Chapter 6
B right sunlight streams across my face, warm and welcome on my skin as I slowly roll onto my side and scream at the top of my lungs. Oliver goes shooting off the bed, smashing his hip into the nightstand before tumbling back with an oomph against the wall.
“What the fuck?” he yells, rubbing his smarting side.
“Crap. You scared the hell out of me.” My heart is racing a million miles an hour as I try to catch my breath. “I forgot you were here. I’m so sorry. I just didn’t expect a head of dark hair to be on the pillow beside me.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to be. I fell asleep making sure you were asleep.”
I sit up, bringing the blankets with me and laugh. “Do you remember the last time we had a sleepover together?”
He grins, running his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair. “We were twelve and my parents thought we were doing inappropriate things with each other.”
I giggle. “After that, we weren’t allowed any more sleepovers in the same room. I had to sleep in one of the guest rooms in another wing at your house whenever I stayed the night.”
“Just as well, I think I would have been scarred for life if I had woken up beside you with morning wood.”
I scrunch my nose. “Ew. Gross. I don’t want to think about… that.”
He laughs, coming back to sit on the bed beside me. His clothes are a mess, his white T-shirt wrinkled, his track shorts twisted. He’s wearing what he showed up in last night. I must have changed because I’m in pajamas. My pajamas, no longer Carter’s clothes. Carter. My suitcase. Tony.
“I don’t remember much after you arrived.”
“Once Carter came with your stuff, I gave you an Ativan. Remember?”
“Barely. Did you have me take it because I was an emotional wreck or because you thought I was going to have a seizure?”
“The first. You showed no signs of anything else. I wanted to make sure you’d get some sleep, and I didn’t think you would without a little help.”
“Probably right on that.” I flop back against the pillow, staring up at the high, vaulted ceiling. “Tony isn’t going to break my streak. If I can make it through the end of medical school and the first two years of my residency without having one, I can make it through a cheating fiancé.”
“Wanna talk more about it?”
“No. I have a lot of questions. A lot of things to think through. But I’m not sure I have a whole lot left to say.” I twist onto my side to face my friend. “Thank you for coming. For rushing out of your house in the middle of the night in a rainstorm for me.”
He smiles softly, running his hand over my hair. “I’d do anything for you, babe. You’re my no matter what. My ride or die. And you know, you’re always welcome to come stay with us. We have plenty of space.”
“I know and thank you.” I sigh, twisting the sheet between my fingers. “It’s weird, but this place still kind of feels like my second home even though you no longer live here. Something I still can’t believe I forgot. I felt so stupid when Carter answered the door.”
Oliver hitches up a shoulder. “He didn’t mind. I think he’s glad you came here.”
I snort. “I doubt that highly. I ruined his date, cried about my boring sex life and cheating fiancé, and then imposed myself to move in.”
“He invited you to move in. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t cool with it.”
I know he wouldn’t have. Carter is a great guy.
An amazing guy truly, but he would have never done that just to be that great guy.
He’s great because it’s effortless for him and he doesn’t even have to think about it.
But me staying here puts him in a weird position.
He’s my supervisor. He evaluates my work.
We were already playing a fine line with my relationship with his brother, but me living here?
I need to find a new place to live, but the thought of apartment hunting, of trying to move…
I just need some time to sort myself out. A couple of weeks at most. What harm can staying here for a couple of weeks do?
“Come to the compound today,” Oliver suggests, cutting off my thoughts. “Bring your suit and we’ll swim and eat. You’ll be with family.”
I smile at that. It’s true, Oliver’s my family.
His parents and my parents were best friends until my parents decided I wasn’t something they wanted to deal with any longer if they could avoid it.
Then the Fritz clan sort of turned their back on that friendship.
I haven’t seen much of my parents since they moved to Australia to follow my younger brother, Scott’s family.
Scott got married straight out of college to an Australian woman, and now he has a daughter with another on the way.
The last time I spoke to my mother was when I called to speak to my niece, and she accidentally picked up his phone. That conversation lasted all of three minutes.
I lift my hand, hovering it over my face, staring at the sparkling diamond. “Should I flush it?”
“You could sell it. Donate the money to a charity or use it to get yourself a new place.”
I could do that, but knowing Tony, he’ll make a stink and demand I return it. “I’ll mail it to him.” I don’t want his money anyway.
“So you’re done? Like, done, done? No second thoughts or waiting period?”
“Carter?!” I yell, making Oliver jar back, covering his ears.
“Damn. Warn a guy before you start screaming.”
“Carter!” I try again, and a minute later, I hear him trudging down the hall.
The door opens and he pops his head in. “You bellowed?”
“Come in here, would ya?”
He grunts something under his breath but does as I ask.
“Was he there last night when you went over?”
He nods, hovering by the foot of the bed, visibly uncomfortable to be in here during my pajama party with his brother.
“He looked like shit if that helps.”
