no chance of us getting back together. The ring is only a symbol. The next time I see her, she’ll have been served.”

She nodded, but she felt like it was a big step, so she sort of babied me for the rest of the night. It was nice. We had a light dinner and then curled up together to watch a movie that she picked out.

She fell asleep while we were in our second movie. She was too sore for sex tonight and that was fine with me. She’d been trying to kill us both with it as often as possible. I picked her up and carried her off to bed with her murmuring that she loved me. I whispered that I loved her too and I put her to bed gently before slipping in behind her and holding her close.

Monday was a relaxing day. We were hosting Marty and Sissy for lunch and I had the barbecue going early to put on potatoes. I had a piece of Pacific salmon that I was wrapping in foil with vegetables and some wine and spices to bake, but that wouldn’t be for a little while. I expected Marty and Sissy to stay for the afternoon and maybe for dinner. They’d threatened to spend a lot of time here when we’d done the grocery shopping.

They arrived early for lunch and the four of us sat on the deck while I tended the grill.

“So how was yesterday’s ordeal?” Sissy asked with a smile.

“One of Barb’s presents to John was to volunteer her lover’s name,” Jane said with a smirk on her face.

“Really?” Cecilia breathed, her eyes lighting up. “She really gave it up?”

“John told her he knew all along and told her that he’d been awake when the dickhead came to visit her in his hospital room,” she supplied. “It all came out except for the shit he knows about her bringing him to the house to fuck. He’d have to admit to the cameras for that one.”

“I’m sure he’ll get around to telling her someday,” Sissy said dryly.

I shrugged and turned to face them from where I was at the grill. “She was ready to give him up,” I said. “It doesn’t put us back together, but it puts us in better spirits to be civil at family gatherings.”

“So what did you tell her?” Marty wanted to know.

“I told her that I’d known, that Doris had come to me when she figured it out, that I’d been having sex with Doris and that we’d fed her ice cream made from breast milk when she came to visit last week. Jane piped up and declared that she’d been having sex with Doris too and that we’d taken the opportunity to roll around in her marriage bed together to stick it to Brad.”

“Are you worried that she’ll tell him all that?” Sissy asked.

I shook my head and turned the steaks before answering. “I was pretty clear to Barb that Brad was abusive to Doris and that I worried that he’d take it out on her if he knew ahead of time. I only asked her to keep it quiet until the papers were served and that he was getting a set of his own to read through. I only asked her to give Doris enough of a head-start to make a clean escape from the abuse. She promised me that she’d do that. I think she might have had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment when I told her about how much abuse that he’d put Doris through. Maybe Brad’s new year isn’t going to be so smooth for him.”

Sissy nodded. “I kind of hope so,” she said. “Back before this all started, I thought he was an okay guy. Now, I’m not even sure he’s human.”

I shrugged. “I knew guys like him in college,” I said. “They wanted the best of everything. They had their lives mapped out and their dreams included a trophy wife, a big house, an expensive car and a cheap secretary.”

“Sounds like my ex,” Jane muttered with a snort.

I shrugged. “My point is that when something doesn’t fit into their fantasy, they place the blame on whatever doesn’t fit. Most of them get a rude awakening and become better people. One of those guys found out that the shark that his wife hired for the divorce was particularly good at breaking prenups. I heard that one of his fellow daydreamers ended up even worse. His wife started screwing a leg-breaker. He got random beatings for six months until he finally gave her what she wanted in the divorce. Brad never got that dose of reality, so he’s become a bigger asshole over time. Maybe the divorce will get his head on straight. Maybe he’ll end up having an accident after he misses a few payments to his bookies.”

“They’ll do that?” Marty asked, a little surprised.

“Sure,” I said. “First they start out by mugging the guy and reminding him that he has bills to pay and the next message won’t be so gentle. After they do that a couple of times, they break an arm or a leg or snap a finger or something. I don’t get into the details, but it’s not pleasant. If they get to the point where they know they’re not going to get their money, then they make you lie down in a hole while they fill it in.”

