by Nella Tyler
“Aren’t you hungry, baby?” she asked. Finally, I thought. I’d only been picking at my food since we sat down at the table a half hour ago.
“Not really.”
She shrugged that off, not asking after it any further, and launched right into an involved story about another client from the gym.
“Lacey, I can’t do this right now,” I said, cutting her off again. I could barely sit still in my seat. I was tired of waiting for her to tell me what I wanted to know when I could just come right out with it and save us both a lot of trouble.
She blinked again, this time keeping her dark eyes narrowed, her amused expression cooling considerably. “You can’t do what? Eat dinner?”
“This,” I replied, gesturing back and forth between us.
“What are you talking about?” She was still smiling, but had drawn her thin eyebrows together, giving me the critical look I’d gotten used to in the last year and a half we’d been together.
“Are you cheating on me?”
This time, she didn’t even blink, just set her fork down on her plate and stared at me, the look in her eyes bold but not concerned.
“What would make you ask me something like that, Blaze?” she asked, perfectly calm.
I wanted to say something to knock the serene expression right off of her face. I was boiling in my chair, the greasy food churning in my stomach and threatening to creep up the back of my throat. This was all that had been on my mind for days, since the last time I’d stayed overnight at her apartment. And, I couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t yet denied it.
“The other day at your place, I went to wash some clothes while I was waiting for you to come home from the gym,” I said, not breaking eye contact with her, searching her face for any trace of guilt. “I found some men’s clothes that didn’t belong to me in your dryer. What the hell is that about, Lacey?”
She lifted a perfectly plucked eyebrow, but didn’t say a word, not even to tell me how crazy I was for doubting her faithfulness. I went on, laying out the evidence and waiting for her to deny it. Maybe there was a good reason for all of this. I’d never know if I didn’t ask her, though it was bothering the hell out of me that she wasn’t even trying to explain away any of this.
“And, you’ve been acting weird as hell over the last few weeks. Ever since I proposed.” Her hands were folded on the table, so I could see the ring I’d given her sparkling in the light of my tiny dining room.
It had taken me weeks to settle on that ring. I even sent a picture to my mother to ask her advice. She hadn’t seemed too excited at the prospect of me marrying Lacey. Mom didn’t like how showy she was with her body or how dismissive she could be when I brought something up that she didn’t care about, but was happy that I seemed happy, or so she said. And, she used it as another opportunity to tell me how much she wanted grandchildren.
“You hardly ever answer when I call. You go out every night I’m at the station and never tell me where you’re going. One of the guys said he saw you out at the club a couple weeks ago dancing with someone else.”
Lacey sat back in her own chair, just listening to me, a tranquil expression on her pretty face. She’d turned the key on whatever was going on in her head, locking me out of it completely. I’d spent so much time trying to guess at what she was thinking, but I still had no goddamned idea one way or the other. She said she could read me like a book and was probably right. But to me, she was a closed book written in another language entirely, so even if I managed a peek at one of the pages, I wouldn’t understand it.
“So, tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Are you cheating on me? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she replied, face staying serene as her eyes gleamed with a challenging light.
Now it was my turn to blink at her. The grease in my stomach churned harder and, for a second, I thought I really was going to throw up every single bite I’d managed to choke down. It took a minute for me to swallow back the nausea enough to speak.
“What the fuck, Lacey?” I snapped. “How many times has this happened?”
She smiled prettily, her dark eyes sparkling more than the diamond I’d put on her finger. “Once or twice with a few different guys.” She said it easily, like we were chatting about how many clients she’d seen that day.
I gaped at her, just so utterly surprised that I couldn’t even grab hold of my own anger. “Since we’ve been together or since we’ve been engaged?”
“Both,” she said, still smiling that sexy grin, the one that always worked to get me going. And not just me. Plenty of other guys appeared to like it, as well.
I rubbed a hand over my forehead, trying to get the thoughts swarming inside my skull to lie still long enough for me to put them in some kind of coherent order. She was cheating. Not just once or twice. And, since we’d gotten engaged.
“Why would you do something like that?” I asked, my low voice trembling with the rage I felt building. The blood in my veins was hot. I wanted to blow my fucking top, but that wouldn’t affect her, either.
She liked me jealous. She liked when I chased after her, when I beat my chest like some kind of sex-crazed animal. It was fun at first, letting her turn me a little insane, but it got old fast. We were adults. I wanted to spend my life with her. I wanted to start a family and grow old with each other. This kind of high school bullshit had no place in those plans.
“Look, you knew the type of woman I was when you asked me out,” she said, turning up the sex factor in her grin and leaning onto her elbows on the table so I could see her cleavage more clearly. “I’m a sexual being. I crave that attention.” She swallowed most of her grin, but her eyes were glittering and there was still a slight curve to her shapely lips. “That’s what attracted you to me to begin with. You love how into sex I am, how much I need it.”
