Nice Day for a White Wedding

By the time I took my suitcase and bag into the guestroom, it was well after midnight. I told Kat that I would be late into the shop, since I had to go see Tim to sign the Divorce papers in the morning, and she understood. She said she would keep everything going until I got there, or I could take the day off if I wanted.

I slept surprisingly well that night. Maybe it was the beer, which we'd drunk in moderation, or maybe it was the twisted and insidious plan I had devised to make Reginald Penistiny and Maggie's wedding a... memorable experience for them. Either way, I was happy with what we'd figured out.

I was up bright and early with a smile on my face. I heard the sounds of bacon and eggs sizzling on the stove, and the scent woke me up even more. She also had a fresh pot of coffee brewing, and that was even better! I couldn't remember the last time that Maggie had cooked me breakfast, but dammit! Kat was, and we were just temporary roommates!

I showered and dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, since I didn't feel like going into the shop after seeing Tim. I then joined Kat in the kitchen. "Good morning, Kat." I smiled as I sat down at the barstool at her kitchen nook.

"Good mornin', sunshine." She gave me a dazzling smile. "You look a lot better this morning than when you got here last night."

"Thanks to you and beer." I nodded in appreciation, which got me a musical laugh. I had to laugh too, since Kat's laugh is infectious.

"Well, here's some eggs and bacon for you, hon. Are you comin' in to work after you see Tim?" She set down the plate and a mug of coffee in front of me.

"Thanks, Kat. Nah, I think I'm going to take the day off. I don't know how I'm going to react after meeting with Maggie and her lawyer for the signing." I shrugged. "Tell you what, though. I'll take you to lunch later, and let you know what happened."

Kat nodded. "You better, Mac. Shit, I'm glad I ain't going with you. If I saw that bitch, I'd probably have to smack the shit outta her."

"That's one reason I love ya, sweety." I grinned. "You're the most loyal person I know."

"Awww, I love ya too, Boss." She smiled sweetly as I stood up, and gave me a hug. Kat's only 1 inch shorter than I am, so her entire body was pressed to mine as we embraced in a hug of commiseration.

"Hey, both of our exes were cheating. I'm glad you're coping too." I told her as I squeezed her close, then released her.

"At least they weren't cheating with each other. Now THAT would be a cliché." She snorted a laugh, and I had to chuckle at that one.

"True enough. But for both of us to find out on the same day? Biggest. Coincidence. Ever." I gave her my best Comic Book Guy impression.

Kat and I both love The Simpsons, so she got it right away, and gave me a snickering laugh with a slap on the shoulder. "You're right, Mac. Damn big coincidence, which makes that cheatin' drug in the water sound even more plausible!"

"You and your conspiracy theories." I rolled my eyes, giving her a mirthful smile.

"Hey, the Truth is Out There!" Kat gave me a spooky look.

When we'd finished cleaning up and loading her dishwasher, she handed me a key to her place. "It was going to go to Darius, but I think you're gonna need it more than he will." She smiled.

"Thanks, Kat." I smiled, kissing her cheek again and hugging her tight. "Don't worry, though. I'll find my own place in a few days, and I'll be out of your hair."

"No rush, Mac." She assured me. "Trust me, hon. I'd rather have you around where I can keep an eye on you, than have you on your own where only God knows what you would do by yourself. My parents went through a Divorce, so I KNOW how my daddy took it when momma left him. I'm not letting you outta my sight."

"Ok, mom." I smirked, and she swatted my shoulder with a cheeky smirk of her own. I'd heard about what had happened, and how her mom was mentally off balance. She hadn't cheated on Kat's dad, but there were other issues with her personality and mental health that led her to alcohol and finally divorcing him. I didn't know all the details, but it wasn't as sordid as my own situation. However, her dad had taken it hard.

For some background on our relationship, Kat and I had known each other for 20 years now. She's 2 years older than me, but kind of kept an eye on me in school when we were kids. Back then, I was smaller than all the other boys, so I got picked on a lot. Kat was taller than most of the boys and girls already, and was well on her way to Amazon status. She stood up for me, and nobody wanted to test her.

But she wasn't just reactive in that regard. She taught me how to stand up for myself. She taught me how to fight dirty, since my own folks wouldn't do it. She'd learned young how to take care of herself.

