9

"So, you agreed to marry me because some guy was using you for tutoring?" Yup, that's the sentence that greeted me when I got back to the apartment I shared with my new husband.

"I see you've spoken to Wes and made some asinine assumptions based on whatever he had to say."

"Well, considering the timing…" Tucker didn't elaborate, and I didn't add to what he was thinking. I just stared at him until he broke. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"If I wanted to talk about it, I would call my sister. Now, if you don't mind, I really do need to get some studying done because I can't fail another quiz. This is my last semester and I refuse to have to retake a class." I glanced around the living room and noticed a few bags lying by the couch. "Is there a reason you're not at work?"

He turned, to see what I had been looking at. "My grandfather is sending me to secure a deal in Finland."

"Finland?"

Tucker nodded. "I should probably only be gone a week, but I'm hoping it won't take that long."

"What the hell is in Finland? Aren't they like the little north pole or something? Are you guys trying to sell snow to the rest of the world?"

Tucker laughed. "No, we're not buying snow or selling it. The long winters might have something to do with people being bored enough to create some new tech that we'd like to acquire though. We also happen to have a factory there."

"Ah, okay, well have a good trip, I guess."

"Yeah, thanks," Tucker muttered as I turned to go to my room. I honestly didn't know how to act around the man. My hormones demanded that we consummate our union. The damn hormones keep trying to persuade me that all would be well if I just bedded my husband. My brain tells me to fuck off with that hormonal noise, and if I needed any further proof of the horrible idea, I could just revert back to the gross display of me being used that was hashed out in the café earlier. My heart, well that bitch wished for things we could never have, and luckily, she was smart enough to remember what happened the last time I dared to wish for something. She remembered being crushed when I not only lost the man who I'd been fawning over, but every single friend I ever had too. She wasn't ready to trust again. That was two out of three. My hormones could shut up, take a back seat, and be satisfied with the new vibrator I bought since I no longer had a fuck buddy to help take the edge off.

For the next couple hours, I really did study and work on the paper that was due by the end of the rapidly shortening week. Actually, by the time I pulled my bleary eyes away from the paper, it was well past dinner time. The kitchen was calling my name since the last thing I'd eaten had been the partial breakfast I managed at Louis' that morning before I had been so rudely interrupted.

When I got to the kitchen there was a note on the counter addressed to me.

Mina,

I checked in on you but didn't want to disturb you since you were deep into it. I was going to ask if you'd like to go to Helsinki with me, but I'm guessing from what Wes and you both had to say that school needs to be a priority right now.

Maybe next time.

I don't want to add to whatever stress you are under, so if there's anything I can do to make it better, just let me know. I should be back in a week, maybe sooner. Call me anytime or text, whatever works for you.

Tucker

Considering I had no clue when he'd be working or not, I didn't even bother to think about calling. Besides, what would we even talk about? It's not like we were friends. We were married, for convenience's sake, and hadn't spent more than a couple hours together since the wedding. I tucked his note away in my room and then got busy making myself a late dinner.

Two days passed since Tucker left, and the apartment was eerily quiet. I had only ever lived in my family's home, minus that one disastrous attempt at living in the dorm my freshman year of college. I was used to the noises other people made. The quiet nearly drove me crazy until I learned to leave the television running quietly in the background.

For some reason, that wasn't working today though. My brain was all over the place and not on the manuscript that was in front of me. I wasn't normally a coffee drinker but had been known to dabble in the bean juice from time to time when I needed a little caffeine boost. Considering there weren't any other options in stock at Casa Tucker, it was the only choice of caffeine available to me.

At least, it had been a choice before I brewed a cup and realized there was no sugar in the entire apartment. Seriously? Who doesn't have sugar, artificial sweetener, or even honey? I growled out my frustration before snatching up the keys, the cup of disgustingly black coffee, and marching over to the apartment across the hall. Granted, I wasn't hopeful that Wes would be home on a Saturday, but if there was a God in heaven, he would finally find it in his heart to look out for me. I just knew it.

I knocked.

No answer.

I knocked again, because I'm stubborn, and I could have sworn I heard the elevator earlier that morning, which meant someone had to be in the apartment.

