She cocked an eyebrow at me while she stepped up into the comic book store. “What’s that face for?” she asked.
I let her drag me inside. “What face?”
“You have your horny face on.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked with a laugh.
She laughed. “You do! You make a face when you’re horny. Has no one ever told you that?”
She was still laughing as she pulled me into the back of the shop. There were rows upon rows of thick collections of comics from the floor to the ceiling. She eyed the thick, hard-back binding of what looked like an entire comic run in one book. I didn’t know shit about comics or any of this nerd shit, but the look on her face when she searched was enough to make me want to watch her look at books all day.
Was that weird?
Probably.
She crouched down to look at the bottom shelf, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t turn my head a little and stare at her ass. God, my wife was hot. She pulled a couple of soft-cover comics out of the stacks and stood back up. A red eyebrow arched at me again, and I realized I was still staring.
She reached her hand up to grip my jaw between her fingers. “Eyes up here, buddy,” she teased.
“Come on, Fi. You know you’re hot,” I tried to argue.
She bristled at that but shoved me out of the way and walked up to the counter. I followed behind her, ready to whip out my credit card again, but she already had hers out. She chatted with the blue-haired guy at the counter about the comics she was buying. I couldn’t help but notice his eyes sweeping across her chest. My eyes narrowed to tiny slits in his direction. Fi didn’t pay it any mind but waved goodbye to him with her bag in hand, and I quickly grabbed her other hand into mine. Fi squeezed my hand in warning, but soon we were out on the street and about to walk into the place she wanted to go for lunch. Only to walk straight into Stephanie—Benny’s girl—and Cindy, one of my exes.
“Riley!” Cindy exclaimed in surprise.
Her dark olive skin-tone shone in the sun, and her dark eyes narrowed in confusion at Fi standing next to me. Cindy was a great girl, but she was one of the few relationships that didn’t work out because she couldn’t handle me never being around. There were no hard feelings; I got that it was hard on the girls when their partner was gone most of the time. Not every break-up had to be terrible.
Stephanie narrowed her grey eyes at me in confusion and flipped her black hair behind her shoulder. She hated me. Don’t know why; I was always nice to her.
“Hey, Cin, Steph, how are you?” I greeted them.
Stephanie’s eyes scanned from me to Fi, who was looking at me with a confused look. “Fine,” Stephanie answered coolly. “Who’s this?”
Fi opened her mouth to make a snarky comment, and this time I squeezed her hand to warn her and say ‘be nice.’ “This is my wife, Fiona. Fi, this is Benny’s girl, Stephanie, and...Cindy’s my—”
“His ex,” she cut me off to explain. Cindy’s smile was genuine. She was such a great girl. I hoped she would find someone soon.
“Benny said you got married; I thought it was a joke,” Stephanie snarked.
Oh, there was definitely something up with him and her again, and I had a feeling it was the fact that he didn’t want to get serious again. Shit. Fi kinda already knew about their frequent fights and that Benny sometimes crashed in my guest room, but maybe I had to tell him he needed to escape somewhere else. I think he eluded to that when I offered to let him stay when he helped move Fi into my place.
“It was nice to meet both of you,” Fi offered, and I could tell she meant it.
“Riley, I’m so happy for you!” Cindy beamed. “You both look so happy together!”
“We won’t keep you,” Stephanie told us with a grimace.
“Nice seeing you,” I told them and then steered Fi into the restaurant.
We got situated in the restaurant and ordered before Fi finally asked about the elephant in the room. I had been texting Benny to ask what was up and had to look up.
“So Benny’s girlfriend doesn’t like you. What did you ever do to her?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing. Benny and her are having problems.”
“Oh. What does that have to do with you?”
“He’s not really big on the whole marriage thing.”
“Oh. And that Asian girl was your ex? She seemed nice.”
“Yeah, Cindy’s a great girl, but she couldn’t handle me traveling all the time.”
She sipped her water in thought.
I put my phone down, and I reached out to take her hand. “Tell me about your progress with the book.”
Her smile was a thousand-watt, and I wanted to see it on her face for the rest of my life. “Brad thinks I have imposter syndrome and that I need to release the first draft.”
“Who’s Brad?” I asked with narrowed eyes.
She waved her hand at my jealousy. “My agent. I had him and Katie over to watch the game last night.”
I frowned. “You could have come to the game; I could have gotten you tickets.”
She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I didn’t want to impose.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not a big deal. Just give me notice next time, and I can get you tickets.
