Normally Deacon Roth prided himself in being in control, he loved knowing where all of the pieces were going to fall in his life, moving from point A to B in a set pattern. Now, he would be the first to admit that the speed and the direction of where exactly his life was currently going, was way beyond him.
There were other forces at play and all that Deacon could do was hang on for dear life and hope for the best.
How else was he supposed to cope?
He was a man who had gotten married to the enemy while drunk out of his mind. Now he was on his way to divorce said enemy, having had to sneak out of work like a child skipping school in order to do so. His PA, Millie had even given him a look like a teacher who knew a student was lying but was just going to let it pass, when he had given her a lame excuse.
Deacon had wanted so badly to tell her what was going on. But the promise that he'd made with Slater plus the risk of somebody overhearing and spreading the word, had made him keep his silence.
Now he was finally at the courthouse with Slater by his side. While he had opted to just come in his work attire, since he was heading right back, a dark blue suit with a white shirt. Slater was dressed in a bright yellow summer dress, with an actual flower tucked behind her ear, the red of it matching perfectly with Deacon's tie.
When he had first seen her, he had been dumbfounded, even forgetting for a few seconds, the exact reason why the two of them were there.
He had never seen anybody dress so festively for their own divorce, but then again Slater was moving to the beat of her own drum now. She was no longer stuck to the business world attire the way that he was. She could do whatever she pleased and so the two of them sat before an old woman, Slater with her yellow dress and her flower, and Deacon in his suit. The two of them perfectly still listening as the old woman explained everything to them. Moving from page to page with the patience of a person who had been doing her particular job for many years.
"That is basically all the legal stuff settled. Now you just have to sign here and here and your marriage will no longer exist,"
Adjusting her glasses, the tiny old woman stared at the two of them.
"Am I understood?" She asked, giving off the air of a no nonsense grandmother, and both of them nodded in unison.
"Yes ma'am,"
"Good, now here, sign," With that she pushed a pen towards Deacon and he took it with steady hands, but when he thought of lifting it and signing, something stopped him. In an effort to hide his hesitation, he handed the pen over to Slater.
"Ladies first," He told her, and Slater accepted the pen easily enough, not noticing the slight panic in Deacon's eyes.
What was that? Why had he just hesitated?
Their divorce needed to be finalized so that the two of them could move on with their lives. He had come to the courthouse knowing that that was exactly what was going to happen, so why on earth was he suddenly hitting cold feet?
"Is everything alright, young lady?"
The old woman's question had Deacon refocusing on his partner and he was shocked to find that Slater's hand, much like his own head briefly done was hovering over the piece of paper.
She had not signed, and her effort to force her hand to move had only resulted in her entire arm was trembling.
"Slater are you ok?" Deacon asked, and before he could even process what he was doing, he had reached out. His large hand going over Slater's much smaller one. She gasped at the sudden contact looking up at him, those wide green eyes, staring at him in shock.
"I, I..."She did not finish her sentence, but she also did not pull her hand away. The two of them remained just staring at each other.
A not so subtle throat clearing, had both of them pulling apart and looking over at the old woman. She gave the two of them a long hard look, then she sighed.
"I do not normally do this, but it seems to me like both of you still need to do some talking about your divorce. Perhaps you should postpone,"
'No, there is no need for that, we are ready to sign'. Deacon wanted to tell her, but his mouth remained firmly shut.
"Go home you two. Talk on this issue some more, I will reserve a slot for you tomorrow at the same time. If you do not show up, I will take it to mean that the two of you have finally decided to actually save your marriage from the looks of things. You do not seem to want the divorce even now,"
Deacon felt his throat tighten, did she mean him in particular, or was she talking to Slater since she was the one who had hesitated over the dotted line.
The moment that they left the office, Slater was speaking.
"Roth, I am so sorry, I have no idea what came over me, I should have just signed, in fact forget what she said, let's go back in there and finish this, this time I'll be able to sign I promise you I…"
His index finger over her lips silenced Slater and her eyes crossed adorably as she tried to look down at his finger.
"It is alright Slater you were clearly dealing with something in there and I will not force you to sign any documents, especially divorce papers when it seems your mind is preoccupied with something,"
Slater stepped away from his finger, and Deacon instantly dropped his hand, his thumb rubbing over the digit, the phantom warmth of her lips, making his entire hand tingle, strange, very strange. Rather than get lost in the weird sensation. Deacon chose to ignore it and focus on Slater instead.
"Thank you for being so understanding, I just need to get myself together when it comes to a few things, I will see you back here tomorrow," Deacon could have just let her go with that. But he found he did not want to.
"Did you bring your car?" He found himself asking,
She shook her head.
"Would you like a ride?"