Sunday 15th April
“Jill?”
I’d gone into the guest room to look for a book I’d been discussing with Gemma. And I’d been totally shocked to see my sleeping wife’s body lying there. Her face showing the evidence that she’d cried herself to sleep.
In that single moment all of my anger, hurt and righteous indignation from the Saturday night melted away like late snow on a Spring morning.
Fuck! I’d seen Chris’s taillights disappearing around the corner with Jill sat by his side.
A few minutes later our embarrassed guests had started leaving. Byron and Riley first to leave, our tall black neighbor giving me a look that mixed pity with a little anger at how we’d embarrassed him on his date with his first new girlfriend. Callan and Charlotte not far behind, Charlotte giving me a hug and whispering to me. “Dave, honey, please don’t you and Jill do anything stupid. For heaven’s sake, don’t repeat the foolishness that I and Callan did.” An earnest and long look deep into my eyes emphasizing her message.
Confused and still buzzing with anger, when after a few minutes there was no sign of an apologetic and returning Jill, all my earlier revenge flirting with Gemma had the maybe inevitable outcome as I pulled her upstairs. Thinking, ‘fuck Jill, if she’s gone off with lover boy then why the hell shouldn’t I have some fun as well.’ Even as Gemma and I had started making out, my mind was full of thoughts that with no sign of her, Jill must have decided to stay the night with her boyfriend. Picking up and finishing off from where I’d caught them making out upstairs.
But now with a horrible sinking feeling, as I looked at Jill’s sleeping body and dried tears I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d jumped to a very quick conclusion the night before, only making things worse between us.
Reaching out to Jill’s blinking phone I saw the mandatory ‘how was our service’ email from Uber, realizing Jill had returned soon after Gemma and I had gone to bed to make love. Seeing Jill there like that, I knew nothing had happened between her and Chris at his place. Of that I was certain. And now I’d suddenly gone from being the sinned against to being the sinner.
Not that this really bothered me. What really bothered me was the pain I must have caused Jill. Ever since our first days together all those years ago, I’ve always hated causing her pain. And the level of pain I’d caused her last night defies description.
How she must have felt, having dragged herself back here to apologize and talk? To put things right. But instead of finding me alone and ready to share my feelings and put things right, she found me in bed with Gemma. I was engulfed with a huge feeling of guilt. I knew Jill might have started this with a moment of weakness, but I’d taken this and made it a million times worse.
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Seeing Jill lying there sleeping with her tear-stained face, I knew I needed to get Gemma out of the house before Jill woke up. Gemma might have been going through a bad time herself, but in my guilty and panic-ridden state, Gemma’s feelings and needs weren’t high on my agenda.
I was surprised at how understanding Gemma was. Returning with the book we’d been discussing, I explained the situation – that I’d just found Jill in the guestroom and the state she was in. It’s testament to Gemma’s personality and how she’d suffered herself that she was instantly understanding and like me, knew that she needed to depart before Jill woke up. That if Jill found Gemma still in our home it wouldn’t be the best of starts to what was going to be a very difficult day.
With Gemma departed, having wisely foregone giving me a farewell kiss, I was torn as to what to do next. Should I wake Jill with coffee and breakfast, to show my contrition and love? Or should I let her sleep a while, knowing that she’d probably cried herself to sleep and no doubt needed more rest before we faced the day together?
In the end, I cut the difference. Letting Jill rest for a couple more hours before placing the breakfast and steaming coffee next to her and giving her a soft kiss.
“Morning, honey.”
Just for an instant, as she came out of her sleepy state, she forgot what had happened last night and her arms went around my neck and she kissed me good morning, as she’d done thousands of times before.
Then I saw the look in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders that told me it was all slowly coming back to her. I could see the cogs starting to whirr and knew Jill would soon speak, losing me the chance to take control and try and make things right.
“Honey, I’m so sorry. It doesn’t excuse it, but I was so hurt and angry last night. Seeing you together with Chris. I just flipped and lost it. I’m so sorry, can you forgive me?”
I don’t think Jill had been expecting this, because instead of saying whatever she’d been about to say she paused as the cogs started whirring again. Seeing a slight softening in her face, I hoped I’d made the right call. Said the right thing.
