B00BR2BOUU EBOK (24 page)

Repeating this only
reiterated exactly what it was, I would never have done what I did with Bryce
if I had not been in love with him. It somehow made me feel less guilty, I know
it shouldn’t, but it did. “I went away with the girls for the weekend to clear
my head, and when I got back, Rick was acting really strange. Then, all of a
sudden, Rick tells me he knows I have sexual feelings for Bryce and to go and explore
them. The thing was Jen, he wasn’t angry.” Her lips were still sealed but the
look on her face showed she had not understood Rick’s thinking and suggestion. “Trust
me, I was confused as hell, too. I told him ‘no’, of course, but then he said
he understood the feelings of ‘wanting to experience another’, because he’d had
them years ago, and as a result, he had an affair.”

She gasped and put her hand
to her mouth but still didn’t say a word. My overly large tear bank began to
spill over again, as I remembered how easy it had been for him to blatantly lie
to my face. “It gets worse.” She handed me another tissue instantly. “So after
Rick revealed his infidelity, which was last Sunday, I went straight to Bryce.
It was like I was on auto pilot, like a magnetic field pulling me directly to
him, I couldn’t help myself. I have spent the last week staying at Bryce’s
apartment, and yes, Jen, I slept with him, a lot, and was amazing...” I leaned
forward on the steering wheel, crying a lot harder now, thinking of all the wonderful
moments Bryce and I had shared over the previous week, not so much the sex, but
those special little moments that have had my heart beating frantically, then
stopping completely, then beating again.

She put her hand on my back
and rubbed. I didn’t raise my head, just kept slouching and talking into the
steering wheel. “This past week has been the best week of my life, the way I
feel when I’m with him is indescribable. I know that doesn’t makes sense and it
sounds crazy. I should have had the worst week of my life after what Rick had
confessed, but I didn’t. Yes, I was hurt by his revelation, but whatever pain
and hurt I felt, Bryce seemed to heal it like magic.” I lifted my head and
glanced at her expecting a scornful look back, what I got instead was both a
concerned and sad expression, but also one of understanding. “Yesterday, Bryce
confessed to approaching Rick while I was away with the girls. He told me he
had informed Rick that we were in love and that he wanted to spend a week with me
alone. Rick apparently told him to ‘fuck off’, but Bryce had pictures of Rick
and Claire...”

Finally she interrupted. “Claire,
as in Claire Longmire?”

“Yes.”

“Geezus.” She was shaking her
head and looking out the front windscreen.

“Bryce blackmailed Rick with
the pictures. You know what? It all makes perfect sense to me now, the little
things that made me wonder why Bryce was so guilt ridden during the week, and
how Rick just came out of nowhere with his bombshell.” She still looked
slightly confused, and I didn’t blame her. “Don’t worry Jen, the light bulb
will go off soon.” I had progressed from sadness, to slight clarity, and moved
on to sarcasm. These emotions were a never ending circle, so I knew I would be
back to sadness soon. “I had not spoken to Rick at all, that was until this
morning, when he came barging into Bryce’s office. I was ready to finally have
it out with him, I had the pictures of his affair, and I had my mind set on
being with Bryce. I had clarity, sounds weird, but I had somewhat made peace
with majority of it.” The next stage in my circle of emotions must have been
‘lack of feeling’, because I had actually begun to feel quite numb. “Where was
I? I can’t seem to think anymore.”

“I don’t blame you, Lex.” She
rubbed my back again. “Rick had just barged into the office.”

“Oh yeah, right. Well, he
barged in and said he never had an affair, that he had lied, which didn’t make
sense. He had a full set of photos showing him fighting Claire’s advances,
apparently she is a nut case and wanted to sleep with him, so she set him up.
Like I said, it didn’t make sense. Why would he lie about an affair,
essentially driving me directly into Bryce’s arms? Why?”
Yep, next stage in
the circle is anger.
  “Do you fucking want to know why?” I shouted. “Because
Bryce offered him five million dollars to let me spend a week with him, that’s
why, and he took it.” I burst into tears again, completing my emotional circle
back to sadness. Jen gasped and leaned over to hug me. I reciprocated and
hugged her back, ignoring the awkwardness of the enclosed space and the
handbrake which was now uncomfortably digging into my thigh.