By the time we were teenagers, I had finally grown up enough that I was an inch taller than her. Barely. I hit my last growth spurt during my Sophomore year of HS, and Kat had stopped growing by then. She's 6', and I'm 6'1", and that was where we've been ever since. We've both filled out since our beanpole days, but we're still in good shape. She was a hurdler on the Track team, and I played Baseball. But while Kat was good enough for a scholarship to USC, I wasn't quite good enough at Baseball to warrant a scholarship.

So instead I'd joined the Army, and then used my G.I. Bill to go to school afterward.

When I'd started the chocolate shop just before marrying Maggie, Kat had applied for the job as Manager. She had an MBA, so I snatched her up quickly. Our first year, I couldn't pay her very much, but once word of mouth spread, we had almost more business than we could handle. I managed to get some great people working for me, and Kat was, and is, the best of them.

I left her in charge after a year, in order to take Maggie on our belated Honeymoon. Kat had kept everything running smooth as silk over that two weeks, and after the first year, we were well on our way to paying off the bank loan, and I could even afford to give everyone a nice raise.

At the end of the third year, my shop had a miniature factory attached to it, with a sizable kitchen and everything. I secured some cocoa bean contracts, and managed to bring in some nice exotic blends.

During our fifth year, we were sending special orders of candy all throughout California, but I steadfastly refused to go franchise or anything like that. We became damn near Special Order Only, though. I was offered millions for my company, but I and my employees refused to sell. They decided that they didn't want to work for anyone but me. If I had sold the shop, all my people would have quit.

That decided it for me. I was going to keep it a small business with my twenty employees, and we were going to just have fun and make money while doing it.

That, as it turned out, was the final nail in my coffin as far as my in-laws went. Maggie's father wanted to "buy in" to my business and expand it. I politely but firmly shut him down, saying that I wanted to keep the business small with a family feel to it. He lit me up good, telling me that expansion was the only way to make serious money. I firmly, and less politely pointed out that I was making some serious cash already, but that I didn't want to get greedy like him.

I idly wondered what they would think of Maggie cheating on me with, then Divorcing me in favor of Reginald Penis-tiny, and realized that I didn't care, but that they probably approved. Old Money attracts Old Money, and the Sullivans, while not as affluent as the Penningtons, were still Old Money. Fuck it.

Kat and I left out that morning after breakfast. She went to work while I went to see Tim at his office. When I got there, Maggie hadn't shown up yet, so we shot the shit until she arrived.

When she walked in, Tim visibly tensed. I could tell by his body language that Maggie and her lawyer weren't the only ones present. I stood and turned, and sure enough, there was Little Dicky Pennington himself. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off his face.

Instead, I ignored his offered handshake in favor of looking at Maggie. "Well, let's get it over with." I shrugged.

Tim went over the proposed split and everything. Since my business wasn't funded by her money or her family's money, and since the house was a gift from her folks since her grandparents died, those were NOT community property, and were ours. My Mustang was mine, of course. I had been restoring it since High School.

Tim surprised me. "So, you're divorcing my client in order to marry Reginald Pennington IV. Is that correct, Mrs. MacDougall?"

The question took her aback. "Well..." She hedged.

"A simple yes or no will suffice please." Tim wasn't letting up on her. Her lawyer, a Gloria Allred wannabe, leaned over and whispered something in Maggie's ear.

"Yes." She said softly, looking down as if ashamed. Tim NEVER called her Mrs. MacDougall.

"And how soon were you planning on the nuptials?" Tim went on.

Now it was Maggie, Reggie boy, and Gloria Jr. in the huddle. They were whispering fiercely back and forth.

Tim took that opportunity to lean over and whisper in my ear "Alimony". I just nodded back and smiled. He was trying to get me out of paying her a dime.

When the Three Stooges broke their huddle, Maggie looked at Tim again. "As soon as possible after the Divorce is final. We've already planned most of the wedding itself."

Tim nodded. "And if these reports are correct..." He pulled out a detailed financial report on Reggie boy. "Mr. Pennington here is, on his own and without the multiple homes and cars he owns, solvent for nearly a billion dollars. My question, Mrs. MacDougall, is why do you want an honest, hardworking man like your husband to pay you a dime in alimony when you can just ask Mr. Pennington here for any money you wish to spend?"

Maggie once again got drawn into a huddle with Gloria Jr. and El Culo.

Tim sent me a lightning fast grin and I answered back with a grin of my own while the Three Amigos debated their next move. When they came out of the huddle, Gloria Jr. spoke up.

