The s*x Addicts Widow

She's Still V

Jude

Dinner at Victoria's was amazing. She had always talked about cooking, and I knew she wanted to open a restaurant, by the sounds of it she did. I'll have to try it out sometime. Her lasagna was more layers than I've ever seen in my life. So good! The cheesy garlic bread was perfect and the salad was so fresh. Her daughter Callie bragged about all the veggies being grown in the backyard garden. She also bragged that her mom had made the marinara sauce from scratch from the garden also. No wonder it all tasted so good. I just thought it was because it had been a while since I had a home cooked meal.

After eating Kade and I helped Victoria clean up. She insisted that she could do it, but I'm not one to sit back and watch her clean all those dishes. She does have a real nice dishwasher though and that made cleaning up quicker. Victoria's kitchen is full of real nice things, it's the best kitchen I've ever seen.

"This kitchen is amazing." I said pushing the cleaned crockpot back into the wall. INTO THE f*****g WALL!!

“Luke, remodeled the house after we opened the kitchen. Everything I wanted, he made sure I got it. The best kitchen appliances, the spiral staircase, the dumb waiter, the kitchen island, The storage space in the walls, huge backyard garden…everything I wanted. He built me the perfect house. And then died 8 months later.” Victoria was leaning against the door frame, sipping a glass of wine.

“I'm sorry for your loss.” I almost whisper as I take soft steps towards her.

Standing in front of her, her eyes are unfocused, she's seeing a different time, lost in a memory of what once was.

Suddenly she blinks, her eyes refocusing, she looks up at me, tears brimming her red eyes.

I put my arms up offering a hug, I know she use to love my hugs. It was always something she looked forward to when we worked the same shift.

She let out a soft giggle and steps into my arms.

“I knew you couldn't resist.” I whisper into her hair, wrapping my arms around her.

She giggles again.

“I missed you, Jude.” She whispers into my chest.

“Let me just get a refill and your on little man!” We hear Kade say as he walks into the kitchen. We step apart. I grab the bottle of wine front the counter and offer it to Victoria. She holds out her glass as Kade enters the kitchen.

“What's going on in here?” He asks a knowing smirk on his face.

“Just finishing up cleaning.” I say as I hold up the now empty wine bottle,”where's the recycle bin?”

“In the garage, first door on the left.” Kade says. Pointing down the hall on the other side of the kitchen.

~~~~~~

Kade

“In the garage, first door on the left.” I direct Jude.

As he disappears through the door I turn to Victoria. She's wiping her face, was she crying? Did he say something?

“Hey, hey, hey” I say, cupping her face, wiping the little bit of wetness from her cheeks with my thumbs. “What's all this about?”

“ Oh, nothing. Just thinking about Luke.” She mumbles shaking her head in my hands.

“It's ok. Don't be afraid to remember him, to miss him.” I say, moving my hands to her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug.

“Im always thinking about him.” She says into my chest. “He makes me so mad.”

Wait…”What?” I say as I pull her back so I can look her in the face.

Victoria rolls her eyes, “I'm so mad at him. I miss him. How could he just go and die?!”

Ok, I think we've reached our wine limit for the evening.

“He didn't do it on purpose Victoria. He didn't plan on dieing when he left my house that night.” I reassure her.

“I know, it's just, all the bullshit, the cheating, the lying, all the f****d up things he said and put me through for years, years! Then s**t finally starts going good. We open the restaurant it takes off, then the little trinkets I never planned on making money off of started selling and s**t was good, money was good, we were good. Great even. He built me this amazing dream home and then he just…died. Leaving me with all this.” She says waving her hands above her head.

“ I know, sweetheart. It's not fair. He put you through alot but he set you up pretty good before he died. He might not of been great all of the time, but in the end he took care of you and the kids.” I comfort her, rubbing my hands up and down her arms.

“He's missing so much though.” She says dropping her head.

“He's not missing anything. You know better than I do that he would never let you or any of those wonderful kids out of his sight.”

A small smile appears on her face as she looks up at me.

“That's a sweet mustang you got out there.” Jude says as he enters the kitchen.

“Thanks, Luke and I rebuilt that for little Luke. Let's get high.” Victoria says as she walks out of the kitchen headed for the spiral staircase.

I look over my shoulder at Jude. He's got a surprised look on his face, doesn't really know how to respond. So I wave my arm “come on” and he follows me up the stairs.

We follow Victoria all the way up to her room. She opens the door to her little covered porch that I found her on earlier.

She takes her seat at the little table set she has out here and lights a joint.

She takes a couple drags from it, releasing a puff of smoke.

She offers it to Jude, “Do you smoke?”

“Not usually, but why not? Unless boss man has a problem with it?” He says looking at me while reaching for the joint.

“Nah” I laugh, “I grew it.”

Jude takes the joint and hits it like a newbie. He starts coughing and I can't help but laugh. He hands me the joint as Victoria hands him a beer. He opens it and starts chugging it.

“f**k!” Jude says when he can finally breath.

“Gotta cough to get off.” Victoria shrugs as I trade her the joint for a beer.

She hits it again and tries to hand it back to Jude. Her eyebrows raised in question.

“Um, no thank you, I can't breathe.” Jude tells her with his hands up in surrender.

She laughs and turns to hand it back to me.

“So, when do I get to hear the story of you two?” I ask between drags.

“Well, I wanna know this story. “ Jude says pointing at Victoria and me.

“Oh my God! Would you two stop!?” Victoria laughs, taking a sip of her own beer. “Jude was my best friend at The Warehouse, he made working there worth it. But he left while I was on maternity leave with Abby. Got a better job, left me behind.” She says to me but keeping eye contact with Jude. “Kade was Luke's best friend. He was the best man at our wedding. He was there when Luke died, hes been there for me since.” She says now holding eye contact with me.

I've been told my eyes are memorizing. But Victoria's eyes, they're deep pools of chocolate that don't have a bottom, you can look and look and look but will never find the end of their depth. They hold so much, so much pain, so much strength, so many stories. They're more than f**k me eyes, they're adore me eyes, love me eyes. I could get lost in those eyes for days and I wouldn't even care.

“Glad that's all cleared up.” Jude coughs finishing off his beer.

Victoria looks at him and rolls her eyes, she takes another drag of the joint before passing it back to me.

“Mom!” Callies voice comes up the stairs.

“Yes honey.” Victoria says as she gets up and goes back inside.

I look over at Jude. He's looking down at his beer bottle.

“Shes not that different,” he says making eye contact ,”I see the same pain, there's more of course, but she's the same, hiding it all in her eyes. Pretending no one will notice, something she did back then too.”

“Did you love her?” I ask holding eye contact.

“Not the way she needed.” He replied, slowly closing his eyes and looking down, “not enough” he whispered.

“I know the feeling “ I admit as I see Victoria's headed back our way.

“Apparently the kids are going to the store.” She says as she sits down, lighting another joint.