cat & mouse

There’d been the temptation to shoot a ‘how ‘bout you go yourself’ over his shoulder as he’d trailed out of their office but the minute he’d gotten out of his truck a full block away from the Grill Joel knew that would’ve just been asking for trouble. Ricky woulda stuck out here like an elephant in a field of horses. That scowl, the suit that Ricky probably used an entire can of starch on each morning, the ramrod attitude – it would’ve been like picking him out like a spotlight the minute he went in the door. Just like the club.

Joel huffed a breath in, his smile dimpling wryly for a heartbeat before the frown cut in. Send the kid in. The scruffy asshole who didn’t look all that out of place. Paint the target on his back, make his life a thousand times messier than it had been before.

Dolly.

He wormed his tongue into the pocket of his cheek, dragging a hand down his face as he lingered on the sidewalk. The Doc had tried guiding him through the minefield this town had turned his job into but it still felt as though one wrong footstep was gonna blow the whole thing wide open and not in the way Ricky wanted it too. His marriage, his job, his past – all waiting for that trigger to catch to turn it all into a bloodied mess that would slip away through his fingers while Ricky dragged himself free again. A virtuous man clinging on to his high road while the rest of them sank.

Hell, he was thigh deep already and sinking further by the minute. Joel dropped his hand, shoved it into the pocket of his jacket as he made his way to the door of the Grill, slipping in the door with a couple of guys. Younger than him, already yelping it up. Probably the sort who hit the club on a nightly basis, sinking into some stupor before they tried to get past the guard dog at the door and into the rear of the club where Dolly had towed him. Eyes wide at the entertainment, mouths falling open as they focused on all that flesh. On Dolly. He needed to get her out. There was no way he could bug out of Mystic Falls without wrecking everything they’d come here for. His marriage, his partnership too, but he couldn’t leave her where she was. Assholes with hungry hands and hungry eyes, the sort he’d spent years putting behind bars.

Tugging his jacket closer around himself Joel slipped through the crowds. Lights pierced the dark, picking out the writhing forms in luminescent splashes and swirls. Teenagers by the looks of things, equally bright wristbands looped around wrists. He cut a glance at the kid manning a booth near the door. ”Hey man, which do you want? Traffic light system, for … you know.”

There was almost a trace of embarrassment there and Joel followed the kid’s glance down to the ring on his finger. That band of gold gleaming dully in those black lights. ”Red.”

The kid was craning forward, a hand clapped around his ear like that was going to cut through the noise pounding in the air. Joel hissed out a breath, gesturing at the bands draped in his hand. ”Red.” Joel moved his mouth exaggeratedly, holding up his left hand to practically shove the wedding band in the kid’s face. The red band was handed over, snapping tight around his wrist like a shackle. It stole his breath as Joel started into the crowd. Maybe he should’ve taken the ring off, gone green, found something here when he wasn’t obviously a marked man.

Like Buckley.

Joel frowned into the dark as he saw the detective with a brunette draped around him, her skin already painted up, including a blue spot like an eye patch. Another flash of blue eased in front of him, a girl probably a handful of years younger than him heading straight at him. A hand was already going up to ward her off before another figure cut between them.

Doll.

Her name was a rumble in his throat, drowned out by the music. Joel let out a ragged breath, his brows drawing together as he glanced around the two of them. His hand rose as hers did, clasping around one of her wrists. ”Dolly … what are you doin’ here? I thought…” That she was somehow tethered to the club. Held in the life she’d fallen to when she’d walked out of Cunningham and out of his life.

His head ducked, pressing harder into her palms for a moment before he tried to guide her aside. Mouth dry, Joel squeezed her wrist lighter. Like he had at the club he could feel the press of her against him, that part of him that was parched after months of distance from Jo thirsting again. ”Vaughn’s … not here. I’m not here for him. I was just looking for … a little fun for the night. Everybody’s allowed to kick back every now and then right?” And that was where the slippery slope started, the one his brother seemed to have gone down too far for him to reach after all this time.