It took a moment, but then the door swung open. Not entirely to my surprise, there was a beautiful woman on the other side of the door. She had honey colored hair piled on top of her head in what might have been a messy bun two hours ago, but now looked like far too many pieces were trying to escape to make that effortless yet put together look. Her warm, brown eyes glittered as if she was about to let me in on a joke and to make matters worse, she was obviously very comfortable in Wes's apartment considering she was wearing worn out yoga pants and a sweatshirt that had seen better days.

"Um, hi," I finally spoke, realizing that one of us needed to.

"Hello," she cooed. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I just popped over to see if I could borrow some sugar," I told her.

"I just bet you did," was her answer. "Wes isn't home."

"Oh, damn it." I glared down at the black yuk in my hands, debating whether I could manage to choke it down and still get the caffeine boost to kick in if there were no sugar in the bitter substance. "I don't suppose you could check to see if he has any kind of sweetener in there, could you?" I cringed again at the thought of having to drink the coffee black.

"Oh shit!" She laughed then. "You were being serious!"

I glanced up and noted her amusement. "Yes," I carefully wiggled the cup of black liquid at her. "I need caffeine for life. My brain seems to be malfunctioning, and I thought I'd brew a pick me up, but there's literally nothing I can use in the apartment to make this palatable."

"Come on in," the woman directed as she stood aside. "I'm Luna by the way."

"Mina," I informed her.

"Okay, Mina, I'm about to make your day. Whenever I stay at my brother's place, I stock the fridge with a variety of flavored creamers."

"Oh, thank you, Jesus!"

"Luna," she corrected and we both laughed.

"I literally just made a deal with God on the way over here. Sorry he tried to steal your thunder by holding up his end of the bargain."

"I like you," she insisted as she opened the fridge and offered up her best gameshow wave at the merchandise behind door number one. "So, what did you tell God you would do if he helped you out with your cup of coffee?"

"Well, actually, I didn't offer to do anything. It was more like me calling in an IOU."

"Wow, you don't play around."

I shrugged. "I figured after the shitty few years that I've had, he owed me something, if he's out there."

"I hear you, girl!" She sighed and I could almost feel her expelling the weight of the world the way I sometimes felt.

I grabbed Fruity Pebble flavored coffee creamer, because I'm 20 years old and still a child, and turned to Luna as I added it to my coffee. "Did I hear you right when you said that you were Wes's sister?"

"You did. It's kind of a crappy secret since I'm the love child of his father and the maid, but Wes has never held it against me, even if everyone else in our world does."

"Wow," I muttered before taking a sip of the coffee that now tasted deliciously sweet. "I'm sorry people are assholes." It made me wonder if that was why Wes and Tucker were such good friends. They apparently both had a sister who may or may not have been a half sibling.

It was her turn to shrug off my comment. "Fuck 'em."

"You know what, Luna, I like you too." She grinned at me and I felt, for the first time in years, like there might be someone on this earth that I wasn't blood related to who I would truly enjoy hanging out and spending time with.

"So, what's your deal? Why the desperate need for coffee?"

"I'm trying to write a book, and so far, it's been going well, until today."

"What happened today?"

"Aside from the fact that staring at the last page I worked on for two hours won't add to the manuscript as I wait on divine inspiration, nothing. That was the problem."

"Yeah, I can see where that might be difficult." She picked up her phone. "Let's look up ways to get over writer's block," she suggested. "What kind of stuff are you writing anyway? Anything juicy?"

"The juiciest!" I squealed the word and shimmied my body with excitement as I started spilling my guts about the book.

"Oh shit, that sounds like something I'd like to read. I'm so glad I met you. I volunteer to be your proofreader. I have zero qualifications beyond loving to read a good, dirty book."

"Sounds qualified enough to me," I agreed. Meeting Wes's sister was turning into a goldmine for me. A woman who liked the same things, that I could share my excitement with was a rarity. I loved my own sister, of course, but she refused to read my book because of all the extremely descriptive hot sex, questionable behaviors, and vulgar language in it.

"Well, damn," Luna muttered as she stared at her phone.

"Let me guess, no known cure for the block?"

"No, it's not that. Sorry, I got distracted. I forgot I had been checking up on my wayward brother before you knocked. Looks like the boys are knee deep in Finnish pussy over there. I keep hoping they'll get their shit together and settle down some, but I guess it's not happening this week."

