Chapter Fourteen
Caleb’s POV
There was a lock with a keypad on our front door that looked slightly different than what I remembered being there previously.
None of the ways I tried to get into the flat had worked.
Key code, keys, finger print? After a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully to gain entry into my own home, I saw Emilia rushing down the hallway with her arms full of what looked like take away containers.
Straight for my apartment. I was thankful for half a second, thinking she’d let me in so I could shower and check on my wife.
She brushed past me, knocking into my shoulder and speeding inside, immediately slamming the door in my face. I stood there, fucking flabbergasted for a few moments.
Did she really just slam the door in my face?
I mean, I knew Devin was probably pissed about me staying out super late, way later than planned.
Basically all night. But this was the first time it happened!
She couldn’t be too pissed at me. And her changing the locks on me?
! That felt like a huge overreaction. She would have had to call one of the overnight guys and they were expensive, something she never would have splurged on.
I left after knocking for a few minutes. Now, I was back. It had been several hours and she was being so petty that she wouldn’t even answer the door when I was knocking, and neither would her friends. It was ridiculous and starting to get close to evening, dinner time was finally here.
I’d been out all day after leaving Becky’s bed. I tried to come home, and she wouldn’t let me in. Then I left and tried to do some holiday shopping, grabbed groceries. And the whole day, I hadn’t heard a single peep from my wife. Not a single text, call, email.
All fucking day.
Instead of sulking and basking in the frustration at her tantrum, I’d been walking around the park the last hour, trying to clear my head.
I wanted to go back into my life without the visions of last night dancing in my head, so I could face my wife with as little guilt as possible.
But her attitude and sass was not helping the situation.
I’d wanted to get Becky all the way the fuck out of my system last night, but fucking every way we did?
Everywhere we did it?! The prospect of getting caught?
The very thought had me getting hard again.
And, the secrecy of it all? It was such a high, a rush, a thrill that added another layer of excitement to all of the fucking we did.
It was definitely one I was tempted to do again, because, fuck it was all so hot.
She knew how to work a dick! That mouth?
That tight little asshole? That perfect pussy?
Knowing literally anyone could have seen us?
The rush to not get caught when we heard someone getting closer to where we were fucking?
It made me feel so hot, so exciting, it made it all that much more taboo and hot. Fuck it was hot!
But.
I promised myself that it was for one night, last night, and last night only.
I couldn’t go running around all over town, fucking Becky wherever I pleased.
No matter how exciting that thought was.
As made evident by the tightening of my pants at the thought of it.
I had a wife, and a life I needed to get back to.
I drug a hand down my face, irritated and incredibly annoyed.
Shit.
I finally picked up my phone, deciding to call my wife. God knows how many times I tried to talk to her already. Turning around, I made my way back toward our building. I rolled my shoulders and then my neck. I was going to be the one to extend the olive branch.
*****
Two hours later, I had grocery bags at my feet and just wanted to put them away and cuddle Devin.
The grocery store was a nightmare. I sighed heavily as the phone rang and rang, still trying to be the bigger person here.
Devin’s voicemail picked up, and I left a quick message, letting her know I was home and I had her favorites.
My thoughts had been going around and around in my head.
Maybe she would calm down if I brought over her favorite sushi?
Maybe she’d be in the mood for Chinese? She usually wanted Asian food when she was mad.
Maybe I could go pick it up and leave the bags here, that way we could get to work wrapping the gifts I had been carrying around with me, as well as the groceries now.
She just needed to let me in.
I was ready to ring her again, when I noticed a few missed calls from my mom, an email from HR, and about twenty text messages from Becky telling me to call her and that it was important, on my lock screen.
I needed to call Devin first before I started checking all the other shit.
She had ignored my calls. Over and over, so I was only trying one more time.
I gave up and called my mom. She texted me while I was calling Devin, standing out here with a shit ton of bags in front of me. It rang exactly once, maybe, before she answered. Instead of saying hello, she started screaming at me!
“What have you done, Caleb?!” I almost dropped the phone, I was so startled!
“What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?
! Did you really cheat on your wife?! Did you have the nerve to cheat on the woman I consider a daughter?
!” Her voice was raw, filled with anger, and had a chill to it that crept up my spine.
“Wh-what the–What are you talking about, Mom? Why would I cheat on Devin?” I could feel myself sweating as the lie fell flat as soon as it came out of my mouth. It didn’t sound as natural as I thought it would. I had never been able to lie to my mother, but I was trying.
Poorly it seemed.
“I have not a single fucking clue, Caleb,” she shouted as she sounded like she was grinding her teeth together so hard she was ready to hurt herself!
“You had an emotional affair for almost two months or more after your wife told you she was uncomfortable with it all and you assured her thi-this, this whore was ‘just a coworker’,” she did her best impersonation of me as she said it.
I could tell Mom was on a roll, driving the steam roller, and I did not want to get in her path!
“Then! You had the audacity to go and fuck that exhibitionistic whore last night! Multiple times! All over your company’s Christmas party?! What the fuck is wrong with your head?!” She paused, heaving breaths, but giving me time to respond, just not knowing what to say.
“That was YOUR! COMPANY! CHRISTMAS! PARTY! You were there with Devin! WITH YOUR WIFE! What were you thinking?! Your wife was there, Caleb! Your wife! My daughter-in-law!” She was screaming, screeching at supersonic levels.
