EVERETT
"Oh gosh, yes, fuck me, babe." A woman's voice rings in the long hallway while I climb up the long stairs to my boyfriend's apartment. "Fuck me harder, won't you?" The voices are loud yet hushed. "I can handle it. Pummel into me faster if you can." As I walk closer to his apartment at the end of the hallway, I can see his lights are on, and they brighten the darkness saturating the atmosphere in the long passage leading to his front door. His neighbour who lives on the left side of his apartment is never home since he's always doing a night shift somewhere. The apartment on the right side of my boyfriend's place is currently up for sale. My heart freezes in my chest, and my stomach lurches. Maybe the left-side apartment guy who's prone to working long nights so much so he can proudly call himself a workaholic finally got himself a life and a girlfriend?
Tell me why that can't be true?
Please remind me of a valid reason, brain.
"Oh baby, yes, yes, yes, oh bloody fuck yes." The woman's loud voice is back. I try to concentrate and locate which side of the wall it's coming from amid my fresh bout of anxiety. "Baby, you feel so good inside me. You're doing so great. Just like that!" There's a loud moan following a satisfying laugh from the man. "Oh yeah, you're so good in bed, baby."
I can recognise that laugh anywhere.
My brain can remember that laugh even in my sleep.
That's Nathan's laugh.
My heart shatters itself into a million tiny pieces.
I can hear him through the door. His noisy laughter permeates the air and the space beyond it as he laughs as if he's doing something he loves. All the while as he fucks another woman. A woman that's not me.
He's cheating on me.
And he's enjoying himself.
How can he do that?
Why on earth he's doing someone that's not me?
The panic swells up inside my core, and I can't stop but feel an intense bout of rage swirling up inside my stomach. My nostrils flare, and I clench my fingers into tight fists. Something comes over me.
"You know what?" Nathan's voice seeps out of the door as clear as day. "My girlfriend of three years won't even let me fuck her. I come around thrice a day thinking of her tight little pussy, but she won't let me touch her." He sounds happy but, at the same time, sad. "It was before I thought fucking you was an option, though. You are so much better than her, anyway." He moves loudly inside her. "Plus, your pussy is to die for. It's a man's dream, and to have you wrapped around me while I pump inside you feels so good. You feel so nice around my cock."
"I can feel your frustration, babe." This time, her voice is normal and almost caring. "I would be frustrated too if I didn't have a release every so often. You're not the only human who wants to fuck their own girlfriend. Her keeping you away from her sex is cruel."
In a span of seconds, the voice registers in my head. I almost drop the gift bag I have in my hand. My heart crashes against its walls.
This betrayal really isn't happening to me. . .
Nathan speaks again.
"That's what irritated me the most about Evie, you know?" He blows out a harsh breath. "I waited and waited and waited for her patiently. I was a good boyfriend to her all these years in the hopes of her recovering from the trauma of that tragic accident. But it was as if, no, nope, she didn't want to see any colour in her life. She didn't want to move on from the grief of losing her parents. I tried everything with her." He chuckles before continuing. "I spent a long time seducing her, but every time I tried to touch or get intimate with her, she made excuses." He laughs a little longer at his words. "She always said that she was busy with work. After a while, I stopped trying. I could have only handled so much rejection. If I had accepted defeat earlier, I wouldn't have wasted so much time on her." He sighs, and then his voice takes on a sombre tone. "The last time I tried to get close to her after I cooked her a nice homemade meal and cleaned around the apartment to make everything look nice and pleasing for her, do you know how she reacted?" A beat. "She repaid that gesture with flinching while I tried to cop a feel through her shirt while we were watching a romantic movie. I don't even like romance." He snorts. "She's such a poor tease."
"Hey, hey." She starts speaking again. "Why don't we get back to where we were, honey? Can't you just fuck me and process your emotions while you are inside of me?" She chuckles. "I was so close to coming, you know?"
He spanks her quite loudly. You could hear the whip of his strong hand hitting bare flesh in the long corridor.
"As you say so, babe." He breathes in her hair. I can watch them from the crack in the door. "You've been so bad tonight, babe. Haven't you, Caiti?"
She moans.
"Yes, babe." He bites her on the shoulder. "Fuck me now, babe."
"Let me stretch you out." He pushes inside of her. "I'm going to stretch you out while I'll massage your tits." He scoffs. "I wish your tits were as big as Evie's, though."