Almost feeling the kid at the door’s eyes on him Joel stiffened as Dolly’s arms slipped around his waist. His touched her biceps, froze awkwardly before they slid down to settle just above her elbows. Blue eyes skittered, fixing on Buckley again. The whole point of tonight was not standing out in this place. Fit in. Find out what the hell was going on in this town and maybe he could get out. ”Y-yeah. That’s the point ain’t it. You paint me … I … you know.” Joel was still frowning faintly though, his hand whipping out as the girl Dolly had cut off went to move past him. He gripped the paint pot lightly, offered the girl a half smile but it was the redheaded giant in one corner he caught scowling in his direction as he lifted the brush free of the pot of the flaming orange paint. ”Doll? You wanna?” A puckering of his own brows as he held that pot between them, the neon paint ready to drizzle, over his hands, her skin. Linking them together in a way more real than his ring did his marriage right now.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1074

Standing outside he’d been pinned by the thought of Dolly. His past – his present – with her holding him on one side, his partnership with Ricky and his marriage on the other. Each was pulling, dragging at him until something felt stretched inside his chest, surely signalling that at some point something in his life was gonna tear. Scrabbling for some sort of grip Joel felt like eventually it would all shred, little scraps of whatever was left slipping from his fingers.

Eventually had been the operative word but now it was Dolly there, a painted thumbnail trailing over his cheek, rasping against his beard. That pin jabbed deep as he continued to look for that girl he’d known in the dark eyes of the woman he’d found here. Twisted, caught up with pins of her own that he couldn’t scrabble free of her flesh to get her away.

Joel swallowed, felt those sparks of sensation under skin that had almost been numb to touch before. Jolene hadn’t – not that way – in months. There were those perfunctory brushes of hands and lips but it had been like kissing a ghost who just didn’t know they were dead yet. In a marriage he wasn’t ready to admit was dead yet. There’d still been a chance, a tiny bit of hope, just like with Dolly when he’d unpacked those memories from time to time and had wondered what had happened to her.

This had happened – this town, at least in the latter part of whatever story he hadn’t managed to get out of her in that snake pit the last time. Then like now Dolly was twisting it around, like she’d grown just as slippery and sinuous, squeezing the questions out of him like juice with those pins.

He’d leaned in, hands settling on some of that warm skin to try and ease Dolly out of the crowds, somewhere quieter, more private, although there was no real chance of that here. ”It’s not like that, Jo’s working.” Practically every waking hour. Joel glanced around, eyes skittering like she was gonna rise up out of the darkness here and see Dolly wrapped around him, the way he felt her soft against his chest as he sucked in a breath now. A huff of breath had his body shuddering as he let that breath out. ”You used to. Always used to be the two of us.” Thick as thieves. Without that sultry cloud of something more hanging over them. So freaking innocent until Jeanine and then it had taken that turn, slithering in with sudden awareness when Dolly had stepped up on the porch that day.

Now he could’ve choked on it. Like a smoker dragging in the first puff of smoke a decade after quitting. Something stuttering down inside, stilling as he’d spotted Buckley. There was a story there but for now all he could see was the guy settled here, wrapped around a brunette. Undercover too? Ricky would shit a brick if he was.

Well, shit.

”Hey!” A little sharp as Dolly’s nails bit. He looked back at her, squirming in her grip as he frowned. Jealousy? Once upon a time Doll had been but that was over Jeanine and subtle enough that it was too late for him to be able to unpack and understand it all before they were both gone. ”Her?” Joel let his hand slide down her arm, warm and smooth, bare, squeezing at Dolly’s bicep. ”Him. I dunno who you’re talking about, Doll. She’s…” He glanced back again, saw Buckley wrapped the brunette. Her face was in profile now but he got the impression of pretty enough, but not giving him some phantom punch to the gut, not like – no. ”I don’t even know her. I’m not stepping out on Jo.” There was that cool voice in the back of his head though – the doc – You’re sure you haven’t looked outside of your marriage Joel?

It had him dipping his head, that frowning deepening as he had to fight not to pull back with that guilt burst into flames in the centre of him. Jo wouldn’t know anything about tonight, didn’t even ask anymore, but Ricky would. All those orders to keep his eye out in this town, to stick his nose into things like this and work his way into the Club, the minute he started side-stepping the interrogation he’d given him about a single evening outta contact would look like a pop quiz.

Man up McGrath, it’s your job and this was Doll.

