Page 24 of My Dead Wife's Ex Will Do
Victor searches my face. I don’t know what he’s looking for. Permission, maybe, or some sign that I mean more than I’m saying.
I don’t.
“Just this week?” he asks.
“Just this week,” I confirm. “No strings. No expectations. We scratch an itch and then we go back to our lives.”
It sounds clinical when I say it out loud. Transactional. It’s wrong. Casual sex is as much as sin as what we did that night. Sex is supposed to be reserved for the sanctity of marriage. But I’m tired of avoiding him, tired of pretending I don’t notice the way he moves, tired of the low hum of want that’s been running under my skin since I walked into our casita and found him with wet hair and wearing nothing but a towel.
And the only way I can do this—temporarily have what I really want—is if I know there’s an end point. If I know I’m not signing up for something I can’t handle. I’ll go to confession when I get home.
Victor’s face gives nothing away for a long moment. Then a slow smile spreads across his face. It’s not the bright grin I’ve seen him give Kelsey, but something quieter. More private.
“I can do that,” he says.
Something loosens in my chest. Relief, maybe. Or anticipation. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He shifts back toward me, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin even through the hot water.
“Just this week,” I repeat. I can’t bear to hurt him again.
“I get it, Jason. I’m plenty familiar with casual sex.”
Right. Of course he is. He knows how to do this in ways I don’t.
The thought sends a spike of something through me. Not jealousy, exactly. I have no right to be jealous. But something adjacent to it.
“Okay,” I say. “Good.”
“Good,” he echoes.
Before either of us can say anything else, Kelsey’s voice cuts through the moment.
“Dad! Daddy! Come join us for lunch!”
We both turn to see her waving from the path to the restaurant. Victor rises from the water first, and I absolutely do not watch the way the water streams down his back.
Lunch at the small restaurant is filled with everyone’s chatter about the hot springs, our earlier hike, and the rest of our week’s activities. I find myself stealing glances at Victor across the table. When our eyes meet, he gives me a small nod, like we’ve just sealed a deal.
I suppose we have. It’s too much of a cliché to think of it as a deal with the Devil, so I won’t.
Thirteen
Victor
I'm hyperaware of every bump in the road on the van ride back to the resort. Jason is quiet beside me, his shoulder occasionally brushing mine as the van jostles along potholed roads. He doesn't pull away from the contact.
A big component of my successful career has to do with reading people, understanding not just what their fitness goals are, but what they need and want, when they’re tired but need a little push to exceed their preconceived limits, or when they’re in pain or at risk of injuring themselves.
The night Leah died, when grief and loss and unspoken feelings collided in his living room, I thought I was reading the signs right. I thought the way he touched me, the way he said my name, meant something beyond the moment.
Then he disappeared into the bathroom and came back fully clothed, the tense set of his shoulders apologizing before he’d even spoken. I’d fled his apartment, then replayed that night a thousand times, wondering if I pushed too hard, if I misread everything. Wondering if I took advantage of a man who was drowning in grief.
But today, in the mineral-rich water with steam rising around us, Jason looked at me for the first time in fifteen years. Really looked.
I’m more hopeful than I’ve ever been. And terrified.
No strings. No expectations. We scratch an itch and then we go back to our lives.