"What would you suggest as adequate compensation, then?" She asked, her stern look centered on me.

"Well, she can have all the furniture, not just her half. I don't care about that." I shrugged.

Once more into the huddle, dear friends. The whispers were more subdued this time, but finally they broke and looked at Tim.

"Agreed." The Lawyer Bitch said.

And so it went. I didn't have to pay alimony, but I didn't get any of the furniture either. Gloria Jr. made the necessary changes to the Divorce papers, we all signed... except for Snake Boy, and the filing took place that very day as soon as the feminazi lawyer bitch left. As I was heading back to my car, Maggie and the Littledick came up to me.

"Angus, old boy, I hope there are no hard feelings." Once again, he actually stuck his hand out for me to shake.

That did it. I took his hand and squeezed extremely hard, so that his face contorted in pain. "Call me Angus again, Reginald, and I will make your life a living hell. To you, I'm Mr. MacDougall. Get it?" By the time I was done talking, he was on his knees and the bones in his hand were scraping together.

"Y... Yes, Mr. Mac... MacDougall. Let me go, p... pl... please!" His face had real fear on it. I released his hand before gangrene could set in, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was for calling me Angus." I said evenly. "As far as the slut goes, no hard feelings."

I smiled, turned, and walked towards my car. I felt good, now. I somehow got out of paying alimony, and was basically free and clear of her as soon as the Divorce was final. Oh! That reminded me. I walked back toward them as Maggie was helping Assholio to his feet.

"Maggie, before I go, I need my grandma's engagement ring back." I held out my hand.

Maggie looked at me like I had just fallen off another planet. Then she took it and the wedding ring off and handed them both to me.

"Thanks." I smiled, nodding to them as I pocketed both rings and walked back to my car. I fired up the powerful V-8 and shifted it into gear as I popped the clutch and hit the gas. The car screeched its tires as I peeled out of the parking lot, leaving some rubber on the asphalt and some smoke in the air. It wasn't something I did often, but I wanted to send a loud and clear message to the two lovebirds.

I looked in my rearview, and the Asshole was standing there dumbfounded, still clutching his right hand gingerly.

I smirked happily as I drove towards the shop. When I got there, Kat was happy to see me, as was everyone else. They all came up and hugged me or shook my hand and told me how sorry they were. I thanked them all, and told them all to get the fuck back to work. However, I said it with a smile on my face, so they knew I appreciated their efforts to help me feel better. The thing was, I was feeling pretty damn good already. Besides the lawyer fees and half the court costs, and having to give up my half of furniture I never really liked anyway, I had just managed to pull off a Bloodless Divorce.

"C'mon, Kat." I said. "Let's go to lunch." I drove us there in Bullitt, and Kat loved riding in it. She could hear the rumbling of the engine under the hood and feel the power radiate from it like an aura of awesomeness.

We ate and laughed, two old friends sharing our meal and our friendship, and a new solidifying bond of recently betrayed love.

"I still can't believe I had absolutely no fuckin' clue that she was cheating on me!" I hissed finally, giving voice to my own haplessness when it came to being blind as far as Maggie had been concerned. "I must have really been stupid."

"No, Mac. You were in love. Love can blind us, ya know." Kat smiled and reached across the table, squeezing my hand.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Thanks, Kat." I squeezed her hand back, letting her know how much I appreciated all she did for me, professionally and personally. She was way more than my Office Manager and friend. I'd come to depend on her for a long time now. First in school when I was the little kid who was smaller than everyone else. Then as the man who wanted his business to succeed, and had hired her as the most eligible and best qualified of the bunch of applicants who had applied.

"You never have to thank me, Mac. A nice bonus at the end of the year is thanks enough." She grinned, and I laughed outright at that.

"Consider it done." I smiled and gazed into her dark brown eyes with my dark blue orbs.

She looked away first, and I noticed a slight flush on her caramel colored face. It took me aback, but I recovered quickly even as I felt my cock start to harden. I told myself to stop it. She's my friend, and she had just suffered a loss too.

In all our years as friends, I had never looked at Kat that way before. Never in my life had I seen her as anything but a friend, albeit a VERY beautiful friend. Sure, I noticed the fact that she's a VERY well put together woman, as I did the previous night at her house when I'd pulled in and she'd come outside to meet me. Hell, what red blooded American male WOULDN'T notice a gorgeous Amazon like her?

