by Chelle Sloan
“A toast,” Garrett says as our desserts are put in front of us, which I don’t know how I’m going to eat.
“A toast?” Mark mocks. “So formal.”
“Will you shut the fuck up and let me be serious for a second.”
Charlie swats Mark’s arm and raises her glass. “Yes, Garrett. What would you like to toast to?”
“I just want to say thank you to all of you. I know dinner and a few bottles of wine aren’t enough to show just how much you three have helped me since… well, since everything changed. I know I didn’t say much at the time, but I was scared as hell after my embolism. Knowing that Dad died because of a clot and I… it was a lot to have on my mind. You three are the reason I’m where I’m at today. And I just wanted to say thank you. For everything.”
I can feel the tears forming in the corners of my eyes, which isn’t helped by the fact that Charlie is full-on sobbing. She bolts from her seat and makes her way around the table, wrapping Garrett in a hug so tight that it makes me want to cry more.
“We love you. So much,” Charlie says, but when she stands up, her face immediately changes from sad to a death glare.
“Oh hell the fuck no!”
At Charlie’s words, all of our eyes snap to the direction she is looking.
Annika is at the bar, which we can see from our table through a clear partition. I know I only saw her once at the luncheon, but I recognize her profile instantly. She’s blatantly hanging on a man, her fake breasts are pressed so hard into him that I’m surprised they aren’t deflating.
By the way he’s looking at her, he doesn’t care. In fact, I’m pretty sure he likes it, considering he just accepted a kiss from her that was not appropriate for public viewing.
I turn to look back at Garrett, Mark, and Charlie and their faces are a mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, and a general sense of…
“What in the actual fuck?” Mark says the words I was thinking. “That fucking asshole!”
“Is that… is that Trevor?” Charlie asks.
Trevor. Isn’t Trevor his…
“Yup,” Garrett says, a harshness to his voice I’ve never heard. “That’s my business partner. Kissing my soon-to-be ex-wife.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Garrett
I don’t remember leaving the restaurant.
I don’t remember dropping Paige off at her house.
I don’t remember pulling into the office of Innovative.
Pure adrenaline is guiding me at this point. Ever since I saw Trevor and Annika together, all I could see was red. Lucky for me, Mark was smart enough to get me out of there before I could do anything stupid. I don’t even think they saw us.
My anger isn’t at her. Well, mostly. I knew if she hadn’t moved on before I asked her for the separation, it wouldn’t take her long to find someone else to sink her fake nails into. So seeing her with another man did not surprise me.
No, this feeling of anger is aimed at Trevor. The man was supposed to be my best friend. My business partner. The guy who helped me when I was at my lowest. The man who took me to the hospital so I didn’t die.
When did this start? I really, really want to believe that he and Annika didn’t start whatever they have going on until after the separation. Not that it makes it any better. How could a man start fucking his best friend’s wife before their marriage is even technically over? Or ever? Though I have a sinking feeling this goes back to way before I told Trevor that Annika and I were getting a divorce.
Which is why I’m at the office, booting up his computer, thanking the IT gods that I requested having an admin password to get into any computer in the system.
Trevor and I both have them. When we started the practice, it was a way to make sure that we could get into each other’s computer if we needed to help each other in terms of paperwork, charts, or anything else that could happen when you’re getting a business off the ground. I never thought I’d have to use it to find out how long my supposed best friend has been fucking my wife.
Ex-wife.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Receipts? Emails? Annika has an email address, but I never saw her check it. She only had it to sign up for online shopping sites. If someone couldn’t text her, then she couldn’t be bothered with communication.
Luckily, Trevor’s laptop is set up to receive his text messages.
I scroll through his texts and don’t see Annika’s name. But a name saved as “A” with a peach emoji does catch my eye. And like it happened yesterday, I remember a conversation I had with Trevor just a few months after I started dating Annika.
“Dude, your girl has a fucking amazing ass.”
“Don’t I know it. You should see it when I’m hitting it from behind.”
“Fuck. I gotta hand it to you. You win this round, bro.”
That was what Trevor said to me the night I introduced him to Annika. I never thought about that night, but now it’s coming back to me as if it happened an hour ago. I laughed at the time because Annika met us at a bar, and he drooled as he watched her walk to our table. He was pissed as hell when he found out she was off-limits. And the comments he made about her ass? It was par for the course for Trevor and me back then. I didn’t think anything of it.
Maybe I should have.
Over the years I thought he got over his attraction, especially after he was the one who said I shouldn’t marry Annika.
Fuck, has it been going on that long?
I read the text messages and scroll to the bottom, hoping there is a date stamp. I choose to scroll over the pictures that even without looking, I can tell are pictures of his dick and her tits.
Tits I fucking paid for.
Trevor: Are you coming over tonight?
A: Of course. I’ve missed you. You’re the only one who can make me feel good.
Trevor: You need my cock?