We started taking up the food and had a nice lunch, talking and rehashing what happened over Christmas. They were impressed with the SUV, surprised at the rest of the gifts that she’d given me and were sincere in their appreciation of the gifts I’d given them. The jewelry box for Cecilia had been the best of the pieces I’d bought from Ganju’s brother.

We did spend quite a bit of the afternoon together, but they begged off on dinner since they still had left-overs at home from the massive dinner Sissy had served.

We had a busy day the next day and I promised to give Marty a call as soon as we were headed to pick up Doris. Once they were gone, Jane stripped down to her skin and was setting the controls for the hot tub for us to soak for a while before dinner.

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to Chicago,” she said regretfully.

“Patience, Angel,” I whispered to her. “You’ll be back for the summer in four months and then we’ll have months together before you have to go back again.”

She nodded and sighed. “I know. I’m gonna miss you though. Marcy’s cute and all, but she’s not the same as sleeping with you.”

I chuckled. “Now you have me wishing I was going back with you.”

“That makes two of us,” she agreed ardently.

We stayed like that, watching the sun set together, while we soaked in the warm water. Eventually, we had to get out and we started to make dinner together. I tossed a pair of the steaks from lunch back on the grill to warm and did the same with some of the potatoes to make our own leftover dinner, much like everyone else was today, but without the turkey. Jane made salad while I warmed everything up and we sat naked on the deck furniture, enjoying the last of the evening’s warmth before we retreated inside.

By unspoken agreement, we didn’t have sex that night either. We had a busy day ahead of us and we didn’t want to start out dragging our heels.

It was early the next morning when we took off for our fateful day. We were meeting Otto at the old house and Jane was taking her parents over to start working with Doris while we uninstalled the cameras and monitor.

I packed a lot more of my clothing and thought I was mostly done. I took my computer from my office, since it had a lot of files on it that I wanted. Otto packed up his van and told me that he’d get me the disks with the footage on them by the end of the week.

“I haven’t watched any of it,” he told me, “but my assistant wanted your phone number and some time off after she reviewed part of it.” He smirked at me and tsked at my antics. He was lying. He’d probably watched most of it. Otto was a professional pervert, after all.

I chuckled and shook my head. “If she watched all the footage, then she knows that I’m spoken for already.”

“She told me that,” he said. “She might slip in an audition video of herself if there’s a waiting line though.”

We laughed about that and I told him that I’d watch it if she did and we’d see if we could find her a place in line.

He shook my hand and then took off. I took one last look around the house and then went to meet everyone at Doris’s place.

I met her parents for the first time. Francis and Clarissa O’Rourke were first generation Irish Americans and had relocated here when they were first married. There was still a touch of accent in their speech and they were wary of all the people that were marching in and out of their house.

“I’m John,” I said, introducing myself and offering my hand to her father.

“I’ve heard of you,” he said, shaking it firmly. “Doris has said good things about you, but I’m a little suspicious of a man that takes in a woman and her child in the middle of a divorce.”

I smiled and shrugged. “I’m in the middle of the same divorce,” I reminded him. “We shared a lawyer through all of this and we’ve been leaning on each other for support. I’m helping Doris get back in the shape she was before her pregnancy and I’m not done yet. She said she was going to move back in with you and her mother, so I thought that she could just as easily move into my place. We’re going to spend the next few days normalizing everything for her and little Brad, but she’s safe and welcome and she’s far better off with me and Jane.”

He glanced at Jane as she came down the stairs with a box that she was taking out to the car. She paused long enough for me to kiss her and then she was off again, humming happily to herself.

“She’s certainly a cheery lass,” he said with a touch of Blarney in his voice. The sentiment made me smile too.

“She is that,” I said sincerely. “You and your wife are always welcome to drop by to make sure that Doris and Brad are happy and adjusting well.”

He nodded and a few minutes later, Marty and Cecilia arrived. Marty was going to help us move everything and Cecilia was here to meet with Francis about the sale of the house. They were going to take a walk around the property while we moved Doris and Brad out of the house.