The fact that heat rose under his skin, coalescing like molten metal in his chest to slide south, as his eyes skittered over all that bare skin Dolly was showing wasn’t proof of any shit. He shifted awkwardly, flickers of that heat licking through him. Joel held his hands out to the side, trying to hold the pot out the way of Dolly’s shoving hands. ”High neck, low everythin’ else,” he muttered, half to himself. His own jacket covered everything, leaving no room for painting anything but his hands and face. It would’ve been less awkward if it was just those parts of him streaked neon if Jo was there when he got home.

Paint stripped out of his hand, he was pretty powerless to stop Dolly with a snatch of his hand – at least that was the story his conscience mind was telling him as the jacket game off, as she plucked at his shirt. ”Sorry.” A mumble of an apology as he clipped someone in the crowd but then the leather, the cotton, was being tossed aside on one of the tables that lined the walls in the restaurant. Bottles littered them, splashed and smudged with the paint. ”You gonna do me?” Joel practically muttered the offer but as his gaze rose in that bashful way Dolly was already slapping a painted hand against his chest. Like a brand from the farm, bright orange and inescapable.

Those fingers closed around his wrist, smearing that orange there too, like a shackle. Joel’s fingers curled in like a starfish as she painted it, the tickle leaving his muscles jumping. ”Seems pretty simple,” he rasped. Like there was anything simple about whatever game Dolly was playing here. No streaking lines or tribal patterns like the dancers around him, something else guiding this. She took his hand, guiding it over her so close he could feel the heat of her skin through that slick orange layer. ”Not there,” he told her, his voice finally further as she held it in a hover at her throat.

Something less skittish in his eyes now. Joel shook his head, eyes on Dolly’s, not where she was guiding him. ”My choice but … what are you doin’ Doll? What …” A short, heavy exhalation as he settled his hand where she held it. A brand of his own, one that the guys who obviously had their pins in her would ignore. ”This gonna get us back where we were? You gonna talk to me after this? Do a deal with me, huh, Doll?” Not here, too much noise, too much distraction for both of them and the ghost of Ricky still hovering over him with that constipated look on his face. Joel set the pot of paint down on the table beside him, his head dropping again so he didn’t have to see the reluctance in Doll’s eyes and she didn’t have to see that tug of war of duty and that heat in his own. He dipped the brush in, pulled it out with the paint thick on it. Without a word, he trailed it down one of Hannya’s arms, a tight swirl of the line in the crook of her elbow, the thin skin of her wrist.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1293

Nail marks streaked across skin, long strands of hair clutched in fists. Shrill voices cutting through school hallways as hormones had boiled and the ever changing attention of teenagers had incited warfare. Jealous had been everywhere, spilling into those fights he’d tried to wade his way into a time or two. He’d laugh with Dolly after, promises to stay will away from those girls dripping from Joel’s lips. It hadn’t gotten any better when he’d exchanged being just a good guy for a badge and a burning desire not to see the world around him go up in flames.

That heat had never burned off of Dolly. The flash in her eyes, that bite of her voice, so unlike her, scorching his skin as her nails had clawed. His hand dropped to her elbow, squeezed again before he jerked her slightly. He hadn’t even seen the girl but it seemed like that was all Dolly had seen, that and something on his face that hadn’t been there. Joel’s brow furrowed, his mouth pursing as he shook his head. ”I know him,” he growled before his face screwed up further. ”No, Doll, she’s not prettier than you. Where’s this comin’ from?” Was that was the club had done to her? Girls played against one another until any small sign of affection from their life line was something to be fought over?

Concern laid thick enough to choke in the highly charged air. All those seminars they took – people trafficking, ways to get people out of the life. None of it ever prepared you for when the life came crashing into yours.

Joel’s thumb swept back and forth in the crook of Dolly’s elbow, trying to soothe her. No matter how low things had gotten with Jo he’d never considered … Marriage was marriage and then ring on his finger was indelible sign that he was in it for the long haul. Was Jo though?

Muscles bunching in his jaw Joel tried not to think of his wife or her reaction to this, what he was doing with Dolly, as he peeled out of his shirt. Her hand on his bare chest, her voice a sensuous promise of all he wasn’t getting at home. A shudder rolled through him, his head dipping before it jerked up, all he could smell was Dolly, all he could see the bare skin he’d tried to avoid touching that first time until she’d led him into it, her smaller hand on his. ”She’s …” His wife. In name only now. Even five years ago Jo would’ve been here with him, the two of them curled in a corner, hands anchoring, laughter rolling up low, promises in her eyes and his.

