Three days passed at Maverick’s house. He’d go to work, she’d stay at the house watching his transmissions and trying to figure out her next move. She programmed his cleaning droids to take care of the household functions and added more recipes to the food simulator like she’d promised, at least the ones she could remember off the top of her head.
It was relaxing, not having social duties to attend to. She did call one of her volunteer functions and excused herself from the responsibility. One of the other women on the charity was more than excited to take over her spot and practically hurried her off the phone like she’d change her mind and take the council seat back. Juliana felt bad letting the position go, but she needed her mind focused on putting her life back together. When news spread about her divorce, she’d probably be nicely encouraged to step down anyway. It was depressing to think about so she chose not to dwell.
In the evening, she would have dinner ready for when Maverick arrived home. They’d eat and talk about nothing and everything. Evenings with Maverick were the happiest part of her day. Then, after dinner was cleaned up, by hand each time, they’d move to the couch and watch one of his transmissions together. He would hold her, and each night her body would ache even more for him. She tried to get up her nerve to kiss him, to take their cuddling one step further, but every time she held back. Maverick never made a move, always acting like a gentleman.
On the third day, Juliana answered a knock on the door only to find one of her husband’s law firm’s couriers. He mumbled something about her being incredibly hard to find as he handed her the divorce notice. She signed the clipboard, instantly getting verification that her divorce was finalized. It was over. Jeff was no longer her husband.
Just like that. Simple. Quick. Finished.
Juliana stared at the confirmation, the uninspired, emotionless words telling her she wasn’t legally married to Jeff anymore, but also reminding her that their assets still needed to be divided in an Assets Distribution Form or Hearing.
“Do you mind if I come in?” the courier asked.
Feeling a tad spiteful, she remained in the doorway, blocking his way as she read the clipboard he handed her and said, “No, you can stand right there.”
He huffed, but didn’t argue.
“It means that you are now divorced but in a legally recognized state of needing to separate assets,” the courier said. Juliana already knew what it meant, but she let him talk. “The court recognizes your divorce but also that they need to end the ‘business of marriage’.”
Thankfully, it wasn’t like the old way of waiting months before someone got their freedom back. It was hard enough for most people to petition, but with Jeff’s connections, she was sure he had no problem. It didn’t matter anyway what the court thought about it. Her heart hadn’t been married to him for a long time. Seeing the words in front of her was actually a relief. She was done with Jeff. Well, besides the Assets Distribution.
“Think of it as a business closing its doors, but the inventory still being there,” the courier said, speaking down to her as if she were a child.
Juliana looked up from the board. “I assume you have another document for me to look at?”
“Yes,” the man lifted up another electronic clipboard. “This is the Assets Distribution Form. As you see, your ex-husband has already had it drawn up. If you just sign here and give me a thumbprint, it will all be over. No need to even go to court.”
“Hmm, I think I’ll read it first. I’ll call you when I’m ready to give my answer,” Juliana said, shutting the door on the condescending man. He gasped, clearly exasperated with her answer, but she refused to sign it and finalize the Assets Distribution without going over the document first. It was a good thing she did, because Jeff had tried to take everything.
“Greedy bastard,” she mumbled, eyeing the cleverly hidden clause surrounded by a ton of legal jumble. What Jeff seemed to have forgotten was that she’d helped him get into law school and had even done some of his homework for him when he got too frustrated or lazy.
Making several changes, which she thought were fair, she called the law office and had them send the courier back. When he knocked, she opened the door, handed him the clipboard and said, “The assets are in dispute. Be sure to send my court date here.”
Attached to the clipboard was a note, telling Jeff to stop being mean and sign a fair agreement. There was also a mild threat about him not wanting her to contact the intergalactic law board about his schoolwork. She felt wrong doing it, like she was sinking to his level but knew Jeff well enough to know that he wouldn’t want the partners suspecting that his wife had done his homework. It was the only way she could think of to get him to sign a fair agreement, splitting everything in half, without resorting to a long, drawn-out battle that would only get ugly.
