Bliss (5 page)

He was mesmerizing.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

“That’s when I came here,” Carter explained, leaning back in his chair.

“I can’t imagine your family was happy to see you leave,” I frowned. “What about your parents?”

Carter grabbed the menu. “How about an appetizer?”

It was clear he was changing the subject.

“Sure, how about mozzarella sticks?” I said, taking a sip of my water while he checked his cell phone.

“Have you always been so good at avoiding?”

Carter took a deep breath pressing his lips together. “Since I can remember.”

The waitress returned with our iced teas. “Can I get you anything else?”

I looked away from Carter’s gaze. “Mozzerella sticks right?”

“Yeah, we’ll take a basket of sticks.” He was less talkative all of a sudden.

I drummed the table, wrinkling my nose at him.

He playfully tapped my hand. “Why the face?”

I drug a hand through my hair. “Honestly?”

He nodded.

“None of this makes you feel a bit weird? Us going to lunch when
you’re seeing Ana?”

Carter sighed, rubbing at his chin. “What are we doing wrong?”

I opened my mouth, searching for the right words. I wasn’t sure what they were.

“You and I are having lunch. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not like I asked you to the bathroom to have my way with you.” He bit his lip. “Unless of course
you’re up for it.”

I rolled my eyes, staring at Carter. If he knew in my mind how great that sounded he wouldn’t be toying with me.

I blew out some air and caught my straw between my lips. “If you knew me you would know I always am.”

Carter grinned. “Are you flirting with me?”

“No, because that would be wrong,” I said lowering my voice so nobody around us overheard. All of a sudden I was paranoid.

Carter leaned in, his eyes softening. “And also kind of hot.”

My blood was pumping, in every part of me. I squeezed my legs together at the knee. “Where’s the waitress when you need her?”

Carter
licked his lips. “I’m going to admit something.” He lifted his chin, the flesh of his muscular neck showing. “If I’d never known you were Ana’s friend I’d be trying to talk you out of that dress you have on.”

I swallowed. Oh shit.

His smile slowly grew bigger. “What are you thinking?”

He didn’t want to know what I
thought, or maybe he did.

“I’m thinking we are two of the most awful people for even sitting here doing this
.” I stared at my hands, as they tore at my napkin. “Fucking awful.”

“Are we awful or human?”

“We’re awful. And regardless of Ana and my relationship I’m still her friend. And I still think she has enough faith in me to trust me with her boyfriend.” I pushed my hair behind my ear.

My mind and body
begged for him to touch me. To assure me I wasn’t so bad. I held my breath, trying to stop thinking about how god damn perfect his smile was. And how I loved the stubble on his face, I wanted to feel it pressed against my skin.

He reached out and brushed my hair from my eyes. “You think
too much into things. She’s not as complex as you make her out to be.”

“She likes you. Believe
me I know, I heard all about it many times,” I assured him. Ana had more than just a crush on him.

“She’s a girl, who fell in love with what I can do for her in the bedroom.”

“For a minute I thought we were having a normal conversation,” I said looking away from him.

“I’m serious. She doesn’t know me, you know more about me than Ana. Ana likes the
sex; Ana likes the attention she gets when she shows me off to friends. Ana like fucking me.”

“Just stop talking,” I snapped. “That is the most pigheaded thing I ever heard come out of your mouth.”

Carter leaned back in his chair. “You’re getting mad because I’m being honest with you?”

“I’m getting mad because you’re an arrogant ass,” I said. What kind of guy bragged about
those things like he did?

“A
few minutes ago you were ready to leap out of your chair and right into my lap.” He pursed his lips. “Such the turn of events.”

I took a sip of water. Now I was the one trying to avoid talking to him.

“It’s obvious there is an attraction between the two of us, and I get that your still up on your high horse trying to preserve Ana’s feelings. It’s cute.” Carter jaw clenched. “But I refuse to live my fucking life trying to please anyone but myself. I want a career, I’m dying to get this job so I can get where I want to be in Hollywood. So, for once I’ll agree with you.”

I touched my face. “What does that mean?” What did he agree
with? He was so unlike me it wasn’t funny.

“Pissing Ana off would be bad for the both of us,” he said.

“See, I knew you were seeing her to better your chances with her father,” I said through clenched teeth.

The waitress placed our basket of mozzarella sticks between us.

“At first no, I didn’t even know who were father was. I met her at a nightclub, I fucked her three days later. She didn’t tell me who her dad was until I drove her to his office so she could pick up money from him,” Carter explained.

“At your brother’s graduation,” I pointed out.

Carter raised an eyebrow. “Bullshit. We went back to her place.”

“Why would she tell me that?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I have one brother and he graduated a long time ago.”

I couldn’t understand why Ana would need to lie about where she had sex with Carter the first time. Why would I care where it happened?

