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Rachel
I hadn’t heard Mason leave the next night.
I’d spent the whole day beneath the sheets. Groaning. Moaning. Cursing my life choices. Promising to never, ever consume a drop of alcohol never, ever again. I heard every goddamn creak in the house like nails on a chalkboard. I heard every door open and close like a hammer to my skull. Even my own breathing, in and out, in and out—oh God, Rachel, don’t throw up—had been like a cruel, howling wind to my ears. But I hadn’t heard Mason leave.
I did, however, hear him return.
It was like a nightmare that I’d tired of having. That no longer scared me, but exhausted me. Annoyed me. Irritated me to hell. The high-pitched voice. The girlish little giggles. The heels on the steps. The silence which was worst of all because I knew what it meant: it meant Mason had stopped Miss Last Night to kiss her. To press her against the railing. To slip his hand inside her shirt. To find her clit so she gasped, unable to say a fucking thing anymore.
I heard them come up the stairs. Falling over each other. Laughing. Mason trying to get her to be quiet. The girl just getting louder as he pinched her ass at the top of the stairs.
I knew what was going to happen. I knew exactly what kind of sounds I was about to hear. I knew exactly how loud they were going to be, how long they would last, how they would end. I knew. Knew like the back of my fucking hand.
And I was sick of it.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I threw back the damp sheets atop me. The chill of the air bit at my fevered, flushed skin, but I never once considered returning to the humid warmth I’d cocooned myself in all day. Hiding from the light. Hiding from the pain. Hiding from Mason. I didn’t have a plan, not even anything remotely close to one, but I had a direction: out of the room. Down the hallway. Toward the noise on the stairs.
My bare feet smacked on the cold hardwood floors. My heart beat in rhythm. All I knew was that I had to do something.
I was propelled by this anger that had been building and building in my chest. Anger that all I had at night was my hand when these other women had all of Mason. His strong arms. His muscular chest. His cock splitting them in two.
I rushed forward down the hallway toward that faint pink neon glow because I was hurt. Hurt that Mason knew I could hear him. Hurt that he probably liked that I could hear him. Could hear the pleasure he was giving to someone else. Could hear the pleasure he was withholding from me. A shiny, juicy apple just out of reach.
It would have been smart to slow, to hesitate, to think fucking straight for once. I had a fiancé back home. I had a life back home. I had the promise of stability and comfort and ease and maybe if I’d slowed down just a bit, just a tiny bit, I might have been able to convince myself that I wanted all of that more than I wanted to do whatever the fuck it was I was about to do. That I wanted all that—everything I ever wanted, ever thought I wanted—more than I wanted to scream at them. At Mason.
And fuck. If I could have just stopped to think for two seconds, I would have seen this was madness. Madness, throwing it all away. Giving it all up. Sacrificing forever for just one night in Mason’s bed. Just one night as Miss Last Night.
But maybe if I’d been able to slow, if I’d given myself a second to breathe, to think, I would have realised that it was madness to wait so long. That this was what I was always meant to do. That this, this was the smartest thing I could possibly be doing, storming down that hallway in the middle of the night.
In the end it didn’t fucking matter. I would never know what I would have thought, what I would have decided. Because there was no way I could slow. No chance in hell I was going to hesitate. Not now. It was absolutely impossible to think. I was like a car barrelling down a mountain without brakes. There was only one way it could all end.
It took a second or two for them to realise that I was there. Standing at the top of the stairs like a wild-haired ghost. White pyjamas blowing in the breeze from the open window at the end of the hallway. Face haunted like I’d been wronged during my living years. And now I was out for vengeance.
They had fallen halfway up the staircase. The girl was on top of Mason. His hands were on her ass. Beneath the waistband of her jeans. Her high-pitched giggle caught in her throat when she saw me.
Mason had to twist his head around to see what Miss Last Night was looking at, the reason why she was squirming away from him. At first he looked just as surprised as she had. Then his face changed as I began walking slowly down the stairs toward the two of them. I’m not sure what it was. Intrigue. Excitement. Relief even. A bit of frustration. Always that undercurrent of anger and hurt. The lifeblood of our relationship. His face seemed to say: what the fuck took you so long, goddammit?
“Um, what the hell?” Miss Last Night said as she tugged up her shirt to cover her breasts. Breasts that had been pressed against my man. Dirty tits that had been longing for the mouth of my husband.
Calm as the grave, I said, fingers light on the handrail, “What the fuck indeed?”
“Look, um…who is this bitch?”
I smirked. Miss Last Night didn’t even know Mason’s name. How was she supposed to know how to swirl her tongue around his cockhead to get his hips to buck? How was she supposed to know when to pinch his nipples, that he liked it right before he was about to come? How was she supposed to know that he fell asleep almost instantly when you cuddled him from behind, like he counted your steady breaths on his back like sheep jumping over a fence? How was she supposed to know what only his wife could know?
What only I could know?
“Rachel,” Mason said.
But it wasn’t in answer to Miss Last Night’s question. His eyes were fixed on mine. Not hers. His attention was on me. She, for all he knew, had already left. Disappeared. Never fucking existed. He said my name to me, not her. Said it as a question. The question? What are you doing, Rachel? What do you want, Rachel? Rachel, your move.
My fingers suddenly tightened on the handrail. Before my touch had been as light as a feather. Now I was going to splinter the wood. Break it. Split it in two. My smile was cruel, vindictive, assured as I turned my head slowly toward Miss Last Night. She was looking desperately at Mason. She didn’t know that he couldn’t help her. Wouldn’t help. Didn’t want to fucking help her.
“This bitch,” I said slowly, savouring every word like honey drops, “is his wife.”
Miss Last Night laughed.
“You’re not fucking married,” she said to Mason. When she found his eyes still on me, still fixed on me, she said, a little less surely, “You didn’t say you were fucking married.”
