The Anniversary Diary
Part Two
Author's Note: Cyber cookies to all the awesome people who reviewed- especially since you're all Krunior fans! I think I may like you all more than the Kris/Matt fans because you guys are generally so open-minded and awesome. Hopefully there are still people reading this.
The Anniversary Diary: Part Two
As Matt drove back to his place, he couldn't believe the turn his life had taken as of late. Things seemed too good to be true. The woman he loved was leaving her husband for him, and he was the father of her unborn child. Of course he had learned early on that Kris Furillo was not a woman who could be easily predicted, and although her intentions were always noble, she usually followed her heart, which seemed to get her into trouble more times than not. He understood that just because Kris was leaving her husband didn't guarantee that she would stay with him forever. Matt Ritter learned a long time ago that with Kris he'd have to take what he could get when he could get it. But babies, they change everything. Perhaps the baby could be the glue that bound Kris to himself for the rest of their lives. It was a nice sentiment even if he couldn't make himself believe it until he saw it. Still, what if the baby did keep them together forever? It hadn't even been born yet, and it had succeeded in pushing Kris to leave her husband- Junior, Matt forced himself to think. This wasn't just some physically abusive man she had married on a drunken dare, this was Junior, his once best friend, and someone Kris loved- or at least had loved, once upon a time.
On the day of their wedding Matt had looked on from the small crowd thinking that it was finally over. Kris had made her final decision and it was cemented with every word of their vows. Still he found himself unable to actually grasp the fact that he had lost her, this time for good. He found it even more difficult to move on with his life. Sure Kris and Junior were in love, but he and Kris had been in love too on more than one occasion. What made their relationship so special that this time it would be her final choice?
Not even a whole year since their wedding, Matt found Kris in the corner of a stall at Raintree crying. He never could bear to see her cry- he had a feeling that it was breaking his heart more to see her cry, than it whatever was bothering her. So tentatively he went over to her and wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a warm hug. "Kris," he said, in what he could only hope was a soothing voice "tell me what's wrong". Kris had looked up at him with a tearstained face and mumbled the words that brought his life crashing down around him "Matt," she said "I have to leave Raintree. I'm retiring". Matt couldn't believe his ears. Kris had always loved horse racing more than everything else, and there was no fathomable reason she would be retiring. When she told him the reason for her retirement, he was infuriated at Junior for ever asking her to make such a sacrifice. He tried to convince her to stay at Raintree—to stay with him, but her tear stained decision was final. He still couldn't believe that she had chosen someone who would ask her to make such a sacrifice. He told himself that he certainly never would.
By Kris and Junior's first wedding anniversary Matt found himself unable to move forward in his life, away from Kris. Every relationship was over before it started, each girl being compared against Kris, and failing miserably to live up to her standards. A few times he had found some really great girls, but couldn't even make it through the night without calling out "Kris". Needless to say the girls didn't wait around until morning. Unfortunately, without Kris riding for Raintree, his professional life was just as poor as her personal life. They couldn't find another jockey with the same connections Kris had to horses, or the finesse she possessed on the track. Especially with Kris's name no longer attached to it, Raintree began to go under again, but Matt's unwillingness to see it turned into a dude ranch meant downsizing severely. Raintree muddled through as always, but it seemed doubtful that they would be able to muddle through much longer.
A few months after Kris and Junior's second wedding anniversary found Kris receiving a call from Matt begging her to reconsider her retirement and ride again for Raintree. Her excitement at the prospect had been encouraging, and Matt had been sure that if she started she wouldn't be able to stop again, helping out both Raintree and her spirits. If Matt were honest with himself he would have had to admit that it was more about getting close to Kris and seeing her doing what she loved to do again rather than it was for Raintree. He had been shocked when Kris had called him back the next day, her voice heavy when she told him that Junior was closing a big deal soon, and really needed her help with that. She said she was sorry, and Matt couldn't help but believe her. She said they'd talk again soon, and once the deal went through she would have more time and might be able to ride for Raintree again. She never did call back.