"What?" I asked, almost stunned by what she'd just said. First, I didn't know that Wes had gone with Tucker. Second, I know I heard the term, 'knee deep in pussy' come out of her mouth. Maybe I had asked God for the wrong favor this morning. 'Dear God, please keep my husband's sexploits out of the papers and off the internet' should have probably come before, 'give me something sweet to put in my coffee'.

Luna turned her phone so that I could see too. There was a shot of Wes, my husband, and several scantily clad women at a club. Said women could have doubled as Valkyrie or swimsuit models if you threw them into warmer weather. They were all tall, gorgeous, and blessed with curves that only a plastic surgeon should be able to deliver. Though, if I were being honest, it all looked very natural on them. Why wasn't life fair?

"Are there more pictures, or just that one?" The one she showed me was bad enough, but it could be easily blown off as women who were interested, and my husband declining, even if Wes didn't.

Luna swiped down in the article and found a series of eight photos that could be clicked through. She started going through them and at one point, there was a woman sitting in my husband's lap as he laughed at something Wes had said. The other women were sitting on either side of Wes. The little bit of coffee I'd managed to drink suddenly made me feel a bit sick, or maybe it was the pictures and what they meant.

When she clicked to the last one, I knew they weren't just innocent bar frolicking photos. That would be because the two men and three women were standing outside of the elevator bank in their hotel, waiting to get on. One of those women was all over my husband and his arms were wrapped around her too while his wide smile showed it wasn't another naughty realtor situation. Heat stained my cheeks as the impending onslaught of tears stung the back of my eyes.

"That's weird," Luna mentioned as she scrunched her face, obviously reading the caption.

"What's weird? It all seems like normal behavior to me."

"Yeah, but the caption says that Tucker's marriage must have been a typical Vegas mistake since that's not his wife in his arms."

"No, it's definitely not his wife," I agreed. Luna must have started putting two and two together, about where I had come from with a fresh cup of coffee. She turned to me while flipping her phone so that it was screen-side down in her lap.

"Oh my God! No! Please, tell me I haven't been sitting here sharing these pictures with Mrs. Tucker," she blanched as she asked me to lie to her.

"So, if you knew who I was before, you would have hidden them?"

"Not at all, but I wouldn't have been so careless with my words either. Mina, why didn't you say anything?"

I shrugged. "Figured if you're Wes's sister you must have known already." I held up the cup in my hands. "Besides, where else would I have come from to borrow some sugar?"

"I honestly just figured you were someone he let stay at his place while he was gone. No one even mentioned to me that Tuck had gotten married."

I waved away her worry as I stood to leave. "It's not a big deal. I knew what my marriage was and what it wasn't when I agreed to it."

"Whoa, what is that supposed to mean?"

I sighed. "It's nothing, just like my marriage," I admitted. "Listen, I better get back to work." I took an unwanted sip of the now luke-warm, but sweetened coffee for show. "Pretty sure this is the magic juice that will help." Luna's phone rang just then, but before I could slink off, she grabbed hold of my arm.

"Hang on a second, please," she insisted as she answered her cell. "Hello?" There was a pause. "You jerk, why didn't you tell me that Tucker got married?" There was another, lengthier pause before she quickly glanced up at me and then away. "Okay, well if he did actually get married, then do you want to explain why he took some woman up to his hotel room last night?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Came through the line, loud and clear.

"Well, you freaking idiot, I'm talking about the pictures I just saw of the two of you at a club with a bunch of ski patrol bimbos," she shouted into the phone. "Only, I didn't realize I was sitting with Tucker's wife as I scrolled through them, and I like her, but now she's going to hate me because I'm the idiot who didn't know and accidentally informed her of his infidelity."

"Is she there with you now?" Again, I heard him loud and clear.

"Yeah, she was just leaving."

"Put her on the phone, Luna."

Luna attempted to hand the phone to me, but I shook my head. "I'm not talking to either of them," I said loud enough that I knew he could hear me. "I really do have to go, and Luna, I don't hold it against you. You did nothing wrong, and I like you too," I managed to get out before I turned and left Wes's apartment behind. Part of me didn't even want to go back into Tucker's place, but my things were in there. In specific, the iPad I used to write my book was in that apartment, and even if nothing was coming to me now, maybe it would later, so I couldn't leave it behind.

