Rhys
THE NEXT MORNING I very reluctantly hauled myself up from the most comfortable, warm bed I’d ever slept in, leaving the fairy prince I was madly in love with tangled up in the silky sheets.
I rinsed off in the shower and headed back to my parents’ house so I could change into something semi-decent and borrow my dad’s car.
As I pulled into the parking lot at the school, my phone started ringing, my lawyer’s name popping up on the screen.
“Hello?” I answered, trying not to let the nerves I felt show in my voice. I never knew what to expect when it came to this whole divorce shit.
“I am about to be your favorite person in the entire fuckin’ world, Kensington.”
James Nichol was a professional divorce lawyer, but I’d known him first as Jay, a nickname he’d always gone by to differentiate him from his father, the first James Nichol, who was also a divorce lawyer. We’d gone to college together, and had been in a bunch of the same core classes.
“I doubt it,” I said, recalling how badly I’d wanted to stay snuggled up to Kendall’s warm body after my alarm had gone off. “What’s up?”
“Well, first let me give you some context for the story,” he started, and I had to suppress a sigh.
He was a yapper, so this could take awhile.
Might as well get comfortable, I thought, unlatching my seatbelt and letting it slide up into place.
“You might recall someone by the name of George Sanders.”
“I might,” I deadpanned. He was my former father-in-law, and the owner of the business I’d worked at for nearly three years before being unceremoniously fired by the power tripping middle management bootlicker who happened to have been fucking my wife.
“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t know this but Mr. Sanders has announced the fact that he will be running for mayor of our fine city, and I do happen to know that he has officially qualified and submitted the required candidacy documentation in plenty of time to appear on our next primary election ballot. ”
“Get to the point, Jay.”
“Well, imagine all the money and work that goes into creating and executing a campaign plan. The fundraising, and tailoring your speeches for the audience, whether you’re showing up to a city council meeting or a civic club event, or a community festival.
Researching for debates, and memorizing talking points-”
“I have a life. It’s wasting away while I sit on this phone with you.”
“Alright, alright,” he conceded, and I could hear his smirk through the phone.
“Imagine doing all that shit, and it all being derailed by a video of your beloved daughter verbally admitting she not only has indulged in adultery, but also arranged for her poor, long-suffering husband to be unjustly fired by the very man she indulged with aforementioned adulterous sins with. At the very company you own, no less.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, that is the situation I presented to Mr. George Sanders in the form of the clip you sent me, and he agreed with me that it would be very unfortunate for his impending political career if that clip were to be shared with any of our local news sources.”
“So?” I asked, sitting up straighter in my seat.
“He’s proposing a settlement, wherein you would receive financial compensation on the grounds that we delete the video, sign a contract promising we won’t distribute the video. Standard NDA stuff. You get the picture.”
“Financial compensation? Like… He’s going to pay me so we don’t send out the video?”
“You have always been so quick on the uptake.”
I snorted, amused by the familiar banter we’d always had with each other. “How much money are we talking here?”
“How much money are you thinking?” He asked. “It goes without saying he’s willing to make Hailey agree to your terms of the divorce and split everything down the middle.”
“Ah…”
How much was I thinking? How the hell was I supposed to know?
I’d never blackmailed anyone before. Or accepted a settlement, or whatever the hell this was considered.
But then a number popped into my head. A very specific number I’d been carting around in my brain for just a little over a day.
I gave him that number, before asking exactly how much I’d need in order to pay all his fees to him and end up with that amount in my pocket.
“Well, I think we can do a little better than that, Rhys. Dream big.”
“Ah, yeah, it’s just that it’s sort of… time sensitive. Do you think he’d send it faster if I only ask for that much?”
“Probably,” he mused. “Well, I don’t work on contingency, so it’s your decision.”
“It would really help me a lot. I need it, like… as soon as humanly possible.”
“What, are you in debt to the mob or something?”
“No! It’s… It doesn’t matter right now. Just let me know if you can swing it.”
He sighed, and I was certain he thought I was being an idiot for not dragging it out a bit for a bigger amount. That was fine, he could think what he wanted. It was a hell of a long shot, but if I could make it work…
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks,” I said, and the call ended.