Matt received a call on Kris and Junior's third wedding anniversary from an excited Kris saying that Junior arranged for her to run her own company. She would be racing again! Matt's heart soared, for her sake, even though he was more than a bit disappointed that she would never be working with him again. This pretty much sealed Raintree's fate and, Matt was sure, his relationship with Kris. Fortunately, he had been wrong, and Kris had reached out to him more than ever with questions about how to run her own company. He even went out to visit her on more than one occasion to help with certain aspects of the business, and they were often on the phone late into the night trying to get Kris's company on its feet. Once, during one of his visits, Matt asked Kris why she didn't just ask Junior for help with her company. She only smiled and told him that she wanted her company to be like Raintree, and that Junior might not be the best person to ask for advice on having an honest horseracing business.
Kris and Junior's fourth wedding anniversary marked Kris's company's first anniversary. By this time, she had worked out the kinks of her company, which was now thriving far beyond what Raintree ever had. She had gone on to become one of the most famous jockeys of all time, and although she always attributed her training to her time at Raintree, business for them failed to pick up. Matt had almost fooled himself into resigning to the fact that Kris no longer needed him, when a late night phone call had pulled him away from that illusion. Kris had just won a big race, which only confused Matt when he heard the tears in her voice. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him that this was the third race Junior had missed and that she had been seeing less and less of him. What really surprised Matt was when she told him that she suspected Junior of having an affair. The thought made Matt's blood boil, and although he wanted nothing more than to inform Kris that she was probably right, he told her that Junior loved her, and would never do anything to hurt her. About an hour later, Kris had thanked Matt and hung up the phone satisfied. Matt had suspected Junior would cheat on Kris along time ago. It seemed his style to give up on something once he no longer had to work for it. Matt had never wished so hard to be wrong.
Jean died days before Kris and Junior's fifth wedding anniversary. Matt hadn't heard from Kris since the night she called worried about Junior, and figured that they must have worked things out. It pained him to call her, unsure if she would even care, but did so none-the-less. When he called her and told her about his mother's death she told him she would take the first plane out. This surprised him, she hadn't been back since she retired, but knew that Jean was a much a mother to her as Jean was to him. Her attendance at the funeral had been a godsend for the both of them, each finding solace in each other's presence: the other being the one person feeling the pain as fully as the other. After they had cried themselves dry, Kris came to Matt's room in the middle of the night asking to not be alone. In the morning they blamed the sex on their grief and deemed it a mistake. During the days they stayed with each other catching up and recollecting memories of Jean and becoming closer than ever. However, the nights saw the two of them steering clear of each other the rest of the five nights Kris was in town. When she was at the airport, she kissed him on the cheek and told him that she would always feel closer to him than she did anyone else, but told him that they would never sleep together again, and the fact that they did was due to their vulnerable state. She told him that she loved Junior. He only wished he could believe her.
However, they remained as close at Kris and Junior's sixth wedding anniversary. It was the only comfort Matt found after dealing with the state of Raintree day after day. He confided in her one night that Raintree would have to close by the end of the month. It was just too much and he didn't have the resources to pay for the lack of wins. Her suggestion to merge their companies had taken him by surprise, but it took him no time at all to agree. With their companies merging, and keeping the name of Raintree, Matt relocated to be with Kris and their company. With Matt's management skills and Kris's jockey skills, Raintree soon became the most sought after name in horse-racing. The night they won the Kentucky Derby, Matt and Kris went to a bar to celebrate. Junior had left a few hours ago to go to New York to present his environmentalist plan to the United Nations. Matt could tell that Kris and Junior had slowly drifted apart over the years, each more passionate about their work than each other. It seemed six years of marriage had caused the physical attraction to wear away and there wasn't much under it. That night, after copious amounts of alcohol, Matt and Kris found themselves at Kris's house. A drunken goodnight kiss turned into another one night stand, and in retrospect Matt couldn't help but wonder if that was Kris's plan the entire time. In the morning she didn't bother telling him it was a mistake, but he left quietly after breakfast anyway.