Joel’s eyes flicked up to Dolly’s as something slid hot and all too easy in the pit of his stomach. She was so close now, arm around his shoulders, everything pressed together until she drew his hand down to the bare curve of her rump and he finally put his mark on her. A convulsive swallow as Dolly pressed back into his touch.

What was he doing? He wasn’t sure he could even hazard a guess anymore. Slipping further away from where he’d thought he was when he’d agreed to come here with his partner. Ricky, who’d abandoned him to his fate, was probably sitting in his rocking chair at home now, crunching viciously on bean sprouts and mung beans, dark eyes narrowed fiercely as he stared out at the town he was sure was steeped in rot.

Trying to fumble his way through it, Joel pulled the paint brush from the pot, trailed the tip lightly over Hannya’s skin, safe skin. It might as well have been acid for the reaction it got. Those hazel eyes caught beneath a frown before they were back on him, Dolly’s brows hitched as he stood there, brush held awkwardly out. ”Where…” But he knew then. Another shudder of something deep as Hannya pressed in. His own brow furrowing, his eyes fluttering shut as he dipped his head. Spilling the beans about work would’ve put a damper on this, taking that heat out like a bucket of ice being thrown over the two of them but Dolly wasn’t letting it happen.

Mouth pursed, Joel bit down on the urge to throw Ricky squarely under the bus. He let the brush fall back in the pot, held his fingers with their wet orange tips away from her. He shook his head at her, the frown deepening at the sight of that grin. ”You haven’t told me anythin’ Doll. How’d you end up here? What are you doin’?” Everything seemed designed to steer him away from that truth. Answers slipping out with frustrating reluctance, conversations skittered away from. He wanted to grab her, to hold hard until she cracked and they could talk like they always had. ”Deal,” he finally grunted through his teeth as opportunity dropped into his lap.

Joel was gonna shit a brick, an answer too far dragging him right in front of the bus’ wheels. His hand settling on her again finally, flexing on Hannya’s hip, stoking that heat in the pit of his stomach. ”You wanna hear what I became after you went, Doll? She died, Jeanine. Right after you … I got into uniform, for her… I came here for my partner. I’m … I’m a cop, Doll. It’s why I can …” He flexed his hand on her skin again, dragging his hand up to cup her face without a care for the paint he streaked over her cheekbone. ”How’d you get here, Doll? Why won’t you let me get you out?” His voice was hoarse, his mouth only an inch from hers now, pleading.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 961

Personal involvement in a case meant that you stepped the fuck down. Personal involvement meant emotions and those were what drove you to do stupid things – like striking deals with old friends to reveal truths you should’ve kept to yourself. Those stupid things could blow a case apart in an instant when tempers boiled over and you slipped, or they could come up on the stand, a razor minded lawyer – like Jo – picking at it all until a case that could’ve been air tight fell apart.

So far he’d hidden his involvement from Ricky, skittering sideways from the questions and probing looks, but that, Joel thought, was only a temporary reprieve. Ricky had a thing for the club and soon enough he’d start picking apart the history of every employee in the place. It wouldn’t take a genius to follow Dolly’s trail back to Cunningham, to him. Hell, all it would take was Ricky poking his nose in the door tonight and he’d be the one in the hot seat. Those burning dark eyes fixed on him laser hot, disappointment written in every line of Ricky’s grizzled face to match the disappointment in his own gut that he hadn’t broken Dolly free of the club yet. Oh that’d end the personal involvement real quick. No chance of her getting caught up in the trouble that’d crush the club flat. She’d avoided it before, leaving Cunningham just before Jo had been found.

She wouldn’t have known …

Joel’s throat went tight as he remembered sitting down at the station, the cops who were trying to piece together Jo’s slide into that world talking to him in soft, sympathetic voices. Cans of soda slid across the table, like they’d somehow loosen up his tongue enough for him to give them all the answers they wanted. Everything had been stoppered up in a shredded heart then. He could feel the ragged line of every one of those scars burning hot now. His fingers bit extra hard into the yielding muscle, his jaw going tight as he gave Dolly a shake. ”She wasn’t … I know she didn’t. Maybe that was the first time, a slip. Jeanine never would’ve done anything like that. I tried to tell the cops but none of them really believed it.” That indignation faded at the look in Dolly’s eyes, her touch soothing sparking nerves as she trailed a thumb behind his ear. Soothing the spooked horse. His certainty had started to fade with time though. Maybe there’d been a side to Jeanine he’d never known.