But that was just something us guys do. This felt... different. I realized that I wasn't ready for this, and quickly we got back to other topics.

After we'd finished lunch, I drove her back to the shop and dropped her off. She said she'd see me at home, so I drove up to the bluffs and looked out over the Pacific. I looked down at my left hand, and removed my ring that had sat there for the last 8 years. I reached in my pocket and pulled out Maggie's wedding band, too. I studied them both, and just the sight of them made me sick.

I then pulled out my grandma's engagement ring, and held all three of them together. I put the engagement ring back into my pocket, then hauled back and chucked the wedding bands out into the ocean as hard as possible. They glistened in the sun as they went over the bluffs and into the white water crashing into the rocks below.

It was symbolic to me. My marriage was dead, and that was the post-mortem. Sure, the Divorce still had to play itself out, but this was what I had to do for my own sanity, and to be able to move on.

Now, just because I'd said the eulogy for my marriage, didn't mean that I had given up on my plan to get revenge on Maggie and Reggie boy. I thought of the line from the song "Violence and Bloodshed" that went "Payback's a bitch, and I'm payin' all!" I smiled as I could hear Scott Columbus on The Drums of Death, and Eric Adams belting out the lyrics while Joey DeMaio laid down the Bassline, and Ross the Boss scorched the Lead Guitar.

Oh, yes. Reggie was going to pay for stealing my wife, and my wife was going to pay for being a gold digging slut.

Some would call me vindictive and a caveman. To those I would just say "To hell with you." Do a twenty mile road march in my boots, THEN judge me.

*****

3 months later, it was all settled. Joint accounts were split 50/50. During that time, Kat and I coexisted as roomies, and got along great. Nobody cared at work that we were "living together". The huge surprise was when we got home one night and found the wedding invitations in the mail.

Huh. Maggie hadn't been kidding. They had the wedding scheduled a month from the formal Divorce decree. I grinned at Kat, and she grinned back.

"Ok, now it's go time." I said evilly as I drove us to Costco.

Finding out the caterer for the wedding was easy. He'd wanted to do business with us a few months back, but it had fallen through. I decided to... ahem... "give him another chance", and do negotiate it all out myself, this time around.

What got me laughing a LOT was that Maggie was going to wear white, as was Reggie boy in his Navy Dress Whites. He'd been a Naval Aviator back during the early days of the war, while I'd been in Captain Drake's Alpha Team. The dumptruck couldn't even wear a normal black tux, it seemed.

I paid a visit to the caterer, a few nights before the wedding, and replaced the chocolate cake mix with my own special blend. I grinned like a Cheshire cat as I replaced the cake mix with a chocolate tasting something extra. No, it wasn't poison. It was just something that would make Maggie and Reggie boy's wedding pretty damned unforgettable... for everyone involved.

Now, what I was doing COULD be compared to a High School prank, only done with a lot more style. But dammit, I had to get some back! They'd hung the horns on me for 8 months before blindsiding me with the Divorce papers. Granted, she had been VERY conciliatory in the Divorce, and I was left with just a broken heart. However, that broken heart was going to cost them.

I kept Kat apprised of what was going on, and she laughed hard when I told her that "Operation: Mud Flap" was a go.

The Invitation included the Reception, which was where the real entertainment would begin. The morning of the wedding, Kat and I showered simultaneously, and no, we didn't shower together. Although, in the past several months, we had grown closer. We were, however, still gun shy about relationships, and I for one was worried about ruining our friendship by taking it to the next level. I'm just glad that she had those tank-less water heaters installed.

When I was dressed in my Armani suit, I waited in the living room until Kat was ready.

"Well, am I presentable?" She asked as I was watching a UCLA Football game. I turned to look at her, and my jaw hit the floor.

Before me was a vision of loveliness that would be difficult to describe. But I'll try anyway. Kat was wearing an emerald green dress that hugged her curves like a glove. The shimmery material clung to her as if it was in love with her body, and didn't want to be separated from it. Her hair was done in a shoulder length style that framed her lovely face perfectly. Her full luscious lips were painted a sultry red, and her green eye shadow complemented her dress perfectly. She wore 1 inch pumps, which put her at the exact same height as me. Her toned calves were on display, and the 1 inchers showed them off perfectly. Her generous bust was barely restrained by the top of her dress, and as she twirled around, I was given a glimpse of her caramel colored back. Good God!