Kris and Junior's seventh wedding anniversary carried in too much for their relationship to hold. It was discovered that Junior's company was going bankrupt because an accountant had been embezzling money left and right. Matt had thought that this tragedy would have brought the two closer than ever, but he was wrong. After talking it over with Matt countless nights when Junior was at the office trying to hold the company together, Kris finally gathered the courage to ask him to abandon the company and come work with Matt and her at Raintree. Junior however, laughed in her face and told her that he'd never work at Raintree, because his company was his life. Kris snapped at him and reminded him that they were about to face a really hard time, and that she had given up racing when he asked her to. Junior merely told her that it wasn't the same thing, telling her he was actually doing something important with his company and didn't need his wife's money to support him. He told her that just because she had come to him with no money and he had made something of her, didn't mean she could do the same for him, because he already was something long before she met him. Although she could smell the scotch on his breath, the words didn't hurt her any less. Kris told him she was staying at Matt's and to see her again when he was sober. Unfortunately that only served to infuriate him further and he took a swing at her, reminding her that she was his wife. Kris avoided his clumsy movements with ease, and simply walked out. That night she had sex with Matt again, and in the morning said she'd "see him again tonight, if Junior was still being a dick". Junior apologized to her, but still refused to leave his company. One night he came to her drunk again when she was at Matt's working on paperwork for Raintree. He told her that he was going on trial for the embezzlement of the company. When she asked him why him, he told her that she would find out at the trial.
When the trial rolled around just shy of Kris and Junior's eighth wedding anniversary, she had to discover along with the rest of the company that the accountant who had been embezzling from the company had been sleeping with Junior for three years habitually. She had been stealing money from the company for the last year so that Junior could leave Kris and be with her. She told the court that it was under his instructions. He was found innocent, but after the whole ordeal, a bunch of girls from the company came forward claiming to have slept with Junior. Kris had attributed this to them each trying to cash in on their fifteen minutes of fame, but Matt suspected they were telling the truth. She had tried to fix things with Junior: coming clean about her affairs with Matt, but since the trial he became more and more detached from her; trying to rebuild a company that no investors wanted a part in. She told him again that he could come work with her and Matt, but he only scoffed at her, telling her that he wasn't into threesomes. She left for Matt's again, and the next morning Junior was there begging for her forgiveness. He said he wanted to work on the marriage and that he would come work with her and Matt. Kris was so overjoyed, she actually believed him. Matt knew better.
On Kris and Junior's ninth wedding anniversary Matt received a call from their worried accountant claiming that Junior and she had been having an affair for about a year, and that he asked her to start stealing money from the company so she and Junior could run away together. The girl was balling that she wasn't a thief and that Kris had been nothing but nice to her and she didn't mean to hurt her, but she would never steal from the company. With a heavy heart Matt called Kris and informed her. Kris although shocked at first slowly recovered and told Matt that she wasn't going to confront Junior just yet. They told the girl to do what she felt was right, and left it at that. The girl resigned a few weeks later.
Since that night, Kris and Matt had been sleeping together whenever Junior was out of town on a trip for Raintree, to meet investors or whatever he said he was doing. After a month, Kris told Matt that she loved him. They went from being best friends to lovers, getting more and more serious and now… now they were about to had a baby and were planning the rest of their lives together.
The only problem was what Kris was going to do about Junior.
Author's Note: So Kris and Matt are for real, and really in love, slowly going from best friends to lovers and now they have a plan for the future. Yay! Anyway, I'm sure some of you are going to be like "Junior's out of character!", but guess what? People change. Just because you marry one person doesn't mean they're going to be the exact same person ten years later. So, the next part will be the last part, no idea when that will be done. I'm sure now there are no people left who are going to pretend to like how this story is going, and I'll probably not get a single good review. But I was in an accident recently and you may feel obligated to throw me some pity reviews that would help the healing process considerably. Sorry Kris/Junior fans… I still love you guys for being so open-minded and supportive. D