The Co-op

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

DEACON

I knew she’d wear black. She walks out of my room with her nose in the air, in a fitted dress with a slit up to her hip. A tiny bow in the middle of the neckline. The irony of that bow… it’s probably one of those fake bows that doesn’t actually untie or unravel. The kind of knot you persistently work at only to have it open up to nothing, leaving you disenchanted and disoriented.

There’s something very satisfactory about the look on her face when she gets into my car, though. It’s been restored from top to bottom with everything in between since she last saw it. She slides onto the leather bench like it might have been booby-trapped, but the only things that sneak-attack in here are the incendiary memories.

Elyse makes conversation the whole way, keeps us both distracted. I follow the directions on my phone and only participate in the small talk when called upon, trying to let my brain stay on autopilot.

The check-in process at the courthouse is strangely anticlimactic. You’d think that there would be a more official-feeling vibe for people entering into a life-altering contract.

Instead, before I know it, I’m standing in front of a cheery officiant in a small, low-lit room, the court-provided witness sitting in the front pew, and Elyse waiting across from me for LaRynn. I assumed it would just be the group of us in front of a desk, with some papers and a few words. Maybe the Pledge of Allegiance? Instead, there’s a navy-carpeted aisle in between a few rows of benches, and a pair of big wooden doors at the back. They open now and LaRynn appears, just as music starts to play.

It is deeply stupid, the way I instantly want to call it off. The way the sight of her—black hair, black dress, and walking over an aisle of blue—makes her look like one of those sirens coming up from the sea. I suddenly feel like some cartoon idiot waiting with a net to trap her, especially knowing she’s much more capable of capturing me. A leg cuts through the slit in her dress and I hear a ringing in my ears. Why’d she have to go and be so goddamn beautiful? I think I’m breathing weird. I feel bad that she’s got no flowers. I frown at her clasped hands before I reach for them.

“Do you have the rings?” the officiant asks.

“Oh, no. Um, we aren’t…” she stammers just as I start fumbling in my pocket with my free hand.

“Hang on,” I say to her, taking back my other palm. I rapidly start pulling keys off my key ring. “I only have the one, but that’s fine, right?” I ask the officiant. I feel sweat start to bead around my hairline.

“Oh—well, you don’t need any , actually,” the officiant says with a light shrug.

“Just, here, ” LaRynn says, flustered as she starts taking a ruby ring off her right hand. I think it may have been Cecelia’s. She grabs my palm and places it in the center. “I’ll take the key ring.”

I hand it to her, a muscle spasming in my jaw. I inhale through my nose and look back to the officiant with a nod.

The rest happens in flashes. Pulse beats that I try to detach from, the words etching themselves into my brain instead. We agree to love and cherish one another, and I manage not to laugh. I slip the ruby ring on her long, elegant finger, and she slips the key ring onto my longer, indelicate one. And then I’m told that I may kiss my bride and I almost ask if I must, since I’m positive that she doesn’t want to. But then her eyes find mine, and I spot something pleading in them. Probably, it’s that she doesn’t want me to embarrass her, but it’s such an unfamiliar expression, like it doesn’t sit right on her face. I step close and breathe her in, cotton candy and maybe… maybe a bit of me? My soap on her skin. The thought of it makes something slam against my ribs and go liquid down my spine, and my hand fists in the back of her dress. Her eyes dart between my own before they dip down to my mouth. She swallows forcefully and any gentleness disappears, replaced with something cold and hard.

Teenage LaRynn may have been cruel at times… mercurial at most. But this LaRynn… this LaRynn is dangerous, with eyes that look like they see right through me, cutting right to some soft center where they find me lacking . But then her hand slips up my wrist and around, cupping my elbow, and on instinct, I’m gathering her even closer, her chest rattling against my own. I hate what the feel of her body does to mine, the places she’s filled out and softened pressed and fitted against everywhere I’ve grown harder with age. My head dips and our lips finally meet, both of us inhaling sharply through our noses at the same time, a small swish of a sound that echoes through the little chamber.

It’s a dry press at first, but it’s soft enough that it still forces me to consider what she kissed me like before. Something that’s ingrained in my memory. Curious and open, a little divot between her brows, the way she’d bite me when she was pleased. The first kiss turns into two, her bottom lip slotting between mine, and I don’t know if it was her or me that went back in. At the first brush of her tongue I fail to stop a sound, and this is what breaks her away. She avoids looking at me, pivoting out of the cage of my arms and smoothing a palm down her dress.

And then it’s… done. I’m a married man. To a woman who hates me.