Hearing everything through the door, I slide against the wooden surface to the floor. I wonder if I should cry or break the door down, so the two people I love the most in this world won't fuck anymore, but I can't find the courage to intrude on them. So I put my head against the door and hear them both come one after another, cheating on me, betraying me.
How in the world did I ever decide to trust these two people?
Why did I choose these two people on this earth out of a billion others?
Had I lost my mind?
I can't believe this is happening to me.
How do I stop them?
As I hear them on the brink of an orgasmic explosion, I summon up my courage and find the key to my boyfriend's apartment in my purse. It was his second-year-anniversary gift to me. He said the tiny gesture shows 'how much he trusts me.' I didn't know that this was the day the little key would come in handy. I slide the key into the door and unlock the doorknob, and the door springs wide open. With tears in my eyes, I watch the two people closest to me on this earth, bare-naked in each other's arms.
My boyfriend is fucking my best friend.
Am I on a reality-tv episode of bamboozled?
They are so committed to the act of coitus that they don't even take notice of me for a minute or two. I fold my arms over my chest as tears fall from the ends of my eyes. When Caiti's eyes catch a little glimpse of me standing in the dark hallway, she slips her arms on Nathan's shoulder to hold him. Her mouth is agape as her jaw hits the floor, and she freezes into his big arms while he's busy pounding away into her.
It takes another three minutes before my boyfriend notices me while he's inside my best friend. I bawl louder, and he turns to see me with my hand over my mouth, not wanting to make loud noises and bring more people to observe the scene unfolding in front of my very eyes.
Everett is never the one to make a scene.
"Evie," he literally pulls himself out of my best friend, "I can explain. I-I didn't mean to do this." My eyes get so overwhelmed with tears that I can't see clearly anymore. They break apart from their scandalous embrace, and Caiti reaches for her dress lying on the floor. "You know what? This-this is," he runs his hand through his hair and gestures between him and Caiti, "this is a mistake. I made a mistake, Evie."
I turn around, wiping the corners of my eye with the back of my hand. The gift bag I have brought with me, I take a guesstimate before sending it flying into the air in his general direction. The bag collides with Nathan's chest and the goodies and speciality items inside the bag spill on the floor.
"Take that, you bastard." I manage to find my voice. I pivot on my feet again as I find Caiti's eyes. "Don't come home tonight. Anyway, move out tomorrow morning while I'm at work. Better yet, never show me your face. I don't want to see you ever again." Then I exhale a broken sigh, full of emotion. "If you try to lay a finger on Smokey before you leave, I swear to God that I would hammer my fist harder into your face than my boyfriend's dick was inside your cunt. It will hurt, and it won't be pretty."
After I say that, I'm running down the stairs, crying and freaking out of my mind.
EVERETT"Bring me another one." The bartender refills my drink. "And then another one, please." I wave my hand in front of the bartender, hoping to catch his attention as I rest my other hand on the counter. "I'd like another gin and tonic." Then I snort. "Maybe you can alternate it with a cosmopolitan since I like to keep my palette awake."The bartender takes a step back, his eyebrows climbing to his hairline as he pushes my hand back towards me."Isn't there someone you can call right now?" His face fills with genuine concern. "The sorry tale you've told me just about now makes me wary of your drinking tonight. Just do yourself a favour and call a cab, and I'll help you into it."I pull out my phone and try to unlock the screen, but I fail to put in the correct passcode. After three failed tries, I finally get on the inside of my phone and tap the call button of a recently called cab service. Then, I bring the drink sitting in front of me right to my lips, spilling some on the coun
WAYLONHer eyes are red with tears. They gush out as if someone has turned on a faucet. I didn't expect to be at the end of comforting someone, not since. . ."I caught my best friend sleeping with my boyfriend in his apartment." She quietens down. "It was our third-year anniversary." She runs a hand through her hair as she wipes the tears with the back of her hand. I watch her do that until I can't control myself from touching her. I have this overwhelming need to hug her tightly and caress her hair. I don't know where this urge is coming from within me. My heart is distant from catching feelings, and me having feelings like this for her is almost beyond the horizon. "They betrayed me, both of them." So, I offer her what I can. I grab her palm tightly, tugging at it, hoping she feels what I'm feeling. "Why did they do that to me?"She didn't deserve this.Nobody deserves to be cheated upon by the love of their life.I can feel her pain when I shouldn't."Your boyfriend is a fuckhead.
