Chapter 4 #2
He was a little embarrassed when Catalina ignored the woman, continuing into the room and leaving him behind. His wife pulled out her phone as she leaned against a wall and waited for him. Trey gave a sheepish smile to the woman with the tablet. “I’m Trey, and that woman is my wife, Catalina.”
She nodded when she located their names. “Schuster and Rosario?”
“Yup.”
“Great. We’re going to have you meet with Bill in a moment. Can I just ask you a few questions?”
“Sure.”
She adjusted her glasses, scrolling on her tablet. “I’ll try to make this quick. I’m Sasha, by the way. Okay, what’s your height and weight?”
“Uh. Sorry? Is this for some special gift or something, like a custom bathrobe?” Sure, they got a free vacation out of this, but he never had a nice bathrobe before.
Sasha burst out laughing. “A bathrobe. You’re so funny. We’re just trying to get basic information from everyone, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay.” He was only half paying attention because when Sasha laughed, she briefly touched his arm.
This elicited an angry glare from Catalina.
Interesting. “Six-two. One-ninety.” He leaned closer to Sasha and lowered his voice because he didn’t want to get into trouble while also welcoming trouble in case his theory about Catalina’s jealousy was correct.
“I think Catalina is about…one-fifteen? I don’t actually know.
She might get mad at me for guessing. She’s a few inches over five feet. ”
Sasha nodded, tapping away on the tablet. “Great. And would you say you’re both in relatively good health? No heart issues?”
“What does this have to do with vacations?”
“Oh, i-it’s just…we want to make sure everyone is in good enough health to travel, or it lets us know if we need to make other…accommodations.”
“Wow. Really? You guys think of everything. In that case, no problems here. We’re both healthy.”
She smiled while marking this down. “Great.”
Catalina and Trey were then escorted to a private table to talk to Bill, who continued to ask more perplexing questions that didn’t seem to be vacation-related, including their occupations, current living situation, and emergency contacts.
While Trey did think it was strange, he figured the company must be extremely thorough.
During this whole meeting, it was Trey who answered the questions as Catalina continued to focus on her phone, demonstrating she could be physically present while checking out mentally.
Trey could hardly follow along with the conversation with Bill as he got more annoyed with Catalina’s behavior.
Wanting to evoke a response from her, Trey interrupted Bill with, “You know what? I think this is a great idea. I’m all for doing whatever this is. Fuck it. Sign me up for a timeshare.”
“What?” Bill seemed just as surprised as Catalina that Trey was ready to make a timeshare commitment within the first few minutes of the pitch.
While it was doubtful there were enough funds in Catalina and Trey’s bank account for any kind of timeshare situation, this was an insignificant detail to be worried about at a later time.
All he cared about was Catalina raising her head, her attention fully captured, and he was at the center of it.
But like a dog who had finally latched onto the bumper of a car, now that Trey had her attention, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
There was a small part of him realizing this could all bite him in the ass, but that was a problem for Future Trey.
“Sure. If this long weekend could do wonders for my wife and me, imagine what a whole timeshare could do. Maybe we’ll just go on vacations all the time, like a non-stop honeymoon. Isn’t that right, Squirrel?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits, either at his use of the nickname or at him acting as if she was in on this scheme. Who was he kidding? It was probably both. He was definitely in trouble.
Through a gritted smile, Catalina said, “We’re just listening today, sweetie. We need to talk about this before we make any decisions.”
According to the vacation boundaries Catalina had set, the hoped for discussion would either never come, or it would be all bad.
He also didn’t like the tone of resentment seeping through the word sweetie, so this may be the only chance he had to talk to her.
She was a captive audience here, imprisoned by her dedication to always keep her word.
He decided, for better or worse, to go for it. “You work really hard, and as your husband, I’m going to make an executive decision because I love you. We’re doing it. You deserve this.”
Trey was wrong. His assertive statement proved one thing immediately. His wife wasn’t as captive of an audience as he had predicted. “No,” she said, dropping any pretense she wasn’t angry, getting to her feet. “We’re done here.”
He realized he’d made a mistake thinking this had been a good idea.
Him believing it would ever have gone in a different direction was wishful thinking on his part, as if Catalina would’ve thrown herself into his arms and declared him the best husband in the world before offering him a blowjob.
At the moment, he didn’t trust her anywhere near his dick, as she was more likely to twist it off and hold her new trophy over his head like she was the damn Predator.
