The Hidden Life (6 page)

Random notes on my car in the mornings to let me know he’d be thinking about me during the day. A new oar that magically appeared in my room after he’d seen me eyeing it online a few days before. Later mornings in bed. Earlier nights at home. More blowjobs than any one man deserved. It was Heaven on Earth.

Other than completely coming out of the closet and announcing our relationship to the world, he was giving me everything I wanted. And getting to hang out with Monroe more frequently again was just a perk. I loved watching her grow with excitement when she talked about the Mending Hearts House she was opening. Her bubbly energy and pure spirit were contagious, and I knew whichever kids ended up under her wing were going to be better for it. There was no way some of her good couldn’t rub off on you. I know it did on me and Colin.

“Sometime between now and when you get here, figure out how to
definitely
make that happen,” Colin joked back, “and you know what I like as far as food. Just make sure there’s a lot of whatever it is.”

“On it. See you in a bit.”

“Love you, Seth.”

“Love you too, Clutch.”

A little over an hour later, packed down with three bags of food from Mello’s Italian Grill, I pulled my car into the back garage of Colin’s house and let myself in with my key. The moment I stepped foot through the back door, I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound of the two loud, angry voices involved in a heated argument. Not once in the seven-plus years that Monroe had been around Colin had I ever known them to exchange cross words with each other. Not a single time.

My intentions were never to eavesdrop on them; I wasn’t a piece of shit like that. But standing there in the hallway leading out to the parlor and kitchen, where they obviously were, holding all of this food, I really didn’t have a choice. So I quietly waited, hoping it would end quickly and that I could stay uninvolved, but then the man I loved did the unthinkable.

“What in the hell did you just say? Do you even hear the shit coming out of your mouth?” Colin shouted in an infuriated tone I had never heard from him before, especially not when addressing Monroe. I wasn’t sure what she had or hadn’t said before I walked in, but I couldn’t imagine it would elicit a reaction like he was having.

He continued on without giving her the opportunity to answer. “Let’s forget for a minute that I am the only person that you’ve ever kissed in your entire life
—
and that there’s a pretty damn serious reason for that
— and let’s focus on what that kiss you claim you
wanted
could’ve cost you… and what it could’ve cost
us.”

Monroe kissing someone?
I inched closer, equally intrigued as I was worried.

“We’ve worked too damn hard over the last five years to build this life — this life that we
both
wanted,” he scolded her like a child, not a grown-ass woman with a doctorate degree, “to throw it all away for a fucking kiss or roll in the sheets with some yahoo from the Midwest that you know not a damn thing about!”

Woah. Colin never cursed. He was livid.

“Best-case scenario, in six months, he’ll return home and brag to all of his pencil-dick friends about how he hooked up with Clutch Cassidy’s wife while he was here, making you look like a stupid whore and me a fucking schmuck. Worst-case, you get caught by some random person with a camera phone who’s only interested in selling to the highest bidder, and the next day, everything we’ve busted our asses for is gone.
Gone!
Do you have any idea of the field day the media would have with that? Your life… my life… destroyed.”

I gasped as he ruthlessly spouted off at her, pondering if I should go ahead and step in before it got any uglier. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on — something I had warned Colin about on several occasions throughout the years, despite Monroe’s adamancy that she would never be interested in getting involved in a physical romantic relationship.

“If this is about being curious and having sexual urges, Monroe, just tell me.” His voice softened a bit as I heard feet shuffling. “I didn’t really expect you to be celibate your entire life, despite you insisting otherwise, but we can do something about that where there’s no chance of getting caught or getting emotions involved. I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while, when I knew this day would come, and I think I have the perfect solution. You know Seth loves you and thinks the world of you, and I’m sure he’d be super gentle and take—”

“OH, MY FUCKING GOD, STOP!” she exploded, cutting off his outrageous suggestion, while the handles from the bags slipped through my fingers and the food landed at my feet. My throat burned with acid of betrayal, and it took everything I had not to throw up right then and there.

“You wanna talk about the words coming out of my mouth? Were you really about to suggest that I allow your
boyfriend
to help me with my
sexual urges
? What fucking planet do you live on where that could ever sound like a good idea?!” Monroe spat, each word growing more and more fierce. “Look, I know our arrangement is far from normal, and I also know I agreed to this life, but if anything were to ever happen again between Oliver and me, I’d be sure to make sure it was somewhere safe so
our
precious, perfect life wouldn’t be put at risk.

“I’m not a fucking dumbass, Colin, but for you to propose that I fuck Seth to appease my goddamn curiosities, I’m starting to think that you are! What, were you planning on watching him with me? Would that turn you on? Or is it because you get jealous thinking about him being with women on nights he’s not here?”