“It doesn’t. Did he say anything to you?”
He pauses, and I can see him mulling something over, debating his words and choosing them carefully when careful is the last thing I want him to be with me.
“Spit it out. I want all the details. Hold nothing back.”
Carter sinks down onto the end of the bed, falling to his side and propping his head up with his hand. I sit up, scooting down the bed some and Oliver follows.
“He said he loves and respects you.” I glare at that, but he holds his hand up in surrender. “Let me finish, okay? If you want the whole truth, I will give it to you, but it will hurt.”
I snort out an incredulous laugh. “You think?”
“No sarcasm before I’ve had my coffee,” Oliver quips.
I reach over and elbow him without removing my eyes from Carter. “If you’re going to make an incision, do it without hesitation or second guessing.”
Carter smirks. “I told you that.”
“You did, now own it.”
“Fine. The reason he doesn’t get… wild in bed with you is because he loves and respects you and believes that if he does those things with you then he’s treating you like a whore, which is not something he wants to do.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “So he loves and respects me, but not enough to remain faithful to me or our relationship?”
“Yeah, I have nothing for that.”
“You’re telling me he thinks having sex with me, the way many, many couples do, is treating me like a whore?” I belt out another laugh and it actually sends a chill up my spine. That’s how sardonic and bitter it is. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Carter coughs out a laugh of his own.
“No,” I continue, stretching my legs out in front of me, my feet nearly hitting Carter’s chest as I absently rub my thighs under the blankets. “I’m totally serious. That makes zero sense.”
“What can I say, you were engaged to an idiot.”
I glare menacingly at my friend. “If you say I told you so, Oliver Fritz, I will hurt you. I’m not exactly sure how just yet, but I am a woman on the edge, not to be messed with.” I turn back to Carter. “You’re holding back. What else?”
He groans, falling onto his back, his hands behind his head, arms butterflied out. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Fine. She wasn’t the first, just the one you caught him with.”
I had a feeling.
But it hits me so acutely, I have to suck in a breath, followed by another. I drop my head onto Oliver’s shoulder, biting my lip, trying desperately to hold back the tears and make my chin stop quivering.
I open my mouth. Gulp. Try again and whisper, “Done, done.”
Oliver kisses the top of my head, squeezing me closer into his side, and I close my eyes, shaking.
Never have I felt so betrayed. That’s what hurts the most. The betrayal. The lying. The sneaking around right under my nose. I knew we had problems. I knew our relationship was struggling because we made more time for our work than for each other. But cheating on him never entered my mind.
Not once.
Yes, I’ve been attracted to other men. Hell, the man with the piercing brown eyes staring at me right now is highest on that list. But I wouldn’t have acted on that attraction. Attraction to others is normal, cheating is not.
I slip the ring from my finger and chuck it across the room.
It makes a ping when it hits the wall and falls to the floor.
I wipe the few tears that escaped from my face.
“Well, now he can fuck all those women all the ways he never did me without having to bother rushing home to me. My vibrator gave it to me better than he ever did.”
Carter chokes on his breath, covering his face with his hands. Oliver makes a gagging noise in the back of his throat.
“Incidentally, did you pack it?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” Carter grumbles between his fingers. “I grabbed from drawers and just threw whatever I touched into the suitcase.”
“I kept it in my nightstand.”
“Then no.”
“Dammit. Good thing Prime has free two-day delivery.”
“Christ,” Carter wheezes. “I’ll be sure to let you open any boxes that arrive here.”
“Probably wise. I might go on a vibrator purchasing bender.”
“And I just threw up in my mouth,” Oliver declares.
All kidding—sorta—aside, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Three years of a relationship. A year and a half of it being engaged. I thought Tony was my future. My forever. How do I go from that to this in the span of only a few short hours?
He would have married me all the while cheating on me the entire time.
Hell, how many times did he sleep with someone only to turn around and sleep with me?
The stupid ass and his overly traditional upbringing.
Sex is a sin; marriage is sacred and holy.
How easily this could have been avoided.
We could have been having hot sex every night of the week.
But no. He can tell Carter whatever bullshit he wants, but if he loved me the way he claims he does, he never would have done this. Any of this.
Maybe it’s best that I found out now. Because even though it hurts like a son of a bitch, the thought of continuing on like this, of living a lie, of being made to look the fool, rips me apart.
Tomorrow, first chance I can grab someone to examine me—other than Carter—I’m going to get tested for every STI on the planet. Ugh.
“Coffee,” I declare. “I need a lot of coffee. And a bath. With chocolate. And gummy worms. And Oreos with crunchy peanut butter slathered all over them. And a week on some Caribbean Island. Or surgeries. Lots and lots of surgeries. And delivering babies. All the babies.”
Yes. Work. I’ll throw myself into work and eventually my heartache will sort itself out.
And one day I won’t wake up feeling this way.
Like my life is coming apart at the seams.