“I guess we’ve both got some apologizing to do,” she said, her tone measured and not giving a lot away. Before a slight uptick in the angry tone. “But, mister, you’ve got some big apologizing to do. You humiliated me in front of everyone. Throwing me out of my own home, in front of our best friends. And over what? I grant you it was wrong, but it was just one little hug and kiss.”
A part of me wanted to say ‘it looked a damned sight more than one harmless little kiss’ – that it had looked like it would soon move from the landing into the bedroom. But saying this would have been throwing gasoline on the fire.
“Jill, honey. Look, I’m really sorry. We were both in the wrong. I don’t want to argue about who was more wrong. Look, honey. I’m just mortified at the pain I caused you. When I saw you here this morning, tears still on your cheeks, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole. The thought I hurt you like that kills me. All I can say, honey, is please forgive me. Help me put this thing right. Help us put this thing right.”
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And that’s exactly what Jill and I spent the rest of that Sunday doing. My opening salvo in a long and heartfelt conversation that seemed to last the whole day was a simple but profound question. “How the hell did we get ourselves into this mess?”
There wasn’t anger in her voice as she replied, more a sense of weary and tired honesty. “Because you wanted to watch me get my jollies with another guy. Or to be precise, other guys, plural.” Jill paused sadness in that soft voice. “Daryl, Chris, Rocco. And probably Byron, Callan and Craig if you’d had the chance.”
I winced, realizing the truth in her words but also more than a little irate at Jill’s implication this was all on me.
“It takes two to tango,” I replied, leaving my words just hanging there. Seeing a change in Jill’s expression I knew I’d made my point and offered an olive branch. “Let’s not spend the whole day trying to work out who’s to blame, honey. Let’s work out what the hell we’re going to do.”
Jill remained silent but her face told me she was on board with my suggestion, so I carried on speaking.
“You know this is the first time we’ve fought like this since we started this whole thing back in October. In some ways it’s amazing we got this far without a blow-up like this. I know we had some difficult times back in England. But, I don’t know, sometimes this feels different. A real crossroads.”
Jill squeezed my hand. Finally speaking. “What do you want to do, Dave?”
And that of course was the sixty-four-million-dollar question for both of us. Not just what did I want to do, but also what did Jill want to do. And not just what did both of us want to do, but what did we have the willpower and resolve to do?
Taking the coward’s way out, I answered Jill’s question with another question. “And not just me, honey. What do you want to do, Jill?”
A sad and confused look appeared on Jill’s face, as she looked down at her hands and nervously played with and twisted the rings on her left hand.
“I don’t know, honey. I really don’t know,” Jill’s shaky voice declared, pausing as she summoned the courage to admit out loud the nub of the problem. “The trouble is I’ve got two men in my life. Two men I love. Two men who love me and want to spend time with me.”
I knew what Jill was saying was true and that in the current situation it hadn’t been easy for her to say it, but some flaw or crack in the deepest recesses of my psyche wanted to wallow in self-pity.
“And one of those men is a shiny new toy. All exhilarating and exciting, giving you a sugar rush all the time. And then there’s ‘old faithful’ – the safe and secure, dull and dependable old sweater that’s so comfy and reassuring to put on.”
Jill immediately winced and I instantly wished I could take back my words, swallowing hard with regret whilst painfully noticing Jill hadn’t denied what I’d said. How I’d described how Chris and I were different for her.
There was a deafening silence between us as I waited for Jill. She had to be the next one to speak, which finally she did.
“Dave, honey. Don’t say that. What you’re saying isn’t the half of it,” she nervously smiled as she stroked my hand. “You’re far more to me than the way you make it sound. You’re the love of my life. The man I’ve raised a family with. The man who I plan to grow old with.”
Jill’s words and the way she looked lovingly into my eyes was comforting, even if it wasn’t a denial or glowing acknowledgment of how she found me as exciting and amazing as her boss and boyfriend Chris.
Still feeling more than a little sorry for myself, I echoed the question that both of us were dancing around.
“What are we going to do Jill? Do you want to give up Chris? Could you even give him up? Or do you want that we just carry on like we are?”
