Page 6 of By All Accounts
“Very unfair there’s not a crawl into a hole and die option,” I said, finger hovering over theDelete Albumline.
It wasn’t like I wanted Neil and Annette back. I didn’t hang on to the photos in the hopes that someday I could add new positions and angles to the collection. I didn’t even really know why I’d kept the photos, why I still jerked off to them sometimes. The two of them had broken my heart so many times I'd lost count. They’d broken it as a couple and as themselves, and they’d done both of those things more than once. The loss was monumental, the pain lingering.
There would be no loss if I got rid of the pictures.
The internet was full of porn. It wasn’t like I would have to go without.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I pressed my finger against the screen, and just like that, Neil and Annette were finally out of my life for good.
CHAPTER 3
SOPHIE
Ifrowned at a paint stain on the top of my sneaker, hip pressed against the paint-covered counter. Running out for an extra gallon in the middle of the home renovation from hell hadn’t been on the agenda, but not much about moving to Los Angeles had gone according to plan. I’d been in California for four weeks, and Daniel and I had spent that whole time renovating the house that was meant to be our marital home, though calling it that sounded silly at this point in our relationship. We’d been together for almost eight years, but this was the first time we’d spent more than seven nights together, and even those rare occurrences where we’d managed a week-long vacation had been few and far between.
When I was much younger, middle school age, my plans had been different. It was always married by my early twenties, babies by the middle, six figures before thirty. I’d never subscribed to the idea I couldn’t do both, that I couldn’t have a successful job and a family, even though my mother had believed it so hard she’d walked away from one for the other. I wanted a different life for myself, and I’d planned it out more than once in near excruciating detail.
I’d almost done it right.
I’d gotten a scholarship for design, which was great. I’d attended an amazing college that kept me local to Portland, and my senior year I’d snagged one of three coveted internships with one of the most reputable firms in the city. The internship sent me to a conference in Los Angeles four months before graduation, and that was when I met Daniel.
He was different.
Even back then, he was different, so softspoken and reserved, so eager to please. I’d literally walked right into him in a crowded hallway while trying to find the bathroom. He was there for a sales conference, and he had eyes the color of whiskey. In hindsight, I’d never stood a chance.
He practically begged me to let him take me to dinner that night, and there was something about the adorable way he smiled that made it impossible to say no. He says he fell in love with me that night, but I think he fell in love with me when I smashed into his chest so hard looking for a bathroom I left a lipstick smear on his collar. I’d been resigned to enjoying a few more days with a gorgeously subservient, tanned Californian before heading back to Portland, but Daniel, as usual, had other plans.
He texted daily, then he started to call, then we started to FaceTime.
I was ready to graduate, and he asked if he could come watch. He showed up with that smile and those eyes, and a bouquet of flowers the size of his head.
“The same shade of lipstick you were wearing the day we met,” he whispered into my ear.
My friends loved him immediately, and my dad didn’t hate him, which was a win considering my dad didn’t like anyone who wasn’t me or my little sister. Daniel fit in with my friends like he’d always been there, and later that night from his favoriteplace—between my legs—he asked me to consider being his girlfriend.
Again, I never stood a chance against that man.
My mid-twenties came and went with no marriage and no babies, but I had Daniel down in Los Angeles and a six-figure career up in Portland. We made long distance work in the ways that made sense for us. We started open and remained that way for almost ten years. It wasn’t something either of us had put too much thought into, but for his introversion, Daniel was nothing if not practical.
“I don’t want you to be left wanting,” he’d told me, so many years before. “I want you to always be taken care of.”
“No one takes care of me like you,” I’d said.
We were in bed together when it came up, his body hot and sweaty between my legs, his fingers dancing across my cheek.
“You really think you’d be okay knowing I’m with other people when you’re not here?” I asked.
He smiled, a little lust drunk as he slid his cock into me. “I think I’d be more than okay with it.”
It was the most forward thing he’d said to me, and then he brought us both off whispering in my ear about what it would be like when we went our separate ways and took other lovers. Back then, I’d been as in love with the freedom of our relationship as I’d been with Daniel. Things between us had changed over the years, for the better in all ways, and that was how we’d lived our lives.
Then, four months ago, I’d unexpectedly lost my job. The firm closed with no warning, and the jarring quake to the foundation I’d built my life on sent me spiraling. Daniel had caught the first flight to Portland and he’d held me so well on my couch while I cried over the loss of something that had been so important to me.
To my identity.
It wasn’t like losing my job meant I was losing design, but I’d been at the firm since college. It was all I knew, and the thought of finding something new and starting over at thirty terrified me.
The night before he returned to Los Angeles, Daniel made two proposals. One that ended with a ring on my finger and another with an Amazon order for packing boxes and bubble wrap.
