Confession of a King

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” I pinched Alec’s cheek as he yanked on Hunter’s tail. The little boy was now fascinated with the dog, as if it hadn’t been here his whole life. He now wanted to pet Hunter at all times, but didn’t understand exactly how to be gentle.

“Doggie,” Alec bubbled while reaching for Hunter’s tail again.

“Gentle, bub,” I laughed and grabbed my sons hand, running it down Hunter’s back. Good thing he was so tolerant of Alec, any other dog would’ve ripped his arms off by now.

I heard the front door opened and turned my head away from Alec and Hunter, my eyes hitting Matt’s as he walked in with his phone pressed to his ear. I wasn’t sure who he was speaking to, but the look on his face told me it wasn’t that great of a conversation. I furrowed my brows at him and he held up a finger, then disappeared down the hall toward his office. I shrugged and turned back to my son, who was watching the hallway for the possibility of his father coming to say hello.

“Daddy,” Alec said with a grin. I nodded and smiled at him, grabbing and tickling the sides of his tummy. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” he repeated over and over.

I scooped Alec into my arms and walked toward the kitchen, “Let’s get some lunch ready while we wait for Daddy. How about that?”

Alec nodded his little head quickly, resembling a bobblehead, and let me put him in his chair. I placed a bowl of cut-up spaghetti in front of him with a spoon, and he went to town eating it with his hands instead. I laughed at the scene in front of me, then found myself searching for something to eat. Matt had gone grocery shopping while I was working this week, and since he was a man, he didn’t exactly understand what grocery shopping meant. It didn’t mean let’s go to the store every day to find something to eat; it meant get enough for three meals a day for the entire week. I decided to just make myself a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich; something quick and easy.

After eating, Matt was still in his office. I sucked in a deep breath and sat Alec down in his play crib with the television on, then ventured down the hall. Matt’s office door was closed, but I could hear him on the phone when I pressed my ear to the door. He sounded frustrated with whoever he was talking to. I shifted on my feet, pressing my face firmer against the door to figure out what had him so aggravated, but the door opened up and I nearly fell onto the floor.

Matt stood with an unamused expression, his arms crossed over his chest and his cellphone in his hand. I was embarrassed, to say the least, that he just caught me snooping. He raised an eyebrow at me, “Ivy, care to explain what the fuck you were just doing?”

“I wanted to know why you seemed so heated,” I said quietly, not wanting to argue.

“So you put your fucking ear up to the door and snoop on me!” He responded, not-so-quietly.

I narrowed my eyes at him, “Matthew Charles, don’t you dare start yelling and cursing with Alec in the house. You know he is starting to repeat the things we say.”

“Don’t you dare listen in on my fucking phone calls! If I wanted you to know my business, I’d tell it to you. I obviously didn’t want you involved, so don’t fucking involve yourself,” he spat back at me, fully venomized. This wasn’t Matt; this was Shadows.

The phone call had to be something to do with Avenged. I sucked in a deep breath once again, trying to keep my composure rather than lash out on him. I didn’t know how unpredictable he could turn out to be in this moment. It had been months since he say goodbye to the gang world and things had been on the up. Things were happy. Now, who knows the way he was feeling inside. Stressed? Scared? Annoyed? He’d never tell me if I continued to bark at him.

I sighed, “I’m sorry for snooping, sugar. It wasn’t my place to do that.”

“You’re damn fucking right it wasn’t your place,” he hissed, his hazel eyes fixated on me. “Get out of my office. I don’t want to deal with you right now.”

“Matt,” I moaned, but quickly stopped whining out his name as he pushed me toward the door. His strong arms were moving me faster than my feet could take me, nearly knocking me down and into the hallway. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“I said I don’t want to deal with you,” he reminded me, then chuckled. “Do you have to make things difficult?”

“I’m your fucking wife. It’s my job to make things difficult!” I screamed and pounded my fist against his firm chest, knowing it wouldn’t hurt him, but would probably aggravate him… or he’d laugh at me. “You can’t treat me like this.”

Matt rolled his eyes, “Remove yourself from my line of vision before I have to do it… forcefully.”