“Third floor, fifth door on the right,” the officiant says quietly. We both turn his way.

“What?” I ask.

He looks at us over his glasses, a genial grin smeared across his face. “Trust me. You won’t be disturbed,” he says. “I know how that kind of passion burns. Only one way to satisfy the fire.” He nods knowingly.

“Oh my god!” says LaRynn, utterly horrified. Elyse starts to cackle.

He focuses his gaze on me. “Gotta give it some wood, know what I mean?”

“Are we done here?!” I ask. LaRynn continues to gape.

“Yep,” he chirps. “The witnesses and I will sign the cert, and you can get on your way.”

“Thanks, that’d be great,” I firmly state.

We pick up lunch to go and pull over at a park that looks out over the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a damned idyllic day, an azure sky dotted with fat, white clouds. Bright sun tempered with a cool breeze. And while Elyse takes a call as she walks around on the path and LaRynn eats at a table away from me, I take to tearing off the pieces of my bread bowl that have corn chowder soaked in, tackling them with intense precision because it’s the only thing I can control at this moment. I don’t know how much space to give LaRynn and I don’t know how deep in over my head I am, but I do know that this lunch is delicious. I may have just made a very big choice impulsively, all to accomplish something that will require an abundance of hope and energy, but I’m also choosing to concentrate my current hope and energy into this meal, letting it be the thing I exist for rather than letting my mind wander on the rest. LaRynn comes to sit beside me and the chaos of my thoughts mute, homing in on her. She holds up her plastic spoon my way.

“Cheers?” she asks.

“Cheers,” I concede, clicking my spoon to hers. “And, uh, thanks for lunch.”

She makes a show of studying her nails. “I prefer the term ‘sugar mama ’ now, thank you.”

I chuckle again. “That Accord money went straight to your head.”

“And they said money wouldn’t change things.”

“God, I really hope it does,” I admit. “There are a whole lot of changes we need to pay for.”

“Hmm,” she agrees. “I guess that’s true.”

Her cheeks flush with the breeze, the light turning her eyes an impossible shade of green. She catches me looking and I’m surprised when she takes it as an invitation, searching me in return.

“I’ve been thinking,” I tell her.

“As a doctor, Jensen is who you should discuss that with.”

A laugh bursts free. “You’re in rare form, aren’t you?”

Her smile unzips itself slowly across her face, before she turns it away and squints out at the view. “Think I’m just practicing staying on my toes around you.” She zips the smile back up.

I hum a vague agreement.

“What were you going to say?” she asks.

“I thought… What would you think about sort of assigning ourselves some team-building exercises? To break up the tension occasionally?” I ask.

Her expression turns downright grim. “I believe I’d need more explanation first.”

“Think about it,” I say. “People that work together and don’t particularly care for each other still have to go to company retreats or team-building-activity things all the time.”

Understanding softens the glare. What did she think I meant? “How often did you have in mind?”

I shrug. “Once a week oughta be enough, I think.”

“Once a week !? You don’t think we’re about to be in each other’s space enough as it is? We’re sharing a toilet.”

I’m not sure why her response stings. She has a point. “I think the purpose of the team building is that it’s cooperative and everyone approaches it with an open mind and a good outlook, thereby keeping up morale,” I explain, schooling my face into something uninvested. “I suppose we could take turns picking said activity if that would help? I’d be happy to visit your coven, stand outside kindergarten classrooms with signs telling them that Santa’s a hoax and your mom decapitated your Elf on the Shelf… throw M&M’s at them while they cry. You know, whatever it is that you like to do for fun.”

“Joke’s on you, I’d never waste M&M’s like that, and my next coven meeting involves a sacrificial ceremony, so…” Her head tilts in mock apology.

“In need of a virile man, huh?” I bite my lip in a grin.

“More specifically one that no one will miss. ”

I love the way her nose scrunches when she’s pissed. “Oh sugar, you and I both know I never miss.”

“That doesn’t even—”

“Every other week.”

“What?!”

“Give me every other week,” I tell her. “I think holding ourselves accountable to something like that guarantees we stay on track.” Then, more gently, “It’s just a lunch here and there, Larry.”

She searches my face with a suspicious pout. “Deal,” she reluctantly agrees. She holds out her left hand, the ruby ring still on her finger. I wrap her palm in mine.

“Deal.”

She blinks away again, and I follow her line of sight and see Elyse making her way back toward us.

“So,” LaRynn says as we get up and begin collecting our debris, “in terms of the renovation… When and how do we get it all going? What’s first?”

A smile tugs at my mouth. “I know where to start.”