And, she did need it. I loved getting in between her toned thighs as often as I could, but she was impossible to satisfy, wanting it two or three times a day. I thought she’d calm down after a few months of dating, but she’d only needed more. It was wearing me the fuck out.
“I love how into sex you are with me!” I said. “I didn’t think you were busy fucking other guys all over Seattle at the same time.”
She shrugged a bare shoulder, those dark eyes gleaming at me as she tossed her wavy hair onto her back. “I don’t see what the big deal is, Blaze. I always come home to you.”
“I gave you a ring. That’s the big deal. We’re supposed to be engaged. That means no fucking other people. I can’t believe I even have to tell you that.”
“Like you’ve never stepped out one me?” she said, lifting her brows, a knowing smirk on her lips and a look in her eye like maybe this would turn her on.
“No, I haven’t, Lacey. The last time I slept with another woman was before we started dating.” I shook my head. I was too stunned by her openness to even stay angry at her. She wasn’t even trying to hide a damned thing. She had a pair of balls on her, I had to give her that. If this was anyone else’s girlfriend besides mine, I’d be clapping her on the back for her brazenness while I laughed at the poor sap she was making a fool of.
She pouted a little, batting her long eyelashes at me from across the table and pressing her boobs together to try to draw my eye. We ended a lot of arguments with hard, fast makeup sex. But that was out of the question tonight.
“Don’t start that cutesy crap, Lacey,” I barked. “Either we’re in a relationship together or we’re not. That means committing to each other.” I drew in a deep breath, keeping my eyes on her and trying to stoke the anger underneath all that shock.
But I was just too tired. I’d come off of a 48 hour shift that morning. I didn’t have the energy for this kind of bullshit. “Are you willing to commit to me and cut out all this other shit?”
She didn’t answer right away, which was its own kind of answer, but I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt and waited to hear what she was going to say.
“Blaze, this is
silly. We’re both adults. You know how I feel about you.”
“Yeah, I thought I did — until I found out you’ve been cheating on me the entire time we’ve been together.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. She just kept watching me, the look in her eyes secretive.
I held up my hands in the universal sign of giving up. “You know what? I’m done with this shit. If you want to be with other guys, you go do that. Consider this the end of our engagement.”
That wiped the smug satisfaction right off her face. Her eyes burned hot, like I was the one cheating on her, not the other way around. She jumped up from her seat, nearly knocking the chair over, and shooting fire at me the whole time.
“You’re acting like a child,” she snapped. “Adults sleep around, Blaze. It’s perfectly normal. Grow up.”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, Lacey,” I said, staring up at her wearily. I’d had a long day and just wanted this night to be over.
“Good luck trying to find a woman half as good as me who will even give you the time of day.” She grinned sharply, her eyes blazing. “You’ll be begging to have me back by the end of the week.” She turned and stormed off before I could reply. The front door to my apartment slammed loudly, shaking the walls.
I dragged myself out of my chair and went over to the fridge. I needed a goddamned drink. I tugged the door open and leaned down to see what I had. One beer. Shit. That wasn’t nearly enough booze for the day I was having. I needed at least three more. Or, better, some hard liquor.
I grabbed my wallet and keys and walked out of my apartment, just leaving the mess behind me on the dining room table to clean up later.
Sami
Mid-December
I walked ahead of the Davidsons, pasting a smile onto my face before turning to show them the kitchen upgrades.
“As you can see,” I said, motioning to the gleaming surfaces, “the kitchen has been completely renovated with a tile floor and backsplash, new stainless steel appliances, oak cabinets, and granite countertops.”
Mrs. Davidson didn’t seem impressed, which didn’t surprise me. She’d hated the rest of the townhouse, too. Mr. Davidson wasn’t much better. He hadn’t asked any questions, choosing instead to complain loudly about every room we’d seen while ignoring every word I had to say in response. This was one of the better townhouses in the area and had just been put on the market in the last two days. If they didn’t buy it, someone else would snatch it up before too long.
“It’s small,” Mrs. Davidson said, her broad face scrunching into a deeper frown. She’d been poo-pooing everything since we arrived. It was a struggle to keep a pleasant look on my face, but, somehow, I managed.
“Nothing like the kitchen we had back in Oregon,” Mr. Davidson chimed in, bushy brows pulled down sharply.
“Seattle is a very competitive market,” I said for at least the tenth time that day as I widened my smile. “But this house is in a great location, and the renovations alone make it-”
Mr. Davidson cut me off. “If we’re going to spend this kind of money, we need at least another thousand feet of living space.”
I looked at him, my cheeks sore from so much concentrated smiling, but I kept it going. “That just isn’t feasible in this market, Mr. Davidson.”
“We had double the space at our old house for half the price,” he countered, staring hard at me in a harsh, challenging way I was caring for less and less as the day went on. “I don’t want to spend more money for less living space.”
“I can appreciate that, sir,” I said. “But the markets in rural Oregon and inside the city limits of Seattle are very different. This townhome just went on the market with an extremely competitive asking price. I can show you something else in this price range, but not with this many square feet and in this same school district. If you don’t make an offer today, someone else will.”
