His One Night Obsession

You Son of a B*TCH

Florence's POV

The world didn't stop.

That was the thing nobody told you. You always assumed a moment like this would have the decency to pause, to give you a second to catch up to what your eyes showed your brain. But the world kept turning. The sounds continued. The movement persisted, indifferent to your suffering.

Carter didn't stop.

He was over her, hands braced on either side of her body, moving in a rhythm that didn't break for the universe shifting fourteen inches behind him. This wasn't their first time. I could tell that much just by watching them.

She was blonde. Toned. Her head was tipped back against my pillow. The pillow I had picked out from three different options because the thread count mattered to me.

"S-s**t baby," she gasped. "R-right there."

The balloons left my hand.

I didn't let them go. My fingers just stopped holding the ribbons, and they lifted toward the ceiling. The gift box hit the floor with a thud that echoed louder than it should have. The bouquet went the other direction, flowers scattering across the hardwood.

The thud stopped her first.

The blonde's eyes found me before his did. They went wide. Her hand shot to his arm, nails digging in.

"C-Carter!" she yelped. "Someone's here!"

His rhythm broke.

"What?" he snapped, not turning around yet. "What are you talking about? No one's here. I'm alo - "

He turned around.

His eyes found mine and the word died in his mouth.

For one suspended second, nobody moved. The balloons drifted against the ceiling. A single flower stem rolled across the floor toward the foot of the bed.

Then Carter scrambled.

There was no other word for it. He lurched off the bed, nearly took the lamp with him, and grabbed for his boxers on the floor. He hopped on one foot, off balance, eyes locked on mine the whole time.

"F-Florence," he stammered. "It's not what it looks like."

It's not what it looks like.

That sentence. The oldest lie in the book, pulled out when the truth is too obvious to deny but too devastating to admit.

Behind him, the blonde dragged the sheet around herself - my sheet, from that boutique store downtown - and scanned the floor for her clothes. I looked at her. Really looked. Her hands trembled against the fabric she clutched to her chest.

She was terrified.

Not of me. Not yet. She hadn't known. I watched her gaze flick between Carter and me, recalculating, understanding that this wasn't some simple situation she'd walked into. That this was my home. That I wasn't a distant complication or an ex. That she was the intruder, not the other woman.

I was the one who owned every surface she'd just been on.

The shock moved through me in one long wave, and when it receded, it left something else behind. Something hot and clear and certain.

My eyes went back to Carter.

He had his pants up now, one hand on the waistband, the other held out slightly, like he was preparing to explain himself or catch something. His mouth opened, already loading the next sentence.

"You son of a b***h," I said.

It came out quiet.

That surprised me. I expected volume - I'd felt the rage building with enough pressure to assume it would come out at full force - but it came out low and even. The kind of quiet that means the person saying it has already arrived somewhere and is simply informing you of the address.

Carter's mouth closed.

The blonde went still, frozen like a rabbit that had just spotted a predator.

The balloons drifted, ribbons tangling above us.

I stood in the doorway of my own bedroom, in my white off-the-shoulder shirt and my beige skirt and my five-inch boots, flowers scattered on the floor behind me, a gift box at my feet holding a watch he no longer deserved. I looked at the man I had spent four years choosing.

And I made a new choice.