We filled the rest of my SUV, Jane’s parents’ car, the Sentra, Marty’s F-150 hauled Brad’s bedroom furniture and Doris’s parents were able to take the rest. We were done by noon, while Cecilia went through the details of where repairs would be needed in order to get the most out of the home and Marty and I were somehow tasked with doing some of that since we were both young, capable and within shouting distance.

We made a caravan back to my place and started unpacking. To be honest, there wasn’t a lot of stuff other than Brad’s bedroom furniture, toys and clothes. My home office had been sacrificed so that Brad and Doris would each have their own rooms for her parents eyes. The desk and chair were rolled into my room and connected there for now.

Jane and Doris had decided that as soon as her parents were gone, she was just going to start sleeping in our room with us.

The ten of us took over a Texas Roadhouse for a late lunch and then Cecilia went back to the office to start working on paperwork. Marty said goodbye too and the two of them drove off in separate vehicles. Jane’s parents went back to the house and I gave them my key and told them that I thought I was finished, but Barb and I could work everything out for me to get anything I missed.

That left me, Jane, Francis, Clarissa, Doris and Brad to fend for ourselves. We decided to go back to the house to wait for Brad to come home. None of us were planning to get violent, but Doris felt the need to make sure that he had her phone number so that he could arrange to see his son and Francis had eviction papers that he officially had to deliver to Brad to legally advise him to vacate the property.

We sat down and talked while we waited and it was just before 5 when Cecilia called me.

“Hey, Stud,” she said with a laugh. “The papers were just served. Guess who threw a screaming fit in the parking lot?”

I laughed at that. It felt good. Months of him fucking up my life and today, he got the shitty end of the stick. “Was it Tara? I promised her that I wouldn’t disrupt the office.”

“You know who it was,” she said, amused. “Tara actually watched with me. She bet me ten bucks that Brad would come to work with a black eye tomorrow.”

“Heh. You want me to be sure that I don’t hit him in the face if he goes off?” I asked her.

“Nah. Do what comes naturally, Stud. I think seeing him with a fat lip and raccoon eyes would be worth losing $10.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. You have my bail money lined up? Just in case.”

“Have Jane call me and we’ll come get you. We’ll even call you ‘brave little warrior’ in front of all the cops,” she teased. “He just tore out of the parking lot like he’s on a mission, so he’s either headed to your place or home to fight with Doris.”

“Well, we’re waiting for him. He’s not done with paperwork yet.”

The others were all looking at me curiously when I hung up and I told them that Brad was on his way. I didn’t think he’d try to take the fight to my door ... at least not YET. He didn’t know how involved in the process I’d been.

About ten minutes later, his car pulled into the driveway with a chirping of tires. I was parked in front of the house next door and we’d dropped the Sentra at home before the restaurant, so the only car that he’d recognize would be his in-laws.

He tore into the house and we could all tell he was on the verge of starting a screaming match that would shake the windows in their frames. He took in the sight of me and Jane there and his face turned ugly. Jane had my new video camera out and was filming. She’d taken detailed video of every room as we left it today to make sure that there was no doubt about what condition everything had been left in. We were making sure that Brad would be on the hook if he trashed the place.

“What the fuck are YOU doing in my house?!!?” he snarled.

“Hi, Bill,” I said, getting his name wrong on purpose again. Little Brad was sitting in my lap like he belonged there and he just grinned toothily when Brad stormed into the room. “Doris asked me to be here today to make sure that everything went smoothly. You know, these sorts of things are stressful for everyone involved, so she wanted to make sure nothing was said or done that could be taken the wrong way.”

“My name’s NOT Bill!” he growled. “Get the fuck out of my house! NOW! Or I’ll call the cops.”

I shrugged. “Sure thing, Buck,” I said. “I think you got the papers from Doris earlier, right? Well, your landlord has some more paperwork for you. Then we’ll be on our way so you can review everything and start working on figuring out all the details.” I smiled when I said it. It was an incredibly good feeling watching his blood-pressure rise like this.

Francis took his cue and stood up, approaching Brad. “This is an eviction notice,” he said stiffly. “I know that’s not what they call them now, but I want you out of my house. We’ve decided to put it up for sale as soon as we can get it painted and fixed up.”

“You can’t do this!” he growled. “You need a reason!”