Kiss and Die

Chapter 68

Peter Thorne had had enough of the cocktail bar in Vacation Villas. He was in the Western instead. He had had a long day. The jet lag was getting to him, it was early evening. He was sat at one of the tables for two on the lower level of the bar, which was long and straight and had more than its share of dead animals and antique spurs on the wall. It was a sawdust and spit sort of place that played country music with a touch of hard rock.

He closed his phone and left it by the beer mat. His wife had hung up on him. He had been curt, cruel maybe and he hadn’t said the words he should have. He hadn’t said he loved her, he missed her. Instead he had berated her about the fact he was working and she was at home. Her life went on as always: the kids got taken to karate, to ballet, she went to the gym, and she met her friends for lunch. Her life was encapsulated into a tiny box world whilst he was working on the other side of the world. Tonight she had tried to talk to him about money. They needed this, that, the other. She saw him as a cash cow. She saw him as someone who was happy to be on his own for six months of the year. It was true, he had been once. He had thought he was someone then. He had been the bright boy in the company. He had been promoted over those who had served many more years than him but it had meant more travelling. Now, seven years later. His family enjoyed the house with the pool. His kids went to private school. His wife didn’t need to work. But he had lost himself. His pleasures came down to anything money could buy.

He had started having the affairs to bring back some excitement into his life. Buying a woman for the night was like buying dinner. In the beginning he thought it enriched his marriage. He went home feeling like it wasn’t all work, work, work. He could have a few secrets; a life of his own. He could hang on to the single status whilst still enjoying the married one. He thought his wife would never find out. Why should she? He was on the other side of the world paying for sex with a stranger in a hotel room. But now, he looked into his wife’s eyes and he recognized that he had ruined something precious. He realized that they were slipping irrevocably apart.

So here he was listening to ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers and staring into his glass.

Ruby passed the window and stopped to glance in. She saw Peter Thorne. She’d seen him before at the bar in the Vacation Villas. Tonight he wasn’t looking so happy. It was early evening. He sat at a table, rather than the bar. Ruby watched Annie saunter up, her holsters squeezed over her ample hips. Her laugh good and loud as she threw her head back and tried too hard. Even Annie didn’t stop long. Ruby got that gut feeling she always got when she knew he was perfect.