She was so loud and so angry by the end of her rant, I was sure that she was going to disown me.
Cutting me off from the rest of the family, legally taking me out of her will.
It sounded like she was ready to go for it.
I’d never heard her sound like this before and it made my legs suddenly feel like they were made of nothing but jell-o.
My brain had short circuited, like plugging in something to a bad outlet and throwing a breaker.
More than half of my brain had to have gone dark, only the sections needed to survive without a conscious effort were still lit up.
How? Who? Wh-who else knew? How many people knew?! Is this what the rush of notifications were?! Fuck it was Sunday! My hands were in my hair, pulling it in each different direction, stressing out and spiraling.
Devin knows, the thought taunted me, relentlessly as soon as it entered my mind. It was the only thought in there, beating it into my brain as fact and gospel.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I put her on speaker phone, my voice distracted as I pulled up my email sitting on the floor next to the door. My legs were going to give way any second now and I didn’t want to fall.
How did Mom know that? Did Becky fucking set me up?
Looking at the HR email notification, they wanted to see me first thing Monday morning.
I was pissed, and the small flicker of dread soon turned into a mountain, waiting for the snow to bury me in an avalanche.
This was it. This had to be a trap. There was no way this wasn’t a set up.
Fuck!
I opened a text to Becky. I needed to know what she’d been saying and to whom. I needed to see if she ran her fucking mouth. If this ruined my marriage, I was coming for her!
Fucking snake!
Sunday, 5:45PM
Caleb: On the phone with my mom right now. Did you by any chance film us that night? Or did you tell someone at work?
Sunday, 5:52PM
Becky: No. Why? Wait. Is that why I got an email to go to HR first thing Monday morning?!
Sunday, 5:53PM
Caleb: Ok
Fuck. Someone knows. Or saw. Fuck!
Sunday, 5:54PM
Becky: Ok? Ok?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN Ok, Caleb?!
We were busted. Busted! I was just starting to get the gears turning again when the words Mom was saying registered with me. It took a minute too long for it all to click.
“What? Say that again?” I demanded, finally cluing into the conversation.
“Which part?” She scoffed, annoyed with me. Annoyed that I’d ruined her relationship with Devin. Annoyed that I turned out to be a dumpster fire of a husband.
“All of it. I don’t know what’s going on, Mom.” I said, finally letting the defeat seep out. She let out a sigh that sounded like it weighed about two tons on her shoulders.
“Caleb. Don’t you dare insult me by thinking I don’t know.
That she doesn’t know, I mean, come on! Who do you think told me?
We’re not idiots, Caleb! Devin knows! She sent me the proof!
Even after you promised not to contact that two bit floozy again, you were!
You were still texting her. Why?! She tried to get you to see she wasn’t comfortable with that vile trashy woman trying to insert herself into your lives, so, I just have to know.
Why?! You threw everything away! For what?
! For who?!” My mother sobbed into the phone.
They weren’t just angry sobs. They were heartbroken, incredibly sad sobs pouring from my mother.
I had never felt so small as her words started sinking in.
She knows? She can’t know.
“I know. I should have listened to her when she first brought me her concerns, and that’s on me, Mom.
I didn’t listen. But I haven’t talked to her other than to tell her to leave me alone in weeks!
It’s been weeks, Mom.” Another heavy sigh came from my mother.
How many of those did she have saved for me? How many had she already sighed for me?
“Caleb. You need to hear me. She is leaving you. Devin is leaving you.” She paused, and it was completely silent. That silence hung heavy in the air, uncomfortably so until she continued.
“Devin heard and saw you having sex with that nasty tramp on the terrace at the holiday party! Devin is done. She said she changed the locks and that I could come with you to get your stuff on Monday or Tuesday from the front desk. The doormen have been keeping your things since this morning. Eddie and Emilia were the ones who made sure to get everything that’s yours packed.
There is no trace of you left in her space.
She told me she’s already hired a deep cleaning company to come in and give the entire apartment a crime scene clean, and to take any and all soft surfaces to the dry cleaners.
Just in case. She wanted to make sure there would be no trace left of you. ”
I sat there on the hallway floor, my ears ringing. My brain couldn’t compute what was being told to me.
She was leaving me. She knew. My wife was leaving me because she caught me fucking Becky.
What the fuck did I do?
“No. No. She can’t leave me, Mom! I made a mistake. A mistake, Mom! One mistake! That’s all! It was just a drunken mistake!” I was running my hands through my hair. I stood up and started banging on the door now, desperately trying to get to Devin.
“Devin! Dev! Baby! It was a mistake! I swear! It will never happen again! Devin, please! Please, baby!” I still had my phone pressed to my ear, thinking my mother would hear my pleas and give me some kind of emotional support.
Until her raised voice came through the speaker.
She made sure I could hear every cutting word.
“A mistake was not listening to Devin’s concerns. You fucked up! Literally, fucked. Up. And multiple times. Multiple times, Caleb!” Her voice was ice.
No…
I could feel the panic setting in, my banging became more frantic before I heard someone behind me telling me to move along. I turned to see two police officers.
Had she called the police on me? What do I do now? Where was I supposed to go?
It felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole. What the fuck was going to happen to me? I had just epically blown up my whole goddamn fucking life, for some pussy that wasn’t my wife’s.
Fuck.
It wasn’t even worth it.