Volunteer Chic

So I compromised. Oh well, right? Jake wants the proper wife doing the proper things, so here I am. If I'm not allowed to make money with my own two hands, the least I can do is organize events for the less fortunate. Jake approved when I gave him the news.

Our son was born last year, a whopping nine pound boy with this dad's dark skin and dark eyes. Walker George. Yes, my husband named our son after President Bush - kinda. I think it's Jake's way of letting me know he wants to get into politics; this would also explain the way he's been pushing me toward volunteerism since even before Walker's birth.

He was right to do so. Despite the fact that we don't see eye-to-eye, my husband knows me well. While he was less than impressed when I came home from Washington with my roots grown out and a few tattoos, he told me he'd forgive me the changes. He wasn't quite as forgiving when I barfed all over his Mercedes the day I found out about Reny. Neither were Mom and Phil.

Jake swore he wouldn't tell anyone that the baby wasn't his, and he'd help me raise it, under the condition of a shotgun wedding within the week. He knew he wanted to marry me when we were ten, he told me. Funny, the feeling was never mutual.

I packed my bag the day before my supposed wedding and boarded a Greyhound, Seattle bound. But Mom was there to stop me. She made sure I knew I was nothing more than a mess of used toilet paper and I was lucky Jake wanted me at all.

Leaving that bus is my biggest regret.

Marrying Jake fades from regret to pride to neutrality, depending on the day or time or fight. He's a good dad for the kids, and I know he cares for me, though we've become more roommates or friends with benefits than anything. Hell, that's all we've ever been.

We don't let on to our inner thoughts and feelings though. There's enough to hide the raw bones of our brokenness in a fat covering of cash. When he makes me mad, I buy myself a handbag. When I piss him off, he buys a sailboat. Something like that; it's how our story goes.

The kids are protected from truth by being too busy to notice. Even Walker will be spared: his nanny starts today.

I open the door to an au pair from Finland, whom we've just hired as a live-in Nanny. Brigit is sweet and young, and great with kids - I visited Scandinavia with Alice last month to meet her and see how I felt about it. It worked out, obviously.

Walker takes to her immediately. I know no such thing as Mommy-guilt. I got over that when Reny was four.

Twenty minutes after Brigit arrives, I'm out the door and hopping into Alice's yellow Porche. She's another rich wife - we should really start our own club - married to the heir of an Texas oil company, tycoon and politician Jasper Hale. She and I met through our husbands, and now we're teaming up to do our civic duty (and help promote our husbands and their ambitions) by hosting a concert for the Wounded Warriors Project - a charity we've each dug deep into our pocket books to help support.

Another nice thing about having money in the bank? I've gotten to know some of those fuckawesome bands I loved a decade ago. Weezer is playing tonight. No, their nerd rock is not grunge, but it's the best I could do for this kick-off event.

The drive to Virginia rolls by with The Killers blasting and singing our hearts out. They're pretty good, even for my particular tastes.

Hours later, the venue is alive; men and women in uniform - those home on leave, those missing limbs, those permanently scarred from battle wounds, those about to head back - are rocking. Free at last.

Alice and I chat backstage after the concert, congratulating ourselves on the success and already setting plans in motions for the next, when a familiar voice steals my breath.

Everything about his body has changed - muscles, a shaved head, tattoos, a gnashing pink scar on his neck - but not his eyes. And they're the same Washington forest-green.

And they're staring right back at me.

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A/N: I love you. Thank you for pimping this story. More to come! ❤️