“I don’t know what crawled up your ass, Shadows, but I’m not fucking dealing with it today,” I made sure to spit the name Shadows at him with a glare. He went to grab for me, probably to do what he used to do… the whole holding me up by my neck and threatening to hurt me facade, but I wasn’t having it. My hand came up and collided with his cheek, a loud smack filling the air and a red handprint left behind, “I mean it.”

His hands removed themselves from me, but he stood an arms length away from me. He stared at me with no expression on his face, but my handprint looked like it hand to sting. I huffed and shook my head, turning on my heel and walking away from him. I went back into the living room, grabbed Alec from his play crib and slid my purse on my other arm. I grabbed my keys off the kitchen table and turned the television off, trying my best to not look at Matt who was now standing in the living room.

“Where are you going?” He asked, flatly.

“Out,” I mimicked his tone, not wanting to talk to him.

“With the kid?”

“With your kid,” I responded. “We’ll be home later. Maybe you can play nice Daddy then.”

“Nice Daddy,” Alec repeated after me, earning a kiss on the cheek.

Matt said nothing as I walked out the front door, closing it behind myself and heading over to my car. I put Alec in his carseat and turned on the engine, finding myself sitting with my head in my hands rather than driving away from the house. I felt my eyes start to prick with tears, trying to figure out what had Matt so frustrated to the point of me not being able to fix it… but I knew I couldn’t cry in our driveway and give him that kind of satisfaction, and I definitely knew I couldn’t cry in front of our son who was starting to comprehend what it meant to be human. I toughed it up and decided to drive over to Kim and Gary’s, dropped Alec off, then headed to the one place that I knew I could let all my frustrations out at.

Two hours later, a talk with Kim about her son’s bipolar problems, and shutting my phone off because I was mad that Matt hadn’t reached out to me, I found myself sunk into the big, black sofa that felt like home. There were a box of tissues next to me, resting on a pillow, Lifetime Movie Network was on the television and I was wrapped up in a fluffy blanket.

I looked up from the television to see a mug in front of my face. I reached my hands out of the blanket to grab it, “Thank you.” I took a sip of what looked to be hot chocolate, my face slightly contorting, “Brian, is there alcohol in this one, too!”

He laughed while flopping onto the couch next to me and throwing an arm over my shoulders. “Lighten up, little lady.”

I leaned into his embrace, resting my head on his chest and taking another sip of the alcohol-infused hot chocolate. “You’re lucky it’s delicious, or I’d be really mad at you for getting me drunk at noon,” I let out a small laugh.

“You’ve been drunk since eleven,” he responded and ran his left hand through my hair. “You know he’ll show up here sooner or later. He’ll realize that you cut your phone off, then call his mom, then call me. Then when I don’t answer because I have to be mad at him for your sake, he’s going to come here, take you home and fuck you to make up for being a douche bag.”

I frowned, “I’d rather just stay here tonight than go home with him. I told Kim to keep Alec all night unless Matt offered to take him. Which I’m not sure if Matt is in the right mindset to even want his son around him right now.”

“You know he’d never do anything to Alec.”

I nodded, setting the mug down on the coffee table and leaning back into Brian’s chest. “I know… And I know that he’d never do anything to me intentionally, unless I really hurt him again. I just kind of wish he’d let me put him on medication, or at least open up to me when something is going on!”

Brian sighed and pulled me tighter into him, “That’s not him, Ivy. That has never been him and will never be him. You fell in love with him when he was a total monster. You’re just not used to him being this way anymore, and I get it… but you can’t expect that he isn’t going to go into shut-down-Shadows-mode when shit hits the fan.”

“Can you tell me what that phone call was? Do you know what was going on?” I questioned him, looking up into his chocolate eyes. I knew if I tried to look sad enough, I could make Brian crack. He didn’t say anything and I jutted my bottom lip out, “Bri, please!”

“Fine,” he huffed and looked into the corner of the room, then back at me. “Word got out that you’re back at work. Shocker, right? As we all kind of expected, you are still the Shadows wife, even if he’s out of the business. I guess an inmate in there wants to shack it up with you. He’s someone that Shads mentored years ago, but then he had a big debt to us that he never paid back. Shadows just kind of dropped it ‘cause he liked the kid. So the kid made some comment about how he was going to fuck you and make you fall in love. Nothing serious, but it pissed him off.”