“Good for you,” Maverick said, nodding in approval when she told him that night over chicken cordon bleu. He took a bite, moaning slightly like he did each time. “Wow, this is great. I can’t thank you enough for the recipes.”
She smiled. “So you don’t think it was too petty to threaten him?”
“Not at all. I think it’s justified. From what you’ve told me, you did help him during his school years. And, the man did evict you unfairly from your home. I’ve seen divorces get much messier than this one.”
“Yours?” she asked. He’d alluded to it before but hadn’t gone into great detail.
“Yes. She wasn’t happy being married to a cop and wanted more. She took the house, my hovercraft and for a while my sanity. I was hurt, so I tried to fight it, but in the end, I just let her have it all. I shouldn’t have done that, but it is what it is. That’s why I had myself transferred to this Earthbase four years ago. I wanted a clean start.”
“So it’s been four years?”
“Six. It took time for the transfer to come through.”
“Do you miss her?”
“No, not really.” He gave a small sigh. “We were young and neither of us had seen much of the universe. We should never have gotten married.”
After dinner, Maverick poured wine. The deep red blend was stout, but tasted wonderful. It also made her a little giddy.
Leaning against the countertop, she eyed him. “Why don’t you date?”
He gave a little laugh. “I haven’t found anyone worth asking. Most of the women I know are criminals or colleagues.”
His eyes held untold meaning and she shivered. She couldn’t take it anymore. He was consuming her mind, and her body was so tight with desire that she felt it like a sting to her soul.
“It’s been a long day,” she said, nervous. “I should get to bed.”
“Oh, are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fizzled,” she lied. “It’s been a long day, you know.”
“Good night, Juliana.”
“Mmm, night,” she answered, making her way quickly to the door and up the stairs. Once there, she shut herself in the guest room, which was her room.
She looked around, taking deep breaths as she made her way over to the bed. Aside from an adjoining bathroom, the room was a lot like Maverick’s. The dressers were modern and controlled by electronic scans unlike his antiques, and the bed was a perfect square unlike his rectangle.
She’d wanted to kiss him so badly that she had no other choice but to run from her feelings. Her mind whispered that she was now free to pursue him, but how could she? It had been so long and it didn’t seem right with the divorce only being finalized today. Part of her said to think of it as a celebration, another part of her said she was scared and using divorce as an excuse to hide from sex and from her feelings.
Regardless of the reason, she wasn’t going to act on those feelings tonight. Closing her eyes, she refused to touch herself as she had been. Maybe the fantasizing was what caused her uncontrollable libido. Or was it that Maverick had the greatest smile she’d ever seen?
Sighing, she turned on her side and did everything she could to get to sleep.
The next day, Maverick was gone when she woke up. It wasn’t surprising since her conflicting emotions didn’t let her get to sleep before dawn. Not wanting to face him when she was still so easily aroused by just thoughts of him, she left dinner out and went to bed early. Yes, it was cowardly, but her theory on not pleasuring herself to keep her libido down wasn’t working. The next morning, she found a note he left, hoping she was all right and telling her to call if she needed anything.
It wouldn’t take a shuttle engineer to figure out the first thing her brain came up with in the department of needed anything.
Heading out of the house, she went for a walk, picked up a newspaper chip and, holding it in her palm, she pushed the button on the small square. A holographic screen popped up from the chip. Walking and reading at the same time, she could see through the transparent screen well enough not to bump into anything, even as she touched the menu items floating above her hand. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the advertisements about work to be had, at least nothing she was qualified to do. Most of it was for intergalactic spaceship pilots to haul import loads off planet. There was one for Galaxy Brides, advertising for willing females to go to distant planets to marry humanoid males.
“No, thanks, just got out of one marriage,” she mumbled. Yet, somehow, the idea of not staying at Maverick’s bothered her more than anything. She liked him, a lot, and didn’t want to lose someone who was fast becoming one of her best friends. His nearness had helped her through a rough ordeal. He was still helping her. Just being there, caring.