The entire way home, I pondered the idea of grooming and what that could mean even though every new idea begged a wince from my face.
I killed the people who touched me without permission. So why were her abusers living so unburdened, knowing she was mine now?
They were living on borrowed time.
BOWEN
Pulling into my driveway, I sat in my car for longer than necessary—four nips later to be exact. Time was always best counted in the amount of alcohol consumed, instead of in traditional hours or seconds. I was avoiding seeing Eve while my head was still a mess, and she was at the center. She had as many secrets as I did and earning hers meant giving up mine.
I wasn’t prepared to do that just for some ugly ass truths I didn’t want to truly know.
I was constantly giving her bones, hoping it would yield the same kind of information back to me, and she would just hide them for later like pieces of me she knew she’d never have again.
She wasn’t wrong.
The truths I dole out all have an expiration date. I gave them out and expected you to remember them, value them, and not ask me for more.
Eve was a different breed. She asked for more and was never satisfied.
After I watched her come, she practically took that as a personalized invitation to worm her way into my heart by being a perfect wife before we sealed the deal. She truly settled into the role by slaving over a stove and parading herself around in even less fabric than before.
She was taunting and tempting like she didn’t need me to pull the rope back. She did all the pushing and pulling herself.
Tonight was different, I couldn’t just grunt my way through non-verbal communication and get drunk off my ass. Not when I needed to digest the information Donte just let out of the bag.
Eve was groomed and that meant she endured all the same pain the others endure that don’t get saved.
Texting Donte quickly, I typed out a message: I want her dossier on my desk in the morning.
I changed the contract to reflect her not being stock, not being able to get pregnant so I wouldn’t have to go through being a dad, to make her a real person with feelings when I wasn’t even considering them myself. The Clave contract wasn’t at fault, even though I blamed it for treating her like meaningless shit.
None of us had gone through with being married to the person arranged for us yet. None of us had experience with the words stock, merchandise, and assets. None of us would have thought twice until Donte mentioned the single word that tore down everything I had built up: groomed.
That was just the tip of my iceberg of anger. There was more to be pissed off about.
Donte was towing the line when it came to what we did, making it more dangerous and damaging for everyone involved. He was dipping his fingers into pots I didn’t know existed—ones beyond me, and I was considered the gatekeeper of this bullshit. He was hoarding girls behind my back for someone who wasn’t me. Someone who didn’t care how they were treated as long as they were a warm body in their fucked up web.
I knew those girls were merchandise, but I stopped myself from thinking about where they went after, and to who, and for how much, or about what they would be doing for them. I didn’t want to think about what their life would be like after LA because then my attention would drift to Eve who was all part of this web too, and I just didn’t get to her quick enough.
Pushing the heavy front door open, all I smelled was greasy food when I walked into my house. It was making the saliva in my mouth fight with the bile in my stomach trying to creep its way up. I saw the Chinese takeout boxes on my coffee table in the living room with candles filling the space. Death by fire from the grease.
She was trying to save me when she had it right the first time—get out while you can.
Run far away.
Forget I exist.
Tell yourself you’re lucky.
I’m never going to be the guy she knew before, and I wasn’t going to be her definition of a good husband now.
Ignoring all her efforts wasn’t hard to do when I have all day, every day to myself and an endless bank account to fund my every whim. I treaded over to the bar in the corner and reached towards the top shelf to a bottle of Hennessy that I had been saving for a real emergency because once it’s cracked, I plan to empty it like I do with all my bottles.
Eve’s innocent voice was an illusion when I heard her say, “Figured we’d have a little date night in…” I could read between the lines of her desperation.
None of it was a turn on when she was still straddling the line of demure royal and the Eve I know.
Rounding the couch, I set the bottle down gingerly like it was a fragile infant and ripped off my black jean jacket as well as the hoodie underneath. I let my tall frame fall to the plushness with the bottle back in my grasp, and my blonde hair sticking up in every direction.
“Awful night. Rain check.” It was my new favorite saying that I was overusing and didn’t
