Page 109 of A Better Place

“Who are you? Interrupt much? I’m trying to have a moment with my husband.” Nicole has a snappy sneer in her voice, her nose scrunched up as she looks in Carly’s direction.

“U-um,” Carly starts to stammer.

“My girlfriend. She’s my girlfriend. I suggest you leave. You’re pretty damn good at it, if I remember right.”

The difference between Nicole and Carly couldn’t be more night and day. I once saw Nicole as pretty, but the years don’t seem to have been good for her. Her hair is long and stringy, her bright yellow dress is not only one of the most obnoxious colors I’ve ever seen, but is tight in all the wrong places. “James, that’s no way to speak to your wife.”

“Ex. Ex-wife, thank God.”

She waves her hand in a circle, dismissing my remark like I’m talking gibberish. “We have a daughter together.”

“We what?” I scoff. “We don’t have a daughter together. I have a daughter. You have nothing,” I remind her.

“James!” she shouts and stomps her foot. Clearly, she’s not grown up in the nineteen years we’ve been apart.

“Classy,” Carly says, giggling.

“Excuse me?” Nicole demands, her voice rising dangerously close to causing a scene.

“I said,” Carly says, turning fully to Nicole, “classy.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“I’m sorry, did you misunderstand when James introduced me as his girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend? Girlfriend,” she mocks.

“That’s right. Girlfriend. And from what I understand, you haven’t been around in almost two decades.”

If I hadn’t already fallen in love with her, I would have in that moment. She brushed off Nicole’s venom so quickly and easily, dismissing her and believing every truth I’ve told her. I don’t think I’ve ever been more turned on. In. My. Life.

“I don’t see how any of that is your business. Besides, you think you can step in when James has been pining away after me for all this time? You think I don’t know what he’s been up to? I’ve always known. And now he’s fulfilling the dream we created together. His restaurant? That was us. We were going to do that together. Why do you think he never remarried? It certainly isn’t because he was waiting around for you. He was waiting for me to come back.”

“This is where you’re wrong. See this man right here? He’s mine.”

Now I’m the most turned on I’ve ever been in my life.

“I love him. He loves me. He loves my son, and I love his daughter. The girl you abandoned? She’s his, and she’s amazing. And you? You’re nothing to them. But me? Well I’m…”

“Everything. She’s everything to us,” I speak for her and repeat what I’ve spoken so many times.

Carly looks at me and smiles sweetly before turning back to Nicole.

“Leave. You’re not wanted here. Not by James. And I’m sure not by Emily and the rest of the family either.”

“Is this…”

I pull her flush to me and trail my fingers down her cheek, my eyes never leaving Carly’s. “What I want? Yeah. She’s everything I want.” My eyes never leave Carly’s, heat unfurling in my core.

“This isn’t over, James.”

“Oh yeah, it really is.”

Nicole turns on her heel and stomps away, and we both burst out laughing.

I sober quickly, praying that none of Nicole’s words got stuck. “You know she’s full of bullshit, right?”

“I know,” she says unconvincingly.

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