Blue eyes narrowing faintly, latching onto Dolly’s, Joel ran his thumb lightly back and forth over her cheekbone. Joel sighed as he saw the tears build in her eyes, she’d known Jeanine too, had to have felt her own measure of loss, only the community hadn’t rallied around her. ”Not everything,” he promised.. ”The job, trying to stop people from hurting others, it’s … to make up for what I couldn’t do for her. Jo, she got that, in her own way she does it too.” For her own reasons, although lately Joel wasn’t sure he could even hazard a guess to what they were anymore.

She’d understand this, even if she came home and found Dolly moved into their spare room, she’d understand needing to get her out of whatever situation she’d gotten herself in. The lines cut deep between his brows as Joel frowned at her. His fingers slid back into her hair, spreading the paint in fingerprints over the muscles at the nap of her neck. ”You’re not safe, Doll. Not where ya are. I never chose her over you. I woulda been there whatever you needed but you … you gave me a taste and then you were gone.” Had she needed him then and he’d been blind to it all too? Shit.

The life she’d made was one that chewed people up and spat them out broken and bloody. Her boss – that had to be Hector Dacre, the man on the throne at the Ruby Slipper now. Oh Doll. Joel swallowed convulsively, wanting to argue with her but he had hadn’t he? Seen the clothes, the way she’d slinked around the club and had assumed that Dacre’s world had corrupted Dolly’s, slowly destroying the girl he’d known. ”I ain’t ever looked down on you Doll. I just want you safe. You get that right? I’ve seen how guys like him work, I know what they do and how much horse shit their promises are worth. I don’t want you being one of the girls they toss aside when they get tired of ‘em.” He didn’t want to find her the way he had Jeanine.

Joel let out a shuddering breath as Dolly puffed hers out, the heat of it washing over his skin, leaving that shiver behind. His eyelids fluttered, sensation he shouldn’t have been feeling sliding under his skin as Dolly’s eyes dragged away from his, down to his lips, back up again. She shifted so subtle, a butterfly wing brush of her mouth against his before she eased back with any hesitation. Joel felt his heart burn in his chest, that breathless feeling returning. A sharp contrast to the cold burn of his wedding ring on his finger as Dolly smiled sly as a snake and wiggled her fingers at him.

Jo. It’d been inevitable. This wasn’t the doc’s office, Dolly was a friend, not some professional who didn’t lay on the judgment when he talked about how he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love with his wife. Doll had heard everything once upon a time, she’d always been his shoulder to cry on but now … ”Her job’s tougher than mine,” he croaked. Dipping his head into the crook of Dolly’s neck he dragged his hand up from her hip, fingers and thumb spanning one side of her rib cage. ”Long hours, lots of cases. She takes a lot on. You can’t expect her to be home every night when she’s puttin’ away the bad guys…” You could expect her to be a wife though. The doc had practically said the same. A marriage took work and right now he was the only one doing it. Eventually he’d get tired of holding up the entire weight of a marriage, he’d … shudder at the brush of Dolly’s warm skin against his mouth as he rested his forehead on her shoulder.

His lashes swept her skin as he blinked frowning. The ball was in his court, his question. Joel's hand settled over the spot where Dolly's heart beat beneath her skin, drinking the pounding of it in through his palm. "My turn Doll. If I said we could leave this town tonight, would ya go with me?" Ricky would shit a brick about the investigation and he'd likely get hauled back into Mystic Falls wearing his partner's cuffs but it'd see Dolly safe before Ricky slammed the cell door of everybody in that place.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1077

He could’ve grabbed her, loosening Dolly’s grip in an instant, but Joel froze in her grip, his hand still held the warmth of her back neck dangling limply from hers. Another sucker punch. Jeanine and Dolly had never been far from his mind after Jo had shown up outside that bar with the answers to what felt like everything right there in her hand. How often had he thought of them though? Beyond the occasional brief check of the computer system at the station for news on either of them, he hadn’t allowed himself to sink back into that murky darkness that had felt ready to choke him after his world had changed in that space of less than a week. Years since of Dolly drifting back into those gilded memories of what had almost been an idyllic childhood. Almost.