WAYLONAfter putting Ms Fischer in a cab, I take a long walk home because I feel like it. There are a lot of things on my mind, and some of them are about her. Never in a million years did I think I would find a woman this beautiful and intoxicating.When she told me about her cheating boyfriend as tears ran down her face, I couldn't help but keep watching her eyes since I was spellbound.That was probably the first time I found a woman beautiful while she was crying.My feet knock a small pebble to the side of the road. My phone starts ringing somewhere in my pocket. Without caring about who's calling me, I fish the phone out of my pocket and bring it to my ears, automatically picking the call up."Hey, baby." The woman on the static speaks. It takes me a moment to realise it's Andie. "Why didn't you come to pick up your card today at the bar-r-r?" She slurs her words. "You know I had been waiting for you?""I had work, Andie." My fingers massage my eyes. "Didn't we have this convers
EVERETT The harsh light from the open window of my living room streams directly on my face. Putting a hand over my face to block the sunlight, I wake up with a pounding as if heavy metal rock music is chorusing in my head. I prop myself on my elbows and rub a finger under my eyelids. With the back of my hand, I get rid of last night's mascara gunk from the corner of my eyes. I sit up, stretching my arms and yawning big. Then all the events from last night hit me at once, and my heart immediately shatters into several tiny pieces. I run a hand over my face in disbelief. Did all those things actually happen? Why does it hurt so much? Is this my life now since it certainly feels like a dream? Gosh, I can't believe this is happening to me. My boyfriend is in bed with my best friend. Why I am a part of a telenovela episode? Then, my eyes fall on the wall clock, and I almost yell. I'm fifteen minutes late to work. I scramble for the washroom to get a quick shower. I pull out a basi
WAYLONWhen I wake up in the morning, all those things that happened last night with Ms Fischer come back to me. I twist in my bed, running a hand through my hair.Why did I have to do that?Couldn't I have just left her alone?What was I thinking?I lay on my stomach, wondering if what I did was right or wrong. I can sometimes be really selfish since I can temporarily forget how my actions affect the other person, but the guilt always comes back to me.Then another thought crosses my mind.How is she doing right now?I slap my face with my bare hands as I slide my body off to the edge of my hard mattress. My feet hit the ground when Rosa enters my room with my morning tea without knocking on my bedroom door."Are you still sleeping?" She sets the tea tray on the coffee table on the left side of my room. "Did you get drunk again last night, Way?" Rosa gives me a death stare while she puts a hand on her hip. "It's about time you get married and take some responsibility in your life. Yo
EVERETTI sit on the toilet seat, having second thoughts about what I ate last night for my stomach to hurt this badly. Then I remember I drank a lot on an empty stomach. The rest of the night--after I saw my boyfriend hooking up with my best friend--comes back to me at lightning speed. I press a hand against my tummy, willing the physical pain to fade away along with the emotional pain thrashing around the walls of my heart.My stomach growls loudly, but nothing comes out. I put my face in my hands as sweat beads line the entirety of my hairline. God, did I really do all of that?I forced myself on Mr Waylon fucking Thorne, and he let me?I know I can be a drunken nuisance to be around when I get that drunk, but what in the love of all things good and holy?Why did I have to want him last night?How am I supposed to face him now?Then, my mind skips to the part where he put me in a cab, and before he put me inside it, he held my hands in his and spoke some words. Those words stab me
EVERETT"Let's draw a line between our professional and private lives." I thin my lips, offering him a sad smile. I clear my throat as I find my words again. "Work is work. As you said last night, we shouldn't cross those lines. And we are at work right now, Waylon." Then I run a hand over my cheeks. "So you should keep your hands off me, Mr Thorne."Waylon peers at me longingly as his mouth quivers at the end of my sentence. I know he won't say anything anymore now that I have put him on the spot. He would be too embarrassed to say anything, considering his giant ego that I had heard about making the rounds around the office when he took over the management.Before Waylon can defend himself, a woman interrupts us, standing on the threshold of his office with one of her hands resting against her chest. Her face is a bit unclear from the harsh light that bounces right over her features at the entrance of the spacious working space."Is this how you work, Wayne?" Her voice comes ripping
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