A Little Bit of Guilt
Little Bits #5
A. E. Murphy
A Little Bit of Guilt
Little Bits #5
Summer’s story
The characters and events in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
© 2019, [Alexandra Murphy]
Amazon Kindle Edition.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
Note From the Author
I apologize that this has taken me as long as it has, I just can’t rush the voices in my head no matter how badly I want to. I hope the wait was worth it.
Thank you for sticking by me and of course, happy reading.
Rue Paul, thank you for making Mum happy and for loving my kids.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
STEPDORK
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By The Author
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he whispers in my ear, making my spine tingle and my skin break out in tiny little static pimples.
His lips touch mine, at first gently but then powerfully, he grips my hair with both hands, caging me in with his arms as he walks me toward the wall.
When he pulls back, he’s breathing heavily and so am I.
“Say the word, say yes, and it’ll be the last time you think about anything else for at least the next four hours.”
Four hours?
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes…”
I wake up, jolting upright like a cliché character in a cliché movie. Angry at the fact I have dreamed about him again, I kick the blanket off my body and roll out of bed, grumbling expletives under my breath.
“Babe?” Chris mumbles into his pillow, his eyes still closed. He reaches out a hand to touch me but I’m already on my way to the bathroom.
Every time I have that dream, I respond the same way, with a solid yes, right before I climb his muscular, toned body and fuck him until we’re both raw.
There’s something about that man that shatters my control. It’s why I go to great lengths to avoid him.
I am a married woman! I am married.
MARRIED.
I look at the gold band on my finger and bite hard on my lip. Big mistake. My toes connect with a pair of jeans and I trip, biting my lip even harder when my body hits the door to the bathroom.
I taste blood.
“Fushka,” I hiss, using my new word because I say the other F word too much and Chris hates it.
I really need to clean my room. It’s as though I’ve regressed to my teen years, back before I left for college. I can hear my mom screaming at me to tidy my room. If she saw it in this state, she’d flip the fushka out.
I get ready for the day ahead, being quick but quiet, not leaving until I look like I belong in the suburbia I convinced Chris to buy us into. Gone are the days that I was charmed by the life I thought I should be living, the life my mom and dad have, the life I thought I wanted because it was the only life I knew.
Now I don’t know what I want.
I feel bad for manipulating him into believing this is what we needed to be happy.
My bottom lip trembles as I force down the memories of how I’d spend hours cooking for him, cleaning after him, looking after him, and receiving nothing in return. This isn’t the nineteen-fifties, I know, but I always imagined the idea of being one of those women in the floral dresses, dusting the shelves when their husbands come home with their briefcase in hand.
I did that for a year, and let me tell you, it’s awful.
Absolutely awful.
Respect to the women who do it by choice and respect to the women who don’t. That life is not for me. Though it might be if I had a dog or like a kid or something.
We can’t get a dog because of Chris’ allergies and we can’t have a kid because he doesn’t want one yet and now I’m not sure I do either. I can’t bring a kid into this.
A kid isn’t going to fix anything.
As I’m leaving the house I hear Chris’ footsteps right before I slam the door. I’ve been avoiding him for weeks. Trying to pretend that we’re normal despite the fact he’s suddenly interested in me, after months of ignoring me and speaking to me like shit. Treating me like his mother…
I stomp past the early morning joggers who wave at me, and I make my way to the bus stop. I don’t mind taking public transport, which is good because through the city it’s a necessity, I don’t know how Maya and Marie cope with driving everywhere. Parking is horrendous. People suck at driving. Cabs think they own the roads. There’s a traffic jam around every corner.
I take a bus to the metro and grab a subway to the city and then walk it or call Maya depending on how I feel.
Today I walk it, not to Maya’s but to Marie’s place, not her new home with Jacob, I don’t want to disturb them yet, but to her studio.
It takes forty minutes to get there, and my feet hurt so fiercely I collapse in a salon chair immediately after arriving.
“I’ll bring coffee.” Loryn bursts into action, her clients are all baking with foils in their hair anyway.
“I need to work on my cardio,” I grumble, my chest heaving painfully. “I have sweat on my lip.”
“You need to eat,” Loryn admonishes as she pushes open the door to the employee area and motions for me to follow. I do but only because I know there’s a couch in there that I can crash on.
Loryn, with her shiny brown hair tucked into a neat bun, hands me a warm cup of sugarless coffee which I drink eagerly. I immediately begin to feel better.