“Oh, Lex, I can’t believe it.
Rick accepted the five million dollars?”

“Apparently it’s in an
account already. Bryce paid for me, Jen, he paid to have me like I’m some kind
of whore and Rick was the fucking pimp.” She broke away gently and sat back,
still keeping a hold of my hands.

“Are you more upset that
Bryce paid for you, Lex? Or that Rick chose money over you?” I had to really
think about her question at first, but after deliberating for only a second,
then noticing her wise expression, I realised she was not posing a question at
all, but more so a statement. I looked down at my fingers, and touched my
wedding band then coincidentally touched my ‘Brylexis’ too. I had moved my
wedding and engagement rings to the opposite hand, it was my way of signifying
the separation, but what I had done, unintentionally, was put Brylexis in their
place. I scoffed at my mistake at first but then realised the significance. Jen
I think only twigged at the fact I’d switched my wedding rings to the opposite
hand.

“That’s pretty. Is it from
Bryce?”
She’s smarter than you think, Alexis.
I let go of her hands and
instinctively rotated Brylexis on my finger.

“Yes, he gave it to me this
morning.” My eyes grew water logged again. “As a reminder of him when we were
apart.”

She pulled me in again for
another sisterly hug, a sisterly hug I had been blessed with many times in my
life, and like now was more blessed than ever to have.

“Right, we are going to get
out of this car. I will ring Mum and tell her you are staying here tonight
because you have a horrible migraine and cannot drive any further. You Alexis,
need some space and time to think about what you are going to do and more
importantly, who you want to be with, if either of them.”

“I’m supposed to be at work
tomorrow.”

She looked at me mockingly.
“Alexis, do you really want to go to work tomorrow?”

I glared at her. “No, of
course not. It’s just there was a lot of work to do, and I feel bad.”

“Alexis Summers, you feel bad
because your boss, the man who just shattered your heart, is going to have a
pile of work to do without your help? Do you know how stupid that sounds?”

Yes, I did. “Yeah, all right
I get your point. Forgive me if I’m a little fucked in the head at the moment,
I think I have every right to be.”

“I’m not arguing with you
there, Lex, but you need to get your head straightened out first and foremost.”

***

We got out of the car and Jen
rang Mum. I’m not sure she bought the excuse as to why I would not be gracing
them with my presence—however, Mum did pass on her ‘get well’ wishes and said
she would explain to the kids and see me the next day.

“Thanks Jen, I just don’t
think I can see them all and hold my shit together, not today anyway.” My phone
rang not long after Jen had hung up. At first I’d assumed it was Mum checking
the validity of Jen’s excuse, as she’d had a habit of trying to catch us out
when we were kids. I’m glad I checked the caller ID before hitting accept
though, because it wasn’t Mum, it was Rick. I took in a deep breath and hit
decline.
Did he seriously think I would want to speak to him today
?

“Which one?” Jen was at the
bench preparing the twin’s bottles.

“The five million dollar
husband.” I murmured.

“Ah,” was all she said. A
small cry came from the Nursery, and my face responded automatically with a
smile. Jen smiled too, and put the bottle down.

“Come on, you can change the
blue one, I’ll change the pink one.” I laughed. She amazed me having three
children under the age of two. I took my hat off to her. It was hard work, but
Jen and Steven seemed to function well with each other, and it was really just
normal to them. Jack and Elise were now in separate cots, and had now grown accustomed
to each other’s routines, which was just perfect for Jen. It wasn’t like that
in the beginning though, she had really struggled at first. Jack and Elise were
on opposite ends of the clock, when one was awake the other would sleep, then
vice versa, making it nearly impossible for Jen to get much shut eye at all.
She had explained to me one night on the phone that pillows did a good job of
muffling her screams of frustration and pure exhaustion, and that dummies have
a good rebound distance when thrown at the wall with force. The thing with Jen
though, was she always managed to get her shit together and come out on top,
she was ‘Super Mum’ to those two little bundles of pure cuteness, who were now
starting to open their eyes and request some tucker for their tummies.

“Good morning, little Jacko,”
I said, as I beamed down at his gorgeous little chubby face.

“Ugh, I hate it when you call
him that.”

“What?” Cue my baby voice. “How
about Jackster, or Jackaroo? Does Mummy like those?” I picked him up and carried
him to the change table to remove his disgustingly soiled nappy, gagging as I
did it.

“Stop it, it’s not like
you’ve never smelled baby poo before.”

“It’s tolerable when it’s
your own baby. This is just rancid, what are you putting in his bottle?”

“Awww, Jacky Boy. Isn’t she a
nasty Aunty Lexi?”

“Pfft, I can tell you what’s
nasty, this nappy is freaking nasty.” I picked him back up after what could
only be described as the nappy from hell, and removed myself from the god-awful
stench that had now overtaken the Nursery. We played peek-a-boo in the kitchen
while waiting for his sister to have her nappy changed too.  Jen walked in
holding Elise in the air praising her for keeping her nappy clean, and giving
me a ‘suck shit’ look at the same time. “That would be right, you knew ‘the
pink one’ was clean that’s why you changed her.”

“Never!” She smiled sweetly
at me. I remembered when the twins were about one and a half months old, and
watching Jen feed them both at the same time, it was incredible and gave me a
new found respect for mothers who had multiple births. Jack was a guzzle-guts,
draining his bottle dry. Thankfully, now at age four months he burped without
following through. I had fed him when he was one and a half months, and the
tidal wave of formula that covered me when he attempted to eject his air
bubbles was enormous. I just sat there laced with white smelly liquid from my
neck to in between my toes, he seemed to look relieved. I, on the other the
hand, appeared to be the complete opposite.

We put them on the floor for
some play time, and Jen went to the kitchen to make us a coffee. I had felt my
phone buzzing in my pocket while feeding Jack, and pulled it out to see who was
hassling me now. Another missed call from Rick, but there was also a message
from Bryce.
Do I open or delete it?
My finger hovered over the delete
button for a second, but curiosity got the better of me and I hit open instead.

Hunny, I’m sorry.

It killed me to see you in pain today, pain I had caused.

We are not over, we never will be.

I told you that ‘if I ever broke your heart,

I would mend it’, and that’s exactly what I am going to do. -
Bryce

I exhaled the breath I had held from the beginning of reading his
message.
He is going to mend my broken heart.
I honestly didn’t know if he could. Did I want him to? Deep down, I
think I did, and I was glad he was going to try.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thank goodness for the serenity that is a rural property,
there was no waking to noisy neighbours, no cars doing burnouts in the near
distance, and no sirens of any kind blaring their horrible emergency warnings.
Instead, I woke to distant mooing from a property down the road, and Jack or
Elise’s cry for another feed.
Shit what is the time?
I felt quite drowsy,
like I’d slept for days.
God I hope I didn’t sleep for days, surely not.
I reached out to the bedside table, fumbling as I attempted to pick up my
phone. I had turned it on silent last night with the express purpose of getting
some sleep, and with the hope I would wake up with a magical make-over and no
evidence of the drama-filled day I experienced the day before. I finally
managed to secure the phone with my still half-asleep hands, when I noticed a
message from Rick.

Alexis, I am on my way to see the kids today.

I know you don’t want to see me,

but I haven’t seen them for a week,

and I have a feeling I won’t see them for another.

I would really like to talk to you,

just the two of us, but no pressure. - Rick

The first thing I noticed after
reading the message was the lack of anger that yesterday had raged within.
Wow,
that must have been a good night’s sleep... Holy shit, make that night’s,
morning’s, and midday’s sleep!
It was nearly 2:30 p.m.
My goodness, why
didn’t Jen bloody wake me?
I pulled on my clothes from the day before and
made my way out to the kitchen.