I don’t even care which of you gets me—and he didn’t, not really, his mom stank of cheap vodka every night and his dad walked around with the clenched rage of a guy waiting for a zombie attack—Just pick.
We both love you and want to spend time with you, she said.
He knew better. He was just something for his parents to fight over now that they couldn’t scream in each other’s faces. Sometimes he found himself fantasizing about them dying. At the same time, please. A head-on collision, her wasted and him speeding. Whatever. The more horrible the better. As long as they both bit it.
So he knew, his kids deserved better than divorce. Maybe when they were older. He knew something else, too: Becks would not give him a pass if she caught him with his pants down and a Hooters employee nearby. Hundred percent chance she’d kick him to the curb. And play the righteous victim, Men are pigs. She’d make sure that Kira knew, Can’t trust any of ’em, especially not dear old dad.
Of course maybe he’d get away with it, Rebecca was busy. But he didn’t feel like taking the chance. Fact was, he loved Kira and Tony in a way he couldn’t have imagined possible before they’d arrived in the world. Watching them grow up, turn from babies into toddlers into real people who told jokes and practiced dunking on the adjustable hoop in the garage made him grin every day. He wanted to grin every day. He didn’t want to be in some crappy half-time custody arrangement. He knew Becks would never agree to less, no matter that he did most of the work. That he was, truly, the better parent. She might even tell herself that the kids needed her more and fight for more. What would he do then? Try to convince a family court judge that the until-recently-unemployed dad was the better parent than the FBI agent wife?
Not a chance. Not in Texas. Probably not anywhere. Even the fact that the kids were closer to him than Becks would work against him somehow.
Plus, if he was being totally honest with himself, he wouldn’t ever ask for alimony. He had some pride. Which meant he’d wind up working twice as hard and living in half as nice a house if Becks kicked him out.
So, fine, he split the difference. Stopped in Hooters for a couple of adult beverages and then went home to spend quality time with his laptop, take care of business. He checked out the hard-core stuff, gangbangs and bondage, it was all there, but in the end he was mostly into plain vanilla, the occasional threesome. College Girls Get Wild.
Maybe because it brought him back to his glory days. They’ll pass you by… in the wink of a young girl’s eye…
Screw Bruce Springsteen. Brian was way more into rap these days. Sublimating his rage with Eminem, especially. He’d turn the songs up until his windows shook. On the way to his job as a Conoco sys admin. The joke didn’t escape him, but he couldn’t do much about it. He was not so much trapped as triangulated. Sometimes he figured he should work harder, if he made more money he’d solve the puzzle. But a few thousand extra bucks a year wouldn’t matter. It hadn’t so far. Becks would just spend whatever he made. She couldn’t help herself. Poor little rich girl. She had champagne taste and the worst part was that she didn’t even know it. Every so often he’d realize she was wearing a pair of shoes he hadn’t seen before, a new bag.
Expenses rise to meet income. One of the few smart things his dad had ever said.
As for sex, he still serviced Becks when she needed a tune-up, every two weeks or three case reports, whichever came first. Far as he could tell, she still enjoyed it. For him it was mostly muscle memory.
Basically, they had a fifties-style marriage. Hubby made the money and the decisions, wifey took care of the kids and rooted for hubby at work and dutifully provided sex when requested.
Totally traditional.
Except she was the husband and he was the wife.
* * *
His dislike of Houston only made matters worse. The city was too hot, too big, too flat, too churchy. Too Mexican and too white at the same time. Too many guns and too many cops. Too rich and too poor. Houston was a black Silverado that would not get off