“So, how are things?” she asks cautiously as she pours her own coffee into a deep mug with a picture of Lucas’ face on the side. When I tilt my head to look at it, raising a brow questioningly, she slides her hand over his face. “He buy that for you?”
“Of course he did,” she sighs, but I see her smile so I know she doesn’t mind. “He’s such a dork.”
“He’s so alpha. My book club would go crazy for him.” I grin, meeting her brown eyes and winking.
Loryn moves to the door and peeks out to where her right-hand man is joking loudly with the clients. I always forget his name…
Tony I think, or Tod?
“Marie should be done soon; I have to wash Mrs. Cowell’s hair.” She chews on her lip as she assesses me. “Will you be okay?”
“I promise not to put my fingers in the sockets, Mom.”
She rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her, I consider following her into the salon but this couch is far too comfortable.
“Toby,”
I whisper to myself. “That’s his name.” I really need to remember that. I remember Raquel, their other stylist, just fine. It’s just Toby, he looks more like a Stephen or something.
The door opens around ten minutes later and Marie strolls in, her blonde hair tied back but hanging loose in places, her forehead glistening with perspiration that she wipes onto the bottom of her shirt, showing off her lightly visible abs.
When she smiles at me, I rush to her and wrap my arms around her waist.
“Bitch, you better not be hugging me,” she laughs as she hugs me back with one arm. She has been in such a good mood since she and Jacob made up and moved in together officially, oh and got engaged.
As suddenly as I hugged her though, she tosses me away and I stumble back onto the couch.
“So violent,” I grumble.
She looks at the rock on her finger as she always does.
I can hardly believe he got her to agree to marry him but it’s clear to see she’s so in love and so is he. I’m starting to lose my belief in love, I loved Chris this much once, I got the puppy-eyed look for him and look where we are.
“My brother keeps asking about you,” she announces, making me tense. “He gets this weird look in his eye, like a man who has discovered a treasure chest. Does your vagina vibrate or something?”
“Stop,” I hiss, glaring at her. “I don’t ever want to talk about your brother or what happened… ever.”
The thought of his hands on my body, his lips on my skin, his arms around me as I slept, the way I fit so snuggly against his chest is enough to make me crave him.
But then I crawl into bed with my husband each night and the overwhelming guilt I feel…
“Shit, are you gonna cry again?” Marie looks panicked, she hates it when I cry but I can’t help it.
“I’m sensitive!” I screech, sniffling uncontrollably. I can hardly breathe.
“Ew, no. I’m sending in Loryn.”
“Marie!” I whine, elongating her name. “Don’t be a bitch or I won’t be your maid of honor…”
The way she’s smiling at me right now is closer to a cringe. Her bottom lip is flat along the base of her teeth.
“Actually, I kind of already asked Maya…”
“WHAT?” I screech, standing, my hands fisting by my sides. “You fucking slut whore face bag! What about me?”
“Maya has more time on her hands and I’m kind of hoping she’ll just plan the whole thing.” Marie shrugs, looking slightly apologetic.
I want to cry again but I get it, Maya has more time these days and Maya has always been Marie’s girl. “It was wrong of me to assume.”
“Hell no, it wasn’t, it was a close call, you know?”
I flip her off, not needing her pity. Besides, there’s always Loryn.
“How’s Chris?”
I glare at her again as she moves to sit beside me and props her boot-clad feet on my lap.
“Still not good?”
Shaking my head, I say, “He’s Chris and I’m his lying whore of a cheating bitch wife.”
“You’re really cussing today.” She looks worried for me. Hell, I feel worried for me. “Do you want to go get drunk?”
“No, I don’t have the stomach for it right now.” I push my hands through my hair and murmur, “Or the money. I feel bad using his money seeing as I fucked your brother.”
She lets out a bark of laughter but immediately stops it when I glare at her, yet again. “I’m sorry, babe, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I need to tell him. It’s eating at me.”
Marie removes her feet from my lap and sits up, looking at the space over my shoulder. “He’ll leave you, you know that, right? You need to be ready for that.”
“I’m terrified.”
“I know.”
“But things haven’t been good for a long time.”
“I know.”
“I’ll have to go and live with my mom…”
“You could always move in with Mason, he’s looking for a roommate now that I’ve moved out.”
I laugh maniacally. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Kind of, but also, no, it’s an option. His is closer to all of us and he goes away a lot anyway.”
I blink twice, slowly, to make sure I’m not dreaming. “There’s something wrong with you.”
