yoga, leggings and a tank top on, her tight little ass in the air. Or on weekends, she’d walk around with her robe half open revealing something lacy underneath.
To say nothing of the incident where she’d tried to fix a leaky faucet in the guest bathroom and had splashed water all over her thin t-shirt. Her hardened nipples were as easily visible as if she’d been topless when she innocently came to me to ask to use my tools. Jesus. I had a nice hard tool I desperately wanted her to handle. Again.
Even the sounds of her moving around on the other side of that wall was enough to keep me up at night. I’d obsess over what she was doing, what she was wearing, if anything. What position she slept in.
Goddamn. Sexual frustration seemed to be my normal mode these days. Rubbing one or two or three out in the shower just wasn’t doing it for me. I wanted her day and night and it was starting to drive me slightly insane. And cold showers did not help one bit. That was a huge ridiculous myth. Talk about society’s great lie. All cold showers did was leave you shivering and pissed off and yet still sexually frustrated.
To combat these temptations, I kept long hours at the office and we started going to and from work separately. We established a relaxed but distant pattern to our living and marital arrangement. I tried not to think too hard about why it wasn’t as satisfying as it was comfortable.
The summer was in its final weeks when we were summoned into the immigration office for our inevitable interview. If things went well, it would be our only one. And as we were easily able to prove a long-time relationship of over a year before the wedding happened, things went smoothly. No need to memorize what kind of face cream she used or toothpaste or—god forbid—how often we had sex or whatever else.
The immigration officer assured us he saw no problems on his end and would recommend for Kat’s green card. We celebrated over smoothies after the interview, then headed back to work where we both burned the midnight oil to make up for our afternoon off.
Things were going along smoothly and our expiration date, whenever that was, drew near. I’d counted on a feeling of relief. But it never came. Instead, it felt like a weight in my gut. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because the past had ingrained that into me. Just when things might get comfortable, something was bound to happen to screw that all up—even if that something was brought about based on my own stupid decisions.
Here’s hoping that shoe wouldn’t drop down on top of either one of us.
Chapter 16
Katya
We received our first piece of non-immigration office mail as a married couple. The oversized envelope in thick parchment paper was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Lucas van den Hoehnsboek van Lynden in in perfect calligraphy. The envelope itself was lined with golden foil and the invitation inside was engraved in gold embossed printing. Was someone getting married?
My eyebrow twitched in irritation at the old-fashioned style of address on the envelope—Lucas’s name only, not both names. Then both eyebrows climbed my forehead and practically stayed there when I noted inside that we were referred to inside as Baron and Baroness.
Like, whoa… it wasn’t just some weird ass joke. I really had temporarily married into a European aristocratic family. And they had titles and shit. And I had a title. Like… whoa. And like, I’m sure none of them ever said things like, like whoa.
It turned out, as I read further, that this wasn’t a wedding invitation at all, but a summons to the Napa Valley family reunion that I had committed us to. The Van Den RicherThanGods family apparently sent out engraved invitations to their own children. Complete with titles and all.
Crap. In my anger, I’d committed us to attending this crazy thing. That had been over a month ago when I’d felt cornered and purposely left in the dark about Lucas’s family situation.
I’d since calmed down but we were, alas, still committed. And I had to admit I was starting to feel a little panic about it, especially when I showed it to Lucas when he got home. He glanced over it, shrugged, and went to dump his stuff in his bedroom with nary a word about it.