Page 36 of Rome
“I…she wasn’t…it didn’t feel right, and I couldn’t figure out why, because you always know just how to…please me. I asked her…you…what was wrong, why you weren’t doing it the way I liked.”
“Were you hard?”
“Abs, please don’t – “
“It’s a simple question, Caleb. Were you hard for her?”
“I was hard foryou.”
“I wasn’t there, so no, you were hard forher.”
He sighed in defeat.
“Did you come?”
He looked at me, his eyes begging me to stop, but I had to know.
“Yes, finally, but it took a whi – “
I interrupted him again.
“So, you came down her throat, and then what?” I asked icily.
“I didn’t. She pulled off and used her hand.”
Well, that made it all better then, didn’t it? Not!
“Then what? You just…sent her on her way? Kissed her goodnight? What?”
“We went into my room. I took my clothes off and got in bed. She did too. That’s pretty much the last thing I remember, until I woke up this morning.”
I chuckled bitterly. “Pretty muchthe last thing, Caleb? I don’t fucking think so. What happened after you both got naked and crawled into the same damned bed I’ve shared with you for over six fucking years?” I was back to screeching,
“I pulled her on top of me, and told her to ride me, then I passed out. That’s the last thing I remember, baby girl, I swear to you.”
Everly kicked again, hard, but it was nothing compared to the pain of the words I’d just heard.
“How do you know nothing else happened? Just because you don’t remember anything else after that doesn’t mean you passed out at that very moment.”
“She told me this morning. She was pissed that I’d passed out and left her hanging.”
“You saw her this morning?” I asked, before it clicked for me. “Oh my God, she stayed, didn’t she? She slept in our bed,” I accused. I don’t know why that bothered me so much, after everything I’d just heard, but for some reason, it seemed just as intimate as the blowjob.
Caleb nodded sadly. “I woke up this morning so hungover that I couldn’t even open my eyes because the blinds were open, and the sunlight was so fuckin’ bright. I knew someone was in bed with me, but I thought it was you. I managed to stumble into the bathroom and took some Tylenol, then got in the shower, before I finally felt human again. It wasn’t until I opened the bathroom door and saw her – saw that it wasn’t you – that I realized what I’d done.”
I sat there, absorbing what he’d said. The numbness I’d felt was fading rapidly. It had wrapped around me like a suit of armor, shielding me from the pain. Now that it was fading, there were chinks in that armor. The pain was seeping in through the cracks, and I wasn’t sure I could endure it much longer before it became too much to bear.
“Abby, you have to believe me. I know how fuckin’ stupid it sounds, but yes, I was that drunk. I honestly thought it was you. The dark hallway didn’t help, and I didn’t turn the lights on in the room. I knew something was off, but I thought maybe you were mad at me for drinking or something, and that’s why you were acting differently. You have to believe that I never would have touched her if I’d known.”
“Was she drunk last night, too?”
“Yeah, not as much as I was, I don’t think, but she was pretty buzzed.”
“So, she didn’t take advantage of you,” I pressed.
“No,” he admitted.
“Did Pic take a swing at you because you hooked up with his side piece?”
