Red Clay

38

We abandoned the beach. 

Before Dane could even come back from wherever she’d disappeared to Clay told me he had something important to show me. So, hand in hand we ran to a separate parking lot, climbed into his car and left. 

It felt so good to hold his hand again, to laugh with him, just to see him again. His bright smile and his too handsome face. Becoming a sap for a man in a suit was something I thought would never happen, not in a million years but here we are. Not only am I a sap but I am completely in love with him. An all consuming love that had me stuck in a depressed limbo for nearly three years because I couldn't physically touch it. 

If someone had told me my life would end up like this the first time I met Clay I would've called bullshit. In no way was this man going to be the love of my life. No way was he going to provide me with a love I’d been missing for ten years. It just wouldn’t happen, not with the man I thought he was at the time. I guess it didn’t take long for me to figure out that wasn’t him at all. 

Clay was a man somewhat like myself but also not. In ways he was the perfectly imperfect man I told my best friend I’d marry when we were too young to even truly grasp what marriage really was. 

Clay was a man who’d take an entire company from a man that wronged me. 

"Did the plan go exactly how you and Willow pictured it?”

“Somewhat, I had to be CEO for a little longer than expected and we expected him to put up a little more fight, I mean he still might, but he more or less just took it.” Clay shrugs and squeezes my hand. 

“And Domonique?” I’m almost scared to ask. Kind of ashamed even after everything he’s done to me and I still care to know about him. 

“His contract with the company is void, they went with it anyway after you left. He gave an entire presentation to the board, crunched some numbers, blah blah, basically everything he should've done before. But, they let him in and Willow took him back out.” 

My heart hurts just a little bit. The whole time all he had to do was exactly what he’d been doing for decades and he chose to marry me off to Ralph Marsden. The fact that he could’ve just let me leave or even kicked me out of the fucking house penniless but chose that instead is haunting. His hate for me was that strong that he’d throw me into a life with a man who fucking hated women. Something I’m one hundred percent sure he knew. 

I'll be forever grateful to Clay for stepping in. Even though for a little bit there I was a little mad at him. I wondered why he hadn’t told me from the start, just let me know for the sake of me having a right to. But then I was mad at myself because even though it wasn’t at the start Clay had tried to tell me and I begged him not to. I was too scared of losing that little speck of happiness in my miserable life.

Ralph was just like Domonique, in some ways worse, but Clay’s life was as miserable as mine. He knew who I was, he knew we’d been best friends, and he knew that I was his little speck of happiness. Of course, he didn’t want to tell me. And I understood that. 

“What are you thinking about?” Clay questions and lifts my hand to kiss my knuckles. 

“You, just you and where you’re taking me.”

“It’s a surprise.” he shrugs playfully. 

“You already surprised me once tonight. Can I at least have a hint?”

“Nope, I like surprising you and this one will be even better than the first.” impossible.

“This will be better than seeing you again? How can anything be more surprising than seeing the love of my life again?” I ask him honestly. I keep my eyes on the window beside me nervous about admitting that to him but also for his reaction. He squeezes my hand, releasing a sigh.