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I often wondered what direction Jill and my marriage might have taken if her phone hadn’t rung at that moment with an incoming call from our son John. (Why is it kids always call their mothers rather than their fathers at moments like these?) Because the news he was about to share gave Jill and I a huge nudge in the direction of reversing some of the changes of the last few months. The younger generation of the Foster family helping out their maybe not so smart parents.
John and his girlfriend Becky had been together since their freshman year two and a half years ago, and never one to mince his words, with Jill’s phone on speaker, John came right out with his news. Telling us they’d been thinking of getting engaged, but as they’d just discovered that Becky was pregnant, they’d decided to take the plunge and get married. Planning for a Spring-Summer wedding before the baby came along.
Obviously, Jill and I were surprised at these two joint bits of news. But Becky was a lovely girl, from a good family with parents who Jill and I got on with. Seeing how in love John and Becky were, for some time now Jill and I had assumed they’d tie the knot someday.
As we chatted to John and Becky, we could hear how excited they were and once we’d recovered from our initial shock both Jill and I told them how happy we were for them. Inevitably the next question was how Dale and Pamela, Becky’s parents, had taken it. With a laugh, Becky and John said ‘pretty much just like you guys’. Surprised, but then sharing the happiness of the young couple.
The big news landed, we talked on and on for ages, including John sharing the news that he’d been awarded a research grant and junior teaching post at UCLA. We were a little sad at this as it would put John, Becky, and the baby on the other side of the country from us. But it was a small price to pay in what was otherwise a morning that was going a damn sight better than I’d hoped.
John even took to teasing me, calling me ‘Granpa’. Having the wisdom not to try the same with his mother, who declared that she was far too young to be called Grandma or Nan or any such geriatric term. Saying that by the time the baby could talk she’d come up with a suitably non-age-specific term that the baby could use for her.
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I’m convinced that the wonderful news from John and Becky acted as a huge catalyst in the conversation that Jill and I had started having about the future. About our future.
When we’d processed John and Becky’s news and returned to discussing ‘what next’ there was a closeness and a ‘family first’ mood as we tried to work things out.
It was Jill who spoke first, finally answering the question I’d asked her what seemed an eternity ago. What did she want to do?
“It’s going to be hard, but I think I need to stop seeing Chris.” She was looking down at her hands, playing with her rings again as she said this, unable or unwilling to look me in the face. I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me as Jill’s words sank in.
Finally, Jill managed to look up and look me in the face, despite her nerves the hint of a smile on her face. “And that means no more pork sword playing with little Miss Gemma sweet cheeks. Got it?”
I grinned like a naughty schoolboy. It felt good to be back on the same page. Just the two of us, rather than two amongst four.
“Got it!” I echoed back at my smiling wife.
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Jill and I continued talking for much of the day, but with the decision now taken, a huge weight had been lifted off my mind. As we talked we were honest enough to admit to each other how hard it was going to be to ‘break’ this thing we’d started. For Jill to break it off with Chris and for me to do the same with Gemma.
Obviously, it was going to be harder for Jill. She would still see Chris every day at the office, working closely with him five days a week. And if truth be told her feelings and love for Chris were deeper than how I felt about Gemma. And I knew Jill would miss the buzz and excitement of her new relationship with Chris, as well as the amazing sex the two of them enjoyed together.
Jill didn’t try and hide any of this from me and I hugged her as she talked about how difficult it was going to be. Putting the lid back on Pandora’s box. Seeing Chris each and every workday, but no longer being lovers or in a relationship. I don’t know why, but I made the stupid suggestion that maybe she should see someone else to ease her withdrawal systems.
I got a particularly withering look for that piece of genius. Without speaking, Jill conveying the message ‘why the hell would I put myself through this, only to end up back with the same problems we were trying to eliminate from our lives.
Jill and I even talked about the possibility that maybe she needed to switch job, with Jill being the one to suggest this might be necessary. In the end, agreeing to keep this as a back-up option if Jill felt she couldn’t cope with the pain and temptation of seeing Chris every day.
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Monday 16th April
Tearing off the plaster.
They always say it’s best to get these things over with fast. And that’s what Jill and I had agreed. That we’d tell our respective ‘significant others’ the bad news that Monday. For me, that meant talking to Gemma on Monday evening. Luckily for me, her husband Duncan was away on a business trip and so she and I had the house to ourselves as I broke the news to her.
