Ten years for now. That’s how long it’s been since I last saw the Welcome To Ellis sign as I drove away as a newlywed in the back of a limo filled with regrets.
Since I can’t say how many times I’ve thought about making my return. Hundreds? A thousand? Somewhere in between, most likely. I’ve pictured myself in a fancy sports car with my hair down into a scarf like I was Grace Jenavia, or maybe in a chauffeur-driven SUV.

Once in those ten years did I think I’d be coming back to town on a Greyhound bus.
A woman next to me snores so loudly, she wakes herself up. Her head jerks from side to side as she wipes drool from the corner of her mustache.

Nothing,” reply as I pull my baseball cap over my eyes and read- just my sunglasses to hopefully cover my black eyes where the makeup is wearing off.

Hoping my iffy luck will hold until I’m off this bus, and she won’t have a clue who she say next to on this long ride from L.A.

What’d I miss?” Leans over me to look out the window as we approach the bus station. He’s six feet under, and I’m the famous one because I’m the black widow who killed him.

Know the truth, but no one else cares about anything so mundane as that. Fall from wife of a rock god to the most hated woman in America has been a rocky one, and to be honest, I’m lucky I made it out of L.A. alive.
Greyhounds brakes squeal as it slows to a stop. Changing the direction of my thoughts. Stop thinking about what I’m running from and put it behind me.

I just never thought I’d be running toward Smith, the place I spent so many years desperate to leave. I want is a simple, quiet life. Something normal. Aways from the paparazzi and accusations. Even away from doing guilty that I fear.

I glance out the window, expecting the old wooden train depot, but we’re on the wrong side of town for that.

Smith. That’s one major reason I don’t know if I’ll ever find peace here.
Soon as we hit the city limits a few minutes ago, my heart is like stone.

Force my breathing to slow and try to look at the name without feeling anything.
Instead, I glare at it, like that’s going to help me find some inner strength.
I would match everything else in this town em blazoned with the Smith name.

Hospital that’s probably only a mile from here. Court-house that takes up one side of the town square. Smith bank and trust two blocks over, near the Rodriguez Art Gallery.

The only thing that doesn’t have their name is the town itself. Pretty sure my ancestors are still smiling in their graves about snaring that honor right before they jumped the Rodriguez’s gold claim and started a feud that’s lasted over 180 years.

I did my part too, and I’m not proud of it.
Wait my turn, specifically for the woman beside me to move, I can haul my *** off the bus. The bus rumbles to life again, and I watch as it rolls away. Left surrounded by the sum total remains of my former life, in the form of ridiculously overpriced Savellia Vuitton luggage, while I wait for my chronically-late-from-birth cousin to come get me.

Cricket begins me to come back to California, I probably would have stayed on the bus all the way to New York. Well I heard they’re friendly up there........ unless they’re Idelfonso Rodriguez fans.

Ohhh, baby! Look at that **** thing just waiting on a ride. You wanna come on up with me, girl?”
Catcalls had come from a man, I would tensed and prepared to bolt, but no. A voice I’d recognize even if it had been eighty years since I’d been home in stead of ten.

First time in months, a genuine smile stretches my lips. I know I don’t get into a strangers van unless someone offers me candy first. “
As well, get up here, little girl.
I’ve got sugar for you. Cricket puts the van in park and hops out, running around the front of the faint Econoline. *** Jesus Christ, you look just like a real beauty celebrity-who forgot to tell her chauffeur where to pick her up.”
So, I rush to meet him. We collide ina hug. “ I thought you were my chauffeur. But is to early too. I wasn’t prepared to wait an hour for cricket Time.”

Cuz my cousin smells exactly the same as the last time I saw her- like *** smoke, coconut, vanilla and sunshine.
“ Lord , I miss you, girl. It’s been way too ******* long.”
Pull back. Your tawny eyes dance, and her dark brown hair is braided around the crown of her head like she’s a perfect flower child.
But she’s alright.

Her heart squeezes at her smiling face. I’ve miss her so dear to much. I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. “ I know. I’m so sorry__

Got called home like a ******* dog. Like one of the obedient retrievers Commodore uses to fetch her birds. Came when I was called.
Didn’t mean I had to like it.
Twenty-five-year-old man worth his salt packed up everything. Just to skipped home, his grandfather snapped his fingers?
What a good heir to are family fortune did.
I didn’t just do it for the money. I did it because Commodore had hammered the family. I was ******* four years-old-Preserve and protect the legacy. What Smiths did. Are family coffers with even more money than was there.
My dads was doing ******* trouble ****** job of living up to his Commodore’s rigorous standards, base on his reports.
Been getting it in California. That he spent more time with his mistress than his own family.
Last message made clear. According to him. It’s boring for him, just sit in the office and do what. He rather collect all the money. And spend time with his mistress. I was *******, explained why I was sitting in a deep hole-in -the -wall. Losing out money left and right. David has no, right to collect the money. Without asking his wife.
Handle whatever responsibility Commodore threw at me, I wasn’t ready to come back to Las Vegas. Long shot.
California was better than Las Vegas. Proving myself and my worth.
David might be at my house, but I’m not comfortable him being there. With his mistress. His broke again, he needed more money.
Over the years my family seen so much from David. His troubles taking care his kids.
Bad on Finance and can’t protect stuff of legends, and it wasn’t dying anytime soon.
Like David getting behind on taxes. He just enjoyed taking something from his mistress.

