Page 5 of Delayed Penalty

“We’re still having a girls’ night. But why not let these nice guys buy us a couple of drinks, especially when they’re friends of yours… he is a friend of yours, right?”

“I mean… kind of… but it’s a little more complicated than that. At one point, we were more than friends… hell, at one point I thought I found the man who I was going to spend the rest of my life with. But you can see how well that worked out,” I say, as we finally walk up to the table.

“Oh, fuck,” Kelly whispers as Harris turns to introduce us to the table.

“I just ran into these ladies over by the bathroom and invited them to come join us for a couple of drinks,” Harris says with a smile before turning and introducing us. “This is Avery, she’s an old friend of mine, and this is her sister Kelly.”

“Hi,” Kelly says with a smile, and I just wave, taking my seat next to my sister while Harris comes to sit next to me, proving that even when I try to avoid him, he doesn’t let me.

I hear a bunch of different names spouted off—Miles, Rex, Max, and another one that I don’t remember, but I find myself still staring at Harris as he passes us shots and beers.

“I know it’s tequila, but at least it’s not Fireball,” Harris says as he hands me mine, and I see the moment his eyes fall to the ring on my finger. I want to hide it, move my hand, hell, take the damn thing off, but I just freeze.

“I’ll manage,” I choke out as I look around at the table and notice some of the guys still watching us, but I turn to Kelly who starts talking a mile a minute getting to know everyone. I’m listening to one of the guys talk about his daughter, telling a story that has them all laughing. It’s sweet watching these big buff men go all swoony about a sweet little girl.

I can still feel Harris’s eyes on me as I try to stay engaged in the conversations around me, but I can’t. But I’m not going to let this ruin my night. I can make the decision to not let him affect me, or at least not let him realize he is. I can be friendly, casual, have a basic conversation without needing to know why he hurt me.

It’ll be easy… right?

“So, how’ve you been?” he asks, his voice low, barely audible over the base of some Kesha song playing, but still just as sweet to my ears.

“Just living the dream.” I shrug. “Finally finished school and started teaching this year, got on with Dempsey Academy and almost done with my first year of probation.”

He smiles proudly, knowing I’ve always dreamed of working at the school I went to when I was younger. It helps that Peter’s parents own the school, plus his mom is Head of School so it’sjust always where I figured I would end up. I keep waiting for it to actually feel likehome,though.

By the timeI make it home from the bar, I’m starving. We skipped dinner because we were hoping to have alcohol and happy hour snacks for our dinner but instead we just ended up drinking the night away with Harris and his friends. It was a really fun night, regardless of the fact that I spent the entire night thinking about my memories with him and how badly I didn’t want to come home to Peter… but regardless, here I am.

Peter is in his office—obviously drunk—which is actually kind of a surprise since he told me he had a business meeting after work and he usually tries to keep himself somewhat sober at those, so he doesn’t make a fool of himself.

The only thing Peter cares about more than his job is his reputation and he wouldn’t do a damn thing in the world that would impact or tarnish his reputation.

“Hi,” I say with a smile as I set my keys and purse down on the table outside of his office. “How was your night?”

Peter doesn’t even look up, just looks down at his computer and keeps typing.

“It was fine,” he growls.

“Did you find out if you were able to get reservations for my birthday dinner?”

He continues typing, and I feel like I’ve already lost the two seconds of his attention that I’m usually allotted in the evening. It pisses me off because the only thing I like to do is something fun on my birthday, and I thought maybe my fiancé would actually want to enjoy the day with me.

You know better than that, though. This man has never cared, why would he start now.

Hell, I doubt he even knows what date my birthday is on.

“Peter?”

“Jesus, Avery, what the fuck do you want from me?” he shouts, standing up from his desk, his chair sliding back, catching on the side of the desk and it tips over sending a pile of his papers flying around the room.

I feel like I’m watching a cartoon with the steam coming out of his ears. Standing there, his hateful glare directed at me, he raises his hand, fingers shaking, and I immediately can tell that he’s blaming me for this entire clusterfuck of a reaction that is all his own.

But I know better than to argue with him. His anger is not something I’ve ever wanted to experience—the few times I have are easily enough for me to survive the rest of my life without ever seeing it again.

But I also hate rolling over and letting Peter get his way, especially because I know it’s fucking wrong. I’m stronger than this. Unfortunately, Peter’s parents are in a position of power at my dream job, and I hate the idea of pissing them off and then having them use it to force me to stay with him or risk my job.

I don’t know, I feel like that’s the sort of petty bullshit his family would do—he’s even hinted at it quite a few times.

“All I was doing was asking if you were able to make a reservation for my birthday, one thatyoutold me you wanted to schedule after I told you all I wanted to do was to go out for drinks and play pool,” I say, my hip popped out, hands resting on my waist as I glare at him, doing my best to not piss him off but hoping to stand my ground a bit.

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