She was understandably upset and I did my best to comfort and explain to her. But there were plenty of tears, Gemma being open with me that standing on the edge of divorce as she was, she’d hoped that she and I might become closer still. So hearing the opposite, that I wanted to end it, came as a real body blow to her.
I thought for a moment that she was going to try and change my mind, but in the end, I think the difficulties her own marriage had experienced persuaded her not to try. With her and Duncan soon to no longer be Mr. and Mrs., she understood as deeply as another person can the need Jill and I had to stop ourselves ending up in the same place someday.
When the news had fully sunk in and the tears had stopped flowing, Gemma asked me to hold her in my arms. This I could do, and I took her and held her. Her face was pressed tight to my chest, and I thought for a moment she was going to turn her head and kiss me. Or get me to kiss her. Resisting this would have been really hard.
Jill and I had agreed before that as we told Chris and Gemma, we should break the news and try our best to avoid any physical intimacy, although we’d discussed the idea of each allowing ourselves one final evening with our partners later in the week.
So I was relieved when Gemma’s head didn’t turn, content as she was to just nestle in my arms, the two of us silent and lost in our individual thoughts. I’m sure both of us thinking about how much we were going to miss each other.
After what seemed an eternity, I gathered the last dregs of willpower and gently eased Gemma out of my arms and made my way to the door.
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After the short drive home I looked at my watch and saw it was just after seven.
Jill’s car wasn’t in the drive and I felt a terrible sense of dread spread throughout every ounce of my body. She’d had all day to tell Chris and now it was two hours after the end of their working day and she still wasn’t home. That could only mean one of two things. Either Chris was trying to and had succeeded in getting Jill to change her mind. Or maybe she’d not been able to resist her attraction and need for Chris. And despite our promises to each other, I felt right now she and Chris were back at his place making love.
The minute hand of the clock seemed to crawl with the speed of a sclerotic snail down and then back up the other side of the clock face, before starting the same journey again. Still, Jill wasn’t home, and despite trying to distract myself in a thousand different ways, I was in hell. Cursing myself for my stupidity and convincing myself more and more as each minute passed that Jill had chosen her shiny new toy over me. That her resolve and decision reached when she and I were alone together on Sunday had been reversed one-hundred-and-eighty degrees when she was confronted by seeing Chris again and imagining a life where the two of them would no longer be lovers.
As the minute hand started the journey from eight to nine, I looked at myself in the mirror. Seeing a terrified and gaunt face looking back at me, cursing myself for being so stupid as not to see what was likely to happen and finding a way to avoid it.
But just as I was getting positively suicidal, I finally heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive. My heart leaping with joy as I saw it was Jill, hugging her like I’d never let her go ever again as she stepped through the front door.
When I finally released her and looked into her face, I could see all the signs of a traumatic break-up. The ruined makeup, the mascara destroyed by tears. Puffy cheeks and eyes red from tears.
For long minutes Jill didn’t want to say a single word, clinging to me as I waited for when she was ready and wanted to talk.
Finally, Jill was ready to talk, kissing me softly on the lips as she started telling me her story. Of how both she and Chris had cried. Of how he’d asked her if she was sure. Asked her if there wasn’t another way. I had to know, so I asked her straight-up whether Chris had asked her to change her mind and leave me to be with him.
Jill paused for a moment and looked evasive, not able to meet my gaze before she answered that ‘no, no he hadn’t’ asked her that. The second time she said it, she sounded more convincing and was able to look me directly in the eye. “No, Chris didn’t ask that. He asked if there wasn’t another way, but he didn’t ask me outright to leave you and be with him.”
I didn’t know whether or not this surprised me. Chris had thrown off so many conflicting statements and I knew Jill and his feelings for each other ran deep and were developing deeper still at a frightening speed.
As Jill continued to unburden herself about her difficult evening and how it had been for both her and Chris, she asked me how things had gone with Gemma and stroked my face as I told her how hard it had been for us as well.
Then Jill dropped the bombshell news, that the company had told Chris last week that he had to move to California. Their biggest plant was having real problems with a major renovation program and they wanted him to be hands-on, as well as all his other responsibilities. He’d kept the news to himself last week, having been planning to tell Jill when her ‘Chris-free week’ was over.