She grins and replies, “Yup.”
I puff out my cheeks for a moment, hitting her with blank eyes. Then I change the subject, kind of. “I think I want to leave Chris, but I’m scared to be on my own and I know that’s so unfair on him, he should get to make that choice, it’s me who has been the shit one.”
“Hold up.” Marie hops onto her feet and props her hands on her hips. “One, you haven’t been the only shit one. He made you miserable for months. Months. I had to wipe your tears and even let you dry-hump my leg because he wasn’t giving you any.”
“Bitch, you swore we’d never talk about that.”
“Two, he’s the type who publicly humiliates you by berating you in public like some kind of child.”
She has a point there.
“He has good qualities, sure, he provides for you, mostly, but he’s antisocial and rude, he doesn’t make an effort with any of us anymore. He doesn’t even sit with you for a nightly dinner, or any other meal.”
“Okay, okay, I’ve listed his faults enough, thank you.” I huff, crossing my arms over my chest. “I shouldn’t have used your brother…”
“Bitch, he’s a grown-ass man who can take care of his own grown ass. He knew and knows what he’s getting into. That boy needs morals.”
“Stop mentioning his ass,” I reply, my tone dreamy. “Will he be at your housewarming this weekend?”
She shakes her head. “He’s on a mission.”
Oh thank you, JESUS! “Because Chris wants to come.”
“Chris is always welcome to come. He always has been.” Her tone is softer now. “I don’t have a problem with Chris, he’s a good guy when he makes the effort. I just don’t think he’s right for you.”
“And your brother is?”
“Hell no, sorry, sweet, I love you but nobody is good enough for my brother.”
Yikes. “Are you forgetting I screwed him?”
“So long as that’s all it was,” she replies stretching high and then bending low just as the door opens and Jacob strolls in. When he sees her position, his eyes light up like a puppy who has spotted a bone. “Hey, cutie pie.” She puts on a heavy Southern accent, looking at him through the gap in her legs. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
When she rights herself, his smile falls until he finally spots me and smiles again, but differently this time.
Sometimes I get jealous of Marie and her relationship with Jacob. Just like I get jealous of Loryn and Lucas. Their men worship them, and they return it. I worshipped Chris too, but he’s never interested. I want my man to love me so much I’m all he thinks about. Why can’t I have that?
Normally I’d say it’s a case of the grass is greener, but this… this isn’t a fantasy. It’s real. They have it. They’ve found happiness. Perhaps it will happen for me too. I’m just with the wrong person. Or he’s with the wrong person.
I fucking cheated on him! Not the other way around.
What is wrong with me?
That’s not the person I want to be.
Marie gives me a ride to the store because I have nothing left to feed my husband or myself. It’s difficult shopping with her now, especially when Jacob is with us, he can’t even get out of the car these days so we drop him home on the way and I have to sit and watch them make out like teens in the front seats for what feels like hours.
“Oh look, Cheetos,” Marie deadpans, tossing the spicy snack into the shopping cart. “That’s your kind of snack.”
“You’re not funny, you’re just a cunt,” I hiss, ramming the side of the cart into her hip.
She dissolves into laughter, using the cart I assaulted her with to keep her
self upright.
“Do you think I should tell him?”
“You ask me that every time we bring it up,” she replies, no longer laughing but looking serious. “I can’t tell you what to do. You’re a grown-ass bitch.” She raises a finger to stop me from going on and continues softly, “But if it’s eating at you like this it’s probably for the best.”
“I’m going to tell him,” I state, my decision made. But saying it aloud makes my stomach lurch. “No, I’m not. I changed my mind.”
“I get it, you’re worried you’ll hurt him…”
“That’s not even it,” I breathe, picking up a can of corn from the shelf and checking its salt content. “What if he doesn’t care and just walks away?”
“You’d deserve it.”
I smack her bicep.
“Well, you would.”
“I know that, but you’re not supposed to say that!” I cry.
“Look, you gotta tell him, Summer. You have to. You’re going crazy. You’re driving me crazy!”
I know she’s not being mean, just honest and I also know she’s right.
I’m going to tell him…
“Mom called, she wants to know if we’re going Sunday,” Chris calls from the other room as I clean the stove, my hands shaky.
I’m going to tell him.
I keep saying it and have been saying it since the wedding. I need to tell him.
“Summer? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I call back, dropping the sponge onto the gray worktop. “Can you come here a sec?”
A Little Bit of Guilt: Little Bits #5 Page 1