Once I got back in the apartment, my cell phone started ringing. I quickly turned it off without bothering to see who was calling. Then my iPad started ringing, since they were synced. I didn't get a chance to 'not look' at who was calling since it popped up on the screen. Still, I didn't bother answering him, and instead closed my iPad's magic keyboard, and started packing my things up. I still didn't have a lot of stuff there and had managed to avoid weird questions from my parents about why I wasn't moving all my things, thanks to the realtor fiasco. They figured that I was just waiting until we moved into our house so that I wasn't moving it one place just to have to shift everything again.

Thanks to Mr. Poker Chip, I had another $8,565 to burn, so I figured I'd do with it what he had intended for me all along. I was about to get lost for a while. Taking a cue from my husband's playbook, I decided to leave him a note to come home to.

Dear Lying Asshole,

It's nice to know I was right about not trusting you, even if I had hoped someone would prove me wrong.

I'm going on vacation and don't want to be disturbed. Since you couldn't keep your promise to me, I'm going to ask for you to do something else instead. Let me have my peace for now, and when I get back, have the annulment ready. It shouldn't be hard to obtain since we never actually consummated our marriage.

Thanks for reminding me that people are shit and will always hurt you, so long as it means they have a good time.

Your foolish, forgotten wife,

Mina

I was just placing my bags down in the hallway outside of Tucker's apartment, so that I could lock the door, when the apartment door across the hall swung open.

"Mina, I'm so sorry." Luna's voice was quiet, and full of what sounded almost like pity, though I couldn't be certain of that.

"Please, don't be. It's better to have found out with you than to have some idiot in the press surprise me with the information."

She nodded and glanced down at my bags. "You're leaving?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I guess so, but I don't know what kind of situation the two of you have."

"Yeah, well, he promised not to make a fool out of me in public, and this is the second time since we got married, a little less than two weeks ago, that he's managed to do just that."

"Seriously?" She shook her head. "Why are men such pains in the ass?"

"If you ever figure that out, let me know," I told her as I bent down to grab my bags.

"Hey, wait!" She reached out and grabbed the other bag for me. "You should let me take these to my car, just in case the press is waiting for you to make an appearance outside."

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Where are you headed?"

"I have some money, figured I'd take a much-needed vacation," I suggested. Then I looked down guiltily. "Unfortunately, I have to be back on Monday because of school. I guess I'll just get a hotel or something when I get back."

"Or, you could stay with me," she volunteered. I glanced between the two apartment doors, which made her laugh. "I don't live here. I just come over to water the plants, feed his cat, and watch TV because my brother literally has every movie ever made at his disposal."

"Oh. Wes has a cat?" I don't know why that was the shocking piece of news I decided to focus on that day, but it was. Probably, because it was the easiest thing to think about.

Luna laughed again. "Yes, he does. My brother is really a big softy. One of these days, he's going to make some woman a lucky girl."

"I'm sure he will, whenever he decides to grow up."

She laughed again. "I know we just met, but I don't think you should be alone, and I don't really have people in my circle that I trust. None of them know about my parentage, at least not about my father. It's nice to have someone know and not judge me for it."

"I don't care who your parents are," I agreed, wondering where she was going with this.

"So, if I feed the cat and clean the litterbox out now, he'll be good to go until Monday. Do you think I could tag along on your adventure? We can take my truck, so no one will recognize you."

"You know what, I'd like that, but under one condition."

"What's that?"

"Wes doesn't get to know where we are or that you're even with me."

"I can handle that." She held up a finger. "Wait here, let me go get my things and make sure Mr. Sparky is taken care of."

"Mr. Sparky?"

"The cat."

"I don't even want to know," I told her, even though I did wonder how a cat got that moniker.

"Oh, but you do. It's a fun story, though probably not for the cat."

That was how I found myself, an hour later, on the way to Destin, Florida to soak up some sunshine, get a tan, and enjoy the rest of the weekend away with my new friend. I was nervous about spending time with a woman who was basically a total stranger, but that little niggling worry that was usually present with other people, didn't seem to exist for her. I just hoped that my instinct wasn't wrong again.