Sliced Trees and Dead Words

38 - Not exactly . . .

- WOLFE -

"You going to explain why you've been a moody sack of shit all day, or are you going to continue leaving me and the women all guessing?"

Mason and I were sitting out in the beer garden of a pub with Medusa, who'd they thankfully let me bring inside on a lead, not that she needed one. I'm surprised I even found the old, weathered thing in behind all my work shit in the back of the car. I'd brought her with me today for moral support, hoping she'd be able to balance out the jealousy and other associated bullshit emotions I've been feeling ever since learning that Dalen and Luna had slept together.

I don't know why it's bothering me as much as it is. I have no right to be affected by this. Luna and I haven't defined what we are, and even if we had, I'm not even sure that necessitates us having a talk about exes. Her life, her body and her heart are entirely her own both now and in the future, just as much as in the past where what she has chosen to do with them before me isn't anything I have any right to know. Even what she chooses to do with them all after me shouldn't be something I have any say in. But I want to, because I want to be with her; and knowing she had been with Dalen first is fucking with my head, more so than the internal battle I waged with myself when I first realised that I needed to grapple with the feelings of betrayal I had for falling in love with the woman he loved.

"Jesus, dude. Do I need to, like, howl at you to speak your language and get your attention?" joked Mason, making a fairly successful attempt at breaking me out of my own thoughts. I laughed and lifted my glass to toast his joke before taking a long sip of the cool, foamy amber liquid. "Oh, good. You are still in there then. Right, now we've established that you haven't lost your mind or, I dunno, your personality or whatever, will you please explain to me why my wife has been messaging me all day to play spy and find out what's wrong with you and Luna? I'm not used to being caught in the middle, man; and I don't much like it either."

I laughed again, and it was finally starting to make me feel a little more myself. Tyson hadn't been able to make it for a drink, needing to take his little one to soccer practice when his wife had to work late. So it had just been Mason and I with the furry cripple, who's beginning to get both her energy and mobility back. Mason's been trying to skirt around my mood all day, but it seems he's fed up with it as much as I am, though likely for different reasons.

"How does Nell know something's up?" I asked curiously, wondering whether Luna has spoken to her about me. "Did Lune say something?"

"Wolfe, mate, you're a smarter man than most, and you already know and read that woman better than any other guy has, which is saying something because she has notoriously been as emotionally closed off to men as any woman can get. You've not seen the drastic changes in her that Nell and I have over the past few weeks because this Luna is the only one you've known. If Nella—who has been friends with Luna since you and I barely had sperm in our balls and couldn't even get it up—thinks something is wrong, then it is. I can just about guarantee you that Luna wouldn't have said a word about it, not even to her; and if she did, she cares about you more than either of us ever would have guessed because that woman has more stubborn pride than anyone I know."

He's not wrong. It has been the constant bane of my existence every time I've tried to pay for something or even just held the door open for her. "So you really don't know then?" I asked.

"Dude, seriously, I have no idea what's going on. So spill your guts and let's figure this out because the battery on my phone is almost dead with all the messages Nell is sending me for updates, and I won't be going home to a hormonal wife without answers."

I laughed, thinking about how we're both in the same situation. "Luna has been on her period, too. I never knew that syncing thing women talk about was a real thing."