6
Ben's key hits the lock at eight-forty-three.
I hear it from my bedroom, where I've been sitting on the edge of the bed for the last twenty minutes doing nothing in particular.
I went to my room when it became clear that Nikki wasn't going to leave and that being in the same room with her when Ben walked in was going to create a conversation I didn't want to have.
She didn't try to stop me. She just waved from the couch, fingers waggling, and said, "Night, Jude. Thanks again."
Thanks again. Like I held the door for her.
The front door opens. I hear Ben's voice, low and rushed, something about traffic, something about his phone dying — the excuse-making cadence I've heard a hundred times aimed at a hundred different people he's let down in a hundred different small ways.
Then Nikki's voice, bright and forgiving, pitched in that register she uses for him that's different from the one she used for me, lighter, less serrated.
"I was starting to think you weren't coming," she says, and I can hear the pout in it, manufactured and effective.
"I'm here, I'm here. Sorry, babe. Come here."
There's a silence that's probably a kiss. Then footsteps — both of them — moving down the hall toward Ben's room. His door opens. His door closes.
I sit on my bed and listen.
It doesn't take long. Within minutes, the sounds start filtering through the wall — low at first, murmured conversation dissolving into something wordless and rhythmic.
Then Nikki's voice, climbing, the same sounds she made for me but redirected, recycled, aimed at a man who has no idea he's third tonight instead of first.
Ben doesn't know. He doesn't know about me, doesn't know about the couch, doesn't know that the woman underneath him is already full of someone else's cum.
He's in there doing exactly what Nikki told me she came here for, and he's going to finish inside her, and the math of the situation — two men, no protection, one deliberate woman — is going to produce an answer that none of us will know for months.
I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts. I pass Ben's name, keep scrolling, and stop on Vanessa.
Her number is there because of a group chat she started eight months ago, planning a surprise dinner for Ben's birthday.
She used too many exclamation points and asked everyone to Venmo her their share.
I sent twenty-five dollars and a thumbs-up.
That's the entire history of my relationship with Vanessa — twenty-five dollars and a thumbs-up and the knowledge that her boyfriend fucks someone else in the next room twice a month while she plans dinner parties.
Through the wall, Nikki moans, and the sound is loud enough to be performance, a broadcast that carries through drywall and into my room with the clarity of someone who doesn't try to be quiet because quiet was never part of the plan.
I look at Vanessa's name on my screen. I think about the call, the way it would go — the ringing, the pickup, the silence on her end while Nikki's voice fills the background in real time, unmistakable, undeniable.
I wouldn't have to say a word. I could just hold the phone up and let the apartment do the talking.
It wouldn't be kind. It wouldn't be righteous.
It wouldn't be the act of a man who feels guilty or protective or morally obligated to do the right thing.
It would be something smaller and pettier and more honest than any of those motivations — the same impulse that made me say yes to Nikki, the same quiet engine that runs beneath every decision I've made tonight.
Because Ben owes me four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. And because I can.
My thumb hovers over the call button.
Nikki screams through the wall.
I haven't decided yet.
***
Thank you for reading! Please consider rating and reviewing.