Hell, even Bill took a shaky sip from a bottle of water.
Luckily, before anything could happen, Catalina grabbed her bag and stormed from the conference room.
He scrambled after her. He could fix this. He didn’t know how… But he could.
“Cat! Cat!” he called as soon as he burst through the door into the hotel hallway.
She didn’t acknowledge him, her movements stiff and determined.
After passing a few more doors, he finally caught her.
“Cat,” he pulled on her forearm, her back going toward the wall.
There was the glossy shine of unshed tears in her eyes.
His insides squeezed together in fear. This was different from her normal brand of anger.
“Hey.” The word came out on a breath, filled with all the gentleness he had. Trey reached to stroke her jawline. “Catalina, baby, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
“I—” She appeared to struggle to get any words out before it burst from her. “I can’t talk to you. You just make me so mad. Leave me alone.”
Except, by this point, he was tired of them not talking about it. “I don’t care if we have to live in this hallway. Talk to me.”
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this? You know we can’t afford anything like a timeshare. We can’t even afford this vacation, and almost everything is being paid for. Does my opinion mean nothing to you? Is that where we are now? You’re just going to do whatever and screw what I think?”
“Isn’t that where we already are? What is this vacation but you doing whatever the fuck you want, and who cares what I want? Why is it okay for you, but for me, I’m suddenly the only bad guy here?”
Cat crossed her arms, pulling away from his touch. “Oh, so that’s what this is? I say I need some space, and now you’re punishing me? Teaching me a lesson?”
“What? No. I just… You’re punishing me. I make one mistake, and you’ve done nothing but punish me ever since. What exactly do you want? When will it be over?”
Her eyes darted to a hotel worker passing by, her skin flushing. “Keep it down,” she harshly whispered, hauling her purse closer to her body.
She finally cared about decorum, but he had stopped caring a while ago. He lowered his head, dropping the tone of his voice. “How does this end?”
Her eyes were glossy again, but her jaw was set in a determined line. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to separate.”
She wanted to run away from him again? He shook his head. “No, let’s just have it out. I don’t want to have a separate vacation. This is ridiculous.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” She looked him dead in the eyes this time. “I think we should separate…after the vacation. I don’t want to do this with you anymore.”
Trey couldn’t move, couldn’t react. He was almost certain his lungs stopped taking in oxygen completely. “You don’t want to do what anymore?”
“I don’t want to be married to you,” she said, her voice cool like iron except for the smallest shake on the last word of her sentence.
If his heart had been shattering into a million cracks before, it was now obliterated as though impacted by a missile and decimated into dust. “What?”
When they’d first gotten married, it had been a common joke between them to demand a divorce over the smallest, silliest infractions.
He’d purchased parsley instead of cilantro at the grocery store when she had planned to make homemade salsa.
Divorce! she had hollered from the kitchen.
She’d accidentally watched an episode of their favorite show without him.
I’m packing my bags and moving in with your family, he had told her before punishing her with wicked sex.
The divorce attorney wants to know how much you want to be royally screwed financially.
I have him on the phone right now, Cat had said to him when he ate the last scoop of ice cream.
If he knew how very unfunny the threat of divorce actually was, it would have had no place in their joke repertoire all these years.
“No,” was all he managed to say.
She seemed lost at this response, her eyes searching his. But if she had expected him to just give up and not fight—actually, why would she expect that?
“No,” he said a bit louder, feeling desperate to change the current situation.
“I want to stay married to you. Don’t you understand?
I still love you. And we’re supposed to be married for better and worse, in sickness and in health, and…
well, maybe this is the worst part. I’m not going to just give up that easily.
Yeah, we’re both healthy, but currently this relationship is a little sick, but that’s all it is.
Sick, not dead. And I’m going to get the equivalent of a relationship thermometer and relationship chicken soup and nurse this thing back to health however I can.
Please believe me. I’ll do anything, Cat. You’re my wife.”
By the end of what he considered to be a very moving speech, he’d gotten quite loud. Cat looked less than impressed, though, as she attempted to shush him.
She didn’t want people to hear their conversation? Fine. He reached around her, checking on the nearest doorknob, and it was unlocked. He pushed her inside the room, with him following and shutting the door soundly behind him.
Finally they could talk until they were in agreement once again, and neither of them was leaving this room until something changed.