A LITTLE OVER an hour later, I was officially hired on as part of the faculty at Cherryvale High School, pending a background check and completing required safety certifications training on stuff like concussion protocols and CPR.
Maybe I should have been embarrassed by it, because it wasn’t something most people would consider an impressive accomplishment, but I was feeling on top of the world.
Principal Sanchez had nearly wept with gratitude when I’d accepted her offer, and I knew the teachers would be happy to have me around, if only because it’d fix a bunch of the scheduling issues.
I’d come so far, so removed from the pretentious cocktail parties and constant pressure to be more, to climb up some worthless nepo-littered corporate ladder where I didn’t truly matter to anyone and no one cared if I lived or died beyond my weekly sales stats.
It was such a relief to wind up in something like this.
I wouldn’t be rich, far from it, but I’d be happy.
And Kendall had reminded me the night before that he was doing pretty well with his business, too.
With our combined incomes, it was all too easy to imagine a pretty little life together.
On my way home, I got another call from Jay. I hit the speaker button and balanced my phone in the cup holder before I answered.
“Well, it’s done,” he told me, with all the satisfaction of a lawyer who’d just gotten his client a payout, and all the resignation of a lawyer whose client had agreed to a smaller sum for the sake of time.
“He agreed to your paltry sum and sent over the NDA. I looked it over, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary on it.
Just delete the video and don’t show it to anyone, ever.
And obviously you can’t talk about what happened with Hailey to anyone anymore. ”
“Yeah,” I agreed quickly. “That’s fine.”
I didn’t want to think about her anymore, let alone talk about her. It finally felt like I’d be getting a clean break from my shitty past and starting over where I should have been all along.
“I sent the stuff to your email, so just DocuSign and send it back.”
“I’m on my way back to my parents’, so I’ll take care of it there,” I said. The reality of what was happening was just barely starting to sink into my brain, generating an excited buzz through my veins. Had I seriously stumbled into a sum of money? Stuff like that didn’t happen to guys like me.
“Cool,” he said, then paused before going on. “Hey, this whole time sensitive thing isn’t because of some girl, is it?”
Because we were friends, and I knew he was mostly just teasing me, I considered my answer.
It was kind of awkward, but… I wanted to be honest. And once I came out to him, then it was done.
One person checked off the list. And doing it over the phone, where I wouldn’t have to see the potential judgment in his eyes was a safer place to start with it.
“Ah, no. A guy, actually.”
“Like, a guy or a guy?”
I cleared my throat, glad he couldn’t see my face. “Like, a guy. That I’m… seeing. Romantically.”
“You’re telling me you’ve crossed over to the other side?” He asked, sounding surprised but not exactly judgmental.
“It’s not really like that. I’m pretty sure I always liked both, I just tried to ignore it or not think about it.”
“Wait, even back in college?”
“Yeah,” I answered, somewhat hesitantly.
We’d been in the same fraternity, and had gone to a lot of parties back then.
We’d definitely ended up passing out drunk together quite a few times, sometimes sleeping next to each other.
Would he be weirded out by those memories in retrospect, knowing what he knew about me now?
“So how come you never hit on me?” He demanded.
I blinked a few times, my eyebrows drawing together. “Uh… You’re not exactly my type, Jay.”
“Oh, I see. I’m not good looking enough for you.”
“Are you even into guys?”
“Well, no,” he admitted. “But it would be nice to be considered.”
I snorted, incredibly relieved by his reaction. “You’re good looking, okay? I’m just kind of… picky. I have a type.”
“So what? Is this guy a 6’6 bodybuilder or something?”
I ran my tongue across my teeth, ridiculously amused by the contrast of his assumption and the real life situation.
Was this what coming out to straight guys would be like?
Less repulsion and more ego-driven interrogation on why I’d never hit on them?
That seemed a lot easier and more pleasant to handle.
“Not exactly. You’ll have to judge for yourself.”
“Yeah, I’ll make my way out there eventually,” he promised. “You’ll have time off in the summer, right?”
“Winter and spring breaks, too,” I said. “We’ll meet up.”
“Sounds good. Give me a heads up when you get those documents taken care of, and I’ll get them over to Sanders so he can start a wire transfer. It’s domestic, so it won’t take more than a day to have the money in your bank.”