Jill tried to make a joke of it, saying that at least now she wouldn’t have to find another job and that it would make things easier on a day to day basis as she’d no longer have to see her ex-boyfriend every day. Resisting temptation and her heart’s desire five days a week.
I knew this was correct, happy at the thought, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the events of that Saturday night had never occurred. If Jill and Chris had still been MWF lovers and work colleagues. Would Jill have upped sticks and followed Chris to California. Either part-time or full time. Jill and my lifestyle developing in a permanent version of the five-week road trip that had cemented their deep love for each other.
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Over the next week, I tried to push this terrifying thought out of my head. Each and every day was torture. Wondering whether Jill would come home from the office, or whether I might get a ‘Dear John’ call, text or email.
But as the week progressed things got easier, with each night that Jill did indeed return home and spend time with me acting as medicine to slowly reduce the mental fever in my head.
I saw and spoke to Gemma twice during the week, and I was glad to see that things seemed to be getting easier for her. Well, at least in terms of her relationship with me. She seemed to have reconciled herself to the new reality, that we’d only be good friends and no longer lovers. But things had gotten worse for her on the Duncan front. Her lawyers were ready to serve him with divorce papers, but he’d beaten them to the drop, moving out to go live with his twenty-eight-year-old blonde secretary Kaitlin.
Of course, I already knew of their affair and the pain it was causing Gemma, but when she shared the news that Duncan had left her for his secretary, I couldn’t help but think of the whole Jill and Chris situation. My mind partly thinking how I’d dodged a bullet, luckier than Gemma. But also partly wondering if the risk with Chris was really over.
As we moved into May, I began to be convinced that Jill and I had weathered the storm and that our love and marriage were now back on an even keel. And maybe that’s why I was open to a suggestion of Jill’s.
The conversation came up during the evening of Tuesday, May 1st. Snuggled up lengthways on the sofa, we’d just finished watching some middling TV movie together when Jill turned to face me. “You know, this Friday’s Chris’s last day in Miami. He heads out to California Saturday.”
The way Jill left the statement just hanging there meant she wasn’t done with it, and before she said the actual words I pretty much knew where this conversation was headed. What she was silently implying.
I wondered about being the first to mention what she was hinting at but decided to make her be the one to say it loud. Generally, I’m not one for game playing, but this somehow felt appropriate. And so I waited silently until Jill realized she wasn’t going to get any help from me. Taking a deep breath and finally saying it.
“Honey, I was thinking, what with Friday being Chris’s last night here, whether we shouldn’t allow each other one final night with our respective lovers.”
Hell, put like that it sounded so dam formal. ‘Our respective lovers’. It sounded like some legal proposition. ‘Ref the discussions of May 1st inst., the aforementioned Foster J. requests the pleasure of the counterparty Garner Chris for conjugal relations. Carriages at eight, RSVP.’
I looked at Jill, who was blushing and nervously chewing her bottom lip, my overwhelming thought being how much she obviously wanted this thing. And despite what had happened two weeks ago, I found that old perverted devil within me slowly waking and stretching his arms wide. Whispering siren words that ‘this was okay’, that ‘there was no danger here’. Total lies of course, but after two weeks of cold turkey, this deceitful little voice found fertile soil.
And before I knew what was happening, I found myself agreeing to Jill’s suggestion. The adult within me locked in the cupboard as the risk-taking adolescent reasserted control, metaphorically rubbing his hands at the thought of both my night with Gemma and also the kinky thrills I’d get from Jill going with Chris one last time.
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Thursday night was the night we choose for my last night of passion with Gemma. But even as Gemma and I made love, cuddled and enjoyed lovers’ sweet nothings, a part of me wondered and hoped that maybe when Chris was safely out of the picture in California things might start up again between me and Gemma. My feelings for her might not have been as strong as Jill’s for Chris, but I loved, liked and admired her in almost equal measure.
That night was totally wonderful. From the anticipation leading up to it, through the intensity of making love three times before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms, it was all amazing. I don’t know what was best. The overwhelming joy at feeling close to Gemma again. Or the feeling of being deep within Gemma’s body once again.