Mouth pressing into a thin line, Joel finally dragged at her grip. The fire of guilt in his belly burning bright as those orange handprints he’d put on her skin now. ”Forgot you? You were my best friend, Doll. I wasn’t gonna walk away from that because I was seein’ Jeanine. Jo won’t come between that either. You were always the one I could tell everything.” And up until the moment Dolly had kissed him he hadn’t seen her as anything more but in that instant she’d ripped the scales off his eyes and suddenly he – and probably half the rest of Cunningham – had been looking at all differently.

Get it done. Like that was it, a full stop put at the end of what they’d had. Sweet and short, enough to steal his breath before that silence after.

Joel formed at her, brows furrowed as he just stared at the face he’d known so well. Goodbye. Would she ever have tried coming back if he hadn’t found her here? Drifting home once all of this had chewed her up and spat her out or would that line Doll had drawn under the place, and him, cut that avenue off forever. ”Why did you go?” he asked hoarsely. Not his turn for a question but it tumbled out anyway, the jab of him being the one to bring it on by falling for a girl stinging too much for the rules to have much grip.

Those rules had him tied up still though, dragging the truth out of him in a way that would’ve had that apoplectic flush rising into Ricky’s face. Don’t tell anybody anything. The job was practically a sacrament. You didn’t even take it home. Jo was technically in the loop but still he hadn’t told her a single word more than he had to about coming here. Hadn’t breathed a word about Doll either, that news trapped in his throat. The truth about the growing wedge between him and Jo ended up whispered into the harbour of Dolly’s shoulder now. Hands slid down to his elbows, comfort in it somehow that he wasn’t getting from his wife. A shiver went through him, fingers flexing on those delicate bows of ribs. Joel chuckled low, barely a sound at all as he squeezed his eyes tight shut a moment. ”You don’t see what she does, Doll, what she manages for people. It’s …” It had been incredible watching guys dragged off, not just behind bars but to a cage that’d keep them sealed up for years but not just the couple of weeks it took to get themselves sliding eel slick out of what they’d done. Ricky might finally break a smile if they managed it with the club. He breathed out against Dolly’s skin. ”It’s important. You can’t just do 9-5 with all of that.” He got closer though, didn’t he?

Joel stared down at the light golden expansive of skin as Dolly eased him closer, lips close enough to her skin that he felt the shiver of near contact with each breath. He swayed, the music beat feeling a direct blow against his bones as he offered a way out, maybe for them both. Doll was shifting, her hand on his wrist, guiding his touch lower until his fingers were curling again. Another shudder of a breath rolling through him. ”You want me to leave her behind? Just me and you…” Goodbye. The word echoed through his head again. Dolly hadn’t been dragged away, she’d chosen to leave because she’d thought he would never look at her and see her.

His hand curled minutely tighter, his other pulling Dolly in tight as he pressed his face tight into her neck, lips pursed as they settled into the warmth of her skin. Brows knitted with the faint shake of his head. He couldn’t lie. He hadn’t … not til. His lips pressed harder, the heat radiating from her skin, through them to his throat where it gripped tight. A forest fire of conscience. ”At the end,” he rasped. Joel lifted his head, the hand that had remained at her hip coming up to curl at her jaw. The one that remained lower burned as though the touch of her was being branded into his palm. ”I’m sorry, Doll, I … you were my Dolly.” That same cracked laugh that had rolled out to the doctor. ”So close I didn’t see … I should’ve …” He could see now, feeling it hot enough against his skin that it should’ve been searing every inch of him.

The burn settled in his throat, his hands suddenly dropping away to clutch at hers. Paint smeared his hands, bright in the dull light but he started to pull her back. Towards the door, maybe if he could get her back to the apartment he could talk her around to this. Somewhere private to pick through the remnants of his life to maybe find some way to rebuild it with Dolly on the other side of the wall. ”Come on, Doll, let’s finish this up out of here. I’ll carry on playin’ the game but let’s not do it here. Come with me? Please?” A plea tight in his throat as he began to back up. It felt wrong to do it here, worse somehow than it would’ve been in the home he shared with the wife that no longer lived up to the name.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1052