Chapter 1

Maybe this is all fantasy—a dream. I’m not really sure of it myself, but it is perhaps the best time of my life...

Casey’s two favorite moments of the day is his commute between home and work and then again between work and home. During this time he is able to really think about his life—where is has been and where it is going. It is also a time for him to really fantasize about her. In his mind he strokes her hair and makes her tremble with kisses. He has conversations with her. Sometimes he dares tell her, other times he doesn’t. It really all depends on his mood, what the weather is like, how his day at work went. She sometimes laughs, yells at him or just plain walks off. But most of the time she just softens and allows him to get closer. When it’s one of the latter times, he ends up shoving her up against a wall, pinning her hands and fucking the hell out of her.

It is really difficult to balance these thoughts, fantasies and concerns, surrounded by ignorant and hurrying fools on the highway. The commute is always the same, with the same people jostling for a better position on the road, gawking at the wrecks that happen because of it, and sometimes causing new ones because they are too nosy in the first place. People are predictable, as she would say. Maybe she is right. And he often wonders if he is too. Does she know or even suspect? If she does, would it make him predictable, or is he just good at hiding it?

Regardless of the case, this is the only time he can really divulge in his fantasies. When he is at work, there is no time for fantasies. When he is with her, there isn’t any time either. At work, Casey has to focus on the job. He holds a menial job as a waiter, but it brings in money and the tips are good. He doesn’t really need to work because his girlfriend is a therapist. Of course being only a couple and not married doesn’t guarantee anything. Marriage has been talked about, but Casey just isn’t sure. And because of his uncertainty, he cannot rely solely on her. And that brings up the reason why he has no time for these thoughts. When he is with her, he doesn’t need or want to divulge in his fantasies.

Home is a simple, almost run down house in the suburbs. Technically it is his. She moved in not long ago after he refused to move into her apartment. Of course, her apartment was way nicer than the heap of wood, plaster and drywall he rents, but it is his. Casey was told that if they ever got married, they were definitely buying a house in the better of the suburbs. He didn’t argue. He was fine with that idea—just like he eventually came around to the idea of her taking care of him financially. Now Casey isn’t some kind of bum or someone looking for a hand out or waiting for someone to take care of him. She can be pretty persuasive and daunting at times. Maybe it’s the therapist in her or something else.

Anyway, home is a creaky little two bedroom house with flaking paint on the outside and a half busted porch swing. It’s too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. The carpeting looks like shit and what bare floors in there are peeling up. The linoleum is ancient. The walls need to be painted and the furniture sucks. The toilet is nosy and most of the faucets drip. But it is home. And if she can live there with him in these shitty conditions, then maybe she is truly serious about marrying him.

Casey walks up the concrete, chipped path. She is sitting on the porch swing. How the damn thing hasn’t broke yet is beyond him. She is wearing a long shirt, one foot on the peeling railing beside a sweating glass of tea. She wiggles her finger at me through the railings, a little smile lighting her face. Casey wiggles his fingers right back at her.

So?” she asks without moving.

“Not too bad,” he tells her. “Most of the customers were pretty nice.”

“And?”

“I made just over two-fifty in tips,” Casey says, tucking his hand into his pants to pull out the bills.

“Good flirting,” she tells him, only her eyes following as he clomps up the dry and creaking wooden stairs.

“So what for dinner?” he asks, pushing the rusted chain to make her swing back and forth. Tendrils of her blonde hair shiver around her face with the breeze.

“I was thinking a nice juicy steak.”

The great thing about Jessica was she loved to cook. Being a therapist she could set her own hours, because she owned the business. And so after work she would go home, wait for Casey to get home and then make a nice meal for the two of them.

“What about those strawberries?” He asks because he picked them for her just the day before. Jessica was proud of them. She grows them right in the back yard, along with a few other fruits and vegetables. She said the place needed some liveliness and a pseudo garden would do the trick.

The question rouses her and she flops her bare feet to the porch. She lifts one finger to him. “Ah, but that’s a secret.” Then she drops a luscious wink and pads into the house. She slips through the cook darkness into the kitchen and its stained linoleum.

Casey sighs. He hates this house, and he wishes that he wasn’t so damn stubborn. But with a shrug, he tosses off these thoughts and falls into the cool embrace of their home. She slides off his shoes, tucks them under the table in the hall. Then he treads the distance to her. The kitchen smells of fresh herbs, the ones she grows just outside in the backyard.

“Would you care to get the grill fired up?” she asks.

Casey nods and slips through the back door. It’s kind of strange that she didn’t greet him with a kiss as per she usual self. But then again, she gets like this when she has something planned. She knows that Casey knows it, and she seems to thrive off his anticipation. For a moment, Casey wonders if she knows his thoughts and desires, his fantasies and daydreams. Then he shakes his head. She may know him well, probably like the back of her hand, but she cannot know those private thoughts.