“I don’t like how pushy you are,” Mrs. Davidson snapped. “We’re not going to be forced into buying something we don’t like just so you can get a fat commission check.”
My weary, weatherworn smile finally dropped from my face as my shoulders slumped. I’d been showing these people around for hours, listening to them bitch and complain about every single property we’d seen. Nothing pleased them. They were dead set on finding the exact same rural farmhouse in the middle of Seattle that they’d had in the countryside in Oregon. No matter how often I told them it just wasn’t going to happen, they refused to believe me. They’d started out disagreeable and had slowly become blatantly combative as the hours passed.
“Ma’am, I would never pressure a client into a purchase they didn’t want to make.” I chose my words carefully, making sure to say them kindly when all I wanted to do was scream at these people. It had become more than evident after visiting the first property on our list that they weren’t going to make an offer on anything. “But it is part of my job to make sure you understand the market.”
“How dare you talk to us that way?” Mr. Davidson turned a fiery gaze on me that was somewhat muted by the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses.
I blinked at him, stunned, as though he’d reached out and slapped me across the face. “Mr. Davidson, I didn’t mean to offend you. I only wanted to explain how the Seattle real estate market worked and assist you in making an informed decision concerning the purchase of your new home.”
“Let’s go, Wanda,” he said, ignoring me completely — as he had for the better part of the day.
“I don’t want to look at another house as long as I live,” she wailed.
“Please feel free to reach me by phone or email if you have any questions!” I called, watching as the two of them left, grumbling to each other about how I’d wasted their day and had been rude on top of that.
As soon as they slammed the front door, I wilted against one of the granite countertops. I’d burned through an entire Saturday running those ungrateful people around most of Seattle, smiling through their grumbled complaints and rudeness. I was mentally exhausted, but keyed up physically. I needed to find a way to release the pressure that had built up from hours of swallowing back snarky responses. I checked my watch to see that it was nearly five. I wanted a nice long shower and a way to unwind after a long hard week.
I made sure all the doors and windows were secured before leaving the townhouse, locking the front door behind me. I pulled my phone out of my purse and called Amy.
“Hey, girl, what’s up?” she asked, the buoyant sound of her voice already lifting my sprits a little.
I groaned into the phone as I pulled my jacket around myself. “I just had the shittiest day on top of the shittiest week. I need to have some fun tonight. What do you have going on?”
“Funny you should ask,” she said. “I just got off the phone with Lisa. I was about to call you to see if you’d be down with a last minute girls’ night. It’s been too long since the three of us got together.”
“You read my mind. What did you two decide?”
“The Thirsty Fox around seven,” she replied. “Drinks, apps, maybe some cute guys… That work for you?”
“That sounds perfect. I’ll see you ladies there.” We hung up, and I walked down to my car in the light rain to drive across town to my condo.
It was a tiny one bedroom, but I owned it outright thanks to several years of excellent luck — and some skill — as a realtor at one of the top agencies in Seattle. I’d just fallen into the business a few months after earning my degree in history at the University of Washington. There wasn’t much I could do with my degree that didn’t involve teaching or continuing to earn an advanced degree. Luckily, there just happened to be someone from the real estate agency tabling at the first job fair I’d attended, desperate to get out of my thankless waitressing job.
Eager to wash my crappy day right down the drain, I stripped off my clothes and jumped into a steamy hot shower. I felt much better after I got out, wrapping one towel around my body and another arou
nd my head. I put on a nice dress and blow dried my long black hair, leaving it loose. Makeup was the final touch — a smoky eye, bright red lipstick, and just enough powder to even out my creamy complexion. I was planning to really let loose tonight and didn’t want to worry about limiting what I drank in order to drive home safely, so I took an Uber to the bar.
The girls were already at a high top table, but they didn’t have drinks yet. They must’ve only just gotten here, probably in the same cab since they lived just five minutes away from each other. I walked over to join them, giving them each a hug before hopping up into the only empty stool. It was Saturday night, but early, so the bar wasn’t as loud as it was bound to get around nine o’clock when the real fun started. I hoped to have a nice buzz going by then.
“You won’t believe the week I’ve had!” I said and blew air out of my bottom lip. Just being with these ladies helped me relax. I’d known Lisa since middle school, and Amy and I had been roommates all four years of college. They knew me inside and out, the same way I knew them. There was comfort in that.
“Tell me about it,” Amy said, scrunching her small nose and narrowing her light brown eyes. She had caramel skin that never needed a stitch of makeup — it looked radiant all on its own, no matter how tired or harried she was, which was monumentally unfair. Tonight she had her tight curls kept back from her face with a headband and a touch of dark color on her full lips. “This week was so crazy, I had to go into the office this morning to finish the budget for next year. I was there for seven hours. None of the other accountants had to go in. Just lucky old me.”