A: I do… you better show it to me. I want to know what I’ll be sucking on later.
Like a glutton, I want to keep reading the messages. But I couldn’t give two fucks right now about the sexting they were doing.
I need date stamps. I need proof.
I look at the timestamp of that particular text message: January 24. Damn. That was after I asked for the separation. I try and scroll down more, but the texts only go back a month, which is about a week after I asked for the separation. I still print them out, because if I need them, I don’t want to read this shit again.
I boot up Trevor’s email. If the man was fucking stupid enough to charge one thing to the practice that went to her, I will absolutely lose it. I’ve already lost a best friend tonight. I can lose a business partner too.
I log onto his Innovative account and thank Christ, there are no emails or receipts that show that he’s been using the business for anything other than that.
However, the man hates passwords and remembering them, so I’m ninety-nine percent sure if I go to his personal email, I won’t even need to guess his password to get in.
Bingo.
With the click of the mouse I’m looking at Trevor’s inbox, not sorted, plain for anyone to see.
And holy fuck, do I see a lot.
Receipts for weekend hotel stays in Atlantic City and New York.
Receipts for lingerie and jewelry. At the places I know Annika loves to spend money at.
As I scroll down I realize that my ex-wife has been spending quite a lot of my business partner’s money, which makes sense. I was wondering why she wasn’t pestering me every day for more of an allowance.
Now I know why.
Receipts from February and January do me no good. Yes, it’s shitty what Trevor is doing, but that’s not what is driving me right now.
No. If I can find proof that this started before January, I have grounds to end this divorce without the waiting period. This farce of a marriage can be over.
I continue scrolling—damn, he has been on a spending spree—and I almost don’t see the smoking gun in a sea o
f receipts, including one for Christmas Eve at a hotel downtown. I mark that one for later. No, the email I’m about to open is from a photo sharing service. Subject: For your eyes only.
Oh, she is not that fucking stupid, is she? Did she really send pictures to his email?
My answer is yes, she is that stupid. Want to know how I know? When we first started dating, Annika thought it would be sexy to have boudoir photos professionally taken for me. They were borderline indecent. They were more than a housewife trying to feel sexy. One less piece of clothing and they could have been considered pornography. They were a surprise to me, and she sent them to my email one day, in a folder just like this one, with almost the exact same subject line.
I click on the email, open the folder and I’m greeted with almost an near replica of the photos she took for me five years ago. At least these ones were in a different set of lingerie. I was almost expecting her to reuse the old ones.
I shut the folder and go back to the inbox looking for one thing and one thing only… the date.
And there it is, clear as day, my ticket to ending this sham of a marriage.
December 28.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Paige
Knock-knock. Knock-knock.
I jolt out of bed at the sound of fists on my front door. I’ve never been a heavy sleeper, another byproduct of my wonderful childhood, and I reach to grab the baseball bat as I check the time.
Three in the morning. Who in the heck is knocking on my door at three in the morning?
Could it be? Did she also figure out where I live?
No. No way. And plus, even if she did, I doubt she’d be polite enough to knock on the door before she blew my life up.
I approach the door, bat in hand, but take a look out of my peephole.
And that’s when my heart breaks.
Garrett. Standing on my front porch. Looking more defeated than I’ve ever seen a man look.
I hurry up, put the bat down and open the door.
“Garrett? What are you doing here?”
I take that back. This is the moment my heart breaks.
“They were fucking when I was in the hospital.”
I don’t even ask another question, instead, reaching for his arm to bring him into my house.
“What do you need?”
“Nothing. I came packing.” He holds up a bottle of scotch that I didn’t even realize he had. After he plops down on the couch mid-drink, I realize that he’s probably had more than a few swigs of it.
“Are you drunk?”
“I’m not drunk. I’m pissed. And… and a little drunk.”
I go into the kitchen to get us each a glass of water. I had wanted to stay with him tonight after he dropped me off, but considering he didn’t say a single word to me the entire way home, I figured he needed to be left alone.
Once I realized what was going on at the restaurant, the next few minutes were a blur. Garrett stormed off, and I was honestly shocked that he was still there when I got to the parking lot. I was on “watch Charlie duty” as Mark settled the bill. I made sure she didn’t physically go over to Trevor and Annika and kill them with her bare hands, but I did hear all the ways that she wanted to hurt them.
Again, I really need to ask her what she does for a living.
I sit down next to him and put the glasses of water on the coffee table in front of us. “Tell me what happened.”
Over the course of the next hour, I finally get everything out of him. That he went to the office to see what he could find. The texts. The receipts. The photos.
“I almost died, Paige. I almost fucking died. And two of the people who were supposed to be there for me were screwing behind my back. How fucked up is that?”
“I don’t have words, Garrett. I am so, so sorry.”
