13. Chad
Chad
Without raising her voice once, Bitsy had made it very clear how selfish I’d been and how much I’d taken her for granted.
“I am so sorry I said any of that to you, and that I let the stress from work get to me,” I told her the next morning as we walked out to the newest lawn ornament I’d just had delivered, a massive satin coach driven by a skeleton team with a beheaded zombie hanging out the window.
“None of that was true and none of that is how I really feel. Please, let me make it up to you.”
I gestured toward the absolute monstrosity.
“I just want to convince you I fucked up and I’m sorry.”
Raw sweat was trickling down my face, throat, and chest, soaking the waistline of my boxers, because I wanted her forgiveness so badly it hurt.
“That’s very pretty,” she said neutrally, but I could see a light in her brown eyes.
“Please, sweetheart.”
With a trembling hand, I took her face gently in mine and lined kisses down her beautiful silky throat.
“I was such a fool. Such an idiot. I don’t want you to change one single thing about yourself. Please, can I show you how sorry I am?”
But just as I was waiting in breathless anticipation, Zach bounced on by, his face all shiny and a big mug of coffee in his hand.
“Bitzer!” he caroled. “I have some more information about that business proposition we were talking about.”
“Do not give my wife a nickname!” I warned him.
But what business proposition? Was Bitsy talking to him about her business ideas and not me?
That sucked. I felt sick to my stomach, and Zach talked her ear off all the way to work as we strolled through downtown.
Somehow that fuckin cut the deepest. That I’d screwed up so badly she didn’t even want to talk about her hopes and dreams with me.
I came into the office dry and sick as hell.
What was the point of it all? What was the point of even getting this promotion if Bitsy hated me, in like the sweetest and nicest way it was possible to hate someone.
I got a little spark of hope when I opened my briefcase and realized she’d packed me a lunch.
Yes! We were back, baby!
Finally! Finally there was hope on the horizon that she might have forgiven me. I absolutely couldn’t wait until lunchtime when I could see what kind of funny creation she had made for me.
I was so delighted I couldn’t think about anything else all morning, and when we went to the golf course for a day of networking with some local business owners, I was shooting better than I had for weeks!
My wife was unique and irreplaceable and I had severely fucked up by addressing her as anything else.
Even though we had a very good club restaurant, naturally Mr. Van Buren would never dream of anything but sitting down and opening up our lunchboxes.
Even though I knew now he was a big fat hypocrite, nothing could burst my bubble if Bitsy was back to making me lunches.
“Boys, you’ll be jealous of what I got,” I chuckled, setting my lunch down right in the middle of the stock reports.
“Indeed?” Mr. Van Buren asked irritably. “Son, I was looking at those reports.”
But when I opened the lunchbox—I was aghast! She hadn’t forgiven me at all. What was inside was a chicken wrap.
Nothing whimsical at all!
How could I make my wife understand that I wanted her back, all of her?
“Damn, bro, at least it’s a change,” Kyle said glumly.
Well, as depressed as he was about not getting the promotion, I was 10x as depressed about actually getting it.
This chicken wrap had buttercrunch lettuce, cucumber, and avocado on it.
It was very healthy, very considerate. I had told Bitsy over and over that she didn’t need to pack me lunches.
But she had said it was no problem, that she enjoyed it.
But nothing could be clearer than this chicken avocado wrap that she hadn’t forgiven me. Not all. That she didn’t believe me that I wanted her to be herself.
I had been so wrong. I had fucked up so badly that she didn’t even want to give me all the parts of herself anymore.
There was a huge lump in my throat and I had to swallow past it to put the wrap to my mouth.
Tears prickled at the corner of my eyes and my tie was too tight.
The inane babble of my coworkers washed over me. Whose golf game was better, whose clients were richer, it all was so shallow and materialistic, and I couldn’t believe I’d hurt Bitsy’s feelings and seriously jeopardized my marriage over wanting to be accepted by these chuds.
My boss suddenly barked in surprise, making me jump.
“Now what the hell is that?”
I looked over at Zach’s lunchbox, and saw his food was set on a bed of soft leaf lettuce, and it was Bitsy’s classic Halloween feet loaf—meat loaf shaped to look like a foot with little water chesnut toenails.
“Did your woman make you that?” Mr. Van Buren asked.
Boy, he really was awfully fussy for a man who swore milk right from the udder was the best.
“Yes, isn’t it cute?” Zach lied nonchalantly.
What the hell!
I leaned closer. I would recognize my wife’s artistic craftwork anywhere, but how the hell had it come to be in Zach’s lunchbox?
“My wife made that,” I interrupted angrily, breathing hard.
“Now, don’t try to steal his wife’s thunder,” Mr. Van Buren admonished me.
“Admit it!” I snarled, bolting out of my chair and grabbing Zach’s tie. “Bitsy made that! You don’t even have a wife, so stop trying to steal mine! I see everything you’re doing!”
Zach glanced around at where every single other employee as well as the local business leaders were staring at us.
“Yeah, so what? You didn’t appreciate your wife. I am standing ten toes down on this very adorable lunch.”
“How did you get that?” I insisted, wrapping my hands around his throat as people started to make squeaky little “oh no” and “don’t do it, Chadley” type of noises.
Mr. Van Buren looked like he would’ve loved to throttle me, only I knew his deep, dark secrets so he couldn’t. The only person I’d told had been Bitsy, but if I told anyone else. . .
He’d be fucked.
“I did want a red-blooded alpha male who can manage his home life. A killer at home is a killer in the boardroom. So this is very interesting. If Zach could steal your wife, that would’ve been a point for him.”
He leaned back in his chair, like we were two gladiators he had just commissioned to fight each other.
“He won’t be stealing my wife!”
I put Zach in a headlock and gave him a noogie until he was yowling for me to stop. My bro outweighed me by maybe forty pounds, but I was several inches taller and I made sure to fuck up those pretty-boy blonde curls.
My boss obviously was trying to save face.
“Chadley is my next VP,” Mr. Van Buren said, and suddenly I wanted to puke. “You obviously have command of your wife and run a tight ship at home. That is a very prized quality to me so congratulations, son! Let’s all give a round of applause to my next VP of Marketing.”
But I was done. Done as hell.
“I quit,” I said firmly.
“You what?” Mr. Van Buren barked uncomprehendingly. “I’ve just offered the VP position to you!”
But I shook my head. “I don’t command my wife at home. That’s bullshit, man. We’re a partnership. And I fucked up this partnership. But she’s her own person and if it means lying that she’s someone she isn’t fuck that and fuck you and fuck this job.”
“Well!” Mr. Van Buren said in a huff. “This was about to be a half a million dollar paycheck, boy, but I see I overestimated you. Perhaps you don’t have that killer instinct after all.”
But now that I had already quit my job I might as well fuck the whole thing up properly.
“I don’t like the way you run this business.
Pitting us against each other. You claim to want a family-first business, but you have us working long hours, expect us to be on-call to answer your inane calls and emails all weekend long.
That’s not family-first. And to you family-first just means wives should do a lot of damn work. Well, I’m done with all this bullshit.”
“Well, don’t expect to come crawling back, boy,” Mr. Van Buren said, puffing out his cheeks.
“There’s only one person in this world I will ever crawl to,” I said, with the last shreds of my dignity. “Goodbye.”
Just as I gripped my club and turned to leave, I saw a golf cart bouncing over the green hills, approaching us as a speed way too fast for the size of the Whispering Sycamores Golf Course.