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, “I knew that little shit was going to stir up something. He’s one of my regulars now. Comes in on the exact same day that Matt did. I can’t believe Matt would get furious with me over that, though!”

“He’s not mad at you, Ivy. He was on the phone with Vengeance about finding a way to kill the kid in prison. You interrupted it by putting your fucking ear up to the door like a child,” Brian laughed. “Well… he is mad at you, over that… but not the situation itself. He’s just mad that he wasn’t able to make the entire plan because of your snooping.”

“This is so stupid,” I muttered with a smile. “Why couldn’t he just say this to me?”

“Because he’s Matthew Sanders, not Brian Haner Jr,” he flashed his pearly whites at me. “We’re not all equipped with prime communication skills, good lucks and big brains.”

I rolled my eyes, “Don’t talk yourself up so much, Bri-Bri. It’s not attractive.”

“That’s not what the ladies tell me,” he winked.

My jaw dropped and I punched his arm, “What ladies! Are you seeing someone! Why didn’t you tell me!” I wouldn’t even let him get a word out, “I need all the details! He keeps me cooped up in that damn house away from you and I’m missing out on so much important information!”

“Woah, woah, woah!” He held me in place as I practically bounced in his lap. His eyes were wide and he looked at me with slight fear, “That was a joke. I’m not seeing anybody… and you need to calm down.”

I frowned, “I’d just like to see you with someone. You’re such a good guy. You’re fun… you’re smart… you’re sexy as hell…”

“Stop before you take it too far,” he laughed.

“If Matt hadn’t charmed me into sleeping with him I probably would’ve fought Chelsea for you.”

“Ivy,” Brian groaned and put his hand over my mouth. “Stop talking.”

I reached up and pulled his hand from my mouth, smirking at him. “Why? Is your heart expanding, Mr. Grinch?” He rolled his eyes and I giggled, “We both know you love me.”

Brian threw his head back onto the couch, obviously annoyed by the words I just said. Matt was right, and I knew he was right, that Brian was in love with me. The guy just refused to admit it. I grabbed his chin and pulled him to face me, still smirking at him.

“Ivy, you’re drunk and saying shit you shouldn’t be saying,” his brown eyes stared into mine, a mix of lust and hurt. “So shut your damn mouth.”

“Shut it for me,” I grinned at him, then stuck my tongue out in his direction.

He rubbed his hands over his face, “Shadows is going to fucking murder me for letting you drink.”

“Nope, he’s going to murder you for this,” I responded and leaned forward, pressing my lips against Brian’s. He was tense at first, but then his body started to give into mine. His lips moved against my skin as his hands placed themselves on my waist, holding me to him. My fingers tangled in his shaggy hair as my body fell into his, both of us getting lost in the moment.

The sound of Brian’s phone ringing on the coffee table caused us to both jump away from each other, slightly out of breath and staring at one another like we had three heads. I glanced at his phone and saw Matt’s name, and Brian looked like he was a deer caught in the headlights when he picked it up.

“Hello?” He spoke into the phone, catching his breath. “Yes… she is here… She’s slightly drunk… I know, man… She was upset!” Brian laughed, “Yeah, she mad me watch some fucking Lifetime movie and drink girly drinks. What do you mean her mom? She just fucking showed up? Okay, okay. I’ll have her there in the next hour. Let me get food in her and sober her up. Yeah, take her to meet the kid. That’s a good idea. Okay, see you soon, man.”

Brian hung up the phone and looked at me, “Uh, Iv… You’re mother showed up unannounced to your house… Matt’s going to take her to meet his parents and Alec.”

“Could this day get any fucking worse!” I shouted, jumping from the couch. What the fuck was my mother doing here, and how did she find my address? I could tell Brian was a bit on edge and I looked at him with a sad smile, “I don’t regret kissing you.”

He nodded, “Likewise. But that stays between us or else Shadows will kill both of us.” I nodded in response and he stood up, smiling at me and pushing my shoulder lightly, “Let’s get you something to eat.”

Notes

Happy 36th birthday to the man himself, M. Shadows!
Sorry I made Ivy cheat on him on his birthday.
Or am I?

I wonder how her mom is going to be toward Matt...


I also have a new Brian story up; find it here