It’s the truth. I don’t have words. What Trevor and Annika did to him is horrible, and that’s without the fact that during the start of their affair he was in a hospital, recovering from a surgery that was needed to save his life.
I take his hand because I don’t know what else to do right now. I stare at our fingers, now laced together, and wish I could come up with something to help him through this. I’m a helper. A fixer. I want to do everything in my power to make people’s lives better. But right now, I don’t know what I can do.
When I look back up at him, it hurts my heart. Tears are forming in his eyes, and I know he’s doing everything in his power to hold them back.
“Let it go, Garrett. It’s me. You’re safe. I’m here for you.”
And he does. This man… this successful, gorgeous man who has taken his second chance at life and made something amazing out of it, is crumbling in front of me. I doubt the old Garrett would have felt this much. This Garrett is vulnerable and caring.
Which is why this breaks my heart even more.
“This is some fucked-up karma, isn’t it?” he says, wiping away the tears. “Because I cheated on Michelle, this is karma getting her payback on me?”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe that for one second.”
“You don’t? I was a bastard, Paige. You have no idea. I fucked anything that would walk. I didn’t give two shits who I hurt. If it made me more money and put me higher on the totem pole, I did it. I wasn’t much better when I was with Annika. I deserved this. No amount of picking up trash or canned food drives makes up for what I did.”
I grab either side of his face because I need him, even half-drunk, to hear this.
“You listen to me, Garrett Dixon. Were you a bastard in the past? Yes. Apparently, you were the king of the bastards. But the man here? Right now? He is not that man. This man has a heart so big that it’s about to burst out of his chest. This man makes his nephew and niece smile every day just from being there. This man gave an underprivileged high school athlete free medical treatment last week so he could make sure he was back for the next football season, because you knew he needed that time on the field to get a scholarship. This man is good and decent. The man you were back then? The only thing he did for you is help you become the man you are today. And as for Annika and Trevor? They can—”
The words die on my tongue because holy crap on a cracker, Garrett Dixon is kissing me.
At first I don’t move, because I have no idea what is going on. That only lasts until his tongue sweeps against my lips, and before I know it, I’m melting into him, kissing him back with just as much passion as he’s kissing me.
I know I shouldn’t do this. He’s drunk. Emotional. Literally five minutes ago he was crying on my couch. But my hands are now in his hair, and his arms are wrapped around my body, and, God, it’s been so long since I’ve been this close with a man.
He tastes of scotch and mint. His lips are soft and perfect. His beard feels amazing under my touch. This is everything I thought it would be. And Lord knows I’ve thought about this once or one hundred times.
Slowly, we break apart. I don’t know why because I could kiss this man all night.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quickly standing up.
“What?”
He’s sorry? He’s sorry for giving me what I’ve wanted for weeks? He’s sorry for giving me the best kiss of my life?
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? Why are you… did I?”
I don’t mean to sound pathetic, but when a man kisses the life out of you, who has infinite more experience than you do, then immediately apologizes, it’s kind of hard not thinking you did something wrong.
“No, that’s not it,” Garrett says, taking my hands in his as he sits back next to me. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long. Probably since the first night I met you. Definitely in the hospital. Absolutely during the champagne lunch. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“It’s that you deserve better than a drunk, pathetic man who was crying on your couch. You deserve better than a rushed kiss because I’m feeling emotional. You deserve everything to be perfect and pla
nned and… right. I’m just the bastard who wants to give it to you, even though I know I’m not worthy.”
I shake my head. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You are worthy. I’m just waiting for you to hurry up and realize what I’ve known for months.”
My words soften his expression and he leans in again, only this time, I know what’s coming, so I’m able to meet him in the middle. This kiss is… God, how can it be better? Our tongues are now in unison, exploring and tasting and feeling everything.
That first kiss was perfect. This kiss is magical.
I hesitantly pull away, though the second I do, I miss the feel of his lips against mine. “It’s late, you shouldn’t drive home.”
He pulls me in closer, my head now on his shoulder. “Are you inviting me to stay the night, Miss Blackstone?”
“I am. But I don’t think we…” I take a breath, finding my resolve. “We need to take this slow. I don’t think we are ready…”
He gives me another squeeze and places a kiss on my forehead. One I have no trouble deciphering the meaning of this time.
“No. I might have fucked up our first kiss. I’m definitely not fucking up our first time together. I just want to hold you and fall asleep and deal with everything tomorrow.”
I stand and lead him up to my bedroom, grateful I was already in my pajamas. I work on tucking myself back into bed in order to distract myself from the strip show that I could have witnessed from Garrett taking off his slacks and shirt. We might have crossed a few bridges tonight, but a half-naked Garrett is something I am definitely not ready for.
Yet.
Once he’s in bed with me, he scoops me into his arms, turns me toward him and places my head on his shoulder, brushing away my hair before kissing my forehead once more.
“Thank you, Paige. I know I keep saying that, but… thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And thank you.”