She lets out a dark laugh. "But as you do, go ahead and take my shoes and coat. Clearly you have an affinity for my things, so you can have them, along with my rings, and my soon to be ex husband. Tick tock though, Devon. Because I'll toss your ass out of here naked and leaking cum like the gutter trash you are."
Devon is staring up at her, and for the first time since this started, she looks genuinely afraid. "You can't really make us leave."
"I assure you that I can and will." Julie turns away, dismissing her. "Eight minutes."
Devon's fear transforms into something else. Desperation, maybe. Or a last-ditch attempt to regain some control. She stands up, still naked, and tries to meet Julie's eyes. "You'll fight for him," Devon says, and there's a challenge in her voice. "You love him. You'll fight for him."
For a second, nobody moves. Nobody breathes. And then Julie laughs. It's not a bitter laugh or a sad laugh. It's not fragile or fake. It's genuine amusement, and it's the most terrifying sound I've ever heard.
"Fight for him?" Julie repeats, still laughing. "Oh, honey, no. Not happening. Under no circumstances will I fight for this sorry excuse for a man. I see who he is now and I want no part of it."
She walks closer to Devon, and Devon actually takes a step back. "You did me a favor, actually,” Julie continues, her voice dropping lower. "You really did. Because now I get to leave with my head held high. I get to cut Asher Stevens out like the cancer he is and never look back. So thank you for that. Truly. From the bottom of my heart.”
She pauses, and her smile is sharp enough to cut. "But you? You'll always be the little bitch who fucked her stepbrother. Someday this will end and you'll need to hop along to another aging dick to survive. My bet is you’ll make a job of it.”
Devon's face crumbles. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
Julie looks down at her watch. "Six minutes," she says as she walks out of the room.
Jamie follows her, but not before giving both of us a look of pure disgust. Ryan is the last to leave, and he stops in the doorway.
"If you're not gone in six minutes," he says, looking directly at me, "I'm coming back up here. And next time, I won't stop with one punch."
Then he's gone too, and Devon and I are alone in the bedroom that suddenly feels like a crime scene. I'm still on the floor. My jaw is throbbing. There's blood on my lip. The rings are lying next to me on the floor, and I know I’m fucked.
Devon is standing frozen, naked, her hair disheveled from where Julie grabbed her. She's staring at the door like she's waiting for someone to come back and tell her this was all a joke. "Asher," she says finally, her voice small. "What do we do?"
I don't answer. I can't answer. Because I'm realizing, with a clarity that feels like drowning, exactly what just happened. Ryan went to Julie and told her the truth. I truly didn’t think he’d do it. I thought he’d be too chickenshit to shatter her world and risk losing her friendship because he wants to stick his dick in her so bad. I called that wrong. I had watched her when she got home from her sister’s later that night after I talked to Ryan, and nothing she said or did told me that he’d spoken to her. I was so sure if she knew, she’d lose it.
But instead of crumbling, she hired a fucking investigator. She played me. The whole time I thought I was three steps ahead, carefully managing the situation, she was so far ahead of me I wasn’t even in the race. She let me think I was in control while she built her case. She let me dig my own grave. And now I'm on the floor, naked and bleeding.
"Asher," Devon says again, more urgently. "We need to?—"
"Stop talking," I snap.
"What?"
"Be quiet." I push myself to my feet, ignoring the way my head spins. "Get dressed. We're leaving."
"Where are we going to go?"
"My father's house, obviously."
I find my clothes scattered around the room—my shirt on the floor, my pants on the chair, my shoes kicked under the bed. Everything smells like sex and sweat and the cologne I put on for dinner. Was that really just a few hours ago? It feels like a lifetime.
Devon is pulling on her dress, the same black dress she wore to Canlis. She's crying now, mascara running down her face, and I feel nothing. No sympathy. No desire to comfort her. Just a cold, creeping horror at what I've been caught doing.
If Julie hadn't come home. If she'd stayed wherever she was supposed to be. If we'd been more careful, more quiet, everything would be fine. I'd be happy. If, if, if. But shedidcome home. And shedidcatch us. Because she set me up and I took the bait like a fucking fool.
And now everything is fucked. I'm dressed in under three minutes. Devon is still struggling with her shoes—Julie's shoes, I realize with a sick feeling—when I grab her arm.
"Leave them," I say.
"But—"
"Leave. Them.We need to go. Now."
We stumble down the stairs. The house is silent. I don't know where Julie and the others went—maybe the living room, maybe outside—but I don't see them. I don't want to see them. My car keys are on the kitchen counter where I left them. Next to them is my wedding ring, the one I took off before dinner. I leave it there.