The grill lights with a satisfying whump of air and a whiff of charcoal. A bee buzzes through the heat, becomes lazy then falls and sizzles. The pour bastard. Casey smiles. While the bee didn’t fare so well, he is. He has nearly everything he wants, or at least within grasp. Really all he needs to do is the give world and his life would be perfect. Well ... almost perfect. He wiggles his toes. The grass back here is perfect, unlike the front of the house. Since making a garden, Jessica has managed to improve the back yard. It’s just like her.

With a smile, Casey goes back inside, brings out a bottle of wine and slides it onto the counter in front of her. Jessica squeals, throws her arms around his neck and finally kisses him. “This will be perfect for the steaks,” she says. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

And so is she. So what is the problem with marrying her? Casey thinks that it can’t possibly be because she asked him to marry her. It’s supposed to be the other way around ... usually. He doesn’t think that it could possibly be his thoughts. But maybe it is. No, he knows it is. He loses her warmth as she disappears out the door, steaks in hand. Casey opens the wine and pours it into two mismatched glasses. This is yet another thing they could have nicer. Maybe if he ever says yes. He carries them both out and hands Jessica hers. He flops down into a lawn chair. She sips and sighs.

“Perfect, isn’t it?”

The steak sizzles, but Casey doesn’t answer. Jessica is one hell of an optimist. She can find happiness in any situation, and their shitty living situation is not one with much happiness in it. As far as Casey is concerned, the one and only happiness lies in him having Jessica. If only he would say yes, then that happiness would extend to an almost three-sixty. He admires her. His hand slips over her barely exposed navel to rest on her jutting hip. His fingers tingle with the anticipated of touching her down there later. Their sex life is excellent, far better than any he has ever had with any woman.

When the steaks are done, Jessica fusses in the kitchen. Casey doesn’t help, because he seems to only get in her way half the time. If Jessica didn’t go to school to become a therapist, she would have gone to culinary school. Psychology won out, and that’s the path she took. It hasn’t stopped her from fulfilling her passion of cooking though. Sometimes she lets him actually help her out or maybe even cook something like a steak, but that is a rarity.

His hands are filled with a plate, laden thick with steak and some sides. His fork isn’t anything fancy, a cheap one bought at a cheap store. The food is delicious as usual. Afterward, Casey savors the flavor of it still on his tongue and watches as the sun dip behind the hills. The moment stretches and Jessica flops down in the chair next to his.

After a while, Casey offers to do dishes. It is the least he can do after having the opportunity to enjoy yet another great meal cooked by his girlfriend. He twists his head to see her sitting and lounging with her wine. Jessica is definitely a treasure to have. And yet he still has those thoughts. They shouldn’t be there, he knows, but he cannot help it. Maybe if he had taken that opportunity back then, things would be different. Either he would have Jessica now and he would be with someone else, or he would have his curiosity satisfied. When he is done, he shakes his hands and dries them. Then he carries out another bottle of wine. He pours her another glass, and then himself and sits down.

“Come sit down on the grass with me,” Jessica says, pulling herself from the comfort of the lounger and onto the plush grass beneath. Casey grabs the bottle and places himself beside her. He downs his glass. She giggles as she pours him another glass. “Trying to catch up?” she asks.

“Maybe,” he answers with a sly smile.

They both flop back and stare up at the darkening sky. His heart flutter as her head nestles into the crook of his shoulder and arm, her hair tickling his chin and her aroma wafting up to his nose. When he first met her, she had that same smell. She was sweet and always bubbly. He knew in that moment that his heart belonged to her. But he couldn’t give it all to her, not with those thoughts and fantasies that he held in secret from her. And that is why he hasn’t said yes to marry her. It would be unfair for him to give her his heart, but withhold a piece of it. They had sex that same night, and Casey can remember the soft kiss she gave him before pulling him along to the bedroom.

That was his favorite moment with her. Another is the one he has created in his own mind. It usually follows after one of those imaginary conversations he has with her. It is their wedding. His brother is there as his best man, Casey sees himself never looking more happy than he ever has before, Jessica’s dress is a simple one of all white, with little lavender flowers at her waist and her hair done up so nicely. Their first kiss as man and wife comes and his heart soars with the thought that he is with his soul mate. Then it would be off to the honeymoon. Sometimes it would be Paris, other times London, and sometimes Hong Kong or Sydney, or even Ireland, the home of his ancestors.

He tucks an arm under her, brushing fingertips on her shoulder. Jessica’s head is heavy and a perfect weight on his shoulder. Casey breathes in the gathering night with its dampness and lingering warmth, tasting the fruits and vegetables of her little garden. Jessica has obviously forgotten about dessert, but that’s quite okay. Casey would rather be nestled there on the grass with her than eating anyway.