Long Night; Part 3

 Hope you're digging the Long Night vignettes.  Here's the next morsel-- a Grey one.  Bon apetite!

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Another dinner.  For him and Maggie.  Grey wasn’t enthusiastic.

But his mother was so very excited about it, and he supposed the rest of the family should get to do the meet and greet with the woman he’d married, so he braced himself for another excruciating evening of playing pretend.

Grey could hardly fathom that it had only been a week since the welcome home dinner.  It felt like a month; so much had happened, his life had changed so radically, and existing with a wife for a roommate was proving to be bizarre, complicated, and very straining on the senses and the nerves.  And it was a bit like some grim box of assorted chocolates—he couldn’t accurately predict whether a day would pass smoothly or if they would argue and blow up at one another.  And, he had to admit, he was just as much at fault for the arguments as she was.  Maybe more so.

Because for some reason, whenever he was around her he had the frustrating tendency to throw rational thought--and manners--out the window.  He would pick fights with her over the most absurd bullshit.  Shit he didn’t even really care about would suddenly warrant a huge debate, and when it was all over he would inevitably shake his head and wonder ‘where the hell did that come from?!’

Other times he was patient and polite and considerate.  These were the good days.  Because, with the exception of sometimes being crabby from the nausea or the aches and pains of her changing body, Maggie was generally a pleasant person, and relatively easy to get along with.  So as long as he played nice, she played nice too, and then they could get through an evening almost enjoyably. 

It was weird.

The biggest problem with living with Maggie was not her fault, really.  But it was driving him out of his skin.

He wanted her.  He wanted her so badly it was becoming a serious concern.  It made him tense and irritable and confused and defensive.  Which was probably why he tended to fly off the handle for no apparent reason from time to time.  He recognized this peculiarity and tried to curb the compulsion, tried to keep both his libido and his temper in check, but the strain and the effort involved was making him feel years older than his age.

And it was really fucking tough to treat her as a roommate when he kept thinking about her sexually.  It made stupid little activities like sitting on the couch and watching tv, or chatting over breakfast, or making dinner with her, or just studying in the same room at the same time, enormously draining. 

Luckily for him she worked a lot and he kept himself busy out of the house as much as possible, so their time alone together was fairly limited.  She had the new car now, too, so he could feel free and relaxed while driving again, which was a comfort. 

And Christ.  Buying the car?  And doing the name-change and the bank account and all that?  That really felt like the longest day of his life so far, with the exception of the day they’d married.  The next day while she was at school he’d dug that damned sweater out of the hamper and hid it.  If he had to endure seeing her looking that perfectly fuckable again, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself.

And though the morning of that Monday had been rocky, and there had been a great deal of unresolved tension, he found that spending the day with her hadn’t been the hell he’d anticipated.  She was smart and patient and practical, she’d asked informed questions about the cars they looked at, made valid points about size and function and longevity, and forget about the various government offices—she’d been a peach.  He’d probably have been thrown out of those places had she not been there to smooth over his rudeness and keep the processes moving along when his temper got the better of him.

Hell.  Half of him was beginning to like the girl.

But the other half was nowhere near ready to forgive her, let alone begin to entertain the notion of liking her or even tolerating her.  Because every inconvenience, every unpleasantness, every change to his routine and his habits and his lifestyle was her fucking fault.  It was all her doing.  It was because of her that he was living in his parents’ backyard, no longer living with his best friend, was no longer able to date and fuck and all that; It was because of her that he was becoming surly and abrupt and frowning more often than smiling.

He didn’t like the married Grey Delaney. 

And every time he thought about the little reason for their arrangement he felt ill.  He couldn’t do what Vaughan Grey had suggested as a solution.  He just couldn’t.  Still, sometimes he wondered if maybe she might yet miscarry.  But he usually pushed that thought away, shame prickling on the nape of his neck, and for whatever reason the image of his mother floating into his mind.

He didn’t want to be a father.  At all.  But he wasn’t about to harm his wife or wish harm to befall her.  She’d ruined his life but she wasn’t evil.  He could think of a lot of other girls he’d dated that would be making his life a living hell right now if they’d had the balls to do what Maggie had done to him.  Jesus Christ.  He’d dodged some bullets. 

A lot of the girls he’d fucked were so annoying or petty or airheaded or bitchy or just so goddamn loathsome that it had been a real chore to be in their presence for anything other than the sex, when they’d finally shut the fuck up.  He’d never especially minded hanging out with Maggie back when they were dating.  Of course, after he introduced her to sex they spent more time in the bedroom than engrossed in conversation—but it hadn’t been because he just wanted to shut her up like it usually was with other girls…

“Hey, where’re you going?” 

Maggie’s voice brought him back from whatever stream of thought he was wallowing in.  He looked up.  Shit.  He’d walked right on past the back gate where she stood, looking concerned and quite chilly in the bitter winter night air.

“Thought maybe we ought to go ‘round front this time.”  He lied smoothly.

“Oh.”  She said.  “You mother said she’d leave the back unlocked for us.”  She smiled wanly.

Grey hesitated.  “Ok.  Sure.”  He backtracked toward her and opened the gate for them.

“Because of last time—“  Maggie explained weakly.

“Yeah.”  Grey replied.  He wasn’t feeling chatty.

She’d already picked up on that vibe and was limiting her conversation noticeably.

Grey thought about plastering on a smile and schmoozing with his aunts and uncles and his frigid old bitch of a grandmother and he ground his teeth together.   No.  He was definitely not feeling chatty.  He’d be doing enough small talk and pleasantries this evening without having to politely blather on to make his legally wedded wife more comfortable on their walk over. 

They proceeded the rest of the way to the back patio in silence.

It was going to be yet another long ass fucking night.