Kissing her lips and eyelids as I felt her legs wrapped lovingly around my back pulling me deeper and deeper. Suckling at those swollen nipples atop her ripe tits, something I’d missed so much. Or the words shared and listened to as I stroked her hair and we talked about everything going on in our lives. Duncan, the divorce, Chris’s move to the other side of the country. Our big news from our son, and of course how the four of us were feeling about things.
But on Friday morning I had to drag myself home. Arriving home just in time to see Jill stepping out of the shower and starting her preparations for her final day with Chris. A lump in my throat as I watched the careful and painstaking way she prepared herself for her ex-boyfriend. Taking much more time and care than she’d done for me the morning before.
Watching with a hard-on and nervous fear as she scooped her full breasts into a silky new half-cup bra she’d bought especially for the occasion. Watching as she wriggled her way into the tight and short black skirt she’d picked out, matching with the shiny black four-inch-heels that made her legs look so damned good. My heart in my throat all the time, especially as Jill took one final look at herself in the mirror, deciding she liked what she saw. That the offering she had so lovingly prepared was now ready.
Jill gave me a parting peck on the cheek, I think both of us in our different ways too nervous to speak. As I looked out of the window as my wife tottered to her car, I prayed and hoped that Chris would be really busy as you’d expect of a guy on his last day before relocating. His day full of handover meetings or the like, limiting the time he and Jill would be able to spend together during the day.
I don’t know if my expectations for Chris’s day were correct or not, but I was relieved that my own calendar was packed full of meetings and calls. I think a quiet day with all the opportunities to think about what Jill and Chris might be doing would have been insufferable.
Enjoyable in the sense of enjoying my weird kink, but insufferable in terms of stopping myself thinking about the risks I was taking. In terms of avoiding the flashing neon sign that appeared front and center in my mind whenever it wasn’t occupied with work thoughts. Having had two weeks plus without Chris in her life, and knowing that he’d soon be on the other side of the country, would Jill’s heart do a flip with her deciding to follow the new man in her life to California.
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My busy schedule had made the office hours part of Friday half-way tolerable. I only thought about the above question maybe twenty or thirty times. But as the office hours gave way to the evening and I sat alone at home awaiting Jill’s return I was beside myself with doubts and worries.
Earlier in the week, Jill and I had agreed that she’d be back by midnight. Although she’d let me spend the night with Gemma, I’d told her that I didn’t think I could cope with her enjoying the same arrangement. That my worries and fears would be too great, and so despite her evident disappointment, Jill had agreed to be home by midnight.
The sclerotic snail was back in my life as the clock crawled through the evening. Books, TV, internet. None of them did anything to distract me or stop my churning stomach and adrenaline-pumping heart. As the night progressed, time didn’t speed up any. But at least I could comfort myself that with every passing minute midnight was a little closer.
Whenever Jill had been around at Chris’s before, even when I’d not been watching on FaceTime, I’d generally been horny and excited at the thoughts and mental images of what they might be getting up to. But this was very different.
I kept thinking back to how much time they’d spent together as a couple since they’d returned from the five-week road trip. Thinking back to the day in England when I’d overheard Jill telling Chris how she loved him. How she’d told him how she’d miss being with him twenty-four-seven when we returned from England to Miami. And how she’d not refuted what Chris had said about her love and relationship with him being more exciting and exhilarating than what she had with me. Thinking back to how fast their love for each other had seemed to deepen on that trip once they’d openly declared their love for each other.
Finally, after an evening that seemed more like a decade, the minute hand reached the top and midnight had arrived.
The fact that Jill wasn’t back before on the dot of midnight didn’t surprise me. I knew she’d make the most of the night, wanting to push as close to midnight as she could.
I’d fully expected that she might be ten or fifteen minutes late, but as twelve gave way to twelve-fifteen and then twelve-thirty I felt a terrible dread. How could I have been so stupid as to agree to this last night? My whole body was on edge and I thought I might break down into tears.
I’d just about had the willpower to respect Jill and Chris’s privacy all evening and not call. But with the time now well after midnight, I felt I was more than entitled to call. Feeling both terrified and angry I was just building up the courage to call.
But just as I was reaching for the phone, headlights swept through the window, illuminating our lounge wall as a car pulled up in our lounge. Moving the curtain to the side, I peeked out and saw the outlines of two people in the car. A car that wasn’t Jill’s.
(Thanks to cbears52 for his great help proofing and editing)