Day after the sale, his mistress came to his wife’s house. Demanding for money, Mrs. Rodriguez Ellis had to called the police to Escort David mistress out her property.
I didn’t ******* know the truth, I didn’t want to know. All that mattered was that I couldn’t go anywhere in this ******* town without people looking at me and talking behind my back. About my husband and son girlfriend.
I surely hate that. I wish I could move my company in New York or Hawaii.
Maybe I could open another business in New York.
I found a bottle of Patron in front. Rub me three times and make your wish. Took me all of three days to actually Decide either I rub the bottle or not.
Basically I was shack about another problem with my son girlfriend. That girl will never walk down with my son. Her family to Considerate up nose.
I couldn’t wait to escape my son .
The perfect hideaway, and tonight I wanted to drink in a peace. I tried to settle into the idea of accepting my fate. Hell with that. Give me tequila.

Thinking about tossing back the liquor in front of me when the door opened and a gust of powerful wind dragged everyone’s attention to ward the door.
**. *******
Her hair was as black of the night. Beautiful lips as red apple. Her sin was soft as buttermilk. And a big heart that anyone have. Not only beautiful outside, Genuine heart. Perfect for my son.

David. *******.
Wasn’t drunk, but the whole world seemed to slow down as her voice. Your mistress ****** to show your wife photo pose you and her ****. Something in her purse and looked up.

David are you ******* serious?
Her vivid brown eyes kicked him in the gut, sucker punch from the way she pursed her lips as she surveyed. Gonzalez personified the saying walk in like you own her. David you like it that young. Gonzalez shoulders back, **** out and chin pointed up.
A woman on a mission. To **** David that’s hot to her. There’s no more secrets between David and his wife. David still married, but choose to mess around with his co-workers.
In another hands, khaila Smith is as same like David. Thank god , her son is not married with that.

Right about the woman-on-a-mission part. Poor ******* David, his wife *******. For mother ******* 19 years of married. Servicing this country. Than turn around tell your wife. It made your **** shift in your jeans. Seriously you crazy and weird.
Some people like her style. Smile crossed my face for the first time since I got the call from Rodriguez E grandfather that it was time to trot along home.
Won’t be why.” Turned on my stool and held out a hand, driven by pure habit.
City boy. Don’t need to know your name to drink your tequila. She saved me from giving up my identity, made her attitude even sexier-and made me want to prove her point.

I’m a city boy?”
Her gaze dropped to my shoes. She even show her biker boots, hiking boots, or steel toes. No, one cares.
I was from California, but I wasn’t raised here. My parents hired private tutors for me until I turned twelve, than I was throw in boarding school

“ Time to **** or get off the ***,
girl. Can’t keep her dangling after you forever. I’m getting any younger, and you need to get started on that next generation. China wall line must continue, I’m getting sick of waiting.”

Grandfather offers his unsolicited advice as my phone vibrates with a text. Having our regular morning meeting on his deck overlooking the gorge and Mountain.

“ Isn’t relevant to the conversation at hand.” I slide my phone off the table and turn off the ringer. Continuely ignoring the message from the other men’s I’ve been seeing occasionally for the last four months, Flips open a file with a stack of documents needing Commodore’s signatures.

Business comes first, last, always. Smith family way. Any women who spends time around me knows it, these meetings with my grandfather are sacrosanct. May be the heirs apparently to a multibillion-dollar empire, Commodore still officially holds the reins, every decision

Head in the entire congregation swung the double door. I’ll flung open,
Vision was fuzzy, no doubt from two fifty Emilio I’d try to drown out the fact that she was marrying someone else today.

Idelfonso and khaila could never be together.
But that didn’t mean I was going to watch khaila Smith marry someone else and not say a god- ****** words.

You *******. How could you?”
Khaila was dressed in a white, like the perfect bridge, asides from militants look into her face.

Might have miscalculated in my drunken haze.
Can’t marry him. Pretty sure my words slurred, but I didn’t care.

“ I don’t know why you think you get to have an opinion, get the hell out of here. “

“I can buy and sell him. “ More slurring.
Khaila’s eyes burned with her anger. “ Don’t. Care. Cuz you can’t buy me. “

Two set of arms grabbed me from the behind and dragged me back toward the door.

You ever look at my sister
again, Definitely I will ******* **** you myself.
Don’t care how much ******* money your family has.”
Khaila ‘s brother loomed overall of me, and I didn’t doubted his promise, especially while he was wearing his army dress uniform and green berets.
Next to him it was the grooms. Man who’d sold khaila the biggest crock of ****. I’d heard in my life. I’d told myself there was no way she’d ever go through. Way her brother would let her.

I was so wrong. He’d let her marry anyone but idelfonso.
Groom smirked but said nothing, they both turned and marched up the steps.
I weren’t so ******* wasted,
I’d go back in and try again.
Might be marrying her
today, but I wasn’t done with khaila

My name is Arthur Ness and I'm a writer.
You may not of heard of me.
I'm not a good one.

Writer,
That is. You see, I've been trapped in this
Hotel room, room 56, for 18 days, and

i lost the key twice, burned myself
with the coffee maker
three times and

in the sauna downstairs—
well, you get the idea.
I'm not a good

writer.

He was a novel

I was the chapter

I begged

And begged

to be his happy ending.