Being with women on nights I’m not here?
What was she talking about? Yeah, I occasionally went out on “dates” that were solely for the purpose of appeasing my parents and other people in my life who would’ve started asking questions if I wasn’t dating, but I wasn’t sleeping with them. And she and Colin knew that was all for show… at least I thought they did.

“Were you hoping if he started fucking me regularly that he wouldn’t go out looking for other pussy and you could just keep him here all the time? That way, you could control both of us and keep us all to yourself. After all, that’s what you really want, right? Control? You want to control the world. If both of us really play our cards right, we may be the fucking President and First Lady before it’s all said and done, and Seth can be your own personal Monica Lewinsky!”

At some point during her tirade, my feet began to move on their accord in their direction. I’d heard enough.

“Sorry, but I refuse to wear a blue dress,” I said flatly, announcing my presence. They both swung their heads over to where I stood in the doorway. Apparently, Monroe’s confession of kissing her new coworker Oliver had made Colin forget I was coming over, and they both gaped at me with wide eyes and dropped jaws. The sound of my teeth grinding together vibrated in my eardrums as anger blazed deep in my core.

Colin moved toward me, but I shook my head and growled, “Not another step.”

He froze midstride, the color draining from his face as realization set in of what all I’d heard. “Seth, please, baby, give me a chance to explain,” he begged. “It’s not how she made it seem.”

Chuckling, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the kitchen wall. “Funny, ‘cause I’m pretty damn sure I just heard you propose to your wife that she use me for her sexual pleasure.” Pausing, I glanced over at Monroe, offering her a supportive smile before shifting my narrowed glare back on Colin. “And though it’s true, I do love Monroe like a
sister
, and I’m admittedly adventurous in bed, incest isn’t really my thing. Not to mention, having the person who supposedly loves me more than anyone else in the world offer me up like I’m a fucking possession doesn’t really say a lot about that love.”

“I wasn’t treating you like a possession,” Colin insisted, huffing out an exasperated breath.

“The hell you weren’t!” I fired back. “It’s how you’ve always treated me. Our relationship only works when it’s on your terms. I only get you when it’s convenient for you. If you’ve had a bad day at practice or if you’re not feeling well or if you’re horny, you call and I’m supposed to appear on command… which I always do, because I’m so fucking in love with you I’ll take you any way I can get you! I’m glad you get jealous when you see me with women, because now you know how I fucking feel all of the time I don’t get to be with you. No one else would put up with this shit, but we do it, because we love you! It’s not fair to Monroe, it’s not fair to me, and if you’d pull your head out of your parents’ and the public’s ass far enough to see straight, you’d realize it’s not fair to you either! I thought after our last break that things would be different, but they’re not. And it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that they never will be.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I scoured my hands up and down my face then my arms fell to my sides. “Look, Colin, you know how I feel. I’ll love you until the day I die, but I can’t keep doing this to myself. I’m still your best friend and your biggest fan, and I still want to be a part of your life, but the rest is over. I’m tired of getting my hopes up for more, only for them to come crumbling down time and time again. You need to figure out what you really want out of this life, and I hope to God you realize what a gem of a wife you have to put up with this shit. ‘Cause I can guaran-fucking-tee you that nobody else would.”

Uninterested in hearing any more bullshit from his mouth or sticking around to have my heart trampled on any more, I whirled around and flew out of the house like a bat out of hell, leaving the cold food on the floor and slamming the door behind me.

For the next hour or so, I drove aimlessly up and down the streets of Boston as the conversation replayed over and over in my mind, each time leaving me more devastated than I was before. Colin texted repeatedly, but I finally just turned it off. I couldn’t believe he actually thought I’d answer.

My car found its way to a popular bar near my apartment, and only after four shots of Fireball and a couple of Irish Car Bombs did the pain begin to numb. The cute blonde with pretty eyes and nice tits sitting next to me helped too.

And later that night, when she bounced up and down on my cock as I buried my face in her pillowy double-Ds, I forgot all about losing the love of my life just hours before.

Almost.

“we are all

at times

a little dead

inside

we can only

wish

with the upmost

belief that

someone

will love

us enough to

keep placing

flowers upon

the graves

in our

hearts”

-Christopher Poindexter

Seth

THE SHRILL OF
my phone ringing woke me up not long after I laid my head down on the pillow, and with a loud grunt, I slung my arm out to grab it off the nightstand, colliding with another body instead.

“Fuck,” I grunted, now irritated with the noisy ass phone and the pain in my jammed knuckles.

“What’s going on? Is it time to get up already?” the naked redhead lying next to me asked without bothering to roll over.

I squinted my sleepy eyes at the nightstand. 5:41.
What the hell? Who the fuck was calling so early on a Saturday morning?

“Nah, go back to bed, baby doll,” I told her as I reached over her to snag the device, having no clue what her name was. She’d been dressed as a sexy mobster at the Halloween party I’d been to the night before, and since I’d gone as a police officer, it had only made sense that I cuff her and punish her appropriately.