CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tyler’s phone buzzed.A text from Bertha.Marcy’s starting to whine about you not seeing her.I’m going to have to do something more extreme to shut her up, or she’ll put us both in danger.
Tyler’s stomach turned.Damn it, Marcy.He texted back,Please try not to.He hesitated, sweat beading on his forehead.After a half-dozen breaths, he added,but do what you have to do.
He sent the texts, then deleted them.He looked up and saw Chef looking at him, one eyebrow lifted.“Wife nagging you?”
Tyler found that hilarious for some reason.He giggled, trying and failing to stifle his laughter.Chef chuckled nervously, then asked, “Hey, are you all right?”
“Fine,” Tyler said, getting his laughter under control.“Yeah, it was my wife.She’s upset that I’m not spending enough time with her.”
“You know what that means,” Chef said.He winked, then grinned, revealing a perfect square gap between his top left incisor and the canine to the right.
"Yeah, we'll see," Tyler replied."Usually wanting to see me means an hour-long talk about our feelings and exactly zero seconds of sex."
“Sex first, feelings after,” Chef advised.
“Sounds like a plan, buddy.”
Chef nodded, satisfied.“So, what does the prince want for dinner tonight?”
“Salisbury steak.”
Chef frowned and looked up at him.“Literally no one likes Salisbury steak.”
"I think he just likes screwing with me," Tyler said, which was the truth.
Chef sighed.“Well, now he’s screwing withme.”He sighed and trudged back to the kitchen.“Think he’ll notice if I just pour potato gravy on the meatloaf?”
“If it were anyone else, I’d say no.”
“Yeah, Yeah.”
Tyler waited while Chef constructed Elijah Cox’s special meal.His phone buzzed.Bertha again.He glanced at Chef, who had his back turned, then turned his own back so his body shielded the screen from view.She’s talking shit.Got to do something, Tyler.Sorry.
Tyler released a rush of breath.He deleted the text, put the phone away, then brought both hands behind his head, interlacing his fingers as he paced the waiting area in front of the counter.Since Cox took his dinner an hour before the rest of the population, he was the only one here.God damn it, Marcy.God damn it.
He was a piece of shit.This wasn’t Marcy’s fault.It was his.The poor girl had actual feelings for him, and he was just using her to feel good.Now she was going to get hurt just because she didn’t know why her boyfriend wasn’t seeing her anymore.
Anger flared within him.What the hell did she think this was?She was doing sixteen years for drug trafficking.She was here because she kept breaking out of lower-security prisons.He saw her for a damned blowjob a few nights a week and occasionally got her off too.Was that what counted as a relationship for her?Did she think that meant he loved her?That he’d risk his career, his freedom, his future with hisdaughterover her?
The answer was no.She didn’t think those things.Because she didn’t know about those things.Because he’d never told her.Because he’d never cared to because she was just the blanket he wore to feel warm for a few minutes a night.
He was a piece of shit.He deserved to be hurt.Not Marcy.
“Order up,” Chef said.He frowned at Tyler.“Hey, man, I’m serious about tonight.I don’t mean you just bend her over the table and push it in.Buy her chocolate on the way home.Cuddle on the couch and watch one of those shitty romantic comedies girls like.Then make sweet love to her.Nice and gentle.Lots of kissing and foreplay.”
“Yep, got it.Thanks, Chef.”
“All right.”He pushed the tray toward Tyler, and Tyler placed it on his cart.“It’ll be okay.If she loves you, it’ll be okay.”
Tyler fixed his… wow.Chef really was kind of his friend huh?He fixed him with a smile, then escaped the least comfortable conversation of his life.
So far, anyway.His loving wife had scheduled a meeting with him and her attorney the following Monday to discuss terms of their divorce.She’d made no secret that she intended one of those terms to be full custody of Elise.There would be no sweet love between the two of them tonight or any other night.As for Marcy?She was just another casualty of Harriet’s cruelty and Tyler’s cowardice.
He was a piece of shit.
Cox waited in his usual yogi squat.Or seat.Or whatever the fuck you called it.Tyler pressed the intercom button and said, “Cox, dinner.Assume the position.”
