I tuned out the sound of Jameson and Asher talking, lost in my wedding fantasy, until one of them saying my name snagged my attention. “… Sadie still has no idea?” Jameson talking again. How cute, they didn’t think I knew about the ring. I rolled my eyes. Guys were so dumb. Like I hadn’t figured out that was coming. Asher had been extra sweet and affectionate lately, and the sex had been steamier than usual. Plus, we’d been together, officially, for three years now. Definitely time to start thinking about settling down.
Asher scoffed. “Hell, no. And after I propose, can you imagine the footage from that night?”
“Think you’ll be able to get her to do some new positions?”
“I think she’ll do anything I ask her to after I put that giant rock on her finger.” I could hear the smugness in Asher’s voice, a vulgar, calculated tone I wasn’t used to.
Positions?
Footage?
Crinkling my brow, I crept closer to the bedroom door. Jameson’s slightly nasal reply – why had I not noticed how grating his voice was before? – mixed with the dust motes floating in the air. “What about Rebecca? When’s the next one with her?”
Rebecca?
My head snapped back. Rebecca was my photography assistant, a cute junior from the local community college I’d hired a year ago when she’d needed the job to help with tuition.
One of them snorted. “You know as soon as I make her my fiancée, she’ll be dying to take a trip down to Reynold’s Island to show off the ring to Rue. I’ll set it up for then. Probably before New Year’s if I’m lucky.”
“You’re a fucking bastard, Ash.” Jameson made it sound like a compliment. “You plan on keeping it up after you’re engaged?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I dunno. Don’t you think it’s a little different if you do it after you pop the question?”
That was Asher’s long drawn out sigh. I recognized it. “I’ve thought about that. Maybe stopping the stuff with Becca on the side. But, seriously, the sex is so fucking hot. And Becca lets me do stuff that Sadie won’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe I don’t share everything I film with you guys.”
They laughed long and hard. I wrapped my arms around my middle, my breathing shallower, my legs feeling weak.
“Want a beer, man? Dad’s out of the office the rest of the day, let’s call it quits early and play Madden at your place.” There were some thuds, then two loud pops followed by slow hisses. Beer cans. I slid bonelessly to the floor by the window, automatically picturing Jameson’s almost identical loft down the hall.
“For real, though. Sadie doesn’t suspect? How do you manage to get away with it?”
“I’m sweet. Considerate. Loving. The perfect boyfriend. Seriously, Jameson, if you tried it sometime, you’d probably get some action of your own instead of having to jack off to mine. Sadie eats that shit up. With Becca, though, it’s different. More raw, more intense, more –” Grunts and slapping sounds echoed off the high ceiling. A lone tear hesitated at the corner of my eye, waiting for permission to trail down my cheek.
“Yeah, Becca’s tits are pretty epic. And her legs –”
Asher interrupted. “And her ass and her mouth and her tongue. Yeah, dude, I know exactly what I’m doing with her.”
“Shit, man.” Awe radiated from Jameson. “You’ve, like, studied this or something?”
Asher laughed. “Yeah, dude, I totally studied fucking in college. And, trust me, I got an A.”
A phone rang. Not Asher’s ringtone. Numbly, I heard Jameson answer and, a few minutes later, the door slammed in the front of the loft. The guys leaving.
I was frozen on the floor, that stubborn tear still clinging to the hope that this was all a nightmare, and it didn’t really need to fall. I drew in shaky breath, suspended in disbelief.
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t Asher. This wasn’t the guy who rubbed my feet after a long day and packed me snacks to take to work. The guy who told me I was hot no matter what I was wearing. The guy that whispered in my ear at night that I was his other half and made sure I always had extra batteries and memory cards before a big shoot.
Shit. Footage. Hadn’t Jameson said something about footage?
My attention shifted to the laptop, and I automatically moved across the room, grabbing the sleek computer and settling on the new sheets that I definitely wasn’t going to be christening tonight.
Opening the screen, I hesitated at the password screen. What would he use?
My fingers typed in the word, and I hit enter. The home page appeared. Touchdown, I thought bitterly.
I ignored the software icons and looked at the file folders in a row across the bottom of his screen. The first four yielded nothing, but the one labeled Work Proposals had two subfolders labeled 1001 and 1002. Clicking on the first one, I saw thumbnails of video files, each meticulously labeled with dates. Opening the first, I saw an ass – my bare ass – walk across the screen. The camera was aimed at the bottom two-thirds of our bed. The bed I was sitting on.
Instinctively, I slid to the floor, away from what was playing on the screen. It was earlier in the summer. I could tell by my tan lines. I watched, stunned, as I crawled across the bed, over Asher’s naked body. You couldn’t see our faces. My hair was in a messy ponytail, and Asher kept his face turned toward the windows, away from the camera. I squinted at the screen. I had vaguely noticed that change in his behavior. How he often faced that way during sex in recent months.
Fucking bastard. And I definitely did not mean that as a compliment. As my onscreen self lowered onto Asher’s erection, I abruptly closed the video.
I clicked on the other folder, the one labeled 1002. Again, video thumbnails organized by date popped up in a box. Picking the most recent one, I double clicked.
My bedroom, same view as before. Only, that definitely wasn’t me bobbing between Asher’s spread legs. That big-breasted, pale skinned girl was most definitely my assistant, Rebecca, who I had almost considered a little sister.
I closed the video immediately, bile rising in my throat. Looking back over the dates on the videos, I realized they went back just over five months, to July fourth. The bottom of the file folder cheerfully informed me the folder contained forty-one items.
I gagged, dropped the computer and rushed to the bathroom.
When I emerged thirty minutes later, throat raw from acid and tears burning my eyes, I calmly walked back to the laptop and cradled it carefully in my arms, before returning to the bathroom. Taking a deep breath, I tossed the computer in the bathtub. Robotically, I retrieved all the tech gear I could find of Asher’s, filling the tub with shades of silver, gray, chrome, and black. Walking down the hall to the closet that held our washer and dryer, I snatched a bottle of detergent and jug of bleach and returned to our bathroom. I drizzled the electronics with both liquids until the bottles were empty, and then turned the shower on high, leaving the curtain wide open.
Packing my stuff haphazardly into whatever luggage and duffle bags I could find, I made four trips to my red Wrangler before I just couldn’t stand to be in that loft we’d shared any longer. Making one last trip to our bedroom, I dug out that shiny piece of coal from under Asshole’s trouser socks and tossed it on the middle of the bed.
Just so he would know I knew exactly what I was walking away from.
As I peeled off down the road, automatically heading south toward the Carolina coast, I had one last fleeting thought. There was nothing left in that loft I would miss.
Except those sheets. Bastard owed me a set of sheets.
Coming soon!