Or was Carter lying?

That made no sense, why would a guy like Carter lie about fucking a girl at his brother’s graduation? He wouldn’t, he would own it.

That only meant one thing. Ana lied, and for whatever reason I didn’t know.

***

I dropped the Styrofoam container of my lunch on my counter, shaking my shoes off before I headed for my normal spot in the living room.

A stack of mail sat on the coffee table calling out to me. It had been some time since I paid my bills; I was surprised they hadn’t shut some of them off. I thanked Eric for setting some of them up on automatic bill pay otherwise I would be living by candle light and dumping my pee out the window.

I tossed the junk mail aside and tore open the credit card statement. I really needed to start paying attention to our mail. I skimmed down the transactions from the delinquent statement and sat up.

“We never used this card,” I muttered to myself. I opened the junk drawer beside the couch it could wait until tomorrow. And then I
would call the credit card company and give them a piece of my mind.

I stopped short, my hand hovering the drawer. I pulled the receipt from beneath several other credit card bills that I never noticed before. I couldn’t remember the last time I was even in the drawer to be honest.

I scratched at my temple staring at the hotel’s emblem at the top of the receipt. The place was out of town and Eric and I never been there before. I fumbled with the paper looking at the date.

My heart sink.

I bit my lip, looking around the room as if the answers were there waiting for me. It was like a cruel joke. A sick joke of sorts, that I just so happened to open the junk drawer. The one place in my house I hated to touch because it wasn’t mine. I was clean and Eric was untidy. It was his one space that I didn’t complain about.

And once he died I didn’t care anymore about being tidy. Looking around the apartment at my dirty clothes laying on the floor it was apparent.

I touched my temple closing my eyes, bringing my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and lost it. I was numb.

I screamed, my nails cutting into my palms, this wasn’t what I needed.

I needed to pull it together.

I wiped my eyes pulling myself up from the floor; the coffee table was knocked over in my complete meltdown. And I didn’t care.

I paced the room. Was I
really about to call the hotel?

Phone in hand I dialed the number.

“Lux Royal, Marge speaking?” The woman on the other end said politely.

I swallowed. “Yes, I know this sounds crazy, but I wanted to find out if you could tell me about something I found on my husband’s receipt and credit card statement.”

The line grew silent, and finally she spoke. “That depends on what you’re looking for.”

I sighed. “My husband died in a car accident. And tonight I found a receipt that came from your hotel. We were never there together.” I pursed my lips, hoping
his death was enough to gain some sympathy. I needed to know.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Can you help me?”

“I just went through an awful
divorce; men are not on my good list right now. What did you say your name was again sir?” She said.

I smiled. “Eric Daniels.”

There was a long pause, with the faint sound that I was sure were her fingers clicking across the keys of a computer. Thank god for bitter wives I thought to myself.

“It shows Eric Daniels check
ed in on April 7
th
. Into one of our vip suites.”

My stomach hurt the moment she told me the news. “Is there any way to know who he was with?”

“Well, we know it wasn’t you. I’m sure you have a good imagination.”

I closed my eyes. “Thank you. It means a lot what you did for me.”

“You’re welcome, I’m sorry you had to find this out after such a loss. Have a nice night.” The call ended.

I
would have thrown myself into traffic as long as this feeling stopped.

I dropped down onto the couch.

The moment Eric and I met I thought was magical, it was all disintegrating in the matter of minutes. One simple phone call crushed my entire reality.

If this was real and true than that meant Eric wasn’t who I thought he was at all. I didn’t know what the meant for me. But I knew one thing, I
needed to know for certain or I was going to drive myself crazy.

Running across my apartment I threw open the closet in our bedroom. I used my tiptoes to help me reach the black box that sat for months unopened on the top shelf of our closet. The box that housed everything Eric kept under lock and key. His important paperwork and whatever else he found necessary to lock away.

I pulled it down almost falling backwards in the process and dropped it on the floor. Eric kept a baseball bat in our closet, a pass time he gave up a year after we married.

I caught sight of a photo of us on the end table raising the baseball bat above my head. I prayed he didn’t prove me wrong. The baseball bat smashed into the box, and after two more swings I was staring at dented and broken metal. As well as papers and photo debris at my feet.

I dropped the baseball bat with a thud at my feet, dropping to my knees. With trembling hands I lifted the first envelope, I covered my mouth staring at the handwriting. I understood why it looked so familiar.

It was a love letter, a love letter addressed to my husband from someone o
ther than me. I dropped the letter too disgusted to read anymore of it.

I lifted the flash drive, grateful I hadn’t damaged it in my violent rage. Seconds later I was on the bed with my laptop waiting for my computer to load whatever
was on the drive.

I doubl
e clicked the mouse and gritted my teeth as I stared at her. With shaking hands I clicked the next picture. And the next one, until Eric’s smiling face stared at me. There was no denying what I saw.

He was there, with another woman in the hotel room.

Oh what a fool I had been.

I snapped the computer shut and threw it down on the bed.

I ran for my phone, dialing the only person that could help me.

I
grabbed a fistful of hair as I forced my words out. “Please come over right now. I need you.”

“Why is your door wide open?” Jon asked, coming inside and locking the door behind him.

I shrugged. It didn’t matter, I didn’t have the energy to answer it when he came knocking.

He looked around my apartment at dirty clothes and piles of mail. “When’s the last time you cleaned up in here?”

Another shrug was all he got.

He lifted a newspaper from my chaise lounge and took a seat, hands on his blue jeans as he tried to make sense. He rubbed his forehead. “I came right over here because you were hysterical. Now I’m here and
you’re calm. What the fuck is going on?”

“Eric was seeing Ana.” Another twist of my heart, I hated the sound of it. “And before you tell me I’m crazy I have proof.”

Jon tilted his head to the side. “Say that again.”

I didn’t want to say it again. “He was seeing Ana behind my back. There are pictures on the computer in my bedroom. They were at a hotel two days before he died.”

Jon ran a hand through his brown hair. “I’m sorry.” He dropped his hands down on his leg again. “I- I’m shocked.”

“
You’re shocked,” I said, at a loss for words. No matter how many times I said it I was numb to the idea that Eric would cheat on me.

But the pictures were all the proof in the world. He was in bed with my friend.
She was wearing lingerie that I helped her pick out.

“Everything I thought, it just disappeared. It was all one huge lie all the way up until the day he died.” I shook my head.

“None of us are perfect. That’s the point I have been trying to get through to you all this time.” Jon said. “Eric was human just like the rest of us.”

“Eric
fucked my friend,” I let out a heavy sigh.

“What does that tell you?”

“That he was nothing but a fraud, that would have ruined my life dead or alive,” I slammed my fist on the table, and jumped up, digging through the kitchen drawer.

Jon stood behind me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get rid of everything in this house that reminds me of him.” I dumped the drawer on the floor, his wedding band rolling across the floor, and I pulled mine from my finger.

“Morgan, knock it off.” Jon said, watching me yank my window open.

“Why, because I’m not handling my feelings the right way?” Time and time again he told me to let go. Well, now I would let go.

I released the fi
ne metal, leaving the window open.

Jon shut it. “You’re angry. You’re not letting go your being destructive.”

I kicked the plant Eric bought me on our first anniversary over, spilling dirt across the carpet. “I am angry and it feels good. It feels better than depressed.”

I went for the pictures on the wall, ready to claw them down. Jon grabbed me. “Anger and depression do nothing for you. Be something else,” he insisted, gripping my shoulders.

I pushed him into the wall, my lips on his. He took me by the neck, his other hand sliding down my body. I pushed into him, moaning against his mouth as his hands lifted my dress and slipped past my underwear.

Finally I could feel what it
was like to kiss Jon for what he was, a man that had a whole lot more going for him than my husband. I pulled his shirt over his head, kissing him, consuming his flesh with my tongue.

I tore his belt from his jeans, throwing it across the room hurrying to get his pants down. I freed him from his pants, palming the length of him, his tongue trailed along my bottom lip, and then he bit down, pressing himself into me, pinning my hands above my head against the wall.

I rubbed against him. “I want you right now. Put me out of my misery.”

Jon released my hands, pulling my dress over my head. He kissed down my body, releasing my
breast, squeezing them. I wrapped my legs around him, as he steadied me against the wall pulling my panties to the side. His fingers grazed my clit and with a few quick rubs he forced himself inside of me.

I dropped my head back, relieved to feel him, relieved not to feel angry. We worked together, my hips moving at a quick beat, his hands holding me by the waist.

He squeezed my ass, pushing himself even deeper. We slid to the floor, I pressed my hands into his chest, moving up and down. My hands pressed against his stomach flattening against the muscles of his abdomen.

I made an
other slow swirl, watching Jon react. Our fingers tangled together as I continued to move against him. He freed one of his hands rubbing my clit in circles.

I doubled over, dropping my head forward, my hair spilling on his chest and like no time before I did what I wanted to do all along.
I shuddered around his the length of him, coming undone, my hips grinding and rocking, my nails digging into his flesh as I let the orgasm take over.

I stopped moving. My heart thudding against my insides at a wicked rate of speed, Jon, touched my face. “You did it.”

I smirked, biting at my lip, my entire body throbbing from the letdown. “I did.”

He pulled me by the chin, his lips pressing into mine so perfectly. “We need to talk about this.”