Chapter 10
There’s a ton of cars parked haphazardly all over the road, and I park the truck a bit away so I can walk up unnoticed and surprise my wife at work.
Okay, so I also wanna check out her coworkers, the places she goes during the day, who might she hang out with, you know, the stuff a possessive, obsessive stalker husband comes up with.
Nothing wrong with that, I tell myself as I lower my ball cap and weave between the cars toward a rocky road right before a mountain terrain.
There’s a massive rock out here, if I remember correctly from that one night Nikola and I came here to dump my father’s body.
The man who recently betrayed me dumped my brother elsewhere, don’t know where.
It’s best when I don’t know. The less I know, the less the feds can pin on me.
I wonder how many people Nikola dumped here or made disappear from the cliff not half a mile from here.
As I reminisce on the past, I come to a clearing crawling with people. There’re white trucks and tents and all kinds of shit. It looks like a Hollywood campground, and I’m wondering if my wife is in a movie. Hope it’s not a romance. The thought of it being a romance sets my teeth on edge.
My man walks toward me and nods, then gets lost back in the parking ’cause I don’t need him if I’m around.
An older woman approaches and strains to look up at me ’cause she’s under five feet.
She’s decked out in a black suit and a light blue tie, and her hair is short and streaked with pink highlights. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Kaya Boriskova.” I love attaching my last name to her. It makes me all the more possessive. Do I own her? Hell yes, but she owns me too, so we’re even.
“Are you a friend?” The woman doesn’t look me up and down the way most do to judge, label, or form opinions, but I know first impressions matter and people can’t help their instincts.
When she steps back a bit, I know her instincts told her to tread carefully, and that’s fine.
I want to intimidate enemies and protect the friends.
She’s not my friend, though she could be. Entirely up to her.
“I’m her husband.”
The woman’s eyes widen, and she sticks out her hand.
“Gabriella Sanders. Editor in chief. A pleasure to meet you. Kaya is over there.” The woman points toward the rock, and I squint my eyes when the sun hits them, putting my hand up so I can see better.
Wha…what the fuck? “Is that my wife on top of the fifty-foot rock?”
“Yes. It’s sixty-two feet.”
“How did she get up there?”
“We dropped her.”
“You fucking dropped my wife on top of the rock? What? Why?”
The woman steps back, and I know I have to calm my shit. “Bridal shoot.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” No, no calm. It’s storming up in my brain. “What bride is gonna get married at the top of the rock? Hm? Tell me, because I’d love to know how this image will relate to the…you know, most people.”
“Our audience enjoys pushing limits.”
“Fine, where’s the groom?” I feel my blood boiling.
“The bride is a runaway, and we’re encouraging women to be free and independent and run if they have to.”
“What was your name again?” Gonna put her on Ludi’s list.
I stomp off before she says anything and start running as she’s screaming after me to stop. Nobody stops me, though. People scramble out of my way, and I jump and start climbing the rock, straining to get up there to do what I came here to do.
Kaya’s leaning over the rock’s edge to watch me climb and I dislike this because I know she’s got a bad foot that, even though it doesn’t hurt, still isn’t reliable and can slip, so I hurry up, snarling like a tiger when I lose my footing and nearly slip.
She screams. “What are you doing?”
I smile like that crazy motherfucker I can be when people poke my sensitive places. “I bought you a ring, baby.”
“Oh, then hurry up.” She bends and extends a hand as if she can pull me up.
My wife is as fucked-up as I am. We’re a perfect fit.
She “helps” me up by pulling on my wrists as if at this point I can’t do it myself when I almost died getting to the top on my own, but whatever makes her feel good is fine with me. “Thank you, baby,” I tell her.
She hugs me. “You’re so crazy. What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I bought a ring.”
She steps back, and the sun hits her right side and makes her look like some sort of goddess.
She’s made up with a golden glow on her cheeks, eyeliner around the eyes, and she’s wearing a tiara and a white bikini.
I slide my gaze down them legs and see sandals with heels. I want her to keep those heels.
Maybe I can buy those too so that when I fuck her, I can feel the points jabbing my kidneys.
I bend down on one knee and take out the box, then open it.
“Marry me,” I tell her. Should’ve asked politely like most dudes, but I’m not most dudes, and asking is just another form of telling.
Might as well use the proper language and not deceive her into thinking there’s choices.
She wants me, and I want her. What’s there to ask?
Her hands cover her face, and she peeks between her fingers.
I see tears in her eyes and hear nothing from the crowd below because my wife hasn’t answered yet.
That’s fine. I stand and take the ring out, grab her hand, and slide the fucker on her finger.
Now it’s real hard to say no. Nobody would want to slide this rock off their finger.
“You saw the ring from the photo shoot and went through all that trouble to buy it?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“That’s so sweet.”
I smile sweetly, though I’m getting a bit nervous now. “Well, whaddya say?”
Her eyes widen as if she has nothing to say or maybe because the answer is obvious, I don’t fucking know, but when she says yes, I grab her, bend her backward, and kiss her. In the corner of my eye, the cameras start flashing.
Two weeks later on a Saturday, my wife and I lie on the couch. She’s between my legs, flipping through a magazine, and I’m watching the History channel.
We have a dog too. It’s sitting on the floor, whining to join us, and I’m ignoring the needy little fucker because he chewed up my fancy shoes, the only ones I had for weddings and funerals or events where I have to show up refined and normal.
“This is going on our wall.” I’m collecting her images and putting them in my office. It’s my Stalker Husband Cheerspiration Board. Kaya lifts the cover of the magazine.
It’s a picture of us, the one from the rock, where my face is buried in her neck while I bend her over my arm. Her long leg is extended and pointing toward the sky. My wife looks deliriously happy, and the grin in the image reminds me of that uninhibited smile I fell for the first time I saw her.
Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do. I know what I want when I see it, and I wanted her instantly. I would do anything to collect more moments that make her happy. She looks over at